Screen writers ala Nashville? No, I kid you not. The place is literally crawling with them. You don’t believe me? Google it.
When you do Google it, you’ll discover that there is a Nashville Film Festival that takes place every year and that this year it is being held from April 10th to the 23rd. And it doesn’t end there. Under the Nashville Film Festival banner there are two more organizations taking part, namely; Screencraft and the Nashville Writers Conference which are being held simultaneously with the Nashville Film Festival, specifically from April 20th to the 22nd. Included is the Big Pitch which takes place on April 22nd, where you, the writer, will have the opportunity to pitch your idea, screenplay or actual film to a host of well known Producers, Literary Managers, Literary Agents and successful writers in the biz.
To help promote this event, we have invited Cameron Cubberson as our special guest in the studio this week. Cameron is one of the co-founders of Screencraft, an organization dedicated to the development of completed scripts on behalf of writers for presentation to top agencies. Click here to listen to the complete interview.
Cameron’s qualifications are extensive, starting with his graduation, Summa Cum Laude, from Emerson College with degrees in Film Production and Film Studies, which was fine tuned by continuing studies at USC, UCLA, NY Film Academy and Chapman University. As a consultant he has reviewed and commented on well in excess of 1,000 scripts as well as books for such entities as Sundance, Lionsgate, Resolution, ICM and many more.
We interrogated him, trying to get him to give up the secrets to successful screenwriting, all to no avail. “There are no short cuts or secrets to success in this business”, he said. “Everyone thinks it’s easy and all they want to do is to knock off a quick script and get rich in the process. No one gets rich in this business, except maybe the producers, the lucky ones, and some of the actors”.
“No one?”, we asked.
“It takes a lot of hard work. More than you can imagine”.
“Is it more difficult than writing a novel?”
“Not more difficult, but definitely different. It is an art form unto itself with its own set of rules. For instance, in a novel you can take your time in developing a particular scene using a lot of words describing everything around you whereas in a screenplay you have to be able to describe the scene with a minimum of words but enough for the reader to be able to visualize the finished product, the actual film. I could go on and on with other examples but I think you get the idea”.
We also asked him if his company would take on an unknown writer, to which he answered, “Yes, but the writer must first and foremost adhere to all of the basic rules of screenwriting when presenting the results of his or her efforts, provided of course that we like what we read. At that point the writer must be prepared for rejection, a lot of rejection. But that doesn’t mean that he or she has to give up. And no matter what, they have to keep on writing, not the same script over and over, but new scripts with new ideas”.
“Any last words of advice to all of the fledgeling screenplay writers out there?”
“Yes. Don’t forget to come to Nashville where you will have the opportunity to meet and mix with all manner of successful people in the industry. You’ll also be able to pitch your screenplay, the one that you poured your guts into, to some of the more successful producers and agents in Hollywood. And who knows?”
For more details on the Nashville Film Festival, you can email the following organizations:
nashvillefilmfestival.org
info@screencraft.org
nashvillewritersconference
nashville@gmail.com