I caught Gareth Edwards’ new, much-lauded flick, MONSTERS, at the cinema yesterday and was mighty impressed.

It’s by no means perfect – some of the characterisation is a little rushed, while some of the more minor characters are almost ignored as “featured extras” and a couple of the action sequences don’t pack the punch they maybe could have, fear-wise – but I really, really enjoyed it.

The best thing I can say about it is that I loved it for the movie it is, irrespective of the budget and visual effects work that went into it.

A great film is a great film and I’m always slightly disappointed when I come out of a flick and think, “That was great, for the budget they had.”

I’m really hoping Gareth Edwards is snapped up to write a “Rebel Without A Crew”-style book about the making of this film; I think it would be hugely inspiring to all those filmmakers with the talents to do what he’s done but without the balls to go out and do it.

It makes me want to shut myself away for six months and learn the ins and outs of AfterEffects so I can do the same thing.

Following yesterday morning’s excitable, if over-tired post, I decided the best use of my time was, clearly, to redesign the blog. There was some logic to it, since I see the blog becoming quite a key part of the new project, but mostly it was because I couldn’t really focus on anything work-related.

As part of the process, I figured it was about time to move the blog to its own server. Since migrating to olilewington.co.uk from my old blog about my transplant journey, I’ve used a masked-forwarder for the domain to hide the fact that I’ve been hosting it on the server of another of my websites.

To cut a very long (24 hour+) story short, the hosting company went all weird and ‘lost’ the domain, then when it reappeared it was still set up for the old site and the re-direct didn’t work and I’d copied the wrong database over. Deep breath.

In the end, though, it was Twitter that came to my rescue, providing as it did a HUGE volume of helpful responses from my various tech-savvy followers and, eventually, Mike Busson managed to help me get it all squared away.

The whole experience just goes to illustrate what the true power of social media is: helping people.

By offering practical advice and solutions – as was the case with my issues – supporting people having a hard day, celebrating your friends’ successes or RTing people’s good causes or crowdfunding campaigns, you are doing things for other people and forming an active part of a community.

Engagement and involvement is the ultimate key to getting the most not just from social media, but life itself. Only by being willing to give to others will you find others willing to give back.

So next time you’re asking people for a ReTweet, or encouraging people to click on the ‘Share’ buttons on your blog (did you pick up the subliminal message in there?), stop for a second and ask yourself: when was the last time I did this for someone else? What have I given in order for others to give back?

Call it Social Media Karma. Or SMarma. If that didn’t sound so much like smug and smarmy…

I’m writing this at an almost respectable 7am, but considering I’ve been awake all night it doesn’t feel like the start of a new day.

Why have I been awake all night, I hear you ask? Or is that the voices in my head? They crept in about two hours ago and are pretty insistent on staying there. But I digress.

I have a weird and wonderful brain that kicks into gear at random moments, which is fantastic for creative and lateral thinking, but not so good when it steps up to overdrive just as I settle down for some well-earned kip.

And so it was last night, when my head hit the pillow mere minutes after hitting on the most amazing concept for a HUGE new project. The real beauty of it, though, is that it’s not a ‘new’ project. Rather, in a flash of awkwardly-timed, knock-out inspiration I found a way of tying together no fewer than FOUR existing projects into one symbiotic whole.

For those of you familiar with transmedia storytelling, hold your groans. I haven’t just wedged a bundle of ideas together into one unconscionably complicated and sprawling hole. I have – you may be surprised to know – actually thought it through.

Some of the ideas were already concrete in my head, other were more shapeless and still others were small moments of “wouldn’t it be great if I could…”. But they all shared a common theme that I just hadn’t identified before, a theme which will – hopefully – over the coming few months, be explored through a wide range of stories and across a variety of different media; not least, I suspect, this blog.

This is going to be a HUGELY ambitious project, but one I passionately believe in. I’m going to need a lot of help and support along the way, but that’s what you, dear reader, are there for. Together we can not just explore, inform and entertain, but hopefully expand and engross as well.

Here’s to 2011 and a new world of excitement. Won’t you come and join me for the ride?

PS – regardless of project-related bloggage, there’s going to be a lot more content on the blog in the weeks and months to come, so stay tuned (or come back more often than you have been…)

At last! After three weeks of mad cutting, re-cutting and finishing, I’ve got through all three days of the London Screenwriters’ Festival Video blog. And I’m quite proud of all three, if I’m honest.

Here, for you delight and delectation, is the final day of the festival. You can also read about it on Chris Jones’ blog, too, and show your support on my Vimeo page, if you’re so inclined.

It’s not up as quickly as I hoped it would be, but here for your delectation is the Day 1 video blog from the London Screenwriters’ Festival hosted by the ever-present Chris Jones.

Enjoy!

Wow.

That was an event. And a half. And probably another half again.

Three days of early starts, 1.5 hour commutes and running around like a loony with a camera in his hand. It was truly a remarkable festival – the constant feedback I was getting talking to delegates and speakers both on- and off-camera was overwhelmingly positive. Even the negative things being said were all fairly minor niggles, and all delivered with a sense of wanting to improve the festival for next year, not to criticise what happened this year.

The festival staff were truly phenomenal, from the top of the tree with Chris Jones and David Chamberlain’s constant calm under immense stresses right down the tree to the runners and volunteers who never seemed to stop but never complained about it, either. I’d love to name them all, but in truth I’ll forget someone and really offend them

I also really connected with a few of the delegates and volunteers and sincerely hope that we’ll enjoy ongoing and fruitful friendships and relationships.

I’m now sat on the sofa at home lazing around watching flicks and digitising the 8 hours of behind-the-scenes footage while trying to digest all the tidbits of information I picked up from talking to people throughout the weekend.

If I’m having trouble making my brain work today, I can’t imagine what the delegates who were actually IN all of the sessions are feeling like today.

I’ll hopefully be back in the next couple of days (in the breaks between cutting together the 3 days of material I’ve captured) to give you my impressions of the lessons that emerged throughout the weekend.

Until then, it’s time to kick back, chill out and try to fend off this empty feeling inside with no rush to Regent’s College to be met with the same smiling, warm and friendly faces I’ve been seeing for the past three days.

It’s been…. emotional.

Over the past 6 days I’ve given a (very brief) Lowdown of what to expect from the London Screenwriters Festival: how to pick your schedule, what to focus on and how to make the most of it.

The easiest way for me to summarise it is just to link to all of those blog posts:

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6

But that’s a bit of a cheat’s summary.

Day 7: Final Checks, Please

In truth, if you’ve not prepared yourself for the festival by now (starting at 10am tomorrow (Friday) with a sit-down natter with Tim Bevan), you’re not going to get as much out of it as you’d hope to.

There’s still time, though! You can still sit down and run through the schedule; you can still work out your goals for the festival itself; you can still brush up on my networking tips and find out how to connect with the right people in the right way.

What you can most usefully do as a delegate of the festival, which will also help ensure the demand is there for a repeat event next year, is to blog, Facebook and Twitter about the whole thing while you’re there.

There are myriad people with myriad reasons who cannot come along and I know they’ll be watching with eagle eyes for tips, tricks and tools that emerge from the festival. If you’re on Twitter, use the festival’s hashtag #londonswf to spread the word in a format that people can easily follow. (And, as a bonus side-effect, you may even pick up some new followers in the process).

If you blog, be sure to give us your opinions in a quick run-down when you’re finished.

And talking of finished, I promised one last networking tip in yesterday’s blog: Follow Up. If you meet someone exciting, interesting or just plain useful, make sure you grab their card from them and as soon as you get home (Monday morning), drop them a line. It’s just a memory-jogger and a “pleased to meet you”, but that single point on contact could stand you head-and-shoulders above the other delegates who make the same connections but either wait a week to touch base or fail to make contact at all.

Most importantly of all, be sure to feedback to LSWF after the fact. Only by telling them what was great (and what wasn’t) can you be sure to get more of what you want next year. And, in the cold, hard world of arts cuts and huge losses, if you want to see the fest again next year, your testimonials are going to be a MAJOR selling point for them when they’re looking for sponsors, supporters and speakers for next year’s event.

Go in peace, leave in pieces and enjoy every moment – after all, it’s about you.

Over the last 7 days leading up to the London Screenwriters’ Festival at Regents College, I’ll be preparing a special (text-only, sadly) Lowdown looking at how you can get the most from your weekend and the biggest bang for your buck.

You can read earlier tips in the countdown: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5

Day 6: Networking Part II: The Nitty-Gritty

You’re primed and ready to make your assault on the first room of the day – networking over breakfast with people you don’t know, or walking into a room full of strange faces (in the unknown sense, not as in all the LSWF delegates are alien-freaks). How do you do this thing?

1. The Pitch – just like pitching your work, you need to have a snappy, concise and clear pitch of who you are. What do you do (writer/director/producer/multi-hyphenate), where do you do it (Wales/Scotland/London/Plymouth/Newcastle, home/production company/office/after the day job) and what stage are you at in your career/with your current project(s)?
2. The Return – allow the other person to pitch themselves back at you. Even better, prompt them into their own pitch with a good opening question. Try to avoid “Who are you?” unless you’ve spent 5 minutes with them without finding out their name. Try something like “Do you write, too?” or a question about the Festival.
3. Your Script – if you’re networking as a writer with producers know your story inside-out. Not only do you need to be able to sum it up nice and quickly in an oral pitch, you also increasingly need to show producers and collaborators that you’ve thought – seriously – about who the audience is and how it will reach them. And don’t say, “It’s for everyone”. NOTHING IS FOR EVERYONE. And neither is your script for “18-35 year-old males” – get precise.
4. The Back-and-Forth – once you both know where you’re coming from, it’s time to dig deeper to find how you may be able to help each other. To put it in disgusting American networking terminology, be a “giver” not a “taker” – that is to say, always be focusing on what you can do for them and not the other way around. That’s where Karma kicks in.
5. The Denouement – Once you’ve communicated all you can, clearly, concisely and with a little humour if you dare, it’s time to move on. Swap cards (you should have already, but just double check), tell them you’d like to chat further, but you’re trying to take advantage of this opportunity to move around the room and make as many contacts as possible. If you intend to, tell them you’ll be in touch after the festival (more on this in tomorrow’s blog: After The Fest).
6. The Advance – look up, look around and pick your next target for your mini-charm (not smarm) offensive. Or, if you’re in a workshop, take your seat quietly and politely for the start of the session.

Networking, to the uninitiated, is a scary prospect. To the experienced networker, it’s still a fairly daunting prospect. The one HUGE advantage you have just by being a delegate of the LSWF is that you can guarantee that 90% of the people at the event want to meet you. Perhaps not because they have heard of you, or because they know your work, but simply because the whole event is geared around making people better writers and connecting people who may work together in the future.

Every time you walk into a room – be it a specific networking event, a workshop, seminar or even the canteen at lunchtime – pick a face you don’t recognise and just go and introduce yourself. If nothing else, you’ll notice how much easier this gets as the weekend progresses. Better than that, once you’ve done it the first time and realised people are genuinely happy to meet other people and make contacts and that they don’t look at you like a weird alien, you’ll get a significant confidence boost.

Networking is all about establishing relationships and who knows where that may lead? I’ve met some of my best partners and collaborators at random events just by saying “Hello” – every new workshop is a chance to forge future successes.

Tomorrow, in the 7th and final part of this Countdown Lowdown, I’ll be going over all of the tips so far and offering a quick wrap-up and a series cool-down exercises for the aftermath of the 3-day weekend.

Over the last 7 days leading up to the London Screenwriters’ Festival at Regents College, I’ll be preparing a special (text-only, sadly) Lowdown looking at how you can get the most from your weekend and the biggest bang for your buck.

You can read earlier tips in the countdown: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4.

Day 5: Networking Part I: The Comfort Zone

In preparation for a full run down of how to network efficiently  and effectively at the LSWF, today’s post is more of a networking primer, a few DOs and DON’Ts for the dreaded “meeting new people” thing:

• DO push yourself out of your comfort zone – talking to other people, new people, can be daunting and scary, but that’s exactly how you want it to be. If you’re nervous then you know you’re pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and when you do that amazing things happen.
• DON’T hang with the people you know – all of your Twitter buddies may be there, but try not to make a bee-line for them; they are your safety net, not your reason for being there. That’s not to say you should ignore your Twitter buddies, but don’t let them be your sole companions at the networking sessions either.
• DO wear your happy face – head high, shoulders back, confident posture and a positive outlook will get you a long way in the crucial “first impressions” stakes. Learn to fake it if you want to make it.
• DON’T waffle on for hours – treat each networking event like speed-dating; you want to get as much useful information across to the other person in as short a time as possible, but you also need to LISTEN to what they are saying back. Once you’ve hit all your markers, move on.
• DO be a brazen hussy – networking is a game and you want to get around as many people as possible and make connections. If you’ve been standing talking to the same person for more than 5-10 minutes and you’re not discussing very important things, excuse yourself and move on to the next person.
• DON’T be offended if it happens to you, too – your conversational partner has the same aim as you: getting around the room. Moving on is not a sign of rudeness (unless one doesn’t excuse oneself), but simply a sign that you’ve exchanged your key info and can have a longer discussion at a more convenient time.
• DO pay attention to other people’s body language – if you’re scouting for openings to go and talk to someone, look at their feet. If they’re turned away from the person they’re talking to it means they’re not fully engaged and you’ve got the perfect “in” to – politely – sidle into the conversation and introduce yourself.
• DON’T be blind to your own body language – always strive to appear engaged with what the other person is saying. They may be the biggest bore on earth, but one day they may bring you that perfect idea for a script, or offer you proper paid work – a first meeting is not a time to burn bridges.

Tomorrow’s Lowdown will cover the intricacies of networking once you’re in the room – how do you “mingle”, how should you present yourself and how to make the most of the first 30 seconds when you meet someone and you’re both forming your crucial first impressions?