This past week CoverMyScript was a premiere guest sponsor of Screenwriter Karaoke at the Screenwriting Expo 2010.  We were there to support our brother event and get the word out about how to make you and your script the best for you. It was under this backdrop of some real fun networking that I’m reminded of the ways NOT to interact at such events.

Make no mistake, your singular purpose and goal of these pitchfest / expos / conferences, where you pay a premium to interface, one-on-one with execs and managers, should be to cultivate relationships. You want to make the good impression that you are a person worth knowing; someone worth doing business with at some point in the future. Ideally, everyone wants to make a sale in the room, but the chances of you selling your pitch, for cash money, on-the-spot, are basically nil. Even Shane Black will tell you that, and he sold a million-dollar movie idea on a napkin over lunch. Where these conferences are concerned, it’s never about the short term. It’s really about beginning your long-term career and fostering these relationships.

But not all writers got the memo. There is the right way to approach and the “not-so-right” way to impress yourself upon someone.

If you find out somebody is an agent or produced writer do not pitch to them willy nilly.

Whether it was the gal who followed us into four (!) elevators to tell us she’s “thinking about writing comedy” or the wait staff that “gave” me his “idea” for “Cheers” that wasn’t “Cheers” even though it took place in a bar and was about the people in it. As thankful as I was to have that already produced gold nugget, my asking you for directions isn’t an open invitation to tell me your life story. Know when it’s appropriate to bombard someone.

Merrel, my partner in crime, was speaking with an agent when an excited expo goer got wind and didn’t even wait for them to finish a sentence. “So you’re an agent?” he said and began to pitch. No! Buy me a drink first before you try and take me home. Warm me up a little bit. Let me like you before you go pitching wild. Cornering someone mid-conversation and giving them an unsolicited pitch wins no points, with anyone. Desperation doesn’t look good in any shade.

Don’t stalk people.

If there’s someone you’re interested in talking with, talk with them. When the conversation is done, it’s done. Pay attention. If they’re not into you, just wrap it up and move on. If it goes well, use your time wisely, impress upon them your message, get their card and keep the train moving. My friend, Zac Sanford, a development exec, remarked after an exhausting impromptu post-panel networking assault:

“My time is valuable. Pick one thing I said that resonated with you, hand me your card, let me give you mine if I want to, and move on. The real work comes after the convention.” And this goes for exhibitors too!

There was an odd fellow who insisted he could and would help with our exhibitor’s booth. He was looking for a job and thought hanging around me might get him one. He then proceeded to loiter and interact with my potential clients as if he were an official representative of my company and that just didn’t fly. Perhaps if he played it cool, and not been so clingy, things might’ve gone differently. But alas, this is a lesson he’ll have to learn the hard way.

Don’t be creepy or gush!

Approach people like human beings, not majestic ponies. If you know of someone from a previous seminar,  online or just from their body of work, don’t exalt them. Just say, “Hey.” And on the other hand, if you know who someone is and don’t like them, do like your mother said and keep your mouth shut. At a networking event, if you can’t say anything nice about someone, wait until you get in the car to bash them.

One gal made an odd and specific point of introducing herself whilst demanding to remain anonymous, “I know who you guys all are, but I don’t want to tell you who I am” she said.   We all respected her choice, however strange it seemed, seeing as she was wearing a name badge. She took it a step further and let me know that she had unfollowed me on Twitter for “talking too much even though I was writerly.” I know I’m not for everyone, but I couldn’t understand why someone wearing a name badge and wishing to remain anonymous, would seek me out just to be hurtful? In what way was she hoping to ingratiate herself to me by being unkind? If you aren’t interested in people knowing who you are or if you aren’t interested in knowing them, keep it to yourself; then they won’t.

Don’t offer unsolicited advice.

If you don’t like my product, you’re not interested in my service, you feel like I’ve got it all wrong, again, keep it to yourself. You are at an event selling yourself. Tearing someone else down or their work may make you feel more important in the short term, especially if it’s someone you’re meeting for the first time and think they’re a schmuck, but you never know who someone REALLY is. This is the techno-age people. Use your phone with the Googles, and find out who that schmuck is before mouthing off to them. They could just be a studio head and you would’ve blown it.

I encountered a man who’s familiar banter went from charming to uncomfortably presumptuous in a bizarre instant. He decided he knew what was wrong with my business and wanted to tell me all about how wrong I had gotten it. Listen folks, don’t spend your time attempting to assert your knowledge onto others. You don’t gain friends, just annoyed glances and a place in my long-memory, next to my unmitigated ire. I shut him down on the spot, because I just don’t care what you think when you come at me so aggressively. If you have constructive ideas, bring them up constructively. Win me over. Make me like you. Sell me on you. You have to earn the right to have my time, and this guy just didn’t have enough cache to keep my interest.

Why So Serious?

Don’t treat your every interaction as though it were life or death. Yes you need to be professional and this is a business event, but be a person not a robot. Come to foster relationships, meet new people, learn new things, grow your craft but get out of your own way too!  Quit taking it all so seriously. We’re making movies; we’re not curing cancer (unless you’re also an oncologist, in which case, keep up the good work). Be light, be open, be yourself. It is the commodity of you that is ultimately the most worthwhile prospect.