Polish and refine your screenplay from a work-in-progress to a draft.
This intensive one-week workshop is for young writers who have a screenplay in progress and are seeking guidance, direction and focus from an accomplished screenwriter. It is equally applicable for those who have a completed script and want to revise and polish it for the market or for production.
Class time is divided between lectures on the dynamics of screenwriting and discussion of student scripts. One-on-one sessions between the instructor and each student take place throughout the week. The workshop delves more deeply into concept, story structure, character development, plot and subplots, central theme, dialogue, and the process of revising a screenplay. Discuss suggestions for rewrites, alternative approaches, and explore solutions to the problems posed by each script. Learn to look critically at writing with special attention to the importance of economy in writing, visual storytelling, and how to heighten the emotional stakes of story and character. The class surveys the practical realities of the film industry in terms of getting material read and sold, finding an agent, deal-making options, and how Hollywood works. By the end of the week, each script has been reviewed and reconstructed with a 'battle plan' on how to take the script to the next level, including marketing strategies.
About the Young Artists Program: Young Artists’ days are comprised of both classroom and field/location work: lectures and critiques, demonstrations, shooting, editing, writing, computer workflow and/or darkroom work, depending on the workshop. All instructors are talented industry professionals as well as experienced educators, and each works with a teaching assistant, providing additional support for their class. The students are busy all day and into the mid-evening hours, attending presentations from visiting master faculty. All Young Artists reside at a nearby residence (a motel-style building, with four students to a room, gender specific, and private bath) located 3/4 of a mile from campus. The property is controlled by Maine Media Workshops and is used exclusively by students and their counselors. Students are shuttled to the main campus each morning for breakfast and to begin their day, and are driven back at the end of the each day, following their last class or other scheduled activity. All meals are taken together. Parents can indicate any special dietary needs upon registration. Counselors supervise the students 24 hours a day, and help make group decisions about weekend activities like swimming, bowling and hiking. Coin laundry facilities are available on campus. A lobster dinner is served (there are other choices) on the last Friday night of each workshop, and all Workshops students gather for an evening presentation of highlights from the week’s work. Parents are welcome to attend and meal tickets may be purchased in the Registration Office. We recommend students have access to $150 over the two-week period for incidentals, snacks, movies, field trips etc.
Check-in is on Sunday, between 3 and 6 PM and departure is on Saturday morning.
Tuition Note: includes room and board
Wayne Beach has written screenplays for Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox, Disney, TNT, Fox 2000 Pictures, and Village Roadshow Pictures. He has developed projects for the makers of Pirates of the Caribbean, Law & Order, The Fugitive, Ocean's Eleven, and The Perfect Storm. His filmed writing credits include Murder at 1600 (Warner Bros.) starring Wesley Snipes, Diane Lane, Alan Alda and Dennis Miller; and The Art of War (Warner Bros.) starring Wesley Snipes, Donald Sutherland and Anne Archer.