CS Weekly Archive > The Big Picture > 10/24/08

Slumdogs and Presidents:
Austin Film Fest Report 2008

By amy dawes

Creative Screenwriting editor Amy Dawes reports in from the Austin Film Festival and Screenwriters Conference 2008.

A raucous standing ovation at the Austin Film Festival for Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire confirmed that its Toronto success was no fluke; the Friday night screening at the Paramount Theatre, the fest's showcase venue, drew long lines and a stronger response than opening night film W.

"This proves the importance of festivals," said Boyle, who was on hand to receive one of the fest's top honors. "Six weeks ago we were dead in the water."

The feel-good fantasy about a slum-dweller in India who escapes poverty by triumphing on a quiz show lost its original distributor when Warner Independent folded, but after its Toronto bounce, it was picked up by Fox Searchlight, which plans a Nov. 12 release. It next screens at the AFI Film Fest in Los Angeles.

A more mixed reception greeted the Texas premiere of W., which nonetheless drew keen interest in the capital city where the 43rd president formerly occupied the governor's mansion. Director Oliver Stone was a no-show, but James Cromwell, who plays Bush Sr., presented the film and also made a panel appearance during the screenwriter-centric Austin festival, which ran Oct. 16-23 and wrapped last night after celebrating its 15th year. Filmgoers seemed to agree that W. works best as an actor's showcase, with striking performances by Josh Brolin as Bush Jr. and Cromwell as "Poppy," whereas its empathetic, humanizing take on its namesake and hazy point of view about his legacy were puzzling and divisive, particularly coming from Stone (the film got a knock the next day in an Austin American-Statesman review).

Whereas most festivals devote a panel or two to screenwriting, Austin kicks off with a four-day conference in which nearly every panel is a screenwriting panel—typically filling four 75-minute time-slots a day, with four to six concurrent choices. Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill), Greg Daniels (The Office), John August (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), John Lee Hancock (A Perfect World), Terry Rossio (Pirates of the Caribbean), Tim Kring (Heroes), Phil Rosenthal (Everybody Loves Raymond), Herschel Weingrod (Kindergarten Cop), Kirsten Smith (The House Bunny), David Wain (Role Models), Melissa Rosenberg (Twilight), Shane Black (Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang), and many others were among this year's panelists, along with managers, agents, producers, and film and TV development execs. Screenings, parties, and mixers such as a Film Texas barbecue, a brunch, and an awards luncheon filled the rest of the schedule. Top honorees at the awards were Boyle and television writer-producer Daniels; Sam Shepard had been scheduled for a screenwriting honor, but cancelled his appearance.

The decision to celebrate scribes came about almost by accident, according to festival co-founder and executive director Barbara Morgan. "I would like to say it was a stroke of brilliance, but it wasn't," she says in recalling the festival's first edition in 1994. "We wanted to come up with something that would attract people other than just locals, and at the time, nobody else was doing anything for the screenwriter." Drawing on Austin-based writers and their friends, the fest attracted six Academy Award-winners the first year, including Frank Pierson (Dog Day Afternoon) and Kurt Leudtke (Out of Africa). "Right before that first festival started we were terrified, because we had 68 panelists and 86 registrants. We thought it was going to bomb, but by the time we opened the doors, we had about 350 people because of last-minute walk-ups, and then it grew tremendously over the next five or seven years. Austin has always been a maverick community and an artistic hub, and we have a lot of WGA and Academy writers here. Writers came, and we treated them well, and they told their friends, and the next year we had more writers. Writers would come from L.A., and after they'd do their panels, they wanted to stay longer, and hear other panels. We realized that they didn't know each other, and they didn't have a place to convene and talk, and so over the years we've created that."

Much of the event's growth has been driven by interest in the affiliated screenplay contest, which continues to play a large role in publicizing the festival. Second-rounders, semi-finalists, and finalists get access to special roundtable panels with producers and agents, along with discounted passes and other perks. The screenplay contest drew 1,200 entries its first year, Morgan says. This year, it drew 4,000. Typically 10-12 percent of entrants advance to the second round, and 50-55 become semi-finalists. According to Morgan, the total number of registrants for all levels of festival passes this year was close to 3,000. Most registrants come from out of state, and some 60 percent come from Los Angeles, she says, as do most of the panelists.

"The first year of the contest, all three prizes were won by women," Morgan says, "including a housewife from Salt Lake City named Max Adams. Columbia Pictures President Barry Josephson was here that year, and he bought the winning screenplay and it became the movie Excess Baggage with Alicia Silverstone. That really put us on the map. The rest was kismet and a lot of hard work."

Morgan says the chief draw for registrants is the access the festival provides to writers, producers, development execs, and other industry figures, and indeed, panelists turned up at virtually all the parties and some hosted fireside chats and sat on intimate roundtables. A laid-back atmosphere and the clustering of conference events in the historic Driskill and Stephen F. Austin hotels, which are on adjacent streets downtown, meant that some well-known writers hung around for days; Shane Black, for example, was ubiquitous. An attendee determined to meet a given panelist would most likely have the chance.

Panels are built around appealing titles like "What Gets Producers Excited" or "What Actors Look for in a Script," though oftentimes panelists didn't stick to the topic for long, and sessions became routine Q&As. Attendees typically asked sophisticated questions and many I spoke to were well along in their writing journey. A recurring disappointment was when the listed panelists were no-shows; sometimes two out of five would appear for a given session. Also, high-interest panels were sometimes booked in small rooms, making it difficult to get a seat (I spent several panels sitting on the floor or standing in a hallway). Other people I talked to reported getting shuffled from one room to another more than once after a venue started overflowing.

Manager Craig Baumgarten, whose client list has included Joe Ezterhas (Basic Instinct), headed a panel on "The Manager-Writer Relationship." "The ability to get notes on a script you've written and hear them in a creative fashion—not ignore them, and not be rote about them—but come up with a take that serves the material" is the mark of the writer most likely to succeed, he said. Added screenwriter Brian McGreevy, who shared the panel, "If you get a bad note, chances are there's a story problem that they're seeing but they can't articulate it, so seeing what they're trying to say and having the energy and enthusiasm to find and implement a solution -- that's your job." Both Baumgarten and Michael Connolly, who heads Mad Hatter Entertainment, urged writers to proceed slowly in signing with a manager to be sure that the match would yield a good creative and professional relationship.

On a development panel, execs Maggie Biggar of Sandra Bullock's Fortis Films, Matt Summers of Nicolas Cage's Saturn Films, and Steven Puri of Kurtzman/Orci said it makes no difference to them whether a screenplay comes to them through a manager or an agent. Biggar said Fortis is moving away from broad romantic comedies and studio-driven projects and is more open to other sources of material. "Sandy is in on every meeting with the writers. We get into projects slowly, and as often as possible, we stay with the same writer from beginning to end," she said. "We're always reading and looking for new, interesting material—something that's going to change us, and be compelling for us."

Both television and film got their share of attention. Starz original programming head Rob Markovich shared a panel with writer-producer Mark Stegemann (Scrubs, Greek). Starz launched its first original series, the movie spin-off Crash, the night of the Friday panel. "We're in the middle of creating our slate and we're hearing pitches every day," said Markovich. A successful pitch, he said, would be something "well though-out, unique, and different, with a perspective that takes you into a world or an understanding that hasn't really been explored."

"If you get the listener involved to where they're breaking in, saying 'what if we do this,' then you're winning them over," said Stegemann. "They want to feel that it's their own."

Amy Dawes is the editor of Creative Screenwriting Magazine. Her first full-time job as a newspaper reporter was in Laredo, Texas, three hours from Austin, and she has loved Austin ever since.

Austin Film Festival courtesy Billy Vasquez

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