Friday Night Social “Special Event” ~ May 31, 2013

April 2, 2013

Date: Friday, May 31, 2013 || Starts at 7:00 pm || Co-sponsoring with Jennifer Grisanti and The Great American PitchFest.

 

**In recognition of The Great American PitchFest’s tenth year anniversary, Jennifer Grisanti and The Scriptwriters Network are excited to announce a very special Friday Night Social event to celebrate with The Great American PitchFest.** 

 

Friday Night Social is a networking group that meets every month. It started as a way for TV and feature writers to meet one another and has evolved into so much more. This is a great way to “Network”.

 

 

This month’s Friday Night Social is a free event being held at Daily Grill Burbank. Please join Jennifer Grisanti, The Great American Pitchfest and SWN for this very special Friday Night “Networking” event.

 

 

Special Time for this event:

Starts at 7:00 pm – Ends at midnight

 

Location:

Daily Grill Burbank

2500 Hollywood way

Burbank Ca 91505

818-840-6464

Burbank-DailyGrill @Pyramidhotelgroup.com

www.dailygrill.com

 

Friday Night Social “Special Event” ~ May 31, 2013

2500 North Hollywood Way, Burbank, CA 91505, USA

Date: Friday, May 31, 2013 || Starts at 7:00 pm || Co-sponsoring [...]

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Admission:

FREE — pay for your own food/cocktails/parking

 

Parking:

Parking is NOT validated.

Happy Networking!

This is a question that I’ve contemplated on the road to creating the life I want to capture through my story. I remember many years ago seeing, “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” the documentary about the life of movie producer Robert Evans. I was enraptured by it. At that point in my career, I was a studio executive on my quest to someday run a studio. I related to Robert Evans’ drive, passion and ambition toward his work. I saw myself in the same way. This excited me but also frightened me. When I saw all the trouble he had in relationships, I wondered if my quest would bring about the same loss. When a long relationship came to an end after a short marriage, I feared that it would. I also witnessed many other relationships around me in the business showing signs of struggle. In television series such as The Good Wife, Luther, Scandal, and the list goes on, we see characters juggling the balance of professional success and personal intimacy. In both fiction and in life, we can’t help but contemplate this question: Is it possible to have it all?

I recently became enthralled with the Danish series, Borgen. In it, you have a female Prime Minister. Clearly, she is in a very prominent and powerful role. When she starts the position, she has an amazing marriage with two kids. As the first season of the show progresses, our central character’s marriage deteriorates because of her choices with the job. I wondered: would her husband stand by her despite the enormous demands of her job? When she accepts the position, they talk about the fact that they agreed that one would take a lesser role professionally when the other had a more dominant position. I loved this negotiation – a true sign of the times. However, slowly, as the demands of the job begin to take over and our protagonist finds herself in escalating conflict with both sides of her life, she makes the choice to ask her husband to make a tremendous personal sacrifice for the sake of her job. This is the final blow. This show takes a very deep look into the idea of the choices that we make on our quest toward “having it all.” It is an excellent drama that I highly recommend. As I watched the finale of the first season, I couldn’t help but wonder: would the end result be the same if their roles were reversed?

Is our quest for professional success trumping our ability to be truly intimate and open to everything that comes with a relationship? I have come to find with my own professional success that it does come at a cost to my personal life. Currently, in my personal life, my mom is battling cancer. It has been a very emotional journey for our family. We are learning to find peace in the idea of our lives being turned upside down for an indefinite amount of time. I am finding that during this experience the character that I am playing in the story of my life has gone to a much deeper place as the plot of my life becomes more complex. It has made me think a lot about the choices that I’ve made and am making. When my marriage ended many years ago, I remember feeling totally betrayed by the emotional side of my life. So, I turned toward work for comfort. Work was safe. I became addicted to the sense of accomplishment and comforted by the external results. Since I had been mentored by some of the top people in the business, I knew that I had the tools to succeed. Then, when I lost my job after 15 years with the same company after having almost reached the pinnacle of my quest, I went through the same feelings of betrayal, only this time it was from my professional life. It all connected back to my quest to “have it all.” During my healing from both turning points, I began to evolve and change my idea about my quest. I didn’t want to have it all, I just wanted to find a balance of success in both sides of my life. So, I decided to open my own business versus going to work for someone else. I decided to build a brand that embodied both my personal and my professional views toward life so that I would not be in constant conflict. My quest to run a studio and “have it all” had changed. Now, I just wanted to learn to be in the moment and embrace the gifts that come with it.

In my new book, Change Your Story, Change Your Life: A Path To Your Success, I move through this journey of change. Through my recognition that my professional was trumping my personal life, I decided to create the second act of my life on my own terms so that I could allow room for both sides of my life. I am still learning how to be open to creating more intimacy in my personal life. With regards to my professional life, I’m happier than I’ve ever been. This is because I’ve let go of the idea of “having it all” and instead find much more solace in being in what is.

Friday Night Social – May 3, 2013

April 17, 2013

Date: Friday, May 3, 2013 || Starts at 6:30 pm || Co-sponsoring with Jennifer Grisanti

Friday Night Social is a networking group that meets the first Friday of every month. It started as a way for TV and feature writers to meet one another and has evolved into so much more. This is a great way to “Network”. Plan on meeting people from different areas and levels in the entertainment industry.

**New location and start time*** 

IMPORTANT:

Please register before 10:00 pm on Thursday, May 2, 2013.

**Please note that each guest and/or attendee needs to register individually. 

This month’s Friday Night Social is a free event being held at Busby’s East. Please join Jennifer Grisanti and SWN in a “private room with bar” exclusively for this Friday Night “Networking” event.

What makes Busby’s the best sports bar?  Busby’s food is FANTASTIC!  How many of you specifically go out for dinner to a sports bar in Santa Monica or L.A.?  Exactly.   

Busby’s food is not your normal bar grub, although we have amazing Buffalo wings, fantastic pizzas and the “Best Burger in town”.  Super tender, slow-cooked BBQ brisket, pulled pork, baby back ribs, country fried chicken, incredible pizzas, 20 different good Ol’ boy sandwiches & salads, and authentic Mexican food.  A feast!!!  An incredible, comfortable dining experience, while in the background, any game of your choice, any sport, anywhere in the world, is shown on 50 huge plasma TVs for the ultimate sports bar experience.  Busby’s is the only sports bar that serves a complete breakfast Saturday and Sunday and offers a champagne sports brunch on the weekends.

Join us on the first Friday of May at Busby’s East:

Welcome to Busby’s, voted the “Best Sports Bar” in Los Angeles and all of California by MSN.com and ranked 3rd in the ENTIRE NATION!!!

Special Time for this event:

Starts at 6:30 pm – Ends at 10:30 pm

Location:

5364 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Admission:

FREE — pay for your own food/cocktails/parking

My Storywise 5-Week TV Pilot Teleseminar will start on Tuesday, April 30th at 7:00 p.m. PST. It will meet every Tuesday night. There will be a break between Week 4 and Week 5. So, the last class is on 4/6.

Participants will get a recording either the night of or the day after the teleseminar. So, if you miss a night or if you’re on a different time zone and can’t make the call, you will get all of the information sent to you if you are signed up.

Participants will be allowed to ask questions at the end of each call.

Here is a LINK to a YouTube video on the event.

Mark Wilding (EP – Scandal) will be critiquing pitches on 4/30. I will be adding other guest speakers.

LEVEL 1
SERVICE FEE – $200.00

At this level, you will get to participate in all ten (5) weeks of the Storywise Teleseminar; this includes listening to the calls (up to 2-3 hours in length per call). You will have an opportunity to pitch your pilot, and you will get to turn in a 2-3 page pitch document on your pilot script for a written critique. There is no limit on the time of when you can turn in your pitch document.

LEVEL 2
SERVICE FEE – $700.00

At this level, you will get to participate in five  (5) weeks of the Storywise Teleseminar; this includes listening to the calls (2- 3 hours in length per call). You will have an opportunity to pitch your pilot script, you will get to turn in a 2-3 page pitch document on your pilot script for a written critique. You will also get a Pilot consult with this service. I will read one (1) draft of each script and give you written and verbal notes. This includes one (1) meeting up to one (1) hour in length to go over the notes.

LEVEL 3
SERVICE FEE – $3,000.00

THIS LEVEL IS SOLD OUT

At this level, you will receive feedback every week on your TV Spec script and Pilot script. This includes: written/verbal feedback on your concept, your outline and three (3) drafts of your script. You will receive your feedback on the calls. You will also receive notes from the other participants. This includes written and verbal feedback on each phase of your scripts and one (1) additional consult for each script after the Storywise Teleseminar; including one (1) read and one (1) meeting for each script that can be used at any time.

LEVEL 4
SERVICE FEE – $2,400.00

At this level, you will follow alongside the Storywise Teleseminar and receive written and verbal feedback from me at each phase of the pilot writing process. This includes written and verbal feedback on your concept, your outline and three drafts of each script. This includes five (5) meetings up to one (1) hour in length to go over the notes, the log lines, the pitches and career guidance.

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:31 — 38.1MB)

FRIDAY NIGHT DRINKS

Hosts: Jen Grisanti & Melessa Sargent (President of Scriptwriters Network)

When:  Friday April 5th

Where:  Sadie at 1638 N. Las Palmas

Time: 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

Your personal fall can be what drives you toward your professional win. As a story consultant, I like fiction that connects the central character’s personal wound to the professional outcome; their personal dilemma is tied to their professional dilemma, so that accomplishing the external goal signifies a win on both an internal and external level. For me, this is what drives story. When we understand why the central character wants the external goal and what is at stake if they don’t get it, we root for them to get what they want. If you learn how to apply this same concept to your life, you will be astounded by what kind of results you will see.

I’d like to give you an example of a recent film that I thought could have been even stronger if the personal dilemma of the character had been better connected to the professional outcome. In Zero Dark Thirty, written by Mark Boal, the dilemma is 9/11. The goal is to get Osama bin Laden. The lead character is Maya (Jessica Chastain), a CIA operative who is in pursuit of the whereabouts of Al Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden. My question is why her? What is motivating her character to want to achieve this goal on an emotional level? How is her personal dilemma connected to the professional outcome? For me, this is something that could have made this great movie even stronger than it is.

In the new TV series, The Americans, written by Joe Weisberg, the personal dilemma/wound is strongly connected to the professional outcome. We learn early on in the pilot episode that Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell) is a KGB agent in pursuit of an ex-KGB Colonel who is a whistle blower on undercover agents. When Elizabeth and her husband Phillip (Matthew Rhys) apprehend him, they miss the ship that was their chance to complete the mission and hand him back to Russia. This is the professional dilemma. The goal that stems from this is to figure out what to do with the Colonel in order to complete their mission. Elizabeth wants to kill him. Through a flash back, we discover the personal wound driving her to achieve the professional goal: When Elizabeth was training as an agent in Russia, the Colonel took advantage of his position and raped her. This is an excellent script and pilot episode. This story really moves because we know why the central character is in pursuit of the professional goal and what the personal stakes are if it is not achieved.

In your life, I want you to think about how you can do this to add fuel to the fire of your professional goal. Have your life turns caused you to move away from your goal because of the scars they’ve left behind? Learn how you can connect this wound and use it to motivate you toward a new professional goal. By using what you lost to propel you further, there is no end to what you can accomplish.

In my own life, I lost a job after 15 years with two sister companies. It was a big fall for me that was very unexpected. After learning how to take inventory of what happened, I learned how to use this loss to move forward instead of falling victim to my fall. I knew what my strength was as a studio executive, my notes on story. I used this strength and designed a business around it. Since my personal story was a large part of what led to my new professional goal (i.e., teaching story on a global level to stop isolation and create community), I learned how to link the loss I went through to this professional outcome. This year, five years after opening my own company, I taught in London with The TV Writers Summit and I am about to go to Australia to teach the TV Writers Studio. I achieved my professional goal by linking my personal wound/dilemma and using it to propel me forward instead of hold me back.

In my upcoming book, Change Your Story, Change Your Life: A Path To Your Success, I teach, based on the concept of life imitating art, how we can learn from fiction, and how we can apply it to our own lives so that when we go through a turning point and experience a fall, we can get back up and use the fall to achieve a professional goal that can enrich our lives more than we ever imagined. We can become the active hero in our own story.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 57:30 — 52.6MB)

It is amazing how art inspires art, in particular when you attend a film festival, take in each artist’s perspective, and you see what works and why it works. The experience awakens something inside of you that can help you further define your own art. This was an invaluable part of my experience at The Big Island Film Festival this past Memorial Day weekend.  Whether I was watching a short film or feature length film, I could see the heart of each artist was out in the open, ready to be absorbed by those who were open to receiving the message behind the art.  One of the incredibly talented filmmakers I met while there was Korrina Sehringer. Her feature length film, “Shouting Secrets” received The Audience Feature Choice Award.The film revolves around a gathering of an Indian family due to the illness of their mother. The Audience Short Choice Award went to the short film “Hi Honey” by Peter A.M. Henderson and Kelly Winsa; it’s a comedy that centers around a woman turning 40 who reflects on a romantic life of waiting and asking permission for what she needs. Both films were my favorites of the festival. It was inspiring seeing the films and the filmmakers gathered there to celebrate their accomplishments with one another.

Last year I was invited to attend this year’s festival and do a workshop called, “Writing The TV Spec and Pilot Script.” My journey took on an added twist when I contacted Leo Sears, the festival’s organizer, four days before my arrival. Leo told me that the celebrity honoree had dropped out due to last-minute family matters. In an effort to help Leo, I immediately told him to go to my website, look at the list of my Storywise Podcast Interviews, choose any of the writer/producers on the list and that I would see what I could do to get them there. Leo wrote me an email with DING, DING, DING in the subject line. In it, he said that the choice was right in front of him. He wanted me to step in to replace the celebrity honoree. This would mean that I would be honored at a reception and get first class treatment at the hotel reserved for the celebrity spot. I told Leo that I would love the opportunity and that I appreciated his invitation.

The idea of being the celebrity at a festival – while I was there to celebrate the accomplishment of others – brought a mix of emotions for me. I was replacing the handsome David James Elliott, so I knew there would be those who might be disappointed by his absence. My mom suggested that I open with the line, “I know that you’re all disappointed that he is not here, so am I.” Fortunately, I was welcomed with such open arms by Leo and his wife and co-organizer Jan, that I never had to do this. I arrived at the Fairmont Orchid Hotel and was taken to the “Gold” floor, where the concierge greeted me. Breakfast, cookies in the afternoon, and snacks in the early evening were all a part of this magnificent experience. The room was gorgeous and had a breathtaking view of the ocean. But not only was I there for the festival and to teach the workshop – I was there to write several chapters of my next book so the surroundings could not have been more ideal. Waking up to the ocean is a gift to any creative endeavor.

The morning after I arrived, I taught my class to a wide range of storytellers hungry to learn about TV. This made my heart very happy. As part of my seminar experience, I like to ask the group to take part in an exercise called “Log line for your Life.” The stories that came out in this group about what inspired their art really touched my heart. It made me remember once again why I love doing what I do. There is no greater experience than hearing stories from other artists about what inspired their art.

Every night of the film festival there were events that brought together filmmakers and filmgoers to celebrate one another and applaud the accomplishments that got them there. On the first night, the festival hosted a “Meet the Mayor” cocktail party. It was quite an experience. There were several other events including the reception for me plus another for fellow honoree and actress Eloise Mumford (THE RIVER). I attended all the events, because I knew I wanted to truly soak up the experience so that it could influence my own art and the writing of my book. My daily routine consisted of waking up at 4:00 a.m. and writing for 3 hours. Then, I’d take a two-mile walk on the beach and meditate. Then, I’d come back to have breakfast and write before I’d go to watch all the films. From a creative perspective, it was a dream situation to find inspiration.

I was honored to be interviewed by a couple of media outlets while at the festival including Dick Hershberger, who published a wonderful piece in the West Hawaii Today newspaper headlined, “Film Fest Honors Former TV Exec, Well-Known Story Consultant.” Another highlight was being interviewed by Damon Tucker, a popular blogger on the island. Going into this festival experience, I knew that I wanted to inspire all storytellers I came in contact with to draw from within and learn exactly what their truth is. I also wanted to share some stories and learning experiences I came away with from working with an iconic mentor, Aaron Spelling. It was such a beautiful and memorable experience.

To sum it all up, art inspires art. While at the festival, I watched over 25 films (some feature length but mostly short films). I also mingled with filmmakers and continued to discover what inspired their art. I’m happy to say that I wrote 17,000 words of my next book. Furthermore, I absorbed other artists’ message, I expressed my views, shared stories, I fine-tuned my message, and created my own art by listening to the heart of each artist.

We grow up being taught to believe external things will bring happiness. Many of us learn to equate our own happiness with the level of success we achieve and the external things that come with the achievement. If we meet the right person, if we have the perfect job with the perfect title, if we buy the big home, if we travel the world, if we continue to get richer…then we will be happy. We believe the external rewards will fulfill and fuel our internal world. It is only when we reach some of these pinnacles of success that we learn the truth: happiness comes from the inside. The reality is happiness isn’t about external accomplishments. True happiness is about developing from within.

Can we increase our level of happiness and, in doing so, change the way we experience our life story? I am exploring this concept in my next book “Change Your Story, Change Your Life.” I have done a lot of research on the subject of positive psychology and the idea of what we have the power to change. I am excited to share with you this discovery: if we reverse the formula, we can change our happiness and fix what isn’t working.

Many of us believe we are either born happy or we are not. My mom has always told me that I was born joyful; she says I came out of the womb happy. This story definitely has affected the way I’ve seen my life and my experience of happiness. I’ve approached my life doing everything I could to grow my happiness. This included educational achievement, job achievement, marriage, etc. When I hit the pinnacles that I believed were connected with true happiness in each realm, I discovered something. The work still had to be done from an internal place; the external accomplishments did not equate to my inner fulfillment. I remember one specific life moment that illustrated this to me. Before opening my own company, the president of the last company I worked for asked me one day, “Are you happy doing what you’re doing?” At the time I was Vice President. For 13 years I had worked for that title. And I had held on to the belief that when I was VP, I would be happy. So I remember this question knocking me completely off balance. My first response was a bit defensive. I recall thinking, “Of course I am happy, can’t you see it?” What I didn’t realize then was that I wasn’t really happy. The reason for this was I had attached too much to the external experience. The external title alone wasn’t enough. And in going after this achievement, somewhere along the way, I had lost a sense of my authentic self. It wasn’t until I opened my own company and created a brand that reflected my true values – e.g., focusing on work that brings me true joy, helping others achieve their goals – that I began to see the real truth about happiness; it comes from the inside.

Recently, I came across a TED.com talk by Positive Psychology Expert Shawn Achor called, “The Happy Secret To Better Work.” This inspired me to read his book, “The Happiness Advantage.” Both his lecture and his book led me to see that our society’s conventional formula for happiness is broken. In the video Shawn says, “If I know everything about your external world, I could only predict 10% of your long term happiness. 90% of your happiness is predicted not by the external world but by the way your brain processes the world. If we change our formula for happiness and success, then we can change our form of reality.” I love this concept. Shawn goes on to voice our faulty thinking: “If I work harder, I’ll be more successful and if I am more successful, I’ll be happier.” He describes this model as broken and backwards. True inner happiness fuels success, not the other way around. Shawn claims, “If you raise someone’s positivity in the present then we perform what we call the happiness advantage. When your brain is positive, it performs significantly better than it does when it is negative, neutral or stressed. Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy level rises, and in fact, what they found is every business outcome improves when the brain is positive. We can reverse the formula if we start with the positive.”

How do we reverse the conventional happiness formula so that we’re not attaching the incorrect model to the outcome of happiness? Shawn gives us 5 easy steps we can take to start promoting positive feelings on a daily basis: write down 3 things we give gratitude for at the end of each day, journaling for five minutes a day, exercise, meditation, and doing a daily random act of kindness.

I have transcended and awakened to the idea that the external world is not the answer for happiness. I have put Shawn’s five steps into practice and have created more positive feelings and inner happiness; as a result, I have generated more success in my life. It is amazing what a difference these daily practices can make in anyone’s life. They are small actions that have such a huge impact. By developing from within, you can reverse the happiness formula and change your reality. You can create greater happiness. It’s all about paying attention to your internal experience.