The Return of the Native

I'm at the Long Beach Airport (watching the Celts in Game 7), and the CA sun is setting majestically on the horizon. I've been in LA for a few days on business for the Boston University Film/TV Department. We had a screening of student films, at which alumini, industry professionals, and students turned out for a truly wonderful evening.

I also had a chance to have meetings with BU alumni working in the industry--some very successful ones. From Richard Gladstein (exec. producer of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction) to Maria Jacquemetton (writer-producer on the TV show Mad Men) to Jeff Graup a scrappy manager who exec. produced Lakeview Terrace and whose client, David Loughery, wrote the recently released Obsessed.

I talked to many others at all levels at the business, and, from top to bottom, everyone noted how tough things are right now. The economic woes have made an already skittish town positively neurotic. But one independent producer noted to me that it's also bringing people together in new ways. Those in the business are getting thrown out of their comfort zones and are taking chances they might have not when times were more secure. So there's a possible silver lining in the economic downturn.

As it relates to our project we've been posting about (the epic, historic script), I was able to meet with the managers who are guiding us on the screenplay. The meeting went very well, and things are progressing: as we noted in our last post, we need to do a character pass on the script, and that point was made very clear to me. But this meeting reminded me that the last time I met with these managers was exactly one year ago, on my last trip to LA for BU business. What we might be able to accomplish in LA in six months has taken almost two years--that is, to form a closer relationship with a strong management team. I love Boston, but sometimes I lament not having made a go of it in LA. One can write anywhere and be successful, but there's no replacing being able to sit down to coffee with an agent or manager on a regular basis, and that's very hard to do from good old Beantown.

So, as the sun sets on this day and this trip, I see new horizons. Times are changing. It's an internet-world now, and webisodes could be the wave of the future. Massachusetts could become a bona fide film and television development town. Nothing is for sure, but the models of the past are just as shaky.

As I return to Boston, all I can really do is keep working, keep making connections, and keep my fingers crossed.

-Randy