Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Biola Media Conference - May 4, 2013

Saturday, May 4, will find me at the CBS Television Lot in Studio City, CA in support of the Biola Media Conference.

BMC's Webpage and Registration Link

I was to interview Mark Burnett but changes in his schedule prevent his attending.

 Interview with Ryan Coogler & Daniel Cretton


Ryan Coogler (L), and Destin Daniel Cretton (R)
During the opening session on the main stage, I am scheduled to interview Ryan Coogler and Daniel Cretton. Ryan wrote and directed the Audience and Grand Jury award at this year's Sundance Film Festival with his story about the murder of Oscar Grant in a feature film that The Weinstein Company picked up called FRUITVALE STATION.

Meanwhile, at the South By Southwest Festival (SXSW) Destin Daniel Cretton was busy also capturing the Audience and Grand Jury Award with his feature SHORT TERM 12 about a 20-something supervising staff member of a foster care facility as she navigates the troubled waters of that world alongside her co-worker and longtime boyfriend. Cinedigm will distribute to theaters and video.

I'm looking forward to meeting and talking with both Ryan and Destin. If you have questions you'd like me to ask either of them, please send them ASAP to: stan@moralpremise.com.



More Secrets of Award Winning Screenplays


Later in the day I will be presenting another of my "series" of workshops on the Secrets of Successful Screenplays and Stories. The presentation this time will slow down from last workshops and focus on just one area that repeatedly shows up as a problem in my consulting. The problem is this:  How does a writer take all the wonderful character and story ideas that come from imagination and research, and organize them into a story-flow that engages, accelerates action, and resolves to the satisfaction of the audience?

In other words: PLOTTING and CHARACTER ARCS. I'll give you a hint at the elegant and fun solution that I will share, and which I can virtually guarantee will eliminate writer's block and a well-structured story. The practical solution involves goals, subplots, The Moral Premise, and those handy index cards.

If we have time, I'll also briefly share some interesting similarities (and differences) between two recent Oscar Award Winning screenplays: D'JANGO and THE KING'S SPEECH.  The differences would quickly eliminate one from every screenplay contest ever held in Hollywood, and yet... it wins an Oscar. But the similarities are even more interesting.

Hope to see you there.

Stan