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About Us
"KUDOS. A great conference - Overall an A+. Planning on coming back next year."
Jim Ciletti
Colorado Springs, CO
 


Classes occur simultaneously from 9:00am until 12:00pm Thursday, Friday & Saturday. Select one of our world-class Mentors to spend nine hours of in-depth instruction and workshopping of material. Each Mentor Class is limited to 30 students so your classroom experience will be intimate and educational. Your enrollment in a Mentor Class is included with your registration for the Screenwriting Symposium.


Class Mentors
Terry Borst
Terry studied with screenwriting gurus Lew Hunter, Richard Walter and William Froug. His credits include many episodes of the BBC action-adventure series Bugs (syndicated in 30+ countries), the TV movie sequel Midnight Run Around and the independent feature Private War. He has written other screenplays for Paramount Pictures, USA Network, the BBC, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, and various independent producers.

For more than a decade, he co-wrote a trade publication and website column, *alt.screenwriters*, focusing on the collision of screenwriting and new media technologies. He's taught screenwriting at the College of Santa Fe, UCLA, USC, Moorpark College, Santa Fe Community College, and Canada's Banff Centre for the Arts, and his students have won film festival competitions and been accepted at top film schools around the country.

You can find more about Terry at www.terryborst.com.

Getting Your Dream Onto the Page
It might seem like you need to be an ex-stripper (Diablo Cody, Juno screenwriter) or an ex-movie star's assistant (Michael Arndt, writer of Little Miss Sunshine) to break into the screenwriting trade, but don't buy into that nonsense. You just need a great story to tell.

The catch: projecting a motion picture onto a hundred pages of text is no small feat!

This mentor class is for the beginning/emerging screenwriter who needs a hand to hold while moving closer to a completed script. Terry will show you how the power of the three-act structure can help drive your story to a conclusion. And from FADE IN to FADE OUT, he'll give you a nuts-and-bolts approach to conceptualizing and writing a project: getting you from a "'wanna-be" to a serious screenwriter who can not only talk the talk but walk the walk (with a complete, professional-caliber feature screenplay).

Bring in your ideas, outlines, and partially completed scripts. Be prepared to work hard and engage with each other, and be prepared to have a lot of fun.
Karl Iglesias
Karl Iglesias is a screenwriter and sought-after script doctor and consultant, specializing in the readers emotional response to the written page. He is the best-selling author of Writing For Emotional Impact: Advanced dramatic techniques to attract, engage, and fascinate the reader from beginning to end and The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters.

He teaches at UCLA Extension?s Writer?s Program, online at Writers University, and has presented highly acclaimed workshops at the Screenwriting Expo, where he?s been a Star Speaker for six straight years, The Great American Pitchfest, Sherwood Oaks College, and the Screenwriting Conference in Santa Fe. Karl is also a regular columnist on the craft for Creative Screenwriting Magazine. He can be reached through his website at www.karliglesias.com.


From Concept to Solid Outline in Nine Hours
UCLA instructor Karl Iglesias will guide you through his creative process over three days, starting with choosing a viable and marketable concept that can sustain a full length feature script. Through lectures and in-depth film analyses, you will also learn how to develop fascinating characters that go through a journey of transformation that reveals a primal theme and craft a gripping, well-structured story into a solid outline before going to script.

Topics will include:
  • The three emotional requirements for a great idea
  • The Build-Reveal-Connect process for crafting and humanizing complex characters
  • The essential reader emotions in all successful stories
  • The three requirements for dramatic conflict
  • How to create an unpredictable story regardless of genre
    • Rob Tobin
    Rob is a screenwriter, script doctor, writing coach, author of How to Write High Structure, High Concept Movies (Xlibris Press) , and The Screenwriting Formula (Writers Digest). He has sold both features and sitcoms.

    Rob's script, "The Camel Wars," is in pre-production with director John McTiernan (Die Hard, Predator, Hunt for Red October). Rob is in negotiations to have his script "The Life and Times of Lesbian Alien Opera Singers" go into development in Ireland.

    Rob is also a frequent speaker at film festivals and conferences and Creative Screenwriting Magazine recently produced two of Rob's instructional screenwriting DVDs.

    Creating a Bulletproof Script Outline
    The class will use hands-on exercises mixed with an in-depth discussion and exploration of the essential screenplay elements to help participants create a structurally bullet-proof screenplay outline from scratch. Attendance of all three sessions is required.

    Rob has pioneered a new, more indepth approach to story structure, and his interactive, participatory course includes exercises and new ways of tackling issues, so that you'll walk out of the course with not just a structurally bulletproof outline for a script, but the ability to apply that knowledge to writing structurally sound outlines for all your subsequent scripts.

    Bring pen and pencil (or laptop and fingers!) and be prepared to actually create that outline and in the process learn everything you need to write that great outline that will form the basis of a structurally foolproof screenplay.
    Cynthia Whitcomb
    Cynthia has sold more than 70 feature screenplays, 25 of which have been produced. She has made millions of dollars for her work, and her scripts have won and been nominated for many awards, including the Emmy, Cable Ace, Humanitas, Writers Guild, and the Edgar Allan Poe Award. She taught screenwriting for many years, including seven years at UCLA, and her students have gone on to write successful box-office hits.

    Her books Writing Your Screenplay and Selling Your Screenplay will be available at the Conference book table.

    Screenwriting: The Spine, The Heart, The Mind and The Spirit
    Thursday: "The Spine"
    List of questions to determine if your idea will make a good movie. Structure. Scene cards. Storyboards. Three act structure. Research. All your left brain needs to know to write a screenplay. Making them believe.

    Friday: "The Heart"
    Switching to the creative, fun, passionate mind. Character evolution. Scene work. Dialogue. How to hide exposition. How to button a scene. Surprises. Emotion. Making them care.

    Saturday: "The Mind"
    Polishing, tightening. Making it commercial. Getting ready for the marketplace. Query letters. Pitching. Loglines. Seeing the ads. Creating screenplays actors will want to star in and studios will want to buy.
    This roster of Mentors and their respective classes is based on the availability of the instructors and is subject to change without notification.

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