Ah – the last of week of July: when cash-strapped independent filmmakers squeeze into their best clothes and, resumes and letters of introduction clutched tightly in their fists, launch themselves at the Screen Innovation Production Fund selection panel in the hope of getting something – anything (preferably money) – to help make their dreams come true.
I’m one of them. Paying gigs aside, I’ve got ideas of my own, you know. I used to want to just concentrate on feature-length writing but I was just limiting myself. ‘S not the end all and be all. Also:
Breaking into the film business is not a problem that resolves itself through a single answer or path. It’s a problem that succumbs only to a process, a series of efforts taken over time. And the bitch of it is, you never know which is the right strategy until it pays off. So you do everything. Whether the odds are with you or not. You do everything.
– Terry Rossio (Deja Vu, the Pirates of the Caribbean and Zorro series).
So to all supplicants, the best of luck. And whatever the answer in three months’ time, keep dreaming.
