SCREENWRITING COURSES COMING TO NOVAC STORY BY ANNIE GAIA GUEST COLUMNIST
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s a screenwriter, I’m always looking for courses on how to sharpen my writing tool. Luckily, NOVAC is guiding us writers to learn and communicate our visions into successful productions or to sell it to the bigwigs in screenwriting. As a teaser for their upcoming screenwriting course, the fourth and final installment of NOVAC’s free (yes, free!) screenwriting series, in collaboration with New Orleans Public Library, invited writers and actors alike to “listen to how the pros did it.” I missed the first three installments, but don’t worry, NOVAC made the final one easy to receive some notes. During the table read, NOVAC director of programs Ashley Charbonnet and fellow actors, such as the marvelous Michael Martin, sat down and read three different successful screenplays. The actors played various roles in scenes from Casablanca, The Princess Bride, and Midnight Cowboy. You could hear the difference in tone of each of the three pieces, as Charbonnet read the stage’s most important part—stage directions. I could visually see the scene with the words being read at the table and decide which style worked for me, a whole “aha, that’s how
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LOUISIANA FILM & VIDEO MAGAZINE
ISSUE FOUR 2013
that scene was written—what a subtle way of making a flashback work so well.” Reading historical scripts at home is educational, but having it read aloud at the table was even better. “I hope it garnered an interest in the community, in that NOVAC teaching more screenwriting classes (offers) an opportunity to do a free screening in conjunction with the libraries in different parts of the city, so we are excited about that partnership,” Charbonnet explained. “We really want to take it to the next level, more workshopping scripts that our filmmakers are bringing to the table, both features and shorts. The table read went really well; it seemed a lot of people enjoyed it, so we’ll probably do that again. It’s possible that we will be doing more teaser classes at NOVAC, as well.” Yes! More workshops for the writing artist, just what I could use in this city. Abigail Levner, membership and development coordinator for NOVAC, attended the recent workshop. “We would love to do more. There is an abundance of writing talent in New Orleans; I think these skills are essential to work in film,” she said. “Sigourney Hoffman is a great screenwriter; he wrote Love Lies. He’s going to be at NOVAC
A teaser screenwriting class at NOVAC featured a table read of famous scripts.
soon for the BlueCat Screenplay Competition. We are hoping people will come to that. We are working to develop a more formal screenwriting series at NOVAC, such as Web Weekend, a micro-conference in partnership with the film festival. We are bringing in some really cool people and we are really excited about that.” I’m stoked, too. I can’t wait for the BlueCat Screenplay Competition and to watch the filmmaking community grow. If you, too, are looking for more information, check out NOVAC’s Web site (www.novacvideo.org) to find out more about how you can be involved in bettering your skills. LFV