TV Drama Writing Panel Debrief

The December 5 panel about TV Drama Writing at the Santa Fe Film Festival had a nearly full house at the Jean Cocteau Cinema. Great stories shared about how our panelists got into the business of writing for dramatic television; great insights into why television has truly become the dominant storytelling medium of our time; and interesting walkthroughs of the development process for both limited event series and weekly episodic series.

Moderating TV Drama Writing Panel Sat., Dec.5

I’ll be moderating possibly the most high-powered panel about professional screenwriting in the history of Santa Fe, and certainly at the Santa Fe Film Festival — this Saturday, December 5, from 2:30-4pm at the Jean Cocteau Cinema. (You can hear me speak about the panel on KSFR-FM‘s “Cinema Scope” broadcast this Friday, 6:30pm MST. Stream it here.)

The panel is under the banner of Black Shirt Reads, an organization that has undertaken a series of unproduced screenplay table readings here in Santa Fe, employing some of the City Different’s best local talent. (They undertake their latest, Enchantment, at 1pm at the Cocteau — just prior to the panel.)

Cinevision Panel – May 1, 4pm

A reminder about the inaugural Cinevision event — a panel I’ll be appearing on hosted by New Mexico Lawyers for the Arts, called: Experiments in Light and Space. 4pm, Thursday, May 1, at The Screen in Santa Fe. Immersive dome artist and consultant Ethan Bach has been added to the panel. Come out if you can! We’ll try to make it super-interesting and informative …

Cinevision/NM Lawyers for the Arts panel – May 1

On Thursday, May 1 at 4pm, I’ll be guesting on a panel entitled Experiments in Space and Light: a Conversation on Emergent and New Media Projects … in New Mexico. The panel is being presented by New Mexico Lawyers for the Arts as part of the inaugural Cinevision Festival, which is being hosted by The Screen from May 1-4.

Scheduled guests include Currents New Media‘s co-principal Frank Ragano, Creative Santa Fe’s program director Katelyn Peer, and Lumenscapes Illumination Media‘s principal Joe Dean. One of the topics, will, of course, be Santa Fe University‘s Outdoor Vision Fest™ (OVF), which I co-founded and continue to pilot. But what’s interesting is how much OVF has beomce part of a much larger tapestry, as we grow and evolve 21st-century media making here in Northern New Mexico. Can collaborative efforts accelerate both creative and economic development in this arena? This panel hopes to find out!

UFVA 2013, part 3

Yep, I’m in there somewhere… (Not too far from the center, actually, donning a Written By baseball cap.)

UFVA 2013, part 2

UFVA 2013 @ Marion Knott Studios

So, my first attendance at the University Film and Video Association (UFVA) conference and it was a privilege, of course, interacting with my professional colleagues (many of whom, like myself, have 2-3 decades of experience as screenwriters in the entertainment industry — and a good number of whom were fellow UCLA Film School graduates), and quite illuminating touring the state-of-the-art Marion Knott Studios, the home of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts (7th best film school in the country, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

UFVA 2013, part 1

A full write-up on my glimpse of the Final Draft 9 beta (at the just-concluded University of Film and Video Association Conference held at Chapman University’s Marion Knott Studios) in Santa Ana, California — as well as an opportunity to check out alt.screenwriters, in case you never have before. (It’s never too late.)

University Film and Video Association (UFVA) 2013 Conference

I’m off to my first ever attendance at the annual University Film and Video Association (UFVA) Conference, being held this year at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts just outside of Los Angeles — one of the premiere film schools in the U.S.

This year’s conference theme is “Story First,” and of course, it’s never been a better time to discuss what it means to be a cinematic storyteller in the 21st century, and what contemporary audiences actually seek in terms of a good film story.

Traveling to Savannah and Talking Art and Media

Professors do a lot of things (beyond teaching classes, which is a substantial enough commitment on its own). This past week I presented a paper at the biennial Foundations in Art: Theory and Education (FATE) conference held in Savannah, Georgia.

The title of the topic was: Outdoor Vision Fest: A New Approach to Innovating Interdisciplinary Collaborations. You can check out the accompanying slideshow for the presentation here.

Working With Unions at ABQ Film Festival

Coolest part of participating in the panel discussion on “Working With Unions” at the Albuquerque Film Festival this Saturday morning was having legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler introduce himself to me after the panel and follow up on a point I’d made during the hour-long session. Haskell Wexler, ladies and gentlemen!