WHAT THIS WORKSHOP IS ABOUT:

To write a good script you need:

        1) to feel compelled to express something personal

        2) to possess the skills to express that ‘something'

This workshop aims to develop both these aspects of your writing, hopefully integrating them, allowing your individual writing voice to emerge, enabling you to create a personal script.

The workshop focuses on two areas:

     A) One-on-one work: we examine your past scripts as well as your present work

     B) Workshop: each writer is required to write a five page scene each week based on a particular dynamic or structure of dramatic writing

We concentrate on learning by doing.  I believe that writing is a skill not unlike playing jazz: only by disciplined practice and repetition do we expand our vocabulary of dramatic structure and dynamics - and once mastered these tools begin to operate unconsciously.  It's like any sport, once you absorb the fundamentals, you are free to 'just play'.

I avoid over-theorizing and stock screenplay analyses. This is not a lecture course.

And since screenplays are written to be acted, there is an emphasis on performance.  Each writer's assigned scene is performed in the workshop by guest actors.

In addition, time permitting, we examine and discuss that week's suggested classic film or screenplay.

HOW THE WORKSHOP OPERATES:

         Once you are accepted as a participant you will meet with me one-on-one, outside of the workshop. We'll talk about your aims as a writer. Is there a script you want to complete but can't seem to find the energy or ‘angle' to complete it, or is there a finished script that you'd like to rewrite, or is there a story you've always wanted to tell but you're struggling to discover a structure that is dramatic. We'll focus on what aspects of screenwriting you'd like to concentrate on during the workshop. For example, you may feel comfortable with structure but sense that your dialog is inauthentic, or you have a good sense of how your stories begin and end but your Act Two's have little energy or forward motion, or your story idea excites you with its originality but 30 pages into the script it already feels plodding and predictable or it is exciting but has no sense of direction. I believe that writing is a daily discipline and will offer help to the writers to find and maintain a good work schedule based on my experience.

         At this initial one-on-one meeting you'll give me a script (finished or unfinished) that you'd like to work on during your time with me. I will read that script and keep it in mind and refer to it when we discuss your work in general during the workshop.

       Each writer is given a reading and viewing list of movies, plays, and screenplays that I suggest you become familiar with since these works will be referred to during the course of the workshop. I also provide some my own essays on screenwriting to give some point of reference.

     As stated earlier, you will be given a writing assignment (5 pages) which will focus on a particular dynamic or structural issue in dramatic writing. For example:

EXERCISE 3/16/98

Speaking in Code / Games

I find in life that speaking directly (explicitly) is, more often than not, ineffective or at best practically useful but ultimately deadening. Most people I observe in long time relationships speak in a form of code: a vocabulary that allows them to explore areas that are dangerous or risky without losing face or other part of their anatomy.

Speaking in code is in a way game playing. The game distracts from the issue - it becomes a world of its own - allowing a certain kind and level of freedom and liveliness that normal conversation does not allow.

EXERCISE

A two character scene in which ‘A' (an expert at a certain code or game) invites ‘B', a novice, to join his/her game - and speak in code.

The dynamic:

1) ‘A' invites (in code, of course) ‘B' to join him/her in a game

2) ‘B' acknowledges and agrees to the game for the scene to continue. (‘B' may on the surface (explicitly) resist the game - the roles of the code - but often that is just a way of agreeing (implicitly) and learning the code).

3) ‘A' will push the boundary further and further - which will confuse and threaten but excite ‘B'.

4) ‘B' will finally grow fearful and withdraw from the game, going back to his/her original so-called direct language but it may be too late. His/her original world is now alien and the world of the game is the only place ‘B' may feel alive. (Some say the language we speak is who we are - without words we would have no thoughts at all.)

5) ‘A' pursues ‘B' into the ‘original' world where ‘A' is absolutely unable to communicate at all. Lost, ‘A' has to withdraw to the world of code.

6) ‘B' hesitates but finally follows ‘A' into his/her new world. By virtue of the choice of language ‘A' agrees to stay in ‘B's new world. That's is now all they have.

This may all sound very esoteric and intellectual but let me give some practical examples that might make it easier to grasp.

Two people fall in love. They begin to speak in baby talk to one another. It is a way that they reserve for each other alone. Without their intimate, regressed speech they don't feel they are in love. When one withdraws, threatening to leave the relationship - they cannot communicate: one is in the world of love, the other is in the world without romance.

A rookie joins a professional sports team. He cannot understand anything anyone says. He finds his way of speaking inadequate and he is isolated. He works and fumbles and finally is able to haltingly speak the language of his teammates (he earns this right by sweat and pain) and when he finally can speak in his new language, the old world from which he came is a place he can never live in comfort again.

A rich person goes in vacation in a foreign land. She does not know the language. She depends on a poor, uneducated young man to show her the countryside. He feels her attraction and compels her to speak his language - they share intimacy until it is time for her to go home to her ‘old' language - which from now on will never feel the same.

This code or specialized language is everywhere - once it was looked to as a positive, life affirming thing: one of the mysteries of life (the basis for most religious and spiritual pursuits). But today, in world which I see as becoming quickly soulless - it is not tolerated as it once was. Slang, regional dialects, even languages are now seen as barriers, not as avenues of intimacy and belonging.

The movie to watch this week: THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS - dir. Paul Schrader - screenplay by HAROLD PINTER. This movie, is for me about how the young couple speaks directly to one another about their relationship and they are utter failures - whereas, the old couple (Chris Walken and Helen Mirren) speak in a strange code that is often the opposite of what they mean but it is full of passion and irrational life. The clash between these two methods of dealing with the world leads inevitably to deadly conflict.

This workshop opens with the actors reading your scenes (at lease once, some weeks we will read them twice). It is through these readings that we will explore the aspects and issues of your screenwriting process, learning how to expand your repetoire of writing tools.  ALL COMMENTS I MAKE ON YOUR WORK WILL BE IN PRIVATE.  I take each writer aside to discuss their work.  I don't feel that public discussion of your individual creative process is helpful.  In addition, I will be the only person criticizing your work in the workshop.  You are paying me to be the authority and I will do my best to live up to that trust.  This workshop is NOT a free-for-all discussion except when we examine classic films and screenplays.

Though guest actors will be on hand each week to perform, I may occasionally invite the screenwriters themselves to read a scene (their own or someone else's). This does not require that the writer be a talented or accomplished performer but I do believe that acting can be very illuminating to a writer, especially in the area of dialog.

After the readings there may be time for one of the writers to do a 'pitch' of one of his/her story ideas followed by a short period of comment from me and the other writers.

The workshop will conclude with:

  1) additional general discussion of the assigned structure of that evening's scenes,
  2) a detailed explanation of the upcoming week's exercise
  3) a group discussion of that week's assigned movie (if a movie was assigned)

I also reread all scenes myself and give pertinent comments by email during the ensuing week. You are free to rewrite your scenes based on my comments and I will be available for further comment.

HOW TO BECOME A MEMBER OF THE WORKSHOP

       You must demonstrate a commitment to making personal movies and have experience writing everyday. You need not necessarily have sold a script or have had a movie produced. In addition to screenwriters, I welcome novelists, poets, short story writers, and playwrights - as well as actors and directors with serious writing experience. You will be chosen on the basis of a writing sample and an interview with me.

     There is a preliminary one-on-one meeting with each writer prior to his/her first workshop. The workshop convenes at the Paradise Theater at 64 E. 4th St.  Each month thereafter I will again meet with every writer one-on-one for an hour to examine and discuss your 'outside' work.

    We meet each Tuesday from 7pm to 10pm.

     The fee is $200 per month.  

   The workshop is limited to 12 writers.

Submit your material by:

EMAIL - tom@tomnoonan.com

Or call 212-473-7375 if you need more information. 
 

Go to my 'WHY' and 'HOW' web pages where I provide a good deal of background on the development of my own work and talk about my philosophy of movie making.

©1979/98 all content on this site copyright of Tom Noonan  / Genre Pictures / Paradise Theater Co.