Special Session: Screenwriting Workshop with Producer-Writer, Harrison Reiner
A general workshop is scheduled 9-10:30am. The first special session with a select group will meet from 11am-5pm on Friday, with breakout sessions through the night till midnight. The second session with this group will meet on Saturday from 9am-1:30pm. Meeting locations will be announced.
Emerging writers, writer-directors, and writer-producers accepted to this workshop bring with them 3-5 pitches typed on a sheet of paper which are then submitted to Mr. Reiner at the start of the special session. Each pitch should be no longer than 3 sentences in length. Pitches are discussed for their creative merit and their potential for securing motion picture financing. The most viable of each writer's pitches is identified and then further developed with the goal of constructing a dynamic, affecting story line which can then be taken to script. Emphasis is placed on characterization, story structure, and plotting. In keeping with the mission of the Arizona Black Film Showcase, applicants can be writers of color writing on any subject or writers not of color writing stories of the African American life experience. Applicants should submit a resume and a ten-page writing sample to the Arizona Black Film Showcase as a treatment , short story, or screenplay format, no later than Monday, March 21st to workshops_azblackfilm.com. include your name and Writer's Session in the Subject line. Admission to the workshop is competitive and only 10-12 writers will be selected. Writers for this session will be notified March 24th.
About the Presenter
Mr. Reiner produced and co-wrote AMAR A MORIR, winner of the Best Spanish Language Film Award at the 2009 Santa Barbara International Film Festival and recipient of the 2009 Jalisco Academy of Motion Picture and Visual Arts Best Film Award at the Guadalajara International Film Festival in Mexico. The feature-length work directed by American Film Institute fellow Fernando Lebrija, stars five actors previously nominated for the Mexican Academy Award and features the music of American Idol finalist Jason Castro and 12-time Grammy Award-winning record producer Sebastian Krys. Mr. Reiner is an Editors Guild Staff Story Analyst for the Cable Series division of CBS Television. Previous credits include Production Executive for Sovereign Pictures (co-distributors of the Academy Award-winning motion pictures CINEMA PARADISO and MY LEFT FOOT) and Story Editor for RKO Pictures during the filming of EIGHT MEN OUT, directed by iconic indie filmmaker John Sayles. He has served as story analyst for Universal Pictures, Warner Brothers Feature Animation, Sherry Lansing in association with Paramount Pictures, and for Turner Network Television. He has been an adjunct associate professor of screenwriting at UCLA's School of Film and Television and studied film at Columbia University in the City of New York.