photos courtesy Robbye True
It's been an amazing week in LA for Dean, Bill and SagePresence. Bill was a headliner at this amazing festival, which offers a day of speakers and intensive seminars, followed by an unprecedented pitchathon where over a hundred real movie industry companies take pitches from screenwriters looking for their big break.
I happened to be in LA pitching a new movie idea with Bill to an approachable film company on Century Blvd, so I became Bill's tag-along guest of the fest. Our pitch went extremely well, and a movie idea that we crafted on the plane (using Blake Snyder's book Save The Cat) got us through gate number one! Primed now to help our fellow introverts step outside their comfort levels, our mantra became, "Inspire courageous writers out of their bat-caves into the open air of opportunity!"
Bill's presentation was unlike any presentation I've ever seen him do, let alone try myself. When I have 90 minutes to cover, you can bet I'll be fretting my powerpoint slides and rehearsing to high heaven. Bill was prepared, but for something very unusual, as he just sat down at the edge of his stage (instead of taking his rightful place on it) and simply leveled with the audience in a heart-to-heart conversation about what it really means to be a working screenwriter. The audience stayed for an extra half hour, glued to their seats under the spell of a man opening up with the honest truth about what they could expect and how they could get there. The word after: "Bill True just changed my life." It was phenomenal to watch. Then I networked as Bill took individual coaching sessions with writers.
As it turns out, a Sage's work is never done and I got the dubious distinction as the "vagabond guest-speaker" at two different events. First, Bill shared stage with me and asked me up to advise these apprehensive writers on finding stage presence under the pressure they would face the next day. Then, writer and former Hollywood consultant and TV & Screenwriter Viki King (a friend of mine and the author of How to Write a Movie in 21 Days) brought me up from the audience to speak to the same subject at the end of her talk.
Viki is the kind of person who is so intuitive, she rocks your world (in a good way) in a 30 minute industry consultation that actually heals your whole life (forget therapy), as she did for me over breakfast one Sunday morning in San Diego eight years ago. Needless to say, I was honored. As a result, though I didn't even have a badge at the event, I got booked for several coaching sessions with writers wanting more stage presence!
That night, I introduced Bill's film at his premiere LA Screening of RUNAWAY and led a Q&A, which was a great way to cap Bill's impact on this hungry crowd. They loved the film, and asked Bill questions for way too long, given what these people all faced in the morning – they should really have been working their pitches!
And now things get crazy. It's Sunday, and SagePresence gets a table to accept pitches along with all the other Hollywood companies. The place looked like the NY Stock Exchange as bells rang and people launched through the gates and onto the main floor to pitch their ideas to the big shots.
There we were... the not big shots, tucked between Lion's Gate and Fox Searchlight, taking pitches from writers who selected us. Why did they pick us? Well, we might want to take their project as an indie (and we really are considering a few), and we also know industry people we can forward scripts to if we think there's a fit. Plus, some people just picked us because they knew that pitching to us would help them learn to navigate those treacherous waters.
In reality, when Bill and I worked together in this way, we continued what began for us at the Northwest Screenwriters Guild in Seattle, where Bill focused on the story structure, and I focused on their "stage presence" when they pitched. It worked great, but we were even better than before in assessing the valuable properties and guiding people to be more effective at getting their ideas across, which is what the whole event is about in the first place. We all have to pitch, whether we're a writer, a director, an industry development executive... or for that matter, a marketing person, a manager, or a CEO. Human beings pitch their own ideas, and today was just another day in the office.
We were inundated with pitches from 8 to 5, and Bill and I left this amazing event with new friends, a lot of exposure, a film company wanting us back to pitch to the "big guy," and the joy in knowing we made a difference to a lot of good people who remind us of ourselves.
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