The Third Draft

Here's another Parisian resource for you.

Yves Lavandier (writer/director, script consultant, and author of the book Writing Drama) will lead two screenwriting workshops  in Paris. Thirty weekly sessions of 4 hours each. Workshop will focus on practice rather than theory, and participants will emerge with a completed script. Runs October 2008 - June 2009. One of the workshops will be in English.
For more info, write to Yves Lavandier. Hurry, limited places available.

My friend Judith Merians is giving another one of her fabulous workshops in September. Details below!

FILM PRODUCING WORKSHOP

Get the inside information that can make you more successful as a writer, director, producer, or hyphenate filmmaker.  Do you want to produce the script you wrote or the literary property you optioned, start a production company so you can develop projects, or talk to producers intelligently?  In the Film Producing Workshop you will learn what it means to be a producer, what skills you need, who you do business with, how you analyze the marketplace and the buyers, how to talk to money, distributors, and producers and think like they do.  Whatever your role in making films there is much to be learned that will influence the script you write, the producers you work with, the companies you target, the projects you select, and the deals you make.
 
Led by Judith Merians, who has been an entertainment lawyer and studio executive, literary agent, and film school professor in Los Angeles for over 25 years.  In her years in Hollywood, Judith has been involved in hundreds of films and has sat on all sides of the table - development, production, financing, completion bonds, distribution, and marketing.
 
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 13, 2008, 3-6PM
Join us for this 3-hour workshop session sponsored by Adrian Leeds and Parler Paris Upstairs at La Pierre du Marais, 96, rue des Archives (at the corner of rue de Bretagne), 75003 Paris. Métro: Temple, République, or Arts et Métiers
Only 30€ per person!

I'm back from a wonderful week at DreamAgo's annual Plume & Pellicule international screenwriting workshop  (Sierre, Switzerland). Plume & Pellicule literally means "Quill & Film" but stands for "From Script to Screen." Designed as the first step in a process of taking a script into production, this year's Plume & Pellicule brought together 10 writers, 4 screenwriting consultants, and 2 directors for a series of intensive workshops.

Both writers and consultants hailed from around the globe.  The countries represented amongst the writers were: France, Martinique, Chile, Cuba, the USA, Tunisia, Cameroon, and Portugal. The coaches were John Herman Shaner (USA); Maggie Soboil (South Africa); Hasan Legzouli (Morocco); Arturo Arango (Cuba); Randa Haines (USA) and Yves Lavandier (France).

I went along as part of the organizing team. My duties included scheduling and translations (DreamAgo's working languages are English, French, and Spanish), and I had a chance to sit in on several consultations. DreamAgo's inexhaustibe founder Pascale Rey set out with a very specific goal: to foster global storytelling and to help scripts that touch on our common human experience get off the ground. Her vision is beginning to manifest. I was astounded by the quality of the scripts and the intensity and insightfulness of the coaching. The work was rigorous, the comments pertinent, and in every case the writer walked away with a new perspective on his or her story. For seven days we functioned at a very high level in three languages--sometimes speaking all of them at once. 

Days began at 8:30 with breakfast, followed by the first consultation.  Then lunch, then another consultation. Promptly thereafter, we all walked down the hill to Sierre's movie theater for the screening. Dinner was at 10 PM. We rarely got to bed before 1 AM. In addition to consultations, the writers also had sessions on scene work with Randa Haines and pitching with Yves Lavandier, and the opportunity to spend some time with special guests from the screenings, such as John Jeffcoat (director, Outsourced) and Belén Rueda (actress, Mar Adentro).

Although we worked hard, we  played hard, too. Comfortably ensconsed in the Chateau Mercier, nestled in a valley surrounded by snow-capped mountains, and spoiled by a marvellous chef and generously flowing wine, it would have been impossible  to do otherwise .  Conversation topics ranged from the state of Tunisia today, the differences between male-female relationship dynamics in the US vs. France, to sexuality in Cuba,  the US independent film distribution system, the Spanish-language telenovela market, what it's like working with Jack Nicholson, and cross-cultural lessons in flirting.  I was blown away by the diversity and the wealth of experiences each person brought to the  table (One young man claimed to be able to kiss in Spanish!).  By the end of the week, we had forged strong bonds with one another and became friends and colleagues in the truest sense of the words.

For more information on DreamAgo, go to: www.dreamago.com.

To see the YouTube videos of this year's Plume & Pellicule, go to: http://fr.youtube.com/user/dreamagoers. Make sure you check out Day 8! We took a special excursion into the Alps. You can see us ziplining through the canyons!

Also, keep your eye out for Tengri, a beautiful film by Marie-Jaoul de Poncheville, a 2005 Plume & Pellicule participant! Although it hasn't officially opened yet, DreamAgo premiered it at this year's screenings.

Here's a great opportunity for internationally-minded screenwriters. But hurry--the final deadline for script submissions is JANUARY 20, 2008!

Each year, the film association DreamAgo sponsors a 10-day screenwriting workshop in Sierre, Switzerland called "Plume et Pellicule." Ten talented screenwriters are given the opportunity to spend an intensive week in one-on-one coaching sessions with international film professionals. Last year's coaches included: Screenwriter/director/actor Alexandre Adabachian (Russia); Writer/Director Henry Bean (USA); Writer/Director Larry Gross (USA); Director Randa Haines (USA); and producer Maggie Soboil (USA). Director Stephen Frears (The Queen) gave a one-day masterclass, and screenwriter Guilliermo Arriaga joined the group via video-conference. The actor Jorge Perrugoria (Cuba) was also present. The workshops are in English, Spanish, and French. There will be translators present throughout.

DreamAgo was founded to develop, support, and promote films that span a variety of political, social, or cultural themes yet speak to the universal in all of us. Its aim is to bring compelling, original, and marketable scripts to the screen by fostering greater cross-cultural collaborations. View the video for more information on the workshop:

If you have at least a first-draft script in English, French, or Spanish, you may submit it for consideration. The fee is 80 euros. Every participant receives feedback.

If you are selected, your room, board, and workshop participation during the 10-day stay at the castle in Sierre are free of charge. You will remain responsible for your travel costs and for providing a high-standard English translation of your script. You may also request DreamAgo to translate your script for you at a very reasonable rate.

I will be at Sierre this year as part of the DreamAgo team. I highly recommend Plume & Pellicule to writers whose themes tend toward the social, cultural, and political, and who strive to touch upon that which we share as human beings no matter where we live on the planet.

To register, or for further information, please visit www.dreamago.com.

Great news! I just posted a complimentary ebook on this website called Joining, Creating, or Running a Screenwriters' Group.

One of the many ways I've improved my writing and advanced my career was through joining writers' groups. Having a weekly submission requirement to meet helped me stay on track. Thanks to the discipline my writing groups provided, I now have several scripts under my belt—all while working a day job!

So if you've been thinking of joining a screenwriters' group, or if you need a few tricks to help breathe new life into an existing group, check out my ebook. It's full of great tips for finding or starting your own screenwriters' group. Feel free to forward Joining, Creating, or Running a Screenwriter's Group  to your friends and to share it with your writing group. All I ask is that you include the ebook in its entirety, with no editing whatsoever, and credit me at www.TheThirdDraft.com as the source. (Please do not copy portions of this ebook for any reason or post this ebook on your website without written permission from me. If you ask nicely, I'll say yes, so don't be shy! Just drop me a quick note here, and let me know what you're planning.)

Let me know what you think of Joining, Creating, or Running a Screenwriter's Group.  Fill out the form in the navigation bar to receive announcements of future ebook releases.

And keep on writing!