The Aegean Arts Circle presents
SCREENWRITING ON A GREEK ISLAND: Andros
With award winning screenwriter and script professor
ANDREW HORTON
JUNE 4-8TH 2007
THE CHARACTER CENTERED SCRIPT UP CLOSE a carnivalesque workshop
"Screenwriting, far from being hard work, might actually be considered
to be a form of creative play."
Larry McMurtry
For reservations and information, contact
Amalia Melis
Aegean Arts Circle
www.aegeanartscircle.com
amalia@aegeanartscircle.com
Description:
How to ENJOY the carnival of screenwriting while learning the basics of the craft or learning how to make your own "experienced" work better: that's the goal of this workshop seminar.
Both beginners and seasoned screenwriters are encouraged to participate. The workshop should also be useful to any writers who wish to gain a broader "fresh" view of screenwriting beyond (but including) the Hollywood approaches to storytelling and filming.
Models and examples will be drawn from both fiction and documentary films, short and feature, television and theatrical, European as well as American and regional, New York or LA based works. In short, this week offers both nuts and bolts and a sense of the feast of possibilities available to you.
PARTICIPANTS ARE ENCOURAGED TO WRITE A ONE PAGE (OR SHORTER!) BIOGRAPHY OF THEMSELVES, AND A ONE OR TWO PAGE TREATMENT FOR A FEATURE FILM IDEA THEY HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT OR WORKING ON. These would be useful for me to have as the workshop begins. Past workshops have resulted in many having written at least 30 pages on a new script or as much on a work in progress and we always stay in touch after a workshop to help “get your script into the right hands!” for the next step.
THE SET UP is for morning sessions listed below, 9:30-Noon
And afternoons free to enjoy Andros, write, and sign up for individual conferencing with Andrew Horton. Evening gatherings at 6pm for a screening and discussion of a worthy “character centered” film
Followed by enjoyable feasting on Andros!
Schedule:
Day One: GETTING STARTED: FROM CONCEPT TO TREATMENT
A consideration of the most important step: coming up with a film concept. We will consider also dominant images, the oral story telling process, a review of successful short films- From the beginning we will stress the VARIETY of writing possibilities which include Hollywood but much, much more.
Day Two: CREATING CHARACTERS WE CARE ABOUT
We will open up the whole subject of what is character and how to create it in major characters as well as minor figures in your script.
Day Three: STORY SENSE: STRUCTURE AND FORM & FILM AS WELL AS TV
How to tell a simple story well. Whose point of view should it be told
from? Should you use flashbacks? What about circular structures? We will cover many possibilities.
Day Four: SCENE AND SEQUENCE CONSTRUCTION
How to use dialogue, visuals, foreground/background, soundtracks as well as pace and rhythm to create the scenes and sequences that move your narrative along.
Day Five: STIRRING THE WHOLE GUMBO: ENDINGS, REWRITES & WHAT TO DO NEXT!
No, we do not find you an agent or production money. But we will
go over how to make sure you have the best script possible and then how to begin to go about realizing your script dreams. A number of examples of non-Hollywood as well as Hollywood films will be covered.
Text
Andrew Horton. Writing the Character Centered Screenplay.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
INSTRUCTOR:
ANDREW HORTON is the Jeanne H Smith Professor of Film and Video Studies at the University of Oklahoma, an award winning screenwriter, and the author of eighteen books on film, screenwriting and cultural studies including, SCREENWRITING FOR A GLOBAL MARKET (U of California Press 2004), HENRY BUMSTEAD AND THE WORLD OF HOLLYWOOD ART DIRECTION (U of Texas Press, 2003), WRITING THE CHARACTER CENTERED SCREENPLAY (U. of California Press, 2000, 2nd edtion), THE FILMS OF THEO ANGELOPOULOS (Princeton U Press, 2nd edition, 1999), and LAUGHING OUT LOUD: WRITING THE COMEDY CENTERED SCREENPLAY (U. of California Press, l999).
He has conducted script workshops across the USA and in England, Norway, New Zealand, Switzerland, Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia, Greece, Australia, among other countries.
His films include Brad Pitt’s first feature film, THE DARK SIDE OF THE SUN and much awarded SOMETHING IN BETWEEN (l983, Yugoslavia, directed by Srdjan Karanovic). He has given screenwriting workshops around the world including Norway, Germany, England, the Czech Republic, Greece, New Zealand, Switzerland and throughout the United States. His current film in pre production is ROUTE 66 to be shot in 2006, A romantic comedy with Chris Eyre as director, Hunt Lowry, producer.
The Library Journal wrote about his CHARACTER CENTERED SCREENPLAY, “Horton walks away with an Oscar in the valuable books for the prospective scripter category with his latest rendering.”
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Sample World Wide Comments on WRITING THE CHARACTER-CENTERED SCREENPLAY & LAUGHING OUT LOUD: WRITING THE COMEDY-CENTERED SCREENPLAY & Workshops Based on These Works
***I enjoyed WRITING THE CHARACTER CENTERED SCRENPLAY because it encourages you to rethink how to go about writing a character without falling back on convention and cliché’. Horton embraces what is too often overlooked in screenwriting books: the importance of the ”realm of the unresolved”.
A UCLA script student
***You brought me a lot in understanding the important place of a screenwriter in our society. He/she can help people through films and through giving them his/her point of view. I could feel your passion and it seemed to be so easy to write down a vision of the world.
A young Swiss writer, International Academy of
BROADCASTING, Montreux Switzerland
***As an aspiring writer-director studying at the University of Michigan, I've been funneling through screenwriting books, and I
was recently told to read your book, WRITING THE CHARACTER CENTERED SCREENPLAY. I was not only taken aback by its breadth and depth, but was also amazed with your writing schedules, which many books don't provide. I liked, moreover, how you treated screenplay writing as a subset of all writing, by suggesting books, such as Lajos Egri's "The Art of Dramatic Writing," that aren't just about screenwriting.
Student at the U. of Michigan
***Hopefully your inspiration will throw off many fruits in the shape of scenarios that will be realized in the near future. You were very important to me in this past year and i will follow the thread.
A Dutch screenwriter
***I just finished being notified that I won Fort Worth Theater's Hispanic Playwright Festival Award. They're going to produce my play "Ruca and Youngblood Radio Cho." I tell you this because I would read your book, an autographed copy I might add, late at night to remind me to check if I had missed anything. I thank you and want to tell you how much you've helped me, gracias amigo.
A New Orleans playwright
***I found LAUGHING OUT LOUD to be entertaining, enlightening and inspiring.
A Canadian screenwriter
***LAUGHING OUT LOUD has given me more confidence to write
some guidelines for my own comedy. Furthermore, it reinforced my appreciation for comedy on screen and in daily life. Thank you!
An Australian writer
***I bought WRITING THE CHARACTER CENTERED SCRENPLAY
while in Paris on tour. What a great tool. My first Film a short
mockumentary on Spontaneous Combustion contains the quote from Tolstoy in your book.
A young New Orleans
Filmmaker/screenwriter
***I love LAUGHING OUT LOUD. And looking forward to your next one!
An Australian comic who has
begun writing scrips
***I think you are fabulous, Andy Horton. The course I did with you remains one of the highlights of my years of study and continues to impact on me.
a New Zealand screenwriter
***I've read LAUGHING OUT LOUD in the past days with great pleasure. I was particularly impressed by the second part of the book (the historic overview), which is very uncommon in comedy books and, after reading it, I now found it essential for any book on the subject. I also enjoy the international perspectives which made me run the nearest videostore and rent lots of films I haven't bothered to look at before.
A Venezuelan screenwriter