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My POV
Brian A.Wilson
Words into Pictures: Your Dreams into a Career
Let's begin at the end: Attend the WGA's Words into Pictures event June 7-9.
As a writer, you'll never pay less to get more in this town. Three days of panels, presentations and ruminations on being a Hollywood writer. Almost two hundred panelists, not just writers but producers, studio execs, managers and agents.
And this isn't an assemblage of people who wrote "Roller Derby Love Momma" for cable or "Stab, Stab Again" for a direct-to-video release.
This is your chance to meet, mingle, mix with, learn from and understand the top tier of talent in Hollywood, the writers/creators of Thelma and Louise, Queer as Folk, CSI, As Good As It Gets, Ed Wood, Dharma and Greg, Schindler's List. You'll hear from writers Don Roos, Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, Ron Bass, Steven de Souza, Scott Frank, Stephen Gaghan and dozens more.
If you've never been in a room packed with Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated talent, it's a trip. You can't help but get jazzed by it. You'll walk a little taller as a writer. You'll begin to see possibility, instead of just struggle. To be with the best makes you just a little bit better, and that alone is worth the price of admission.
Speaking of price, early registration runs $455 through April 25, $545 later. The new Craft Day, run by Nicholas Kazan (who was inspired by the fine folks at the Austin Film Festival) adds another $210. In addition to presentations, the price of admission includes continental breakfast daily, lunch daily, a cocktail party, an opening reception, and a mint on your chair.
OK, no mints. But the rest is true.
Sign up for everything, do everything.
Pricey? It may feel that way, especially if you have to fly in and stay at a hotel. But as Writers Guild Foundation president Tom Schulman (Dead Poets Society) told me, "Compare this to any other conference. This is a bargain." I couldn't agree more. He said corporate sponsors cover the bulk of the cost so attendees don't have to shoulder the entire burden.
The only down side to this year's event is that it's being moved from scenic Santa Monica to the bowels of the Universal City Hilton.
Even if the setting isn't great, I feel certain the conference will be.
Fly in, drive, hitchhike, take a magic carpet, whatever. Just get here and go.
Check out all the details at www.wordsintopictures.org
See you there.
Keep writing.
BW
LA
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