Blimey. I've got to do a presentation!

I've been invited by West Sussex Council to take part in a Creative Cafe, a new scheme where professionals in the "creative industries" (script writing, music production, fashion, journalism, etc) give a talk and offer advice to six form pupils doing courses on said subjects.

They contacted me via my website, saw I'd done stage stuff and a few sketches on radio, so they picked me as their script writer choice.

Suddenly, I feel like an authority on the subject. ha ha!

Thing is, I'm really rubbish as doing presentations.

Should be ok though as I only have to do a 5 minute introduction, then there's a table top session where I give some tips to the students (me?) and they show me their course work etc.

I get paid a fee, so I'd better make it good lol

Has anyone else done anything similar?

Oh well done.

Sounds Interesting.

Anything that pays has to be good.

Yeah, getting paid sounds good.
And if only you were chipolata, you could hit on the girls too.

Yeah, me and writing partner did a presentation to TVYP (Fast-Track top 50 young people in TV) up in Edinburgh a couple of years ago about 'Getting Your Sitcom Pilot Made By Hook or By Crook'. Weren't paid but got a TV Festival pass for free, so got to see lots of stuff (best bit: 'Peep Show Masterclass' by Bain & Armstrong!)

Most of them already had far more experience than we'll ever had and we had a lot of help from someone in the industry (she got us the gig in the first place and she led it too).

I mumbled some words about stuff and it seemed to go down quite well. Lots of questions were asked which we (and I'm sure you) will be surprised to find yourself answering (in that kind of 'didn't even know I knew that!' kind of a way).

Play some of the recordings you've got (from Sam & Dave and whatever else you've got hanging around)

Give them an email address/web address (yours, preferably!) and offer to answer any questions afterwards.

Hope it goes well. Give me a shout if you want any more info.

Dan

Cheers for the advice, swerytd.

And if only you were chipolata, you could hit on the girls too

Ha! lol. I'm thinking creative writing/script writing students will probably be of the geeky male variety.

Mikey, if you do come across any potentially brilliant, young comedy writers - who've got great original ideas and natural talent coupled with enthusiasm and drive - then I hope you will do the decent thing and slate their work, slate them and piss on their dreams of success, mercilessly.

(We don't need any more competition, thank you.)

lol ha ha! Yeah, too right. It's bad enough as it is.

I am planning to mention about rejection and to expect it in a big way.

I guess West Sussex must be short of script writers for me to get picked, but it is quite an honour.

Nice gig Mikey, good luck with it.

Nope. Good luck though.

Well, it went ok.
I was a bit shakey on the initial presentation as I'm not used to doing that.

I had a tabletop session where I did a bit of a Q&A with students which went ok.

Overall, this looks like a great idea, where creative indusries meet with students.
Wasn't only writing. There was also graphic design, musuc production, fashion design etc.

So you enjoyed it then...

yeah. It was an experience.

Was nice to see so many enthusiastic future writers.
(they haven't had rejections yet!)

Quote: Mikey Jackson @ June 21 2009, 1:30 PM BST

I've been invited by West Sussex Council to take part in a Creative Cafe, a new scheme where professionals in the "creative industries" (script writing, music production, fashion, journalism, etc) give a talk and offer advice to six form pupils doing courses on said subjects.

View original

What advice did you give?

Well done, Mikey. Must have been quite nerve racking.

How did it go? I may have something similar in the pipeline.

I'm more worried about answering questions than anything to be honest. How did you go about that? What kind of questions did you get hit with etc?

Cheers
Craig

Quote: Marc P @ June 24 2009, 10:45 PM BST

What advice did you give?

View original

Bound around like an over-eager puppy. Expect to get intio the BBC College of Comedy every time you enter. And load your signatures in comedy forums with a ridiculous number of links that nobody in their right mind would ever click on.