Chronicles 10 - Hollywood here I come!

October 15th 2002

The phone campaign is moving ahead. I now have 5 meetings booked in LA including Sony, Disney and New Line.

16th October 2002

The list is growing. I have meetings with a number of animation production companies as well as studios and some live-action production companies - for my rom-com. I secure a meeting with Universal animation! Things are looking up! Get a meeting with Fox 2000, Jersey Films, Mirage, Dream Works. I'm going to be busy. I'm in LA for 5 days and I'll have 4 or 5 meetings a day.

25th October 2002

I get a number of passes from my agent on sending the script out to UK production companies. What concerns me is that he is sending out the synopsis in many cases! I'm not happy about that. They should at least read my writing.

Got an email from a US agent who I had met a couple of times. She spoke to a Hollywood producer I had met with in 1999 who had praised my writing i.e. a 'referral', although, unlike the producer, the agent wasn't that keen on the script. Anyway, I had personally handed the rom-com into her office in November 2001 and I finally, with some cajoling, managed to get her to read the rom-com. She passed. Somehow I'd got it into my head that she would end up representing me but the fact was, she didn't respond to my writing. It's true, the 2 scripts that I had sent her, the drama/fantasy and the rom-com were not, 'there' yet, but, other industry people had seen the potential in my work and left the door open. She didn't do that. Oh well, no point flogging a dead horse. Next!

I continue preparing for my Hollywood trip by writing up my treatments and pitches for both the animation and live-action projects. I do this for a number of reasons:

1) It helps me formulate the verbal pitch in my own head.
2) It enables me to leave behind a brochure with an overview of all my projects. People who pitch for a living don't leave, "leave-behinds", but in terms of presenting yourself as a production company it does help to create a good impression. The brochure was a mix of text and visual images i.e. animation drawings. People always like to see some colour and pretty pictures. My new found co-producer told me later that this was one of things that impressed him about my presentation/pitch. He said most producers scribble their figures on scraps of paper.
3) If they ask for a treatment then I can leave it behind. I wouldn't recommend this for live-action projects, in that case you want them to read the script, but for animation projects, a synopsis/treatment along with visual images can give them a good idea as to whether they are interested in the project.

28th October 2002

Nail meetings with Imagine, Nickelodeon and another major animation prod. co. I have a pretty full slate. I have meetings set up with Dream Works Animation, Fox 2000, Disney, Warner Brothers Animation, Jersey Films, Mirage Entertainment, (Sidney Pollack's outfit) and so on. Basically I have 4 or 5 meetings a day!

See Chronicles 9