Wendall Thomas Lecture Series September 2019

Screen Queensland is a government-owned company that invests in people and projects to grow a creative, innovative and successful screen industry with a focus on stories and global audiences, secures production to Queensland, and delivers an active screen culture across the state.

Screen Queensland

Wendall Thomas has earned an international reputation of being a master of story, character and structure.

BEMAC (Brisbane Multicultural Arts Centre)

Wendall Thomas has earned an international reputation of being a master of story, character and structure. She currently teaches in the Graduate Film School at UCLA, lectures internationally on screenwriting, and has worked as an entertainment reporter, development executive, script consultant, and film and television writer for companies including Disney, Showtime, A&E, NBC, and Warner Brothers.This 3 day lecture series will cover the following:Tuesday 17 September 2019 10.00am - 5.00pmTHE CATALYST, THE COUNSELOR, THE CORPSE, and THE CANDY: Getting The Most From Your Secondary CharactersIt’s impossible to imagine The Favourite without the Emma Stone’s scheming ladies maid, I, Tonya without Allison Janney’s psychotic “ice” mother, 12 Years a Slave without Lupita Nyong’o’s Patsey or Dallas Buyers Club without Jared Leto’s Rayon. These performances join a pantheon that spans from Claude Rains in Casablanca and Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot to Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton, Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine, Jackie Weaver in Animal Kingdom, and Rachel Griffiths in Muriel’s Wedding.This workshop will offer a new paradigm with which to create and deepen your secondary characters and to use them to incite, complicate, and structure your plots, and support and illuminate aspects of your protagonist.Wednesday 18 September 2019 10.00am - 5.00pmTHE VITAL FIRST ACT: " Grab ‘em by the throat and never let them go.”Billy Wilder always said that if there's a problem in the third act, there's a problem in the first act. This one day seminar will focus exclusively on the all important set-up of your story, character, genre and tone, drawing on examples from five to six genres.We will discuss the importance of the inciting incident and how it relates to the climax of your script, the importance of creating empathy with your protagonist, the economical set-up of your world and central conflicts, as well as the pivotal first act break decision, which starts the story in earnest. We will also discuss resisting the impulse to force too much exposition, too many subplots and too many characters into these first pages.Thursday 19 September 2019 10.00am - 5.00pmFOUR WEDDINGS, a HEIST, and an ALIEN INVASION: The importance of Sequences in Film and Television WritingImagine The Great Escape without the escape, or Muriel’s Wedding without the weddings. From the bicycle chase in E.T. to the “pageant sequence” in Little Miss Sunshine, from the funerals in Six Feet Under to the "Winnebago" disaster in Breaking Bad or the “dust” sequence in Mad Max: Fury Road, sequences form the backbone of any feature film or television series and live in our memories. They provide focus and pace, and are vital tools for any writer.This workshop will examine a variety of memorable sequences—from funerals to dreams to heists to high school reunions—and break down how they work, so you too can use them effectively to strengthen any script.

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