Relief and Inspiration at IFpS2s

Today is the second and last day of the IFp's Script to Screen Conferences.

I came here with Joey, despite the fact that I am working on a documentary and this Conference is geared towards writer/directors. However, panelists and industry people still deal with more than one part of the industry so I still figured I could get something out of it.


AND I DID

First day here, guess who I of course ended up running into but Mr. Milton Tabbot, programmer of IFp. At first I was a little hesitant to go up to him. For some reason it has been awkward in the past because I seem to always see him at film events.

Anyway, we passed eachother in the hall and he actually stopped to talk to me. After a cordial hey-hows-it-going he said "You know what happened with the labs is that you only submitted the trailer!"

Indeed I had. The date to mail in the trailers came when I was away from New York and asked my editor Alan to send them in for me. There was a misunderstanding and he sent in only the 8-minute promo trailer and not the 40-minute assembled scene of the kidnapping. My application was incomplete!

I did not know how to feel when I found out my application was incomplete- better than I was not rejected because of lack of quality or stupid that I got rejected over my own mistake.

However Milton asked about the missing scenes. Said that the trailer looked good but he needed to see the scenes. Expressed interest in seeing them!

I felt a lot better. He had seen my cut, he had recognized it as mine and come to talk to me about it. They are just now starting to announce that submissions are being accepted for the Independent Film Labs in Sept. Deadline for early submission is May 7th. I am catching it at a great time to be totally prepared and they know who I am, that I am submitting, that I am committed and I might be able to get some notes beforehand.

Keep on truckin...