This post is about industry events and insights but the first thing I want to say is... why weren't there more writers there?

I looked though the delegates and writers formed a very small slice of the pie. Yes this means that there was less drinking with writers to be had but it also meant that the Festival was SATURATED with producers and directors (ones who actually make movies) agency folk with a liberal sprinkling of journos. Not to mention sales agents and distributors. The place was heaving with movers and shakers and real bankable talent.

As I've been writing some fairly traditional work of late I have been taking the time to refresh my understanding of the three act form. Yes, I've been indoctrinated with three act form for many years, but this time round I am looking at it more technically.

I am being a little anti here just for the sake of it, but I wanted to make people think through the permutations when they sit down and think - "You know what, I am going to make a short film, I am going to be a producer..."

So here's some grumpy things to say about short films and some more optimistic thoughts to go along side them!

Update: If you do go ahead here is a useful wee PDF from Shooting People/BAFTA about distribution and marketing (PDF)

First - 99% of short films completely suck

Well here is my distilled wisdom from day one of the Script Factory's 'Serious Screenwriting':

Point one: First write an OUTSTANDING spec screenplay
Point two: Just keep writing
Point three: Yes it is difficult to get your scripts to the people that matter, mainly because the system is SETUP THAT WAY. Get used to it.
Point four - go to point one...

The first point is for everyone. This is the minimum you must do. Yes it's incredibly hard but yes you must do it.

There is a school of thought that believes that the script that you are developing will have a direct relationship to your own life - more explicity that the transformational arc of your charcaters and the deeper themes of the piece are probably not so different from that which you need or are going though. Obviously this may not occur at the reality level (if you are writing sci-fi for instance) but at a thematic level in your life.

There are people you meet on the way through this creative life lark, some are there for you, some are detractors, some are life-long friends, some are temporary. But how many do you need? How can you tell which are the good ones?

There are many ways to combine real life and scriptwriting - I have done most of them so here are my thoughts on the kinds of jobs you can get and the advantages and disadvantages of them...

Ok, so we are used to thinking of designers as people who sit around stirring pixels on screens to make things look pretty enough to buy. In fact I own a pair of glasses that make me look like a designer - but hold on, I make a large percentage of my living as a designer not a writer. I've earned my designer glasses, damn it!

So being a person who is eternally curious about how things work, and constitutionally biased towards finding communality, I wondered if there were any lessons I could take from my day job back into my writing.

First - what is design thinking?

An answer to a question I posted on TwelvePoint.com

Question:

Can you give us some pointers as to the basic requirements for posting film/video on the web and whether it would be better to do this in a number of short clips as opposed to a longer reel?

Answer:

OK, there're two issues here:

Basic video posting