Banff Festival Update- on the long road!

The festival was awesome. I had an incredible time, it was a real rush being around so many creative people that were excited about the business.

I learnt allot and was riding a festival high and really crashed afterwards from lack of sleep. Three days and nights of talking left me with nearly no voice.

As exciting as it was it was also overwhelming. Over all the response was positive. Several networks want to see written treatments for my ideas, some with certain revisions. So most people wanted follow up in a couple weeks. To some extent certain groups want you to have proven production experience and bring more to the table, I found this to be my weakness as there were hundreds of producers with proven track records pitching their ideas. To some extent I felt that some networks will tell everyone to forward their materials without a specific ernest interest? It is really hard to tell.

I highly recommend the Banff festival I had 10 face to face pitches, 3 lunches and 2 cocktail meetings with executives. I cornered the Disney ABC executive and pitched him in the hallway. Yes!

Each of my projects is outlined below:

Disney ABC conceded my geo cache challenge is a great idea but it can not be filmed in the Disney property parks because all productions are created by a separate development team from the network, furthermore it cannot be broadcast as it's too much commercial content for legal standards. BBC kids may be interested but first it would have to be a proven format produced in Canada or US and then they would buy the format. YTV is tossing around some geocache ideas and would like to review mine. Astral kids is actually releasing an online virtual Geo Freaks community shortly. Corus will review the treatment. So the idea is current.

Most everyone liked the Bully Free idea but would want actual character development and substance to be created before joining or buying the project. Ie kids willing to tell their story and some production experience. APTN liked the idea and wants the treatment, MTV has a copy of the treatment and a production company in Calgary wants to sit down and talk about it and geocache. Sweet

Campus Patrol is another story. The EVP of production Chris Linn said he saw potential in the idea and thought they would have room for content for that market, the college demo and theme. He told me to drop the contest theme of "voters viewing for the best school", as that format is overdone. He wants me to tweak it with character story. Add some kids to the bus as they travel around and create some drama. He wants me to draft an episode as it would appear at say UCLA step by step and send him the treatment. I am afraid it will turn into something else they already have like say Road Rules and lose any appeal or originality and hence my involvement. But I was upfront with that I was an inexperienced producer and he said no matter they have show runners. So I believe he was serious about reviewing the material as soon as I can complete revamping it. MTV is really looking for extreme, sensational television and scripted comedy as you can tell by some of their new pilots "Warren the Ape" and "tough times of RJ Berger" I will have to inject some "Jerry Springer" into my show concept. Back to the writing board!

I had a cocktail with A &E and some other producers and talked about an idea I was not even pitching and they said they wanted to see a sizzle reel and character presentation. So I guess I will have to be a producer anyhow.

What I take away is that follow up is key and I am starting to build relationships with people. I made sure to meet as many people as possible and ensure they knew my name and my story. I did not land a paying job but it's a start. Haha