Pitch & Sell Your TV Show

I noticed a lot of armed army dudes in Puerto Vallarta over the last couple of days. I wondered what was going on. While driving through the city yesterday, I saw a runner with the Olympic torch run past our car. It was pretty cool. First time I’ve seen it.

So here I am in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico watching some morning TV while I’m waiting to go to the studio. All of a sudden, I see a commercial for Roller Jam, a roller derby series Jeanne produced over 10 years ago. I’m glad to see Mexico is into recycling.

We are clearing out all our current TV Pitch Schools as we get ready to receive a shipment of the new designs. This means you get the best deal we have offered, $100 off while supplies last.

Go to www.TvPitchSchool.com and use the code PITCH100 to get your copy of TV Pitch School now.

We are selling the older design (same great info) fast, so don’t delay.

It’s been a great week so far. All 40 artists I am training on the feature Batallon Mexcaltitan are learning really fast. I see them getting better each day.

Mark Simon training 40 story artists on a Mexican animated feature film

I took some time to drive around Puerto Vallarta today. The south side of the city is the tourist area. We are officed to the north.

I (Mark) am in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico this week training 40 story artists on a feature film. This is a govt. sponsored project called Batallon Mexcaltitan.

This is my second time training artists in Mexico. It is always fun and the food is great. We can see the bay from the studios. Life could be worse than telling visual stories in a beach resort town.

About a week ago Jeanne and I were in LA at LA Live where they held the premiere of Michael Jackson’s This Is It. There was a sign promoting the movie that was  well over 200 feet long. It stretched all the way across the back of LA Live and behind one of the buildings.

This Is It signage at LA Live

As you can see in this photo, fans signed every inch of the billboard. There were over 10,000 signatures. We read a number of the messages and they were all heart-felt and supportive. One read, “Michael, you are everything to me.” That sums up the feelings most posted on the sign.

The 5 days I spent in China went by in a flash. They rolled out the red carpet for us, literally. Tons of great meetings, new friends and great sightseeing.

Spent a lot of time with Max Howard, the producer of Igor, Roger Rabbit, Space Jam, Iron Giant and others (many of my favorite films). When you meet people like Max it gives you hope for our industry. What a great guy!

Max Howard and Mark Simon in ZhengZhou, China

For all you Star Wars and Simpsons fans, I also got to know Nelson Shin. Nelson created the look of the light saber in the first Star Wars film and his studio AKOM has produced the animation for the entire Simpsons run.

Nelson Shin and Mark Simon in China

Starting another long day in ZhengZhou China. We will tour the site of a new production facility and all the lectures begin.

Dinner and drinks last night was great. With all the toasting going on, many of the participants and hosts got rather drunk. It made for a humorous evening.

I arrived in China today for a forum on animation. There are people from around the world here. I had a great meeting with the EVP from Lionsgate Ken Katsumoto. It’s late now and we start first thing in the morning again.

Ken Katsumoto from Lionsgate with Mark Simon in China

We’re heading out the our booth (401) at Showbiz Expo today. We previewed it last night. What a great collection of services being displayed. We’ll be hosting pitch practice at our booth at 11 and 1 and we’ll give a talk at 3:30.