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My POV
Brian A. Wilson
FREE MOVIES: ONE MORE GOOD REASON TO LIVE IN L.A.
Often, writers considering a screenwriting career will ask me or some other self-described expert in the field, "Do I have to live in LA to be a screenwriter?"
My answer is rarely yes or no; more typically, it's "If you love movies and want to make movies, why in the world would you want to live anywhere else?"
I love LA! I love the film biz. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing, and no place else I'd rather be doing it.
One of the major reasons I say that is the endless opportunities for involvement and self-improvement that come along.
Here's a great one: the AFM.
The American Film Market Association (now, I believe, officially crowning itself with the acronym AFMA) is coming to town. This is to filmmaking what cattle drives were to the old west: folks round up their goods, drive ?em to Santy Monica, and see how, or if, the market will reward them for their efforts.
The great part of this is, they run movies. Nice, indy movies. Movies that got made, based on scripts written by people like you and me. Not Ron Bass, not Ron Shusett, not anybody else named Ron whose bank account has as many zeroes to the left of the decimal as mine does to the right.
This is the showcase for newbies who have made the grade.
The best news of all: You can see a great many of these films, absolutely free. All you have to do is sign up in advance. Go to variety.com. Look in the far left column for "Marketplace." Under this heading, you'll see "AFM Registration." Click on this. Sign up. They'll send a pass to you, allowing you to see probably one or two dozen films, all for free.
Some of the films are great, some aspire to be. But you can say this about all of them: They Got Made. And that's how you keep score in this town.
Get out there. See what got made. Get inspired. Maybe your film will be there next year.
Keep writing.
BW
LA
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