Workshops
All workshops are limited in size and are offered on two tracks: new and advanced screenwriters. For writers new to the screenplay form who hope to develop a first script, workshops will cover intensively all aspects of craft: Story, Structure, Character, and Dialogue. Advanced screenwriters will have an opportunity to rethink a work in progress with the guidance of a professional writer and teacher.
Workshops include: Creating Stronger Scenes/Advanced
Instructor: Andrew Bienen
This workshop will focus on how to construct stronger scenes. Through the study and examination of film scenes, participants will experience what works, what doesn’t and why. Emphasis will be on the scene’s function in the story as a whole, as well as the moment to moment life of the scene including strengthening its dimensionality through craft. Students will have the option of writing a new scene each day or choosing a scene they have already written and reworking to make it stronger.
Keeping the Focus: From Concept to Scenes/Advanced
Instructor: Christina Lazaridi
This workshop will demystify the process of writing a script from concept to scene-writing through brief in-class writing exercises, discussion of film clips and analysis of excerpts from produced scripts. Elements of craft will be applied and related to students work with ongoing development of workshop scripts. Students will discover a renewed sense of how to structure their scripts. Workshop will provide a methodology to clarify story elements, characters, plots and themes. It will offer a stronger grasp of the nuance of scene structure as well as a troubleshooting list for when things don’t work. Participants will leave with a reworked opening of their film and structure of act one.
Finishing and Presenting a Screenplay/Beginning/Advanced
Instructor: Ken Friedman
This class will help the participant know when their script is finished. How to tell? What’s left to do? It will offer the proper presentation of your script - read formatting - for dramatic effect. Mr. Friedman will teach you how to protect your work legally and ethically according to WGA and Industry standards. He will discuss common practices and what to expect in submitting to producers, agents and talent.
Scenes, Themes and Unforgettable Characters/Advanced
Instructor: Linda Seger
This workshop is about Creating Scenes and Scene Sequences, Themes and Images and Dimensional Characters with a tranformational arc. Linda Seger takes the participant/writer on a three day journey of discovering ways to deepen your work through themes, images, stronger scenes and dimensional characters.
From Structure to Film Outline/ Beginning
Instructor: Malia Scotch Marmo
This is a course on finding your story and the importance of knowing and understanding your characters. Participants will examine the value of conflict, identify the main tension of their story as it relates to resolution of the story being told. Students will also examine character wants and needs, and the creation of emotional arcs. Participants will develop the story into scene sequences - the building blocks of feature screenwriting. Issues of escalating action, the role and use of subplots, and the different types of narrative tension will be explored.
Romantic Comedies and Love Stories/Advanced
Instructor: Michael Hauge
Love stories heighten both the emotional appeal and the
commercial potential of a screenplay and provide the writer with a powerful tool for revealing inner conflict, character growth, and theme. Using the most successful romantic comedies and love stories of the last decade as examples, this advanced workshop will guide participants through the process of structuring their love stories for maximum emotional involvement, insuring that their characters’ romantic relationships are original, credible and satisfying, employing the unique rules of love stories and romantic comedies, using love stories to give their characters powerful inner and outer conflicts, and creating multi-layered scenes that are original, powerful and funny.
Breaking the Back of Your Story/Beginning and Advanced
Instructor: Paula Brancato
A screenplay begins with the creation of a story. But not all stories deserve to be told. You’ve heard it said a million ways: We are looking for a premise that is unique and unusual.” “…. a high-concept screenplay.” “Never seen before….” So how does one get the remarkable insight that generates a winning screenplay? And once you have the insight, how do you turn it into a screenplay? How do you break the back of a story and make it yours? This is a step by step workshop that starts with finding story by deepening character and clarifying story arcs. Participants will structure a story and learn the techniques of sequencing plot.
The Art & Craft of Film Adaptation/Advanced
Instructor: Stephen Molton
Adaptation is the means by which stories travel from form to form. Even when describing a dream, you are engaging in a deeply subjective form of adaptation; translating one language into another by way of critical choices about point-of-view, character; tone, plot, theme, dialogue and pace. How does a story maintain its essence in that alchemical process? How does the adapter decide what to preserve and what to discard in transforming a literary work to a visual one? What is the difference between strict adaptation (the ego in service to the tale), and more fanciful retellings (e.g. “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial” as an adaptation of the Gospels of the New Testament)? This workshop uses three original texts to explore the adaptation process. Participants will have the opportunity to work on personal adaptations or choose from one of three short stories.
Writing for Emotional Impact/Beginning/Advanced
Instructor: Karl Iglesias
This workshop will explore and study the emotional impact of great stories. It will offer advanced, dramatic techniques to attract, engage and fascinate the reader of your script and take your writing to the next emotional level.
The Story/Beginning
Instructor: Frank Pugliese
No matter how great the inspiration-for or idea-behind a screenplay may be, what all great films share is a compelling and well-told story. Participants will explore the fundamentals of screenwriting while finding and developing the story that will eventually evolve into a full-length screenplay. The workshop will examine the opportunities and obstacles of telling and sustaining a story within the screenplay form. Simultaneously this exploration of form will require participants to analyze and commit to the story-telling aspects of their story. Additional work includes examinations and analysis of successful screenplays, well established films, and the role of the writer in the medium.