Screenplay Expo 6 deadline looms... the BECTU Freelances' Fair ...

The LA-based Screenwriting Expo's screenwriting comp has a July 1 final deadline for submissions. I just entered a screenplay. If you have one which is screaming out to be judged, and happen to have 45 dollars lying around the house, I suggest you do the same. Quick!

The Freelances' Fair was enjoyable today - mainly in terms of getting to meet reps from various companies, most of whom I never knew existed. Organisations like ProductionBase and The Knowledge, for instance. I'm sure most people are well aware of them already, but I'm still relatively new to this, soaking up The Info, as Dr Evil might say... ProductionBase took my prize for best freebie, in the shape of a mug. I like free stuff. And I like mugs. What's not to like?

The Fair's attendance was possibly compromised a tad by the narrowly-averted car-bombing in the early hours of this morning. BECTU reps weren't half-keen to sign up new members: two different BECTU reps swooped and tried to get me to join the union - and that was without me going near their actual table. I didn't sign-up in the end, despite an offered 25% discount - just couldn't see enough benefits, after looking through their leaflets.

I attended two seminars. One about surviving the freelance jungle was more useful for those about to plunge into freelance waters, but there was still the odd bit of new info for me. For instance, the fact that a freelancer under contract is eligible for holidays/holiday pay. Guess I never knew this before because I'm rarely under contract...

The other seminar was entitled Conjuring The Commission. A fairly typical commissioning-editors-type-affair, it saw the guests giving the usual advice of teaming up with credible production companies, knowing your target channels back-to-front and so on. As the discussion focused more on documentaries and formatted programming, it was less relevant to me, but remained interesting. Kate Vogel, the Channel 4 commissioning editor behind the 3 Minute Wonder shorts and the New Shoots documentary disability series, was particularly likeable. One day soon, I'll hopefully get around to writing up some stuff people actually said - as I need to do for at least two or three previous events. Mind you, with the Screenwriter's Festival due next week, I doubt this'll happen for a while...

1 comment:

Lucy V said...

You may also be interested to know Jason that if you get pregnant you get maternity pay as a self-employed person from HM Government since you can't pay it to yourself when not working...