nbc writers on the verge – week 8

TUE 11/27/12

i turned in script pages for act 1 and the outline for acts 2 and 3. i wish i could’ve written more pages, but i wasn’t sure if the structure was working yet.

when it was my turn for feedback, the main notes i got were about clarifying the B story. up till now, i wasn’t sure if the whole concept was even working, so i feel like i finally turned the corner. i’ll have to work really hard to catch up to everyone.

i got a couple great suggestions for jokes from a few of the other writers. this whole group dynamic is really great, and i recommend finding a good group of writers to get feedback from regularly.

a couple of the other writers already got to the end of their pilots, and they came out very good. all 8 of us are each writing very different material, which is great. it’s fun to have such a wide variety of material to read each week.

THU 11/29/12

tonight we had executive speed dating. 7 execs (from nbc, syfy, and usa), 5 minutes each.

beforehand, i researched the execs on google, and i brushed up on myself, which sounds like a funny thing to have to do, but i wanted to make sure i knew the points i wanted to bring up about myself.

in the program, we were each assigned mentors who are nbc executives. some mentors work in development, some work in current series. mine works in comedy development, and i got to meet him that night. he said he read and liked my parks and rec spec, which was an unexpected surprise. i didn’t know he was going to read my work since i know he’s so busy with development season.

each exec we met wrote down feedback for us, which we’ll get next week. they look at how nervous we are, how good our eye contact is, etc.

i thought my 10 minute speed interviews for the nick fellowship were fast, but these 5 minute meetings were insanely fast. it’s enough to get a sense of who we are, though, and how well we present ourselves.

each meeting was very different. i tried to be adaptable and was able to go with the flow depending on what topics came up (thanks improv). also, i tried to bring up things i researched about them that i found interesting, or that i could connect with.

i wasn’t nervous at all! everyone was super nice, and it was a lot of fun.

it was a short night, so after, us writers went to get drinks.