2012 NYTVF: Development Day

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Last week I attended the 8th Annual New York Television Festival.

Development Day is is where the festival truly shines.

The first panel I attended was Light-Sound-Shoot. This panel featured a group of relatively unknown independent filmmakers talking about how to make low budget projects, and it was great.

The panelists went into great detail about how to light a set, shoot in the dark, what cameras to use for different situations, and where to trim production costs. All of the panelists agreed that the one area never to skimp on is audio, largely because it can’t be fixed in post production. One of the members of the festival’s staff who handles a lot of the submissions agreed saying that films entered with poor audio are the first ones chopped from consideration.

The small audience, comprised mostly of young filmmakers, was engaged and interacting throughout the panel. Some brought cameras, or lights, and the speakers took time to answer more questions and conduct personal demonstrations for the audience long after the panel officially ended.

Next up was the Sketch-to-Screen workshop. This panel featured Michael Showalter of The State, Ali Farahnakian (writer for SNL, founder of the PIT), and Whitest Kids You Know Executive Producer Jim Biederman.

This panel was entertaining but didn’t provide much substance. When discussing how sketch comedians can start making money or get their sketches on television, the panelists kept going back to three things; 1) Surround yourself with funny people, 2) Produce sketches constantly, 3) Get extremely lucky.

The room was full of people who participate in sketch and improv comedy, many of whom I suspect may have had delusions of grandeur thinking somehow going to this panel would be their troupe’s big break.

While the conversation had lots of laughs from all three panelists, I was hoping for them to address things like their writing process, breaking in, and what makes good comedy good, and bad comedy bad.

Entertaining event, but perhaps misplaced on Development Day.

The last event I attended at the festival was the Storytellers Wanted panel. This group featured NYTVF founder/ executive director Terence Gray, producer Jack Lechner (Blue Valentine), and independent filmmaker Alrick Brown. The focus of this panel was how to segue into television from independent films and each panelist approached things from a very different perspective.

Alrick spoke about how the restrictions in television (commercials, set time limits) can be freeing as a director. Saying they give him a clear break point for plot points, and goals to hit.

Gray promoted festivals and contests –including his own – as a viable way to break into the industry.  It seemed like part of him felt uncomfortable promoting his own festival like this, but the panelists kept coming back to how hard it is to get eyes on your work. Gray lauded the festival for at least giving young filmmakers and writers eyes on their projects.

Lechern spoke about how hard it is to maintain a career in show business. He spoke about how for years he personally viewed television as the “girl you don’t want,” but has since grown to embrace the medium calling present day-TV “the golden age on television.”  Lechern also spoke about how important marketing yourself and your abilities are, and stressed that in order to have a career in show business people need to see your work and eventually know who you are.

This was an interesting panel that focused on a lot of the industry side of breaking in.

Overall the festival was well-run, educational, and entertaining. While some moderators didn’t get the best out of their panels, others did just fine. The festival does a great job extending free invites to most of their panels and events to the artists participating in their screenings. To its credit, NYTVF is more than just a screening center, they put a lot of emphasis on their development day workshops and featured events.

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