Thursday, November 10: Marc & Elaine Zicree

Screenwriters Association
of Santa Barbara

Presents

Writers & Producers

Marc & Elaine Zicree

Thursday, November 10, 7 pm

Brooks Institute
27 East Cota Street
Downtown Santa Barbara
(805) 617-4503
FREE and open to everyone!

Writing both individually and as a team, Marc and Elaine Zicree have over 100 credits to their name, including series such as Star Trek - The Next Generation, Sliders, Deep Space Nine, Lazarus Man, Beyond Reality and Babylon 5, plus multiple pilots for NBC, ABC and Showtime. They have written for virtually every major studio and network, and their work has been nominated for the Humanitas Prize, Diane Thomas Award, and American Book Award.

Marc and Elaine served as Executive Producers on Real Story, a pilot presentation they wrote and produced in association with OZ's Tom Fontana, starring Buffy's Armin Shimerman. They also co-wrote Two Sisters, a MOW for Warners, to which director Tony Bill was attached, and Magic Time, a two-hour pilot for Henson, which was spun off into a best-selling series of books published by HarperCollins from 2001-2005.

Author of The Twilight Zone Companion, Marc Zicree has written 15 screenplays and over 100 teleplays. He has been a guest on over 100 radio and TV shows, including The Today Show, All Things Considered and Entertainment Tonight. He currently writes best-selling novels, writes and produces TV series, network pilots and feature films, and has also been a commentator on NPR's Morning Edition.

Elaine Zicree has served as a writer, actress, director and producer Off-Broadway and in LA. She is currently working on Caesar, an independent feature she has written and will be producing. She and Marc have also recently written multiple episodes of PBS's Liberty's Kids, a dramatic series about the American Revolution starring Walter Cronkite, Michael Douglas, Billy Crystal, Dustin Hoffman and Arnold Schwarzenegger, which garnered them the Humanitas Prize nomination.

Meeting minutes for Thursday, October 13, 2011

By Adrienne D. Wilson

Jamie Fleming, Director of the Ojai Film Festival opened the lecture by encouraging the packed audience to attend the upcoming movies and the festival in Ojai. There will be 77 films shown this year. He smiled, saying that Ojai was another universe but just a stone’s throw from Santa Barbara and well worth the trip especially for the festival. A listing of films can be seen at on their website. The festival runs October 20th through the 23rd. Fleming mentioned that the film Jolene would have a special screening at the Matilija Auditorium with a question and answer session afterward with Greg Laemmle and the filmmakers. Watch the trailer for Jolene to get an idea of the caliber of the Ojai Film Festival. “We’ve got oranges, great restaurants and the pink glow of the mountains just a few minutes away,” Fleming laughed. Arrange for tickets, and it sounds as if a wonderful weekend can be yours.
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A screenwriter’s hands. That’s something to watch, because those hands produce magic on the page. Walter Halsey Davis has a magnificent pair of hands and they were in constant motion, sculpting the air itself as he talked to the audience about writing. “People think we write dialogue, but it’s like building a house,” he said. “You have to create a world before you can have anybody talk.” You can build that world from the very first shot, he added. “A world, a time, a certain set of expectations...”

Every scene has to be a mini-screenplay. “Start at the top of a scene and get out as fast as you can.” Davis said he learned this credo from Waldo Salt, screenwriter for the film Midnight Cowboy. You can take a look at the screenplay to see how fast it moves. “Start at the top of a scene and get out as fast as you can.”

“All you have to do is be brilliant.”

Like say, the film Network. Davis used this film classic as an example of “emotional events” in movies. He strode over to the board and wrote this line: “I have nothing to say.” You can watch the scene Davis referenced on YouTube to see how dialogue shapes everything about drama and character.“When you do your plotting you have to make each scene a surprise, but it has to seem completely inevitable.” On cutting, Davis told the audience that every frame either adds or subtracts -- no frame is neutral. “Every word adds or subtracts from the screenplay itself.”

“Each scene has to change the condition of the story, and that action is not always physical, it can be psychological.”

“Anything that makes a bad dream makes a good movie,” he said.

What you want are noble characters with flaws. This makes characters unforgettable to the audience. “Put the main character into a scene where the character has to do something that is the hardest thing in the world for that character.”

“Comedy and drama work by the same rules,” Davis cautioned mentioning Socrates -- “the unchallenged life is meaningless.”

Your writing is like a metronome going in a symphony in terms of the volume, colors of the instruments -- your screenplay can’t be loud the whole time or stay intense the whole time. “Study acting and get in plays,” he said. To learn about dramatic pacing and how actors work the material.

Davis has long been on the faculty at the Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference and it was an honor to listen and watch the hands of such an accomplished writer and playwright as they flew through the air, sculpting the lecture. He has won the following awards for his work: An Emmy, a Writers Guild of America Award and two Nominations, an Edgar Allan Poe Award, two Christopher Awards, the Lucille Ball Comedy Writing Award, the Goldwyn Writing Award, the Texas Bicentennial Playwriting Award, the Red Cross Prize at the Monaco International Television Festival, The Peabody Award, The Humanitas Prize, a Golden Globe nomination, and the American College Theater Festival Playwriting Award (Region V).

To see some of his work you can check Netflix, and a list of his films are on IMDB.

Thursday, October 13: Walter Halsey Davis

Screenwriters Association
of Santa Barbara

Presents

Screenwriter & Playwright

Walter Halsey Davis

Thursday, October 13, 7 pm

*Come early to join in interactive discussion, get to know each other, and network with local talent. The speaker presentation will start around 7:30 pm

Brooks Institute
27 East Cota Street
Downtown Santa Barbara
(805) 617-4503
FREE and open to everyone!

After serving four years in the Navy, Walter Halsey Davis went to France with the notion of writing a novel. Just when he was about to run out of money, he was mysteriously cast in a small part in a movie filming in Paris. This early exposure to the movies didn't take, however, and he took off for Austria where he worked in a ski factory until sawdust and solitude drove his north into Germany where he worked as a television repairman while he attended the University of Mainz.

Davis returned to his native California. He attended UCSB where he took a Bachelor and Masters Degree in English literature, and went on to UCLA where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Theater Arts.

Davis' first play, The Tapioca Misanthropa (a verse drama cum cosmic vaudeville), was produced for ABC television in Santa Barbara and later broadcast in Los Angeles on the PBS station KCET. "Tapioca" won the Lucille Ball Comedy Writing Award and was published by Painted Cave Books in Santa Barbara.

Davis' second play, Panhandle, a chronicle of a Texas family's struggle through the Great Depression, was first produced at UCSB, then the Oxford Playhouse in Los Angeles, the Scott Theater in Fort Worth, North Texas State University, Texas Tech University, and in New York at the Walden Theater. Panhandle won the Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award, the Texas Bicentennial Playwriting Award, and the American College Theater Festival Playwriting Award (Region V). On the basis of Panhandle, Davis was selected to be a playwright in residence for one year at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

Davis' third play, Tilden (written in collaboration with Pierre Delattre and Lew Catching), is based on the life of the tennis champion Big Bill Tilden. It has been produced in Minneapolis.

Davis sold his first screenplay, a science fiction piece called The Locus while he was still a graduate student at UCLA. Since then he has worked constantly as a screenwriter and has written feature films, television mini-series, and movies for television. In an effort to maintain a greater degree of control over his material, he has managed to become a producer on his more recent projects and is looking forward to directing.

He has won an Emmy, a Writers Guild of America Award and two Nominations, an Edgar Allan Poe Award, two Christopher Awards, the Lucille Ball Comedy Writing Award, the Goldwyn Writing Award, the Texas Bicentennial Playwriting Award, the Red Cross Prize at the Monaco International Television Festival, The Peabody Award, The Humanitas Prize, a Golden Globe nomination, and the American College Theater Festival Playwriting Award (Region V).

Meeting minutes for Thursday, September 8, 2011

By Adrienne D. Wilson

Lisa Angle, new President of the Screenwriters Association of Santa Barbara, opened the lecture at Brooks Institute by taking a few questions about the Association which began 35 years ago as an offshoot of a class at Santa Barbara City College. The group once had a “script library” but with the nature of screenplays being available online that had fallen by the wayside. There was interest in making the library available again.

Lisa mentioned resources available for writers in Santa Barbara, such as “The Table” at Max’s Restaurant every Wednesday at 6:30 pm where screenwriters gather and talk film. Indiecoop is a directory for local independent producers and those working on independent film in this area.

Our speaker was Director, Writer, Producer John B. Macurdy, who has written over a dozen original feature film screenplays and is a 2008 Telly Award winner. Films he has worked on include The Pharaoh Project, A Murder of Crows, and the award-winning Nate and the Colonel.

Cool, calm and collected in a pea green shirt, the best thing Macurdy gave the group was the idea that if thirty people wanted to make a film and all had their hearts in it, and all donated $1,000 each, it could be done! “You know why?” he asked. “They are going to want their names on the credits.”

In big Hollywood’s current focus on comic book heroes, franchises, remakes and so forth, “go independent,” he told the group. “We as writers need to stop putting obstacles in our way. I always wrote my screenplays because I wanted to see them.”

“Moviemaking is creative problem solving.”

Macurdy made the group laugh when he told us about Stonehenge. “Do you really need to go to England or can you use stock footage and then just have your actors posed against a rock as a backdrop?”

Need people in costume?

“Get Historic Reenactors.”

“They already have the costumes and they love what they do,” he said, chuckling.

Most important is a cinematographer you can rely on, because an experienced cameraman will let you know what shots you are missing. Macurdy gave the group his definition of a script: “A screenplay is a condensation of significant events arranged or organized for maximum dramatic effect.”

On directors, Macurdy spoke of the importance of a script analysis because that will give the sense of each character’s “dramatic spine.” Details in a script give the actor and director something to chew on, “but the actor might not do that” the way the writer wrote it. He told the group that screenwriting draws the picture, but it is in the collaboration that the magic occurs.

“One of the hallmarks of low budget films is white walls,” he laughed. “Get colors!”

“Get the best sound you can.”

Independent film is all about stories with a heart. “Take an acting class to understand how to be a director,” he said. This is to help learn about locations, set design, costumes and what the camera is going to do. Watch the film, My Dinner with André and you will understand what can be done with just two characters.

He left the audience with this thought: “If you have a story you want to tell, you can do it. You can make your movie.”

Making a film just might be sailing off to sea in a beautiful pea green boat if everyone’s collective heart is in it. Take a look at The Pharoah Project and see how you can be inspired!

Thursday, September 8: "From Screenplay to Production"

Screenwriters Association
of Santa Barbara

Presents

"From Screenplay to Production"

with

John B. Macurdy, PhD

2008 Telly Award Winner

Thursday, September 8, 7 pm

Brooks Institute
27 East Cota Street
Downtown Santa Barbara
(805) 617-4503
FREE and open to everyone!

Director, Writer, Producer John B. Macurdy, PhD has written over a dozen original feature film screenplays and is a 2008 Telly Award winner. Films he has worked on include The Pharaoh Project, A Murder of Crows, and the award-winning Nate and the Colonel. He has also produced and written series pilots for Target, Chance of a Lifetime, and Against the Wall. His workshops on “Feature Film Directing” and “Micro-Budget Feature Film Production” were offered in Santa Barbara this last summer, and he plans to offer more workshops soon.

Meeting minutes for Thursday, August 11, 2011

By Adrienne D. Wilson

The Screenwriters Association of Santa Barbara convened at Brooks Institute, which generously donated a classroom to the group. It was fitting to be at the premier center for photography and film making in California, in a real classroom with abstract felt grayscales dangling from the ceiling and a gorgeous student show lining the halls.

Changes were in order as outgoing President Rashi Bahri conducted elections. Lisa Angle of Ninety Degrees Media was voted in as the new President, Ernie Witham of Ernie’s World accepted the Vice President position, and Faith Ellington agreed to be Publicity Director. The Treasurer, Secretary, and Membership Director positions will be determined later.

This month’s speaker was The Story Coach, and what a coach he was. Patrick A. Horton has been called “one of the most empowering and innovative guides for story and storytelling” and he lit up the room with nonstop illumination about what drives the heart of good writing. His background is a blend of scholarly cultural anthropology and the lecture began with how fast change is happening in our society and the industry. “In a world that increasingly has no maps you are going to have to get better at finding your own compass.”

“Be unstoppable,” he said, grinning.

Horton has a new model for finding the heart of the story and the levels of depth story can reach to effect change. “Being a storyteller gives permission for others to find their voice.” Writing involves the A and B story - A being the surface plot line with all its action, tangles and twists and B being the depth of it all where the emotion lives. “The story is never what it is really about,” he said. The meaning depends on which characters the audience resonates to most.

The audience wants to know “this feels real,” Horton told the group. “Great storytelling always means raising the right questions.” That’s the B story. What questions do you want to raise in your writing? “In order to re-frame the world you have to convince the audience it is okay to be open to the scary stuff because there will be something on the other side.” This means that the writer should not fear to tread into the deepest parts of self in order to mine the material. The writer has to let go of something in order for the audience to learn something new. “Tell the stories that matter to you,” he advised the writers. “Authenticity is everything.”

In funny asides Horton spoke about actors needing real material from the writer in order to inhabit the character. “Writers want to write great deep emotional stuff without being connected emotionally to it,” but that won’t work, he cautioned the group. “Whatever you have gone through in life, it’s material.”

That’s the gift of his “practical magic” and the way screenwriters can find deeper levels of voice and meaning on the page. “Glean what moves and matters to you and that will be your best story.”

Thursday was a prelude to the free workshop Horton offered Saturday at Brooks. For more information you can visit www.thestorycoach.com and see his book on screenwriting, Mastering the Power of Story.

Thursday, August 11: Patrick A. Horton, PhD / The Story Coach

Screenwriters Association
of Santa Barbara

Presents

"Life As Screen Play"

with

Patrick A. Horton, PhD / The Story Coach

Divining the Life in Story - Defining the Story in Life

Thursday, August 11, 7 pm

Brooks Institute
27 East Cota Street, Room C-3
Downtown Santa Barbara
(805) 617-4503
FREE and open to everyone!

Patrick A. Horton is one of the most intuitively empowering and radically innovative guides for the development and promotion of story and storytelling of all kinds - not only for writers but for all those myriad collaborative players who must contribute along the way to bring any project from concept to fruition.

In addition to being a paid and optioned writer, screenwriter, and script doctor himself, Dr. Horton is also a member of the Screen Actors Guild, founding principal of Wind & Thunder Productions, and an ongoing presenter, panelist, and mentor for a wide variety of media industry organizations, guilds, and professional groups. His workshops and forthcoming book are the first to speak effectively across professional media specialties to address both the private and collective aspects of the development process from conception to completion, and effectively merge the creative and commercial aspects of story development and promotion for a more artistically, commercially, and socially viable media. First and foremost, however, he remains an applied cultural anthropologist and change agent dedicated to promoting life affirming visions, and practical strategies for effective personal, social, and global change.