CREATING DYNAMIC SCENES

Nothing about screenwriting is easy except for fantasizing about how you’re going to spend the money from the sale of your first spec script. Yes, it’s tough to create interesting, fresh characters. And it’s a challenge to devise a story that grips the reader. And, of course, dialogue can be a stumbling point

These are all difficult, but the most difficult component of a screenplay for almost every writer, neophyte or veteran, is the scene. Its structure, its pace, its purpose, its tension – all present formidable challenges. And writers often find themselves with scenes, and therefore screenplays, that just don’t work.

The goal of the seminar is to learn how to write a gripping scene that makes the reader want to read the next scene. Along the way, we’ll examine scenes that work in contemporary film – how they’re structured, how they’re paced, how they’re held together. We’ll look at a wide variety of scene types, from action to relationship, from introductory to plot point. We’ll delve into the purpose of scenes and how they achieve that purpose, as well as their proper place in the screenplay.

Paul Chitlik has written for all the major networks and studios in English and in Spanish.

He was story editor for MGM/UA'S "The New Twilight Zone," and staff writer for

Showtime's sitcom "Brothers." He has written features for Rysher Entertainment,

NuImage, Promark, Mainline Releasing, and others. He has directed episodes and been

coordinating producer for “Real Stories of the Highway Patrol” and “U.S. Customs

Classified.” He wrote and produced “Alien Abduction,” the first network movie shot on

digital video for UPN. He wrote, produced, and directed “Ringling Brothers Revealed” a

special for The Travel Channel. (He had been a roustabout for Circus Vargas years

earlier.) Most recently he wrote, produced and directed “The Wedding Dress,” for

Amazon Prime. He received a Writers Guild of America award nomination for his work

on "The Twilight Zone" and a GLAAD Media Award nomination for "Los Beltrán,” a

Telemundo show. He won a Genesis Award for a Showtime Family movie.

He has taught in the MFA programs of UCLA, the University of Barcelona’s film school

ESCAC, Cuba’s film school EICTV, Chile’s film school UNIACC, The University of Zulia in

Venezuela, The Panamerican University in Mexico City, The Story Academy of Sweden

and as a clinical associate professor at Loyola Marymount University. Now writing full

time again and living near his grandson in Chapel Hill, NC, with wife, Beth McCauley.