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3:30 PM -
5:15 PM
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Tuesday
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Keynote Address - A Conversation With Gary Goldstein
To get our 10th SCSFe started with a bang, Gary Goldstein, President of The Goldstein Company will pass on to you strategies to grow and market your career as a screenwriter. He will offer strategies for career building, effective networking and answer common questions about how to get your screenplay read and up your game in the film industry.
Where most books, courses and programs focus on how to craft a pitch or screenplay, Gary will zero in on the brick and mortar of building a business that can sustain and endure. This information is generally less available and the stuff of experience garnered over more than two decades in the roles of literary manager and now as film producer.
Most writers suffer career quandary, which is natural. The good news: there are specific, achievable, result-oriented strategies any screenwriter, regardless of resume or location, can use to better the business of their career.
Some topics to be addressed:
* Commercial fare vs rugged individualism (standing up for your creative voice & beliefs)
* To pitch or to write on spec?
* With completed script in hand, whether still better to pitch?
* Development + rewriting
* How to prepare for and take a meeting + what tools to have at the ready
* How to get your script(s) read
* How to penetrate the system and make strategic friendships that will help navigate, open doors
and champion your work
* the importance of networking inside AND outside the beltway of hollywood
* agency vs management
At the conclusion of your conversation with Gary you should be ready to submerge yourself in all the SCSFe classes, seminars, panel discussions, consultations, pitch session, social events and all the rest with an "I Can" attitude and a determination to make your screenwriting journey a smashing success.
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Gary Goldstein
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9:00 AM -
4:30 PM
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Wednesday
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Kick-Off Special Event -- Karl Iglesias Day!
This event is an elective. Ticket fee is $150 for non-conference attendees, only $50 for those registered for either The Screenwriting Symposium or The Hollywood Connection.
Karl's focus will be "Writing for Emotional Impact":
It's not about plot points. It's not about structure. It's not about character. It's about emotion!
There are three kinds of feelings when reading a script: boredom, interest, and WOW! To become a successful writer you must create that WOW! feeling on as many pages as possible, and this requires writing that engages the reader emotionally. How to generate that experience will be the focus of this intensive one-day seminar.
Based on Karl Iglesias' popular classes at UCLA Extension, this seminar will go beyond the basics and argue that Hollywood is in the emotion-delivery business, selling emotional experiences packaged in movies and TV shows.
Karl will not only encourage you to deliver emotional impact on as many pages as possible, he will show you how - offering a smorgasbord of dramatic techniques to take your writing to the professional level. Topics will include:
* How to rework your ideas to generate maximum emotional effect
* The Build-Reveal-Connect process for humanizing characters
* The five key visceral emotions of all successful stories
* The three requirements for dramatic conflict
* How to create a page turner through scene transitions
* Crafting fascinating scenes with the Emotional Palette
* How to energize your narrative description
* Techniques to make your dialogue leap off the page
* The psychology of subtext
* Avoiding on the nose dialogue.
LUNCH BREAK from 12:00 Noon til 1:30 PM.
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Karl Iglesias
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7:00 AM -
8:30 AM
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Thursday
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Writing Warm-Up
Join Anne's early morning writing warm-ups to center yourself for the day. Bring pen and paper and keep the hand moving on the page. Write who you are and what you feel in a safe, encouraging environment. Anne's workshop creates a buzz at each year's conference. She is back by popular demand.
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Anne Randolph
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3:15 PM -
4:45 PM
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Thursday
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Bring Your Characters and Dialogue Alive
Bring Your Characters and Dialogue Alive
Learn how to use acting techniques to engage the imagination in
creating
deeper more genuine and natural characters, relationships and
dialogue.
Learn to apply these techniques to the development of both character
arc and
the dramatic action of the story through interactive exercises and
discussion. Bring your characters, story, and dialogue and walk
away with
concrete tools to enhance your own process.
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Stefany Burrowes
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Group Therapy
Sometimes, the wonderful story in your head doesnt quite make it to the page. It happens to all writers. You just don't want to find out that it's happened to you when you hear back from that agent or producer you were trying so hard to impress with your latest script.
Finding the right writers group can be the cure for the common cold read. The best writers groups will reinforce where your story went right, as well as stress those areas that might not have worked as well as you had hoped.
In this Seminar Steve will show you how to find or start your own writers group. You'll also learn how to give and take criticism without making it personal. You'll leave with Steve's tips on knowing how to give your writing the extra edge that a writers group can provide.
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Steve Davis
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Screenplay Formatting: What's In? What's Out?
Nothing makes a producer discard a script faster than poor formatting. Whether you're a beginner, intermediate or advanced screenwriter, formatting rules change almost daily and all of us need to keep abreast of what's in, and what's out. In this workshop, we'll cover the latest changes in spec screenplay formatting including slug lines, secondary headers, narrative blocks, camera direction, parentheticals, margins, montages, and so much more.
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Darren Foster
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The Little Indie That Could: How Indie Script "3000" Became the Hit Film "Pretty Woman"
Having read approximately 8,500 screenplays in his career, Gary has realized there are distinct elements that elevate a screenplay from good to great, from a possible movie to undeniable catnip for talent, producers and others crucial to seeing a script move to the large screen.
What makes a script truly special, a standout ? From its inception through development, from sale and pre-production through marketing and release, You will learn both the journey that was Pretty Woman and how that applies to screenwriters and their projects today.
* How great stories get made into great movies
* Gary's personal journey: experience discovery, persistence, rejection & success
* Re-writing & development of Pretty Woman: the journey from independent dark drama to a Disney romantic comedy
* Protecting and maintaining the integrity of the writers original vision and screenplay
*Experience and advice for writers about how to create opportunity to translate script to movie
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Gary Goldstein
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Creating the Want in the (Reader) Audience
Every good screenplay has three major wants. The first is what the protagonist wants, the second is what the antagonist wants, and the third and most important is what the audience wants. This approach to screenwriting takes account of the audience as a passive but critical participant in the action and bonds the audience to the Writers inspiration. Understanding how to create a want in the audience, how to nurture that want, how to hold it, how to frustrate it, and how to finally fulfill it is the essential skill that will hold your reader from page one to the end.
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Edward Khmara
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All The Things I've Learned About Screenwriting That I Think You Oughta Know
In this primer for beginning, emerging and intermediate screenwriters you will discover what it takes to write a professional, sellable screenplay. Discover the thrill of writing visually and meaningfully. Larry's seminar will emphasize the look (the craft) and the feel (the art) of a screenplay. If that screenplay is just a gleam in your eye, a first draft, or you are struggling through your first re-write, you will leave this 90-minute experience with a better understanding of the world of screenwriting and what it takes to succeed in it. Have your questions ready. Larry might have an answer or two.
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Larry N Stouffer
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5:00 PM -
6:30 PM
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Thursday
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The High Road to High Concept
This workshop-styled seminar will lay the groundwork for a high concept screenplay by decoding the theory of the high concept idea. Once defined, students will create their own concept that is intriquing for the writer, while marketable for the producer.
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Matt Dixson
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Adaptation: Turning Source Material into a Screenplay
Have you found a good novel youd like to adapt? Where do you start? And what is an adaptation, really?
In this seminar you will learn about the differences between screenplays and other forms of source material. After all, not every good book makes a good movie. Sometimes books have to be bent, and sometimes outright changed beyond recognition, in order to translate to the silver screen. Mike and Pat will walk you through the process of turning that bestseller into a marketable screenplay.
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Patrick A. Davis
Mike Farris
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Cardboard Characters: How to Avoid Creating One-Dimensional People
Character development is often the weakest part of most scripts. As writers, we spend so much time developing the concept and story structure that we often forget the characters; who truly are the story. In this workshop, we'll work with character archetypes, arcs, backstory, and flaws. We'll investigate useful tools like character biographies to help develop character interplay and make your characters jump off the page.
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Darren Foster
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How To Write A Screenplay in 10 Weeks using the Horowitz System
Dreaming of finishing that draft? Now you can! Whether youre starting a new script, polishing a first draft or picking up a project thats been shelved, this seminar will teach you how to write your script fast. Based on renowned script coach and NYU Graduate Film Teacher, Marilyn Horowitz workbook How to Write a Screenplay in 10 Weeks, learn advanced writing techniques that focus on character first, plot second. This seminar provides an overview of her Trademarked writing technique in which 90% of her students have finished a screenplay in 10 weeks or less!
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Marilyn Horowitz
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The Seven Essential Elements of a Great Screenplay
Rob Tobin, one of the most highly respected experts on screenwriting and story structure, does more than just describe the elements of a good screenplay, he discusses and explains the relationships between those elements that are necessary to create a cohesive, bullet-proof screenplay structure. "Story structure is to story what a glass is to wine," Rob states. "The glass allows you to hold and present your fine wine to those who wish to taste it. The story structure allows you to hold and present your story to those who wish to hear and see it. Every element of a well-told story arises out of structure: characterization, dialogue, theme, plot in the same way that every element of a house rests on, depends on and arises from the foundation of that house. Structure is not limiting, it is freeing. With a solid structure in place you can go wild with your imagination, creating the most amazing stories, safe in the knowledge that you will be able to hold and present even the wildest most untraditional story to your audience in a way that they can accept and appreciate it." No-one explains story structure, the elements or story and the needed relationships between those elements as clearly or in as much detail as Rob does.
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Rob Tobin
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Writing Warm-Up
Join Anne's early morning writing warm-ups to center yourself for the day. Bring pen and paper and keep the hand moving on the page. Write who you are and what you feel in a safe, encouraging environment. Anne's workshop creates a buzz at each year's conference. She is back by popular demand.
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Anne Randolph
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Finding Your Original Voice
Breaking into the feature film business is a nearly impossible task -- but it can happen! This seminar focuses on the element that unites nearly every breakthrough original screenplay produced in the past several years: an authentic and unique voice that infuses the opening scene, the climax, and everything in between. How can you nurture and develop your own original voice? We'll look at several films to unravel some of their secrets, and encourage you to move past cliches and uncertainties to fearlessly script a story that only you can tell.
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Terry Borst
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A Short Course in a Nasty Business
You've sold your screenplay. You've been through development hell, rewrites, polishes, the project's been killed twice, jumpstarted, resurrected, and now you're a "go" movie. You've got major star and a major studio. A dream come true. Well, maybe. Come and experience the ups and downs, the heartbreaks and occasional triumphs of a seven-movie career. And what about the money? We'll talk and you'll learn about how it comes and where it goes - there's a lesson in it somewhere, and a lot of fun along the way. In screenwriting, everything that doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
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Chuck Pfarrer
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Polarize This!: The Engines of Conflict in Screenplays and Novels
This seminar focuses on polarity, the essential engine of conflict, looking at how forces of nature like gravity and electro-magnetism have their parallels in story-telling. Creating a strong polarity in a story automatically generates conflict and a force of attraction that holds and keeps the audience's attention. You will learn how universal principles of polarity can work in stories to stimulate change in a character, through the cycles of reversal that make an exciting drama or narrative.
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Christopher Vogler
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Writing Romantic Comedy
Cynthia will teach you how to write authentic fresh love stories. How to make your characters specific, right for each other, with forces that are keeping them apart. And most importantly how to crack open the heart of the characters so they fall in love with each other.
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Cynthia Whitcomb
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Writing Cinematically: How to Tell Your Story on the Screen
To make it as a screenwriter, it's not enough just to have a great story. You have to be able to tell that story in a way that is cinematic that not only jumps off the page, but also jumps out at you from the big screen. That means learning the techniques for writing visually, grabbing the reader in the first few pages, revealing character through actions instead of dialogue, proper scene structure, engaging all of the readers senses, and finishing up with a bang. Mike is here to help you with all of that.
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Mike Farris
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Old Myths and Modern Heroes
For millennia the concept of the hero has dominated the great myths of the world. Regardless of the culture or historical period, the heroic cycle remains constant. Thinkers such as Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell have carefully analyzed this essential archetype of the human psyche and described in detail the various manifestations of the hero. This seminar will present the mythic structure of the heroes journey and suggest ways that one can alter the structure of the hero archetype so as to breathe new life into a screenplays protagonist.
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Matt Fontis
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Writing the Treatment
Jump start your professional career by learning the basics of writing a compelling treatment with veteran screenwriting coach and NYU Graduate Film Teacher, Marilyn Horowitz. Writing a treatment can be the fast track to getting your work produced. In addition, this seminar teaches you how to tweak your logline and take your concept to the highest possible level.
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Marilyn Horowitz
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Creating and Sustaining Theme Through Symbols and Power Objects in Your Screenplay
After a short discussion of theme and its critical importance to the writer, the seminar will focus on using symbols and what I call power objects - to establish and sustain themes through a screenplay. Much of the discussion will center on the film The Natural which is a textbook example of how specific symbols (a wooden baseball bat and lightning from the sky) are used establish major themes from the films first frames and carry them through to the last. You will be asked to pick other symbols and power objects out of your experience and discuss how they were used to create an emotionally satisfying experience.
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Edward Khmara
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WRITING THE SHORT vs. WRITING THE FEATURE SCREENPLAY
Shorts are the research department of cinema. They are booming in popularity due to dwindling attention spans, the popularity of Internet sites like YouTube, and the omnipresence of mobile, small screen broadcast outlets such as cell phones. In this seminar Tom will outline the essential characteristics of the short and contrast them with the DNA of the feature. How do shorts and features differ in concept and execution? What traditional story models do both forms share? What can we learn from each and how do they influence one another? And will the cinema of the future be a hybrid of both?
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Tom Musca
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Dialogue and Characterization
Dialogue arises out of characterization and situation. Characterization arises out of back story. Until you understand these concepts and elements, your dialogue will never be completely believable. We've all seen those films in which the characterization and dialogue alienate us from the story because they are not believable and do not help drive the story forward. You need to know how to create your protagonist, antagonist, hero's ally, their backstories and motivations and the enabling circumstances that they all find themselves in at the beginning of your screenplay.
Characters and dialogue are the two elements that will make or break your story and if you do not know what you're doing when creating those two elements, you will lose your credibility with the audience, you will pull your audience out of your story and may never be able to pull them back in. These are the two most crucial elements of a well-written screenplay and the success of your script and of your screenwriting career depend on mastering their use.
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Rob Tobin
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Art of the 5-Minute Pitch
In This Seminar you will learn how to relax as you make that first pitch or fine-tune the pitches you've already practiced.
To get you prepared for The Hollywood Connection, Steve will help to ensure that your delivery is smooth and your pitch is effective. It's all in knowing how.
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Steve Davis
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7:00 AM -
8:30 AM
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Saturday
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Writing Warm-Up
Join Anne's early morning writing warm-ups to center yourself for the day. Bring pen and paper and keep the hand moving on the page. Write who you are and what you feel in a safe, encouraging environment. Anne's workshop creates a buzz at each year's conference. She is back by popular demand.
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Anne Randolph
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This list of seminars
is based on the availability of the instructors
and is subject to change without notification.
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