Prewriting Your Screenplay: A Guide to Developing Great, Cohesive Stories

Event Date: Saturday, February 15, 2020 || Speaker: Michael Tabb  || Check-in: 12:30 pm ||

Michael Tabb will illustrate how to generate a story fit for the movies from a nothing at all (a blank slate), inspired by his book PREWRITING YOUR SCREENPLAY: A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO GENERATING STORIES. This is a method of story foundation building that will help fulfill the necessary elements for concept creation that a writer needs before sitting down to write the actual script. See more details below:

**The deadline has passed and REGISTRATION is now CLOSED for this event. Please view our calendar for upcoming events.

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More details:

These methods can be used to brainstorm a story idea for ANY creative writing medium, but there are tools in this technique that specifically help give birth to characters and moments necessary for visual storytelling. Howard Rodman, the president of Hollywood’s Writers Guild of America, West states, “Michael Tabb has thought long, hard, and usefully about how to write screenplays with vision and intent.  He understands premise, character, conflict, drama; far more importantly, he can impart wisdom about all of them without condescending or ‘dumbing down.’  I know of no better guide to the work of writing that happens before we write.”

For more information about the book, see Michael’s website at www.michaeltabbwga.com.

Michael Tabb is a working screenwriter, decade-long current and active member of the WGA (the Writers Guild of America, West is the Hollywood screenwriters’ union), a multiple-award-winning screenwriting educator, and author of a film-festival-winning Best Screenplay. His new book, Prewriting Your Screenplay: A Step-By-Step Guide To Generating Stories, explains how he develops great, cohesive script ideas.

Michael has written two produced screenplays for Universal Studios and is rewriting another for Mystery Road Films. His latest collaborations include a new one-hour television pilot with Hivemind (The Expanse, The Witcher), fellow screenwriter Evan Spiliotopoulos (Charlie’s Angels, The Huntsman, and Disney’s 2018 Academy-Award-nominated film, Beauty & The Beast), and Director Thor Freudenthal (Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters, Diary Of A Wimpy Kid, TV’s Flash and Green Arrow), taking his first steps into television. He has three new, original TV pilots, one with Endgame Entertainment.

He has developed feature film projects for and with Disney Feature Animation, The Canton Company at Warner Brothers, Imagine Entertainment, Mandeville Entertainment, Intrepid Pictures, Paradox Studios, Producers Lawrence Bender, Branko Lustig, Paul Schiff, comic book icon Stan Lee, writer/director Jonathan Hensleigh, Director Mike Newell, and actor/producer Dustin Hoffman.  He also served as a reader and script analyst for Alcon Entertainment for three years after college.

Michael has been paid to write feature films in almost every genre imaginable, including: action, comedy, drama, psychological thriller, crime/heist, science-fiction/fantasy, musical, swashbuckler, western, sword and sandal, war epic, children’s animation, and horror. Michael has been asked to adapt many different types of products into feature film screenplays, including: toys, novels, comics, plays, short stories, classic literature, and self-published manuscripts. These include the works of Robert E. Howard, William Shakespeare, Homer, and comic-book icon Stan Lee.

To give back to his fellow writers, Michael serves on the WGA’s Writer’s Education Committee, formally served on the New Members’ Committee, co-created the screenwriter’s union’s first ever Mentor Program, and has assisted the Writers’ Guild Foundation Community Outreach Program by guest instructing on his craft to underprivileged youths in the Los Angeles area. He has lectured on screenwriting at The Screenwriters World Conference, east and west coast writer conferences, FSU, UCLA, and USC, invited by friends, instructors, and associates. He is served as a multiple-award-winning, graduate-level, online professor of screenwriting at Full Sail University. Michael has spoken on and moderated web-casts and industry panels for San Diego’s Comic-Con International, local Los Angeles film festivals, film schools including New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and the Writers’ Guild of America, West.

He takes great pride in his mentorship of bright writers of all ages. He originated the column in Ingénue Magazine about the business of screenwriting entitled “Script Notes,” which was picked up by Script Magazine (a former subsidiary of Writers Digest). These columns served as the foundation for his book, now available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. One of the top film industry and educational publishers in the world, UK’s Taylor and Francis/Routledge Publishing’s cinematic arts division, Focal Press, recently released his book, Prewriting Your Screenplay: A Step-By-Step Guide To Generating Stories.

Michael was a co-founder of the scripted web-series site made for Hollywood professionals, especially WGAW members, www.strike.tv.  His education includes two years as a USC undergrad, a B.F.A. from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and graduated from UCLA’s School of Film and Television, professional screenwriting program.  More information about Michael and his book at www.MichaelTabbWGA.com.

Michael’s Book: Prewriting Your Screenplay: A Step-By-Step Guide To Generating Stories

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Links to articles featuring Michael in Daily Variety:

• http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117961104.html
• http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117788980.html?categoryid=19&cs=1&query=Michael+Tabb

Join us on the Third Saturday every month at:

CBS Studio Center
4024 Radford Avenue
Studio City, CA 91604

Free Parking — Enter the CBS* lot at the main gate & inform security you are there for the Scriptwriters Network event.

*You must RSVP by the deadline mentioned above in order to be on our RSVP list for Security clearance onto CBS’ lot. If you do not RSVP by the date above, you will not be allowed onto CBS’ lot.

You’ll be asked for your government issued photo ID and then given directions to the meeting location. CBS’ Security will also direct you to a parking spot.

As this is a professional event, we ask that you please arrive prior to the event start time for networking.

Meeting Timeframe: 1:00 pm to approximately 3:00 pm

Please remember to bring your government issued photo ID!

Any questions, email us at [email protected].