Screenwriting Summit Teaches a New Generation

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Published on Monday, 14 September 2009 21:17

Written by Laura Blum

Now that anyone with a laptop can make films, screenwriting smarts have never been so in demand. No wonder Los Angeles-based TV/Film Seminars & Workshops has taken its script lollapalooza to the nation, including to Hollywood East -- New York City.

So just as the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival was getting underway, four screenwriting swamis blasted into town for an intensive weekend of enlightenment that the fest's filmmakers should have been required to attend.

Aptly dubbed The Screenwriters' Summit, the April 29-30 2006 event convened Michael Hauge, John Truby, Linda Seger and Syd Field for two morning-to-night marathons of craft analysis in peak form. The event, the first of its kind in New York, filled the DGA theater with screenwriters, producers, directors, creative executives and movie wannabes from all over the world.

Michael Hauge, author of such bibles as "Writing Screenplays That Sell," kicked off the proceedings with a four-hour meditation on six-stage plot structure. Delving into the inner and outer wellsprings of character motivation, he mapped the ideal hero's journey from "Identity" to "Essence."

Said New York-based Robert Bruzio, a long-time Hauge client whose screenplay was selected for last year's Independent Feature Project market, "he helps you build conflicts that allow you to elicit the emotions that you're intending to build." Bruzio's screenplay--about a baseball star who went to prison for killing someone--now has an A-list director attached.

The next four-hour block belonged to John Truby, familiar to both novice and advanced writers alike as the creator of Blockbuster screenwriting software. It's safe to say that attendees who doubted the validity of such software prior to his session emerged wild-eyed converts, such was the aha! factor of his insights into the anatomy of successful screenplays by genre.

Noting that "95 percent of writers screw up at the premise," Truby admonished, "premise is the most important decision you'll make" on the grounds that "every other decision flows from it." He advised writers to summarize their story in one sentence, with "some sense of inciting event, main character and outcome."

Truby has worked with the Hollywood pantheon of writers, producers and directors, but declines to mention names. "That's why they pay you very nicely, so you won't discuss the fact that they've actually hired you," deadpanned Truby. "They want the illusion that everything came out perfect in one fell swoop, and it doesn't work that way." Comforting words indeed to writers like the weekend's Summiteers, who seemed to know from sweat and tears.

For a change of pace, the evening brought a live pitchfest anchored by creative producer and "King of the Pitch" Robert Kosberg. Courageous participants lobbed their movie and television ideas and were either waved off stage with annotated thank yous or encouraged to follow up with formal submissions. For the few lucky ones who scored the latter, they stand to join an eventual production as a writer, producer or, at very least, as an idea-maker who's paid to stay away.

Anthony Puleo was one of the few lucky ones. His pitch for "Going Guido," a comedy about "a sexually challenged teen who enlists help to lose his virginity to transform him into an Italian lady's man," hit Kosberg as just the sort of high concept romp that studios and production companies are clamoring for. "It's pretty unbelievable, actually," grinned Puleo. "I don't want to get too overwhelmed, but just to get a read is definitely worth the weekend, right?" Puleo hadn't originally planned to take the stage. "But I got hazed by Michael Hague in the morning!"

Anthony Gioseffi, on the other hand, got the gong. "Still, it felt great," he said gamely. "You gotta do it as a screenwriter." Gioseffi pitched a Sci Fi fantasy "set on another planet where competing technology is so advanced they wielded computers to create magic." Replaying his moment, Gioseffi said, "At first I had him. Then he started looking down. I knew I didn't have him." At least Gioseffi and anyone else with a Hollywood dream can have another shot at Kosberg through This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Sunday morning got underway with Linda Seger--author of such mega-sellers as "Making a Good Script Great" and "From Script to Screen"--beaming her brights on themes, images and image systems with character creation as the main POV. Based on the developmental stages elaborated by Erik H. Erikson in his classic "Childhood and Society," she detailed key issues that might bedevil a character at a particular age, and the negative consequences likely to be carried over to the next stretch of life if unresolved. Seger advocated mining these psychological theories not only for the dramatic motivations enacted on screen, but also for the backstories that may help a writer better know his/her characters more generally.

As Seger pointed out, screenwriters must enter their main characters' heads asking, "Do you want to make something of it?" She continued, "In drama the answer is always yes." Accompanying her lecture with clips, she unpacked the filmic images that have served great screen characters across a broad swath of genres, and showed how--together with dialogue--these images can help telescope themes of character and story.

At the coffee break, Seger waxed enthusiastic about joining forces with her workshop colleagues for such an intensive bootcamp. Not that it's the first time they've shared the marquee; each gives a hit-and-run seminar at the annual Screenwriting Expo--a three-day blitz in October that rains down more than 300 sessions on Los Angeles.

"But this kind of stunt is unusual for me," she said. "Most of my seminars are two days and sometimes up to two weeks. I presume we're not contradicting each other." She added, "When I team-teach, it's carefully worked how we build on one another's topics. This time I don't know what they're doing!"

Syd Field took over from Seger in the afternoon before they doubled up for the evening's grand finale. Author of "Screenplay," "Going to the Movies," and other bookshelf staples, Field talked about his extensive development experience and how he came to conclude that screenwriting is "a craft that can be learned."

Drawing an analogy between film and natural elements, he likened the relationship between character and structure to that of an ice cube and water. "An ice cube has a definite crystalline structure…yet when it melts, how can you differentiate between it and water? You can't." Hence his observation, "Character is the be-all and end-all of your story that is held together by structure."

Field geared his comments to a more elementary student, which may have delighted any audience members who were overwhelmed by the floodlet of sophisticated wisdoms that came before him, but clearly met with a few grumbles from the more accomplished chorus.

Nonetheless, the loud consensus was that New York's inaugural Screenwriter's Summit was well worth the time, travel and treasure ($500 for the whole shebang, with pro-rated fees per segment), to hear these screenplay royals discuss different aspects of their craft. As aspiring writer Dave Ricci put it, "They complemented each other beautifully."

For further information, email the event's producer, TV/Film Seminars & Workshops, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Screenwriters' Summit NY 2006
April 29-30 2006
DGA Theater
New York