That's me. Networking again. The baldy bloke trying to hide from the camera. I'm a writer, I should be behind the camera. Well away. In a locked room. Writing.
If I wanted to be in the frame, I'd be an actor.
Anyway, here we all are chatting, informing and being informed at the Screentime event at Portsmouth Uni's Purple door sponsored by Cibas.
See how many links I crammed into that sentence? Network me back baby!
It really was a great afternoon. Free coffee and quality cakes. Met loads of interesting industry insiders who were friendly and approachable. Not the scary monsters we're led to believe, at all.
We got some advice on courses, planning, budgets, future trends and howled with laughter at the funding stand, when they said there's none left for scriptwriters development. As if writers need money. Huh!
As everybody knows, Writer's don't go out; they just sit in a little room (so they don't need much heating) pounding away at their scripts. In fact, if they write by candlelight (worked for Sheiky and Dickens et al) and charge their laptops when they're down the library or in the free wi-fi caff, they don't even need electricity.
As for grub, Marie Antoinette was spot on: There were free cakes (and coffee) provided. point of fact you could tell who the writers were: (apart from the clothes!) they scoffed extra cakes.
The professional writers, ie, whose sole income comes from writing, were obvious to spot too: They filled their pockets with cakes as they left...
The event was organised like speed dating - or so I was informed - I've never been speed dating. I like to stare at my prey, er, the lady, for ages first while lager chips away at my inhibitions until I'm pissed, er, confident enough to tell her how lucky she's gonna be.
Ahem.
So, just like speed dating, (so I'm told; see above) a gong - in this case a comical hand held squelcher, prompted us to swap cards and phone numbers and move on, so you could move round all the tables.
As the event covered all the arts, I met some up with some old friends and made some new ones. Sculpting and interactive walk in shows/displays appear to be where the funding is at the mo.
To sum up; a great event, good fun had by all. Among all those interesting, friendly people I met was Mr Eugene, a Brighton based musician of note (pardon the pun) and the lovely and witty Jo Emery, a comedy scriptwriter from just across the water from me, that being Gosport, not France. Or the I.O.W.
Jo, bless her, even admitted to knowing the blogoshere's legendary Phil Barron!
Many thanks to Cibas and Purple Door for organising such a cool event. Here's to the next one.
(P.S. For those who don't know, I'm the guy in cool black, next to the blonde lady.)
