Spring Classes

I’m back at work in Oswego teaching three classes this spring, including Intro to  Screenwriting, which I love, as I think one of my strengths is making this complicated style, format and philosophy of writing accessible to newbies.

I’m also teaching a section of Advanced Screenwriting, which I’m really excited about because we’re doing something very different. Last year I had an exercise published in the anthology Now Write Screenwriting, and I’m using that exercise as the basis for this class. Essentially, my students are writing on assignment. I gave them a random actor, location, and genre, and from those parameters they will write a new spec script for me the producer, on assignment. This exercise has led to great success for previous students — but only on a treatment level. Now we will see how it works for a whole script. Students  learn to remove preciousness, experience the work of writing toward someone else’s demands, but also, how to bring themselves — world view, experience, interests, voice — to anything they are asked to produce as a writer. The process will include a pitch, treatment, and first draft. There was a lot of anxiety on assignment night, but they’ve settled in and are quickly coming up with some great stuff.

My third class is a brand new endeavor — teaching webisodes. We’re going to develop twelve original series, select three show runners from those twelve,  then write and produce the winning ideas as original web series. We’re documenting all of the behind the scenes happenings, including classroom work, pitches, project selection, and production. So, it’s a story within a story as we attempt to not only create great content, but build an audience and study the creative process involved in making a show work. It’s gonna rock. The kids are great.

Follow us on twitter at @Ozwebbies, on our webpage, and on facebook. The content is slim now, it will be coming fast and furious very soon.

Crooked Arrows Cut

A whirlwind winter “break” included trips to Florida, Kentucky, Los Angeles and NYC. While in LA, I was able to see a cut of Crooked Arrows and can report that it looks fantastic. Many talented people are working very hard to see it through to a Spring release in theaters, and I really believe a general audience — not just the lacrosse crowd — will love this film. Watch the trailer below.

With director Steve Rash, and editor Danny Saphire.

Crooked Arrows: First Poster

Thanks to Reebok for its sponsorship of our movie!

Presenting at 3Ts 2012

With the help of my SUNY Oswego colleagues, and my intrepid new TA, Kelsey, I’m excited to have been accepted to present at the peer-reviewed conference, 3Ts 2012: Engaging Students with Transliteracy, Technology and Teaching, taking place in Albany, NY this coming March.  I’ll be speaking on the brand new Webisodes class I’m teaching in the Spring, which will certainly be the subject of further posts here as we get that up and running.  In short, we’ll be creating three or four original web series, as well as a heavy social media and documentary “behind the scenes component” support platform online throughout the semester. Stay tuned!

Pitt-Bradford Visit

Thanks to my Spalding MFA colleague Nancy McCabe, director of the writing program at Pitt-Bradford, I was invited to speak at the school’s Spectrum Series about screenwriting.  It was a beautiful drive, I stayed in a lovely B&B, and truly enjoyed meeting with her curious and engaged students. Many thanks to Nancy and to the school for providing a gluten free lunch and a beautiful room in which to speak!