Discussion and analysis of screenplays, scripts, and story structure for filmmakers and novelists, based on the blogger's book: "THE MORAL PREMISE: Harnessing Virtue and Vice for Box Office Success".
Below is a link to Fox 2 Detroit's coverage of a film I worked on as a script consultant for years, and then as its first Executive Producer for a short time during early casting. The movie was shot locally here in the Detroit, MI area. Weam Namou is a close friend and the author of numerous books, with a feature documentary in release and now a feature streamed in 25 countries, which has won over 50 international awards. You can watch it on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.
DESCRIPTION: In his one-hour workshop, Dr. Stan Williams will share with us the fundamental traits of all successful story telling that connect with film audiences and novel readers. These traits have everything to do with your hero’s journey of healing from weakness and vice, to strength and virtue. To some these are miracle remedies that through our characters provide mental, spiritual, and physical healing, not just to the characters we create, but also for the writer and the story consumer. You’ll learn about the importance of irony, struggle and conflict, and how we, along with our characters, can only heal ourselves by confronting and over coming conflict. Stan will also reveal to us the six story fundamentals or medicines the writer needs to internalize before even beginning to write. We’ll discover the five critical ingredients of a Log Line that cut through the thicket of the jungle and reveal the path we need to take as a writer, and that our hero must master. And most important to any holistic solution to our lives and to our character’s quest are how values drive action, and how the four ingredients of the moral premise statement will totally eliminate writers block, that illness that we all want to avoid.
BIO: Dr. Stan Williams is a veteran filmmaker and storyteller, having worked with dozens of Hollywood writers and producers over the years. His best selling story structure book was published in 2006 by Michale Wiese Books—the Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue and Vice for Box Office Success. The mainstream films he has consultant on have grossed over a billion dollars at the worldwide box office, for studios such as 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, and Disney. Most notably he has worked directly with Will Smith on over a dozen projects. Find him at https://www.stanwilliams.com/ and http://moralpremise.blogspot.com/
Weam Namou (WEE-am NA-moo), one of my students from years ago, continues to write books and make documentaries. She recently asked me to be the Vice President on her non-profit's Board of Directors of a 501(c)(3) she started called Unique Voices in Films. https://uniquevoicesinfilms.org/
I agreed, and now we're in the throes of trying to make a documentary and a feature narrative. One of Weam's geniuses is to conduct a weekly cable TV interview show. It's not that so many people watch it, but that in the process she gets to know dozens of influential people in S.E. Michigan where we both live. Thus, she has a great network.
In helping her on her feature script POMEGRANATE, which I like very much and have agreed to producer for her directorial debut, we went through the story's structure, using the 8-foot tall story diamond I keep behind a door in my office. That her in the picture on the right posting a beat in Act 3.
So, a few weeks ago, she had me on her show a second time to talk just about the Moral Premise. It's below on YouTube. It's basic, but informative, I think.
Weam and Stan at Franklin Park in Sterling Heights, MI, August 18, 2018.
Please enjoy this long form interview with Iraqi-American author WEAM NAMOU (WE'am NA'mu) and how finding a chance copy of Gone With the Wind in Amman, Jordan translated into Arabic, perhaps changed the trajectory of her professional life.
Weam
Namou is an Eric Hoffer award-winning author of 12 books, a speaker,
journalist, and filmmaker. She serves as the vice president of Detroit Working
Writers (DWW), a 118-year-old professional writing association, and as an
Ambassador for the Authors Guild of America, the nation’s oldest and largest
professional organization for writers. Yours truly was the first featured
guest on the Weam Namau Show a weekly cable television program from Troy,
Michigan. She’s also the founder of The
Path of Consciousness, a spiritual and writing conference and retreat. Here is a link to her website, documentary and writing retreat.
