American Film Market Dailies

Writers Workshop

Sunday, November 10     |     2:30pm – 6:00pm     |     Starlight Ballroom, Fairmont Hotel

You Had Me at Page One

Make the reader love you on the first page! Learn writing techniques that help your script hit the ground running. Through examples from your favorite scripts, we take a hard look at word choice, scene direction, dialogue approach, and the nuances of the page.

Instructor
Pilar Alessandra, Author/Consultant, On the Page

The Art of Cinematic Superstructure: Finding the Essential Turning Points in Your Screenplay

One of the greatest challenges facing all screenwriters, directors and producers is the process of developing an engaging premise into a compelling, well-structured story. This workshop explores the art of superstructure, those essential narrative turning points that have held together great stories not only throughout the history of filmmaking, but since Shakespeare and The Greeks. From your opening scene to midpoint to your screenplay’s emotionally engaging climax, you will learn how each of these critical scenes work in synthesis with one another and in the process avoid the pitfalls of the poorly structured story. The final goal of the workshop is a greater understanding of what holds any great story together and a set of tools that participants can immediately apply to their current screenplay.

Instructor
Steven Wolfson, Screenwriter/Instructor, UCLA