Nine Sundays, Oct. 17-Dec. 19 (skip Nov. 21), 7-9:30 pm
$335 members/$365 non-members Berkeley
“At some point, every produced screenwriter, whether working in Hollywood or in the Independents, wrote a “calling card” script – the one that got them noticed and out of the slush pile on to the production list,” says Terrel Seltzer. “In this class I’ll give practical, de-mystifying advice from a veteran screenwriter’s experience, focusing on three crucial elements to help aspiring writers get a foot in the door: 1) Concepts that sell: the need for a “strange attractor,” which is often called “the high concept idea,” 2) Characters that actors will vie to play: “structuring both the outer journey (physical plot) and the inner journey (emotional arc) of your protagonist hero, and 3) Conflict: how to get it, because a screenplay has to have it (and most beginner’s scripts don’t).
“My approach is to teach by personal example, to provide a professional insider’s look at the screenwriting process. By studying scripts of well-known movies and referencing my own current script-in-progress, I’ll demonstrate how to choose a premise that actually has a fighting chance, and then how to story map that concept, character build, sequence and outline the narrative, and ultimately start writing a screenplay. Class writing assignments (for those who want to do them) will encourage students to develop an idea, or to hone an already written screenplay into a calling card script.”
Terrel Seltzer is a self-taught screenwriter. She learned the craft by watching and outlining literally hundreds of movies. Her career started in the Bay Area, working with SF director Wayne Wang, for whom she wrote the screenplays for the independent films Chan is Missing and Dim Sum. Her two produced Hollywood screenplays are How I Got into College (with Lara Flynn Boyle and Anthony Edwards) and One Fine Day (with Michelle Pfeiffer and George Cloony). Currently, she has two scripts in development: Magick written for director Robert Zemeckis at Dreamworks, and Foolproof, a spec script recently optioned by Warner Brother Classics.
“. . . a wonderful class . . .”