BECA Graduate Wins at Slamdance!
Matthew Patrick received his M.A. in Radio & Television in May 2007. His creative project was a script for the first installment of The Union, a television docudrama series about the odd and extremely challenging group of people surrounding Abraham Lincoln during his presidency. The script presents a fascinating story loaded with intrigue, gossip and drama. Matthew's hard work paid off big at Slamdance — he was one of two runners-up for the Grand Prize in the Teleplay writing category. Slamdance was an interesting if slapdash affair. Despite having a year-round paid staff it often felt like it was being thrown together by a bunch of unpaid volunteers who had no clue as to what was happening. That being said it was still a great experience. They treat filmmakers very well and offer a venue for films that have been priced out of Sundance.
I asked Matthew to dish some details of his experience at the festival, and if he'd gained any wisdom he'd like to share with our students. Check it out, writers — he's got some good advice!
Each day they hosted a happy hour for the filmmakers and writers where we could schmooze with each other. I met a bunch of interesting indie filmmakers who are just starting their careers. There weren't too many writers in attendance but I think this had to do with the fact that they host a separate event in Los Angeles for their feature screenwriting award. The winner of that gets to then stage a reading of their screenplay.
While no outside industry people were allowed to the daily happy hours, they were invited to the opening party. I met a few feature development people (mostly from Canada).
For the students I would definitely recommend entering films and scripts. It's a well respected festival and anything that helps get you a shred of credibility sets you apart from the teeming unwashed masses. Also the winner of their short screenplay contest and their horror script contest get to produce their film through third-party funding.
Anyway, back to Utah. It was very interesting to be out in Park City. It's absolutely frigid at times and while there's still a bunch of L.A. snootiness, most people are very friendly and open to discussing work.
In addition to Slam and Sundance there's also X-dance which is an action sports festival. One of our friends won a prize there for his documentary about surfing in Liberia. So that's also a venue if your students are making sports-related videos.
My advice for soon-to-be graduates is to come down to L.A. while you're still young enough to live on the cruddy PA wages and just work your ass off, make connections and have as many skill sets as possible. So often people want someone that can do a bit of editing, write in a pinch, knows tech stuff and has some marketing experience.
posted by Marie Drennan 3/07/2008 04:12:00 PM
http://beca.sfsu.edu/2008/03/beca-graduate-wins-at-slamdance.php | digg | del.icio.us | E-mail This Page →
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
