'Iron Man,' 'Children of Men' Scribe to Speak at Great American Pitchfest

The Great American PitchFest is proud to announce that Iron Man and Children of Men scribe Mark Fergus has joined the ranks of the Storylink All-Stars. He will be appearing at the Great American PitchFest on Saturday, June 21 to discuss his career, writing in general, and whether or not Tony Stark wears iron underpants. To register for the Great American PitchFest, click here.

Mark will be joining us thanks to the help of our friends at CineStory. The following is an article by Mark Fergus and writing partner Hawk Ostby about CineStory and its influence on their lives and careers:

How CineStory Changed Our Lives

by Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby

As new writers, winning the CineStory competition and attending the Retreat gave us the beacon we had been looking for. It convinced us our writing was strong enough to deserve the time and attention of great industry professionals; it encouraged us to up our game, to write better and work harder than we ever thought we could; and it led us to the people who became our managers and agents.

We’d been writing together for several years, we thought our work was pretty good - but was it really? Writing is done in such an isolated bubble that it’s easy to start doubting oneself. Or deluding oneself. There’s no roadmap on this journey, no clear-cut path to success, no definitive sources of information. We knew we loved the process, we’d received fantastic feedback from family and friends (what else is Mom supposed to say?) - but there had to be some other way to know that we were on the right track. Script competitions became a useful tool. They told you how your work fared among hundreds, or even thousands of your peers. They all had their different "personalities". But these days there are a proliferation of screenwriting competitions out there. And then there is CineStory.

CineStory is a retreat - literally. It is an oasis. You drive up into the mountains, leave all your workaday tangles behind, and spend several days learning more about yourself and your craft than you could possibly hope to in a month of script classes and seminars. The difference is personal, face-to-face, eye-to-eye attention. Apart from the communal talks and panels, the real heart of the retreat is sitting across from industry mentors to go over your scripts, your writing technique - your voice. And it’s your voice you need to nurture in order to rise above the pack - it’s the one thing you know better than anyone else alive. Your mentors are not enthusiasts - they are folks working in the trenches of Hollywood; fellow writers, producers, agents, managers - people who hold you to the same standards they hold the writers they want to work with in the big, bad, professional world.

It’s a warm, friendly, relaxed environment - and at the same time a very intense experience. You will get to the heart of what you do. What you want to do. How you want to progress as a writer. The career you want to forge for yourself.

At CineStory, we talked one-on-one with our mentors, and had them ask us the most fundamental and important question a writer can be asked: what is your story really about? It’s a process that takes you beyond character, beyond structure, dialogue, plotting, genre and tone. It takes you right to the soul of what a writer does - to follow one’s own voice to the truth of a story that will stand the test of time.

We walked away from CineStory with confidence. Confidence to embrace feedback (the good as well as the tough), the ability to take notes and to listen with one’s whole body. And with the fire to work harder than we ever thought possible, to hone our craft, to raise the bar and bring our writing to a new level. To swing for the fences. These mentors weren’t there to congratulate us for merely putting pen to paper - they were there to teach us about the skills we would need to be working professionals. It was a milestone for us; when we think about the moment our career really began, we think back to our first CineStory retreat.

It’s an experience every screenwriter should have.