I have a bit of an excuse for why I haven’t updated in a week. I’ve been busy with some things that I couldn’t talk about before, they being mysterious and tender and still up in the air. It’s all still hovering, but it’s gotten a little more real today. This morning I was on the tube early, heading for an office building not more than ten minutes removed from where I used to be in Studius. I was there to meet with the Director of Programmes of a production company where a well-known talk show host who shows up in half of the BBC’s programming and a succesful comedy duo that regularly straddle the gender divide both got their start. Yes, I’m being coy with names. I know I said in my last entry that I wouldn’t be, but this is professional stuff we’re talking about now, and though I’m not the most business-minded of people, or exactly because I’m not, I thought I’d rather be safe than sorry. If and when these things develop further, expect me to namedrop shamelessly.
So, I was let into a hip, open-plan office. You’d expect there to be a pinball machine around somewhere. J the Director of Programmes laid out the plan for me. His company wants to break into the online market, and is looking for scripted gags and small sketches (a maximum of two minutes) in the style of the kind of stuff you’d find on YouTube – only with professional expertise and backed up by advertising. G the Production Assistant has sent me examples of the kind of thing they’re going for. If I come up with things they can use there’ll be gold in them thar gigabytes for me. So I’ll be working on ideas – and scripts, because I know already that I won’t be able to help myself – for website comedy content next to all my normal obligations. It’s a good thing I like this sort of work.
Still excited by all the possibilities the meeting left me with, I spent the rest of the day in the city, waiting for the afternoon’s arranged ’speed dating’. Filmmakers go around the room where the screenwriters are seated and we get two minutes to pitch our scripts to them. Frankly, I was dreading a repeat of the Screenwriters’ Screening. But it turned out to be marvelous, and the turn-out was amazing. There was a moment early on when I feared that not all of us Screenwriters were going to show up, a result of the ‘boy who cried wolf’ syndrome, which would have been a terrible irony. But everyone was there in the end and the experience was amazing. I found myself polishing my pitches as I repeated them, and I soon learnt which approaches worked, what I had to emphasise and what I had to vary according to what kind of person was sitting in front of me. My throat is sore after two hours of straight-on talking. But it’s been worth it. The buzz is amazing, as if I’ve just come off stage. I’ve made some good contacts, and I have crumpled piece of paper on which are scratched names like Corey, Steve, and others that I may not be able to match to a face the next time we see each other. I took a liking to pretty much everyone and their ideas, but I did have a preference for those who came with concepts, not fully finished scripts. Gives me more room to manoeuvre. I’m quietly confident about the results of this evening.
Afterwards, debriefing in The Two Brewers, our local. I had the privilige and pleasure of protecting C’s (yep, still protecting the innocent) honour by pretending to be her boyfriend. The guy was tenacious, I’ll give him that. Only by the time I was revealed as her kickboxing fiancee who’d bought the two of us a house in Hampstead did he get the hint and apologise for presuming. He did stare at me quite intently as he declared that he would never want to come between two betrothed. But P and M assured me in discussion afterwards that I’d be “right ‘ard” if push came to shove, that my height made me a threat, and that they’d be there to back me up anyway if the guy tried anything. Now, I’m the softest, most reserved pacifist you’re likely to meet, but in a weird way it was both flattering and touching.
