Black Screenwriting

Off to Milan soon to speak at the Screenwriting Research Network annual conference taking place in Milan this year. I’m talking about how black screenwriters might write for non-black filmmakers. It doesn’t happen very often.
These two films connected with my paper in my head.

BlacKkKlansman Poster image

and

Yardie Film Poster

I saw Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman yesterday and am speaking alongside two others after a screening of Yardie on Friday about black diaspora depiction so waiting until after Friday before forming any conclusions.

BA Filmmaking Course

So NTU are starting a BA Hons Filmmaking course that I’ll be teaching on and talking about periodically about here. Applications are proving very strong. Starts in October of this year.

The focus is writing, producing and directing

Super excited to be teaching filmmaking for most of my week once it kicks in.

 

Toronto Creating Characters Done

Creating Characters International Symposium at Humber Institute of Technology and Learning (ITAL), Lakeshore Drive, Toronto is finished. Mine was the last presentation of the three days and went well. The last day we had Barry Flatman, Joseph Kertes, and Wayson Choy attend. They discussed creating characters and both the break from the presentation of papers style and the content, what they discussed and the way they discussed it was really good. Overall the symposium was excellent. Lots of interesting conversation after each of the varied events. People were from Toronto, Barcelona, Manitoba (Winnipeg), Oklahoma, New York, Ireland, South Korea, Perth, Oporto (plus other places I’ve now forgotten) with the disciplines being as varied as the journeys we had made.

Hopefully details of how to access the publication will be forthcoming soonish.

NIAGARA FALLS

Next’s year’s takes in Barcelona, March 2015 and i’m hopeful the dates will match up with what else I’ve got going on.
I’ll no doubt post details in about 8-10 months time.
Pic of the fantastic Niagara Falls. Ideas can’t simply come from talking, they ahve to be floating about in the mist also.
Whilst at the conference a fellow delegate mentioned this Screenwriting Research Network network which i’d not heard of before

SRN-logo-red

Going to check them out.

Heading off to the airport now.

international Conference Cinema: Technology, Art, Communication 2013

Paper done. Marvelisation: The Rise of Complex Narratology on the Hollywood Screen.
Fees paid and sorted so Avanca, Aveiro, Portgual in July here I come.

Really looking forward to going now. Site

This image below give some sense of what i’ll be talking about

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Present should afford lots of really good visual material.

BAFTA Screenwriters Lecture series

Link here to Bafta’s screenwriters interview series.

BAFTA screenwriting interview series page grab

Screenshot shows a selection of the writers interviewed. Bookmark the page and return over the months and years as more recent interviews are uplaoded.  Site has clips or longer full length interview.

Carcass-SciFi

Was reading about In Time the new film by Andrew ‘Gattaca’ Niccol and was struck by the similarities with my sciFi script Carcass. The themes and presentation of Age in the future in particular resonate. Niccoll’s Gattaca has similar themes also. DNA modification is such a sci-fi trope.

Been thinking about Carcass a lot recently and really, really need to do another draft. I’ve lots of good notes from the last reader to work on but been concentrating on stageplays for the last two years so not gone back to it. My recent screenplay (adaptation of a stageplay of mine) for a short film potentially shooting this August, has perhaps gotten me thinking about screenplays again. And this when I have a couple of development days on 57 Images Of My Father due in September too.

MUST MAKE TIME TO REWRITE CARCASS!!! MUST MAKE TIME TO REWRITE CARCASS!!! MUST MAKE TIME TO REWRITE CARCASS!!!

Aaron Sorkin interview

Interview here with Aaron Sorkin screenwriter of The Social Network. Try and catch the film if you have done so already.

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Save The Cat

Just finished Save The Cat screenwriting book. Although he wrote Stop or My Mom Will Shoot doesn’t mean Synder’s knows not of what he speaks. While I found myself arguing about the more prescriptive elements of the book I did find myself agreeing with a lot of it when referring to my own scripts. The book is published by Michael Wiese Publications. mwp publish the Judith Weston books On Acting and Directors Intuition which I think are fabulous books both of them. Synder’s book I think is a good guide as to how screenplays are ‘read’ by Hollywood execs so this might or might not be how one wants to write screenplays.

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Screenwriting Books

Recently I was invited (by Focal Press) to review a proposal for a book on screenwriting. The aspiring author  currently works as a Reader in Hollywood and brought this experience to bear in the chapter I read. The style was very direct, engaging and funny. There are loads of scriptwriting how-tos on the market but this one was closer in style to ‘Save The Cat‘ Blake Synder‘s book.

For it’s intended target audience the proposal I read worked very well. It was instructional but done in a comedic, no nonsense way that I enjoyed and felt appropriate for writers who need a shot of confidence to put work to the page and then have some sense of how to adapt and rewrite.