(135) Screen South Info Day: The Report

A big thank you to Screen South for facilitating a very interesting "Information Day" yesterday in Pompey at the
Arts Centre in our architecturally stunning Guildhall Square.

Firstly and most importantly they gave us a cuppa.
This was presumably to dull the blow they then delivered to a large portion of the capacity crowd when they they told us that Writers don't get any of the RIFE funding.

Hell no, they're writers, so they can write their own cheques!

However, tell 'em you are writer-producer-director and they even supplied the truck to load the dosh into!
(No, gullible of Surrey, not really, but the other reader gets my point.)

It was a nice touch when they got us to stand up and introduce ourselves and our industry related job.
This was great for targeting who to network with and/or flick biz cards at.

There were talks from the award winning documentary film maker Steve Bowles, local partners City Eye , Isle of Wight film network , Wessex media group the launch of the DV Mission website and the screening of last years winning films.

Everyone was friendly and interesting and there was some great networking at/after lunch, during which I met some cool talented people including a local lass who has written 10 episodes of Doctors.

We were invited to join a few local writers groups and a brand new screenwriters group which will hopefully meet and network once a month in Pompey.
Possibly in a pub. Doesn't get any better, does it?

The infectiously enthusiastic DV Mission guys want everyone to enter the 48 hour film challenge and sign up to their new networking site at http://dvmission.ning.com/

So go on, do it now. Both the site and the competition look great.

I had a one2one with, bizarrely, two, top local scripity filmy peeps, the aforementioned Steve Bowles and the lovely Susan Beckett from City Eye, who offered me their sagely advice but unfortunately no dosh.

Rounded it all up with a quiet beer and noisy chat about the perceived state of the film industry and the slim chances of selling a new spec script, in the pub over the road.

Nice.