Hey guys,
I wanted to throw this out early on in the year. For the last couple years, I've been going to the Squaw Valley Community of Writers up in Lake Tahoe for a week in early August. This camp has absolutely changed my writing and my life.
I found out about it through a professor of mine in college who, every year, selects one of her students' screenplays to send to her friend Diana Fuller, who runs the Screenwriter's Camp (there's another camp for Writers, but one specifically for screenwriters). She picked mine and sent me off to meet up with her.
She loved my screenplay and gave me a scholarship to go, at a time when I had just finished my first feature and knew relatively little about writing. I had read McKee's "Story" and another oft-recommended book, "Making a Good Screenplay Great," but what I learned about character development, scenes, scene sequences and the transformation from screenplay to big screen absolutely blew me away.
I went back last year as surround staff, where I help set up A/V equipment and do whatever needs to be done, and am going this year again (working with Diana to put together possibly a presentation on Gorilla to teach people how to schedule and produce their film once they've written it) , but I want to get this out there, especially now, for people interested in improving their writing.
Just in and of itself, spending a week around only screenwriters is a great thing. There is no "So what do you do? Oh, you're a writer? Have you sold anything?" Or other comments made with disdain, it's only writers with other writers and a genuine collective push for each writer to make it in the industry.
I'm currently finishing up my 8th feature-length, deciding what to bring to work on this year. Last year I took my favourite script, Barry Johnson, which I was worried about since stylistically it's rather absurd. But I got a great reception from my mentor as well as the other students (one of the other students also turned out to be a former professor of mine from college!), and overall it was just a wonderful atmosphere.
If anyone has questions, please feel free to ask. To be honest, I don't represent the company and I'm not making anything from this, but it's really a great, positive experience and I'd like to see as many people as possible take part in it.
Website http://www.squawvalleywriters.org/
I wanted to throw this out early on in the year. For the last couple years, I've been going to the Squaw Valley Community of Writers up in Lake Tahoe for a week in early August. This camp has absolutely changed my writing and my life.
I found out about it through a professor of mine in college who, every year, selects one of her students' screenplays to send to her friend Diana Fuller, who runs the Screenwriter's Camp (there's another camp for Writers, but one specifically for screenwriters). She picked mine and sent me off to meet up with her.
She loved my screenplay and gave me a scholarship to go, at a time when I had just finished my first feature and knew relatively little about writing. I had read McKee's "Story" and another oft-recommended book, "Making a Good Screenplay Great," but what I learned about character development, scenes, scene sequences and the transformation from screenplay to big screen absolutely blew me away.
I went back last year as surround staff, where I help set up A/V equipment and do whatever needs to be done, and am going this year again (working with Diana to put together possibly a presentation on Gorilla to teach people how to schedule and produce their film once they've written it) , but I want to get this out there, especially now, for people interested in improving their writing.
Just in and of itself, spending a week around only screenwriters is a great thing. There is no "So what do you do? Oh, you're a writer? Have you sold anything?" Or other comments made with disdain, it's only writers with other writers and a genuine collective push for each writer to make it in the industry.
I'm currently finishing up my 8th feature-length, deciding what to bring to work on this year. Last year I took my favourite script, Barry Johnson, which I was worried about since stylistically it's rather absurd. But I got a great reception from my mentor as well as the other students (one of the other students also turned out to be a former professor of mine from college!), and overall it was just a wonderful atmosphere.
If anyone has questions, please feel free to ask. To be honest, I don't represent the company and I'm not making anything from this, but it's really a great, positive experience and I'd like to see as many people as possible take part in it.
Website http://www.squawvalleywriters.org/
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