Jersey woman returns from The Austin Film Festival Screenwriters Conference 2022

Jersey resident Vicky Hinault recently attended the Austin film festival's Screenwriters conference in Texas, USA. thanks to her successful bid for Rivington Funding earlier this year. During the conference she attended a number of panels held by working screenwriters and filmmakers to learn and further develop her craft. This was the first opportunity since the pandemic she’s had to progress her writing projects. Here she tells us more abut what she saw, learned and took away from the experience.

The Austin Film Festival 2022.

Attending the festival as an experience no writer should miss.

The quality of panelists allowed me to listen to and learn from writers who have written movies and shows such as Pixar’s Soul, Moana and Wreck it Ralph, while there were also panelists who wrote action movies and shows such as Con Air, Will and Grace, Triple 9 and Lethal Weapon.

I attended many panels with a few that really stood out.

Scott Rosenberg (Gone in Sixty Seconds), Robia Rashid (Will and Grace) and Matt Cook (Patriot’s Day) hosted a fantastic panel on character development and how the well rounded protagonist serves as the driver of the story. Nicole Perlman who wrote Guardians of the Galaxy delivered some excellent insights into world building on the page and how the environment the characters on screen are in impact their situation and journey in the movie.

The most popular of the scriptwriting podcasts, Scriptnotes hosted by John August who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Corpse Bride and Big Fish hosted a live podcast with Mark Velez who heads up development at Universal Content Productions. During this panel they reviewed the opening three pages of submitted screenplays. This provided invaluable insight into what readers and producers look for in the opening pages of a screenplay and what standards can be applied to my own work to help hook the reader in.

Another great panel was hosted by writers Dan Fernandez and Benji Samir (Detective Pikachu and Addams Family 2) and Ashley Miller (Thor and X Men: First Class). They gave an incredibly insightful talk on the process of pitching, and insights in how to sell ideas in person and translate them from the page to the zoom meeting or the room, including handling difficult conversations when a project may not be right for you.

During the breaks in the festival I was able to meet and talk to many other writers, many of whom I’d previously met or spoken to online and in zoom writing groups formed during the pandemic. In addition I met and spoke to Pamela Ribbon, writer of Moana, Craig Maizin who wrote Chernobyl and Matt Cook who wrote Patriot’s Day.

The writers of Pixar’s Soul provided an incredible panel on writing for animation and I learned a great deal about writing in a non-linear way and many insights tied into another panel I attended on alternative structure.

A panel on short films and writing full stories in short time frames was excellent, as was the screening I attended of the films. Seeing the way the writers and filmmakers condensed the narrative yet engaged the audience helped solve a dilemma I’ve had with a short film I’ve been working on so I was very inspired!

Shane Black who wrote Lethal Weapon and more recently The Nice Guys starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling closed the festival out leaving us all with a renewed sense of hope and reminder of why we all love writing and the drive to continue to pursue a notoriously challenging career in an industry.

Overall the festival not only provided me with an opportunity to learn but inspired me greatly. It was fantastic to be surrounded by so many other people who share my passion for writing and films.

Thanks to Rivington I have come back from the trip invigorated, enthused and feeling like my motivation has been boosted to a degree I could not imagine. I’m so grateful this was made possible by the team there as this will undoubtedly be a huge boost for me as I continue with my writing projects.