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We're back in the Writers Room this afternoon for The Breakdown Webcast with Matt Ember! Matt Ember is a writer/producer who has worked on over 20 feature films and television shows including THE CONNERS on ABC, THE WAR WITH GRANDPA with Robert Deniro, GET SMART with Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway and FAILURE TO LAUNCH with Matthew McConaghey and Sarah Jessica Parker and many more. Full Bio »
We're back in the Writers Room this afternoon for The Breakdown Webcast with Matt Ember!
Matt Ember is a writer/producer who has worked on over 20 feature films and television shows including THE CONNERS on ABC, THE WAR WITH GRANDPA with Robert Deniro, GET SMART with Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway and FAILURE TO LAUNCH with Matthew McConaghey and Sarah Jessica Parker and many more.
The Breakdown
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"Thank you, Matt! Grateful for your time!" -Tony E.
"This was fun and very informative. Thank you, Matt." -Laurie W.
"Thanks Matt, great info" -Hayward C.
"Thanks Matt. This was great!" -Octavia P.
"Matt thank you so much for your insights!" -Monica M.
We’re back in the Writers’ Room for the Breakdown with Laurie Ashbourne. We breakdown produced screenplays focusing on a different aspect of writing every webcast. Join us as Laurie breaks down the script of MULAN.
Writers can't rely on jump-scares and creepy music, so how do screenwriters create tension on the page? We'll take a look at needling suspense of THE BABADOOK, the tension just below the surface in GET OUT, the apocalyptic horror of “The Walking Dead”, and the creeps and chills of IT.
Cursing in dialogue can have an impact on many things in your screenplay. We'll examine how swearing is used to reveal character, explore subtext, and drive a narrative forward.
Many times in writing our projects do not have a strong enough inciting incident to effectively kick off the narrative. During this webcast we will look at moments everything changed for our protagonists and they were launched on their journey. Every event that happens subsequently will be traced back to this one monumental event. We will examine the inciting incidents of films as well as television shows and explain how they changed the world in an irreversible way. Examples include films such as Monsters Inc., Saving Private Ryan, "The Sopranos," "Breaking Bad," and more!
Writers' Room Members! Much more than a Breakdown Webcast, our special guest, Story Analyst for AMAZON Studios, Michael Schulman, will be going to discuss how Spec Scripts get shopped by Agents & considered by studios using examples he worked on: GROUNDHOG DAY, THE SIXTH SENSE, REGARDING HENRY, and MUNICH. Our LIVE audience will get the experience of being in a producer’s meeting where the goal is to dissect the draft and get the project ready to submit to the studio. This is a deep, creative scrub that will provide a specific game plan for a rewrite that will help position your project in the sweet spot of what the studios and streamers are looking for. Michael began his career at the William Morris Agency as an agent trainee, then at ICM, as an agent in the motion picture literary department, Michael began representing emerging screenwriters, directors, and producers, brokering the deal for Danny Rubin’s screenplay GROUNDHOG DAY to director Harold Ramis. Michael also spent years on the buyer side of film as VP of Development for Alec Baldwin’s company at Orion Pictures and subsequently for Dennis Quaid’s company at TriStar, and worked at Barry Mendel Productions, where he was involved with the acquisition, development, and production of Oscar-nominated THE SIXTH SENSE and Spielberg's Oscar-nominated MUNICH. Michael spent two years as head of development for Michael Mann’s company, where he worked on Oscar-nominated ALI, 5-time Oscar-winning THE AVIATOR, and was a former story analyst/script consultant for Netflix in the Original Independent Film (OIF) division. Invaluable knowledge is being shared with our Writers' Room Members, right here on Stage 32!
We're back in the Writers' Room for the Breakdown Webcast: Writing Ensembles! An ensemble film is different from most lone protagonist-driven movies because it has a lot of main protagonists (some who are depicted as supporting characters though) that have roughly the same amount of "screen time" and importance in the screenplay. During this webcast, we discuss the challenge of giving every character in your ensemble a human turn while placing them in the context of the narrative. We examine some of our favorite projects including PRINCESS BRIDE, PARENTHOOD, "BRIDGERTON", THE LORD OF THE RINGS, THE USUAL SUSPECTS, and more to see how the characters - and their goals - come together. We also discuss tips on how you can balance all of the characters in your ensemble piece while crafting compelling obstacles for them to overcome (either together or separately).