Mixer in Beverly Hills on July 30th and more

Don't miss our mixer in Beverly Hills on Monday! We'll be there from 6pm to 9pm. Last time we had 30 people. Details below.

After the mixer we're taking a week off, but then coming back with two events in one week. Sunrise creative exec Jeanne Thompson is into family features. Ensemble Entertainment manager-producer Jon Brown reps directors and writers. Our events are filling up early. Not too soon to RSVP. Details below.

Lots of good news, too. Read on!

ScreenplayLab Mixer on July 30th in Beverly Hills...

Time to network! Mingle with working screenwriters, actors and filmmakers. Need help on your next project? Need an agent? Need a mentor? Need a job? In Hollywood it all comes down to networking. If we sit at home we might as well be back in Kansas, right? You buy your own drinks and food (inexpensive). By ScreenplayLab special request, there will be $3 margaritas! Sharky's Mexican Grill, 435 N. Beverly Dr., Beverly Hills. Park in the city garage across the street by Crate & Barrel for $2. July 30, 6pm-9pm and maybe later. Please note in the RSVP if you have to come late. FREE with RSVP at www.screenplaylab.com (not by email).

Sunrise executive Jeanne Thompson on Aug 12th...

ScreenplayLab presents Sunrise Entertainment Creative Executive Jeanne Thompson [IMDB]. Sunrise has a deal with Peter Guber's Mandalay Entertainment. Jeanne looks for family film projects. Our ScreenplayLab workshop will be a reading by actors of 30 pages from the martial arts comedy feature BOOK OF Z by Robin Rowe. Raleigh Studios, 5300 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Sunday, Aug 12th, 2007, 3pm to 6pm. Networking at 2:30pm. Free with RSVP online at www.ScreenplayLab.com (not by email).

Ensemble manager-producer Jon Brown on Aug 15th...

ScreenplayLab presents Ensemble Entertainment Producer Jon Brown [IMDB]. Jon Brown has been a literary manager for fifteen years and was an agent at APA for five years. Comedy Central Stage, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd.,
Los Angeles. Wednesday, Aug 15th, 2007, 8pm to 9:30pm. Free with RSVP online at www.ScreenplayLab.com (not by email).

Panasonic HPX3000 HD camera demo on August 18th...

Birns and Sawyer presents the Panasonic HPX3000 camera. Representatives from Panasonic will present the new HPX3000 1920x1080 10-bit camcorder with AVC intra codec and explain the P2 workflow. At Birns and Sawyer, 6381 De Longpre, behind the ArcLight Cinema in Hollywood. Saturday, August 18th from 10AM to Noon. RSVP to Mathers@digitalcinemasociety.org

Sandra Milliner in episode of HEARTLAND...

Congratulations Sandra! She had a co-starring role as Wanda Hoepfinger in the "Domino Effect" episode of HEARTLAND that aired on TNT this week.

Bruno Genovese signs with agent...

Congratulations Bruno! He signed as a writer with the Berzon Talent Agency. He met agent Marc Pavlovich at ScriptFest, where Bruno pitched his animated TV series INCYBERS.

Hawk Bourne signs with agent...

Congratulations Hawk! She signed as a writer with the Berzon Talent Agency.

Tom Krogstad script makes top 10% in Bluecat...

Congratulations Tom! SMEDLEY DARLINGTON BUTLER made the Top Ten Percent in the Bluecat competition and also made the PAGE quarterfinals.

Get a casting director for your next movie...

I noticed the renewal came this week for the RisingCast listing in the Hollywood Representation Directory. Of course, you know casting director Gabrielle Pantera casts all our ScreenplayLab readings and is a co-founder. Gabrielle is doing more writing these days, but she still casts indie features from time to time. If you have an upbeat commercial project that needs a casting director Gabrielle is fabulous. www.risingcast.com

Watch out for casting scams...

Hopeful beginning actors are unfortunately taken in by crooked casting notice companies. Any company that promises major auditions to non-union unrepresented actors is as crooked as Nigerian emails offering to send you millions in stolen loot.

The casting notices look real because real casting notices are stolen and edited to make them appear to be open auditions instead of agent submission only. Often the audition dates are already past and the crooks simply change the date to sometime in the future. The scam offers to send you great audition notices in a "free trial", but requires providing a credit card or checking account to sign up. As soon as they have that they start charging it immediately and won't stop.

Legitimate companies such as Breakdown Services send casting notices to agents and managers. ScreenplayLab got a fascinating look inside that business when Breakdown Services President Gary Marsh was a speaker two years ago. Casting notice companies can't offer notices to actors because most of the time casting directors ask them not to.

Smaller indie roles (especially non-union) go out to Actors Access (which is part of Breakdown Services), NowCasting, and Mandy. These no-pay/low-pay roles aren't worth an agent's time, so actors submitting themselves makes sense. Actors take these roles for their reel, but often fly-by-night producers never complete their movie and the actors get nothing. Sometimes there are good roles in notices sent to actors, maybe because the casting director didn't like any of the actors submitted by agents.

Get Your Film a Sales Agent for AFM...

Independent sales rep Brett Lauter is putting together a producers co-op for the American Film Market. Brett teaches film distribution at UCLA with Stacey Parks, who was a ScreenplayLab speaker last year. AFM Managing Director Jonathan Wolf spoke at ScreenplayLab speaker last year. AFM is like Cannes, but in Santa Monica in the beginning of November. It's a place you can take your independent film to sell foreign rights. Brett is looking for features, documentaries, and animation. Your film must be commercial, have its rights in order, have foreign rights available, and have a trailer. To join Brett's producers co-op is $2,500, assuming it's eight producers splitting the marketing costs for the show. Brett is discounting his commission to 12.5% for the co-op. Contact Brett Lauter 310.663.2528

Are You Ready to Stop Self-Sabotage?...

People write me to ask for favors, to ask advice for their situation or to refer them to an agent or studio executive. The requests cover the spectrum from reasonable to you must be kidding. Something interesting is how many people write me personally asking for help, but don't give their name. By that I mean no name in the email address and no signature block in the email.

People (I have to assume they're people; they don't have names) also write to ask me to recap everything they missed at ScreenplayLab last week (they RSVPed, but weren't there) and to also pass along an unsolicited script to the speaker. It would be easy to think it's ignorance or even bad manners, but I know better. People are doing these things in order to fail.

Many people sabotage their careers because they consider themselves unworthy of success. Not saying who they are or not coming to the point when asking for help are just a couple self-sabotage techniques. Here's a good one. Sometimes writers send scripts to me that have spelling errors on every page. I once asked a writer, who'd written a pretty good script, why he sent me a script full of spelling errors. He said he knew I wouldn't like it anyway!

Unfortunately, we all engage in self-sabotage sometimes. We assume a person is angry when he's really just busy. Or, we're in a hurry ourselves and don't extend as much courtesy as usual. Maybe we start writing a screenplay and never finish it. Or, get an agent interested and not call back. Whatever the reason we do these things, we need to remember that we're all artists worthy of success.

What's ScreenplayLab?

We're a group of upbeat working artists. ScreenplayLab is more than 1,800 screenwriters, actors, and filmmakers. Our mission is to nurture artists on a studio or network track creating upbeat commercial films and television. Each week we have fabulous industry speakers, workshops, and networking. It costs nothing to join and our events are mostly free. To join send an email to info@screenplaylab.com with the subject 'subscribe'. To enter a script for evaluation and possibly be read by actors in our workshop series costs $39.

Love you guys!