The Woodstock Festival is excited to present our second annual screenwriting seminar taught by Byrdcliffe Artist Colony resident and veteran screenwriter, filmmaker and educator Alex Smith (WALKING OUT, WINTER IN THE BLOOD, THE SLAUGHTER RULE). The class will be divided into five 3 hour online Zoom sessions hosted every Tuesday from 6:00-9:00pm starting June 9th through June 23rd. Tuition is $250.
SOLD OUT.
ABOUT THE COURSE:
History shows us that troubled times inculcate inspired writing. When our actual reality feels like a dystopian novel, or an elevated genre movie, creative ideas blossom. This intensive writing workshop will help you move the nascent story idea in your mind--onto the page (be it a film, tv series, novel, short story, etc.) In eight distinct workshops / craft lecture, our class will induce from your mind, Athena-like, a full-blown version of your concept– morphing it from a tantalizing but foggy glimmer of an idea into a fully-developed, finely-structured NARRATIVE.
In our highly collaborative online class, each student will receive specific insight on their work from the instructor, as well as feedback and comments from other students.
By seminar’s end, you will have generated a multi-dimensional map (pitch doc + treatment + outline) of that new idea currently percolating in your brain. You will have already done the heavy-lifting-- of world and character building + story structuring, and be primed and ready to write-- having already worked out the idea, in detail, from start-to-finish-- thereby avoiding the normal detours and dead-ends of writing cold.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:
Alex Smith is a screenwriter, filmmaker, fiction writer & educator. He and his twin brother Andrew, premiered their latest feature film, WALKING OUT at the Sundance Film Festival. WALKING OUT stars Golden Globe winner Matt Bomer, Josh Wiggins, Bill Pullman & Lily Gladstone. The film was distributed by IFC Films.
The Smith's also wrote, directed & produced WINTER IN THE BLOOD, a feature film based on the landmark First Nations novel. The film won numerous awards and was screened at the Woodstock Film Festival. They also wrote/directed Sundance darling THE SLAUGHTER RULE, starring Ryan Gosling, David Morse, and Amy Adams.
Alex has, with his brother, written over 15 professional feature film scripts and television pilots for HBO, Warner Brothers, Disney, Sony, FX and more. They adapted the graphic novel, SON OF THE GUN by cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky for Fox Searchlight. They also adapted a Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel for filmmaker Rodrigo Garcia. Alex has worked with Lars Von Trier, Jodie Foster, Robert Redford, Brian De Palma, David O. Russell and adapted Chekhov’s THE DUEL for Terrence Malick.
Alex taught Screenwriting & Filmmaking at Columbia University, NYU/Tisch, the University of Tulsa and the University of Texas, Austin, where he was the Creative Director of the UT Film Institute. He is a current mentor for the Sundance Co//ab online program. Alex is a Michener, Sundance, and Rauschenberg Fellow and is a published writer of fiction. Multiple Nicholl Fellowship/Black List screenwriters count as his students. A resident at the Byrdcliffe Artist Colony, Alex is based in Woodstock, NY.