Screenwriting Focus Group | Filmmakers & Movie Nerds

🎬 Screenwriters' Meetup Invitation 🎬

For our next Screenwriting Focus Group, we’re going to try something new.

I’ll bring in a scene that we’ll analyze together. First, we’ll look closely at how the scene works on the page: Who are these characters? What does each of them want? What is the conflict between them? What is each character feeling at the beginning of the scene, and where are they emotionally by the end? What changes?

Then we’ll switch perspectives and imagine that we actually have to direct the scene.

How would you create the emotional situation of the scene? What would you tell the actors about who these characters are and what they want from each other? What should they be feeling without necessarily showing it openly?

Afterwards, we’ll compare our different approaches and discuss how they change our understanding of the scene.

The idea is to use directing as another way of examining the writing. Once you have to explain a character to an actor and help them play a scene, you quickly discover whether the character’s motivation, conflict and emotional journey are really there on the page.

Hopefully, this will give us a deeper understanding of how good scenes are built — and help us write scenes that give actors something real to play.

This should be especially interesting for directors who write, writers who want to direct, and anyone interested in understanding characters and scenes from both sides of the process.

📍 Workish 🗓 October 4 🕒 3:00 PM

Looking forward to trying this out with you!