Happy Thursday!

I wanted to hear back about my jury duty before I made this announcement. As I know now, here goes: I’ve decided to offer a writing class focusing on short film scripts and soft writing skills. I know… I know… Not another freaking writing class. Trust me. I’ve been right there with you since there is a glut of writing classes.

But please humor me… My class focuses on short film scripts that we workshop to prepare for the class finale of a table read with actors. The classes will be limited to a smaller number of students. This gives us time to dig into everyone’s scripts since I only want scripts to be at most three pages. Yes. I know that this seems like a small number of pages except I fully agree with my favorite writing teacher Corey Mandell: If you can’t write a compelling scene, how can you write a dynamic feature script or TV script or any other kind of longer writing? I know that Corey’s classes are a little spendy. BUT THEY ARE COMPLETELY WORTH IT.

Please also know that my classes aren’t substitutes for his class. I’m offering classes that would build on whatever knowledge you have to get you to challenge your own writing. We would workshop two short film scripts where people would give writers feedback for an allotted period. They are welcome to ask questions and dig deeper. It’s an easy way to see if your pages translate to others in the way you intend. But there’s more… If someone wants to be a professional scriptwriter in some capacity, they have to be willing to take notes that are especially in public.

Let’s be honest that learning to take notes publicly is a process. And I’m creating an environment in my class where people can work on this. One of the biggest ideas to know is that notes don’t mean you failed as a writer. It means people see potential in your ideas for it helped them to brainstorm more off your initial pages. This can be extremely exciting because consider that people giving you notes means your pages INSPIRED them in some way. The best part? You can take as little or much as you want of their notes for it’s up to you to decide the direction that you can want to take.

We’ll do this workshopping process for two separate scripts. You can rework your scripts based on those notes. And then you decide what one you want to have it participate in a table read. See… The gamechanger for me has been hearing my pages read aloud. Some cringeworthy moments while others were joy. I also plan to give enough time for writers to ask the actors about their thoughts and process. This is my reason for reaching out to more seasoned actors to help the writers do a deeper dive or their own round of notes.

Yes. I have my Master of Fine Arts in screenwriting to help with this class. And I’ve also written, directed, produced, and edited more than five short films around this page length. I’m about to add some of these to my IMDb. Plus, I have five more of these shorts in development with plans to finish them up this summer. I’ve also read 100s if not more scripts of varying lengths and skill levels along with judging for several contests.

The cost of the class will be $275 per person. I know I could charge more except I’m not doing this for my main income. I’d rather have that it come from my indie filmmaking. This is more of a chance for all of us to help build on our skills together. I also plan to eventually offer a class where we would actualize our workshopped scripts into shorts. But I want us to first slow down to focus on our craft together.

The first class will start on June 5, 2022, and run for five weeks to July 3, 2022. This is Sunday at 10 AM Pacific Standard Time. I chose that time in case people in Europe and other parts of the world want to join. Yes. My class will be offered via Zoom for now. I’ll look at offering an in-person later on.

My second round of classes will begin on August 7, 2022, and run for five weeks to September 4, 2022. It’ll also be at 10 AM Pacific Standard Time.

If you’re interested, you can email me at crazygirlpictures@gmail.com

I’m going to set up something more formal in the coming weeks. My ass just needs to get ready to go to France. Why? The indie feature that I produced got into the Entr’2 Marches Disability Film Festival in Cannes, France. It happens at the same time as the main Cannes Film Festival. Here’s a link to our full trailer for MY APOCALYPTIC THANKSGIVING: trailer

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