WHERE'S THE DRAMA?
The stuff of which dreams are made
3 INT WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS DAY
Stories in any form are elevated from the mediocre and mundane by virtue of the drama they contain. The same can be said of lives, of individuals, of sports teams, social groups, companies, countries. And film crews. Drama is intrinsic to the human condition and forever part of the life force of human affairs. Growth, experience and achievement of any kind are rarely attained without it. A lack of drama is what makes audiences lose interest and switch off. Hence, the pivotal question in the creation and critical evaluation of any artistic or strategic endeavour of merit is always WHERE'S THE DRAMA?
W H A T ' S O N O F F E R ?
Stoneking’s passionate and illuminating approach to screenwriting, as evidenced in his workshops, seminars, and the scripts and film projects that have received the "Stoneking treatment", involves a thoroughly dramatic, character-based process of self-discovery that ultimately results in the transformation of the screenwriter into a MEDIUM for character and story.
To experience "drama" as a medium, is to work inside the story world, not as "the writer" but as a character among other characters. It is to embark on the most vivid and imaginative odyssey of one's life - a deeply sacred and totally practical journey grounded in one's origins and the life stories (both conscious and unconscious) that form the essence of one's Being.
Such a quest is at once intensely personal and thoroughly communal - a collaborative, some times daunting, exploration of one's freedom and one's servitude, and what it means to be DRAMATICALLY human.
For details of upcoming workshops or to organise a workshop/seminar for your group, contact: BILLY MARSHALL STONEKING BRODIE LANE or write to Stoneking Seminars
PRODUCER
STONEKING SEMINARS
0437 864 487
PRODUCER
STONEKING SEMINARS0414 380 251
THE DRAMA OF SCREENWRITING WORKSHOP
Over FOUR DAYS, a select group of participants will come face-to-face with the living emotional energy that is the basis of effective, cinematic CHARACTER-BASED DRAMATIC storytelling. To experience this energy and to be able to apply it, participants will be initiated into the secret/sacred art of MEDIUMSHIP. The energy for the storyteller - as well as for the characters - is transformative.
Powerful and believable characters are essential to the life of any screenplay, and the screenwriter's relationship with character is the primary relationship in the dramatic enterprise of "finding the story". What binds the writer to character is a DRAMATIC PROBLEM - a character must have a problem that is both urgent and of such magnitude that it carries risk or threat enough to demand that the character do something about it NOW. Later, other relationships enter into the process, particularly the writer's relationship with audience, and tribe; but the fundamental relationship between the writer and the characters remains; and if it is strong and clear, the characters' relationship with the audience will be forged with a profound sense of emotional involvement and identification.
Since 2001, screenwriters, directors, producers, editors, designers and actors, have been influenced and inspired by the unforgettable experience of dramatic storytelling that Stoneking's now legendary character workshop offers its participants. This is neither McKee warmed up nor Syd Field in parapharse, but a totally unique take on screen story-finding that will change the way you connect with your characters, and they connect with each other.
This workshop has started many filmmakers on the road to creating and developing award-winning and critically acclaimed short films, features and documentaries.
Learn the art of working as "a medium" - To experience "drama" as a medium, is to work inside the story world, not as "the writer" but as a character among other characters. It is to embark on the most vivid and imaginative odyssey of one's life - a deeply sacred and totally practical journey grounded in one's origins ...and the life stories (both conscious and unconscious) that form the essence of one's Being. Such a quest is at once intensely personal and thoroughly communal - a collaborative, some times daunting, exploration of one's freedom and one's servitude, and what it means to be DRAMATICALLY human.
ENTER YOUR CHARACTERS and their DRAMA!
SECRETS, LIES & SCREENWRITING
ABOVE: Participants at Bangalow (NSW), one-day workshop, Sponsored by Screenworks - November, 2009
STORY, in whatever guise it appears, whether as poem, play, screenplay, history, or novel - is an act of love. And yet the act of finding the story that we need to tell is often fraught with danger, and is almost always bound up in some way with one's fears, prejudices, and expectations; not to mention one’s knowledge, which itself may be a form of ignorance.
When the painter, Jackson Pollack, spoke of a painting as having "a life of its own," he underscored the core insight and action of every creative artist. To create anything (as opposed to merely "copying") is to work as a MEDIUM.
The work of all "Mediumistic" artists - especially screen storytellers - presents a way of Being that is familiar to anyone that has overcome the fear, stagnation and unfocused idleness of habit (read: technique, method, formula) that is antithetical to every act of authentic creation. If art is the absence of stupidity, then the screenwriter-as-medium will disdain all acts of stupidity and cowardice, though the way to the fulfillment of every dream may lead hazardously through both.
Secrets, Lies and Screenwriting is an intensive one-day seminar that introduces filmmakers to the salient aspects of Stoneking's radical new approach to dramatic screen storytelling. Learn the secrets that come from working inside your characters. Uncover the lies that frustrate your interactions with the characters. Journey into the hinterland of character and discover how every film script and film that WORKS is built upon the quality of the relationships that both cast and crew build with the characters.
Please Note: This seminar is also of particular value to actors.
OTHER WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS
PITCH SPORTZ
Conducted by screenwriter/filmmaker/mentor, Billy Marshall Stoneking, this learner-centred, team-based pitching experience places YOU at the center of the action in a fast-paced and thoroughly engrossing recreaton of the professional pitching environment, whether it be in Sydney or LA...
Discover the secrets of building intrigue, tracking emotional energy & "turning on" your audience to YOUR screenplays and television projects...
Workshop will cover the following topics::
WHAT SHOULD MY PITCH INCLUDE? WHO'S IT FOR? WHAT IS IT?
HOW LONG SHOULD IT BE?
HOW MUCH OF MY STORY SHOULD I GIVE AWAY?
HOW DO I DEVELOP A LOGLINE?
WHAT FORMATS SHOULD I USE?
HOW DO I STAY FOCUSED ON THE MAIN CHARACTER’S JOURNEY?
WHAT IS A PREMISE, AND HOW DO DEVELOP ONE?
HOW DO I PREPARE AND RELAX?
Guided tours to the most dangerous region on Earth
SCRIPT SHRINK
(A Script Development Workshop)
When asked for his definition of jazz, Duke Ellington replied: “It’s what you leave out.” Unfortunately, what too many screenwriters leave out of their scripts is the energy that compels an audience's emotional involvement and identification with the characters, namely DRAMA. Without DRAMA, no one's going to be interested.
SCRIPT SHRINK - is a two-day intensive story de-construction workshop for 12-15 writers, writer/directors and/or producers or other filmmakers, who have a script - or the beginnings of one.
SCRIPT SHRINK is an envigorating odyssey that actively involves participants in an examination and exploration of dramatic grammar as it applies to specific characters and stories. Participants will gain the tools and insights required for an on-going, rigorous and illuminating analysis of their developing screenplay (either a short-film script, up to 15 pages; or the first 15 pages of a feature), focusing on the dramatic grammar as it is expressed in and through character.
As participants explore the ways in which dramatic meaning (emotional energy) is built, released or dissipated in their scripts, the dialogical nature of the screenwriting process is revealed, a dynamic drama played out in the actions and interactions of ALL of the characters, both inside and outside of the actual script. Participants will find that even in the task of working with other writers' stories, aspects of their own are revealed and illuminated.
Under the sensitive direction of and ever-watchful mentor, participants embark on a series of dramatic journeys in which each of their scripts becomes a vehicle of discovery and learning. The ultimate destination of each of these journeys is NOT a workshop, but a finished script that "speaks" to the writer and his/her audience.
In collboration with other storytellers, each participant will develop fresh (original) and mediumistic strategies for accessing and exploiting the dramatic possibilities that lie buried in the lives of their particular characters and the story worlds that they inhabit.
Areas of special concern include: Note: SCRIPT SHRINK is a character-based workshop, founded on the premise that everything in a screenplay starts and ends with character. Structure, conflict and believability all suffer when your characters aren’t properly realised. The essential wisdom or logic of this workshop is founded on the understanding that the deep personality and power - or lack thereof - of every film project/collaboration is contingent upon the quality of the relationships that are are first formed at the scripting stage, and which - if thoroughly realised, will go on to initiate cast and crew into the tribal world of the characters and their story. In this sense, anyone with a screenplay/story will benefit from this workshop experience, whether they be editors, actors, designers, cinematographers, etc.
Take your screenplay to “the shrink” – YOU don’t need analysis, but your script might.
THE WORLD OF TRIBAL STORYTELLING
To be is, literally, to be part of a tribe. It is any human grouping of an ethnic, racial, caste, class, clan or community nature with which the member identifies and which identifies with him/her.
It is not a fashion, fad or whim. You may want to identify yourself with a tribe but unless it accepts you and initiates you, you can never really be a member of it.
The Tribal Workshop (TRIBES) is a process – conducted by way of a life-changing 4-day workshop culminating in the making of a five-minute tribal film that dramatises the essential tribal identity of each participant.
The Tribal Workshop, as conceived and developed by Billy Marshall Stoneking encourages collaboration through a sense of creative belonging, responsibility and an appreciation of each individual’s unique integrity. It also presents participants with opportunities to invest their talent, courage, ingenuity and energy into something bigger than themselves, namely the storyworlds within which they can live and work.
A tribe is NOT a family; that is too broad a definition to be useful.
A clan is closer to the mark.
Gangs, to the extent that they are class or ethnically or racially based or organised, qualify as tribal sub-groupings.
A sporting team – and its supporters – is an excellent example of a tribe.
So are the various branches of the armed services, and other professions.
Tribe exists strongly through a sense of place/location: where you were born, where you were raised; what school you went to, etc.
If you are the child of a single mother, you will have a tribal affiliation with all those in that situation.
A boy raised in a family of women, a girl raised in a family of men, equally allows for a certain tribal identification among those individuals, as would sexual orientation.
You can belong to more than one tribe or sub-tribe though one will most probably be primal and more important.
Short Story Big Screen 2009 from ACT Filmmakers Network on Vimeo.
The Healing Power of Tribal Storytelling
Tribal stories are some times referred to as “myths” – however, the word “myth” should not be understood as implying falsehood or fancy.
A myth is a way a tribe communicates its understanding about the problems it faces in the world.
Many of the problems a tribe confronts are shrouded in mystery, in the unknown, in fear. Myth is what allows a tribe to deal with that mystery or fear. It enables them to gain some degree of power over the unknown, or the seemingly uncontrollable.
Whatever wisdom a tribe discovers eventually finds its way into the repository of stories that is the collective wisdom of the tribe.
These stories – as in Australian Aboriginal culture, for example - provide the most profound expression of tribal law. Aboriginal tjukurrpa (law stories) dramatise the morals and personal obligations each member of the tribe has for the other. The kinship system, the regard for land, one’s own, personal identity – all of these and more are embodied in story and song.
TRIBES – the workshop - is grounded in STORYTELLING and the healing properties of stories – the most effective, powerful and least threatening form of sharing experiences and entering into respectful, mutual interactions that promote a strong sense of togetherness and harmony.
TRIBES situates each participant within something that is authentic to them, providing a unique and inspiring vantage point from which to view the world, and a means for expressing both their individually as well as their anxieties, hopes and questions, concerning life and its challenges.
TRIBES provides an opportunity for all the participants to work together to create their own authentic stories, and, in doing so, to make constructive and meaningful contributions through their understanding of and interactions with the larger community.
TRIBES - the Tribal Workshop
AN OVERVIEW - Dramatic stories are by definition tribal stories. The characters in the script beling to tribes, and these tribes are at odds with one another and in conflict. So, too, is the storyteller a member of a tribe or tribes. He or she is, indeed, the carrier of the wisdom of the tribe, as conveyed in the stories that he has in him to tell.
Tribal stories are some times referred to as “myths” – however, the word “myth” should not be understood as implying falsehood or fancy.
A myth is a way a tribe communicates its understanding about the problems it faces in the world.
Many of the problems a tribe confronts are shrouded in mystery, in the unknown, in fear. Myth is what allows a tribe to deal with that mystery or fear. It enables them to gain some degree of power over the unknown, or seemingly uncontrollable.
Whatever wisdom a tribe finds or discovers is embodied in its stories.
The stories also – particularly in Aboriginal culture – provide the most profound expression of tribal law. Aboriginal tjukurrpa (stories) dramatise the morals and personal obligations that each member of the tribe has for one another. The kinship system, the regard for land, one’s own, personal identity – all of these and more are embodied in story or myth.
The Workshop is in THREE PARTS, as outlined below:
THE LORE OF OBJECTS (Part 1) - over 2 days
Participants to select two items (objects, images or music) from the following categories, and bring them to the first day’s session:
Something old
Something New
Something borrowed
Something Sacred
Something Profane
NOTE: Participants will tell the stories that reveal the emotional significance of each item to the storyteller.
THE TRIBAL CONNECTION - SEEING OURSELVES IN OTHERS – (Part 2) - 2 days
Each individual must select TWO scenes.
Each scene must come from a feature film (VHS or DVD)
Scenes must be no longer than five minutes in length and no shorter than 1 minute
Selection Criteria
Scene A : a scene that presents/dramatise/elucidates or in some way illustrates what you imagine or perceive to be your partner's TRIBAL IDENTITY.... A scene that conveys something significant concerning the essence of your partner's being.
Scene B : a scene presents/dramatise/elucidates or in some way illustrates the way you SEE or UNDERSTAND your own TRIBAL IDENTITY.... A scene that conveys something significant concerning the essence of your own being.
Participants should arrive at the workshop with scenes cued and ready to show. Participants must be prepared to talk about the choices they have made and why.
Preparation
See if you can think of any films or scenes from films that REMIND you of some significant aspect of your partner's character.
Consider their values, attitudes, hopes, fears, history, etc etc
DO NOT disclose your choices to one another - or any one else - prior to the workshop.
Research is permissible so long as you DON'T MAKE FILM BASED ENQUIRIES (e.g.: "what is your favourite film?")
Feel free to enquire personally but make your enquiries about biographical details. "What was the most memorable summer of your life and what made it memorable?" "How did you feel about your siblings?"
IMPORTANT::: Don't be afraid to make decisions based on your intuitive understanding of your partner.
THE MYTH OF SELF (Part 3) - 1 day
Each participant to make a short (no more than 5 minutes) that dramatises his/her tribal identity.
Film may be in any genre, including documentary and dramatic monologue. May be edited in camera or Final Cut Pro (or similar)
Films will be screened and discussed in large group.
WRITING THE SHORT-FILM SCRIPT
A new workshop!!! Provides the best introduction to mediumistic, SHORT-FORM DRAMA!!! 
See if your TropFest script passes the Stoneking test!!
By popular demand, this 2-day, practical workshop provides screenwriters, directors and producers, wishing to develop their short-film ideas or scripts into effective dramatic stories, with an opportunity to work with Stoneking and other filmmaker/writers in an inspiring investigation into the .workings of their short-form drama (scripts from 3 to 40 pages).
12 to 15 participants will explore the grammar of drama as it applies to short-form narrative.
TOPICS include : endings and the re-contextualisation of "the problem", the multiplication of meaning , making best use of THE BIG PRINT, subtext and context, and the role of audience and tribe.
Short films that have received the Stoneking treatment have garnerd awards all over the world, including two Academy-award nominations for Best Short Drama.
It is recommended that you participate in this workshop as preparation for THE DRAMA OF SCREENWRITING
