“Writing is betraying the people you love to impress people you’ll never meet.” —(Unknown)

During our first group meeting at the Sundance Institute’s June Screenwriter’s Lab advisor Chris McQuarrie shared the quote from above and I thought, “Man you nailed me and my script.”

…well actually as it turns out, only kinda.

Of course, I was invited here to delve further into what I’d written… a story detailing extraordinary events from my family’s life back in September 2001 in Alabama.

I was clear about my passion for this story and its own merits as a powerful piece of history but I knew it was just emerging and I could go so much further with the telling of it. As one of the advisors would tell me later, “It’s merely a compelling history now… but not yet a complete story.”

And over the next five days I would:

Meet and bond with a talented group of emerging writer/directors.

Be guided and supported by a generous and skilled staff.

Learn more about dramatic/narrative writing here than I ever have from a gang of encouraging, funny and knife-wielding advisors.

And in the end I’d come to understand how this experience would actually offer an intense and deep look at my script, me as a filmmaker/storyteller and the writing process itself.

Let me state it again— really process and not result was stressed… this is and was the key.

I felt free and it was the most generous creative experience I’ve ever had. (there, I said it)

Final Fellows Meeting
From the right: Labs Staff – Michelle Satter, Ilyse McKimmie, Alesia Weston and Anne Lai
Lab Fellows – Emily Tang, Chow Keung and Keith Davis

The Fellows
Back Row: Sarah Koskoff, Elgin James, Sally El Hosaini, Alejandro Landes,Tala Hadid, Jonathan Wysocki, Jan-Willem van Ewijk
Front Row: Todd Louiso, Benh Zeitlin, Lucy Alibar, Keith Davis, Ritesh Batra, Emily Tang, Chow Keung

Final Meeting
From the left. Fellows: Chow Keung, Tala Hadid;
Advisors: Walter Mosley, Susannah Grant, Wesley Strick, Tyger Williams;
Feature Film Program Staff: Cullen Conly, Ilyse McKimmie, Susan Shilliday (Adviser), Anne Lai, Kathleen Broyles and Michelle Satter

“Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.”
—Pablo Picasso

Even though the Institute, housed at the Sundance Resort, is very relaxing and really put me in a calm place, I found each day to be highly structured and rigorous.

Each morning we’d have breakfast together (advisors, fellows and staff) followed by a screening of our work or the work of someone attached to the labs (shorts and/or features).

Sometimes while we screened films the advisors would meet with the Lab’s staff (Michelle Satter, Ilyse McKimmie, Alesia Weston, Anne Lai, Kathleen Broyles and Cullen Conly) to discuss our projects and individual meetings so nothing was repeated or overlooked when we met them later.

After breakfast and a screening we’d go off for two hours (or sometimes more) for meetings with an individual advisor (posted below—mine are in bold).

John August(The Nines, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)

Walter Bernstein(The Front, Fail Safe, Miss Ever’s Boys, Magnificent Seven (uncredited) )

John Gatins(Dreamer, Coach Carter)

Gyula Gazdag(A Hungarian Fairy Tale, Banquet)

Michael Goldenberg(Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Contact)

Todd Graff(Camp, Bandslam)

Susannah Grant(The Soloist, Erin Brockovich)

Etgar Keret(Jellyfish, Wristcutters: A Love Story, $9.99)

Chris McQuarrie(Valkyrie, Usual Suspects, The Way of the Gun)

Walter Mosley(Always Outnumbered, Easy Rawlins novels)

Jeremy Pikser(Reds (uncredited), Bulworth, War Inc.)

Howard Rodman(Savage Grace, August)

Susan Shilliday (Legends of the Fall, Thirtysomething (TV)

Wesley Strick (Nightmare on Elm Street, Cape Fear)

Tyger Williams(Menace II Society)

Doug Wright (Quills, I Am My Own Wife (Broadway) )

Then we’d have lunch together and another round of advisor meetings followed by a nightly screening then drinks or just sleep.

The Owl Bar

“It takes a long time to play like yourself.”
—Miles Davis

There were two emerging themes in my meetings…

1. “You should know… you’re a good writer”

2. “Now… what’s the story, who is it really about and how do you want us to feel about them”

…followed by about a dozen other insightful, useful ideas/questions/musings which I hadn’t even begun to think about nor see really.

I think it’s easy to dismiss the first theme as unnecessary to hear at this point. But I didn’t. Actually, it was important for me to hear that encouragement; this was my first feature script… they’d seen my first draft!

My experience as an actor and teacher of acting had given me many opportunities to work with the words of good writers. I revere well-crafted narrative drama and probably went into this experience feeling intimidated by what I thought good writing was.

When I wrote my first draft I did the best I could and really hoped what I’d put down on the page was enough. Having these professional writers compliment my effort boosted my confidence. It also helped me hear their subsequent advice and criticisms from an open place. There was a wealth of good ideas which came out of those meetings and a ton of notes (and audio… I recorded them too).

The second theme sounds general but each adviser was able to point out many specifics in the script where “good writing” was actually obscuring an understanding of what was vital… clear conflict, narrative focus and exploration of a strong theme.

I walked away from the meetings with my head spinning. Each day I was certain I knew what direction I wanted the script to go in… and then a new meeting would introduce something else crucial to seeing the story in a clearer way.

I think this is the process of the labs at its purest. You have to come in with a strong story and it’s necessary the story flows from a deep place because all of it (including you) will get challenged and then (I found) undiscovered possibilities began to emerge.

“It’s very hard to probe into yourself”

“Lesson for writers: you have to allow yourself to write as well as you can.”

“The writer doesn’t write the dialogue, that’s changeable and can be improvised but the screenwriting is writing in images… It comes closest to the technique of poetry rather than playwriting.”

—All quotes by Waldo Salt, Screenwriter

Screening Room

The first screening we had probably had the biggest impact on me creatively. It was a documentary, “Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter’s Journey” on the screenwriter and former Labs Adviser Waldo Salt.

The documentary traces his life and he talks about his writing process in some detail. Salt encouraged the writer to allow himself to enter into the process of writing… to give the writing its own life and arc… that it’s okay to actually craft something.

This was a powerful idea and will remain with me.

…I can’t wait for the director labs.

Wanna know more?

Here’s an exhaustive list of Lab Alumni

Filmmaker Magazine interview with Feature Film Program Director, Michelle Satter here.

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Photographs by: Jan-Willem van Ewijk, Gyula Gazdag and Me.