I don't know about you, but this year I've experienced many highs and some lows for my screenwriting endeavors. I've had a few option and right to shop deals, I currently have a horror/indie producer that wants me to write a vehicle for a famous entertainer and I've received a lot of script requests lately and I've won four film festivals and placed at several others. However, I also had a big deal with an agency go south and another recent fiasco with an actor I can't mention here.
So spill the beans. What have been your screenwriter's highs and lows for 2018? Make me weep with your tales of woe and jump up and down at your success stories.
My greatest success - Placing in a contest my first time out. My greatest failure - Its six years later and I still haven't sold a script, in spites of continuing to place.
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Let's see: in April a press release went out saying one of my scripts was cast and would be shooting "this summer". By August, something's gone wrong with the financing and the now they'll be shooting in "hopefully October" which I interpret as "most likely never".
In December I had a conference call with assistants to two of the biggest agents at CAA. I know: assistants, but still. They took 20 minutes of their time talking about my scripts, and their bosses are the biggest of the big. By December, one of them had left CAA and wished me good luck. The other thinks I need a manager before I get an agent, and also wishes me luck. They sounded sincere about it -- shows where I am in my career that I'm genuinely grateful for the bupkis.
A major management company read one of my scripts in the spring, requested more, and hasn't said "no". I think they're waiting for further developments in my career. See paragraph one for a recap of how that's coming along.
I've spent a lot of this past year feeling like things we're about to take off, but here I am on the launchpad, my engine sort of sputtering. But as I've learned in the past, any day a phone call or e-mail can come in out of nowhere and things suddenly get interesting...
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Having to shutdown a production for lack of a cast and crew. I don't really see it as a failure; but more of a learning experience. I learned to not try that again in this town.