Samantha Plotkin Interviews Screenwriting Expo Coordinator Erik Bauer

Erik Bauer, Managing Editor of Creative Screenwriting and the Coordinator of this year's Screenwriting Expo, was able to talk to Moviebytes about his thoughts on this year’s Expo and what to look forward to next year.

Q: What was it like putting the Expo together for the first time?

A: It’s definitely a crazy thing. I’ve put together a few events, some time ago, in the gaming area. This was the first screenwriting conference that I had developed. I wanted it to be totally different than anything else that was out there. So we kind of had to start from scratch a little bit, as far as what we were doing. But I think overall it came together pretty well.

Q: How did the pitch process go?

A: The registration was a bit of a nightmare, quite frankly. People ended up spending a lot of time in that line. If there was one real snafu, with the whole Expo, that was it. Quite a few people spent four or five, six hours in that line, and it was just not a good situation.

As far as how the actual pitches went. I’ve heard really good things. A lot of people had request for information, or treatments or the actual scripts. I haven’t heard yet about any options or anything related to that. But actually that part of it was managed by Scr(i)pt Magazine.

Q: What had you hoped that screenwriters would get out of the pitch process?

A: Out of the pitch process, it’s all about access. It’s giving people one more opportunity to access people who can kind of move their careers along. Any events of this type are a bit of a crap shoot because you’ve got so many people coming in there and throwing ideas at these people.

It’s just so difficult to carve out a career in Hollywood and to maintain a career, that I think those kind of venues are definitely worth pursuing.

Q: How did the contest go?

A: There were two contests. The (first one was) the screenplay contest, which I thought went great. We found three really good scripts. We actually decided to give away a couple of extra awards because we got more scripts then we thought we would. We were hoping to get about six or seven hundred and we actually ended up getting a thousand scripts. So we gave away two extra awards for second and third place. and then we also gave away an award for what we call our “New Visions Award” which was for the best script that can be shot on a really independent budget.

So, I think we found some great material. It was definitely an interesting process going through it all. But I had some great people (helping me). Joe Mercurio was the contest coordinator for that. He’s also a long time contributor to the magazine. I think he was definitely able to isolate out the really good scripts.

Right now he’s in the process of getting the winners' scripts and a lot of the semi-finalist’s scripts out to producers. We’ve lined up a list of, I think, it’s a little under twenty different producers, agents and managers that (are currently) looking at the various scripts. We have great hopes that there’ll be a few representations there and an option or two because it’s great material.

The second contest was the “Screenwriting Open.” That was something that I don’t think had ever been done before. Which was getting writers together to write scenes in a tournament kind of fashion, in a short period of time, and then judging those and then moving people forward in rounds.

I think the three scenes that were read during the closing ceremony (from the Screenwriting Open) -- that really added something to actually have people writing at a conference that’s about writing. I think that was just a really neat thing.

Q: People said there was a very supportive feeling at the Expo. Did you try and facilitate that?

A: Definitely. I’m glad that people said that because that was what we were trying to accomplish. That, and just trying to provide an event where you didn’t have to be a wealthy dilettante to attend. It’s a tough business. Most of the writers that I know don’t have a lot of money and we wanted to make this something that everyone could go to.

We wanted to provide people knowledge, and access to the producers and the agents and the managers (who were there in the Pitchfest but also in all the other various forums at the Expo). At first, I just wanted to help build a community of writers. Writing is a solitary pursuit for the most part. I think it’s good to come out of that cave once in a while and interact with your fellow writers. I think that was one of the greatest things about the Expo was there were so many writers there.

Q: Are you planning to do another Expo next year?

A: Yes!

Q: Is there anything you would change the second time around?

A: The biggest thing, as far as the Pitchfest, is we’re going to do the registration online. So there won’t be any lines or any kind of problems in that respect.

As far as the Expo, we’re going to look to bring back some of the people we had this year, we’re also going to look to bring in quite a few more established screenwriters to give higher level presentations because, I think that was a little bit lacking this year, as far as the real high level focus on craft.

So, I think next year, we’ll definitely be having more of those type of people. Plus, we know we can bring out a good number of people so hopefully we can use that to get some of the big names we’re looking for.

Q: What else is going to be different next year?

A: It’ll be three days and not two. We’re still going to keep the price low so everyone who wants to come can come. This next year, we’re going to mail out the packages, so people won’t have to stand in line. And just a lot of little things where we kind of learned from this year’s event, just to make it better.

Updated: 02/04/2003

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