Story Is Everything! – How to Work It, Write It, and Pitch It

Award-winning filmmakers Geoffrey Smith and Senain Kheshgi will teach you the skills to hone your story and pitch it to funders!

Writing a treatment or a synopsis is not easy. It starts with an idea, or a photo, or a piece of archival footage. You may have a semblance of what you want this film to be, what you want an audience to take away. But how do you make it make sense to a reader, a listener, or someone who can donate to, make a grant for, or invest in your project? How do you hook that person to say, “Yes! We are on board.”

In this special one-of-a-kind workshop, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmakers Geoffrey Smith (The English Surgeon) and Senain Kheshgi (Nine for IX, The Diplomat) will show you the tools to hone your story, to get it right for the array of funders and financiers you will meet in your journey to make your film, whether in the U.S. or internationally. This dynamic duo invites you to bring your pitches and questions; and they will provide case studies and years of experience to help bring your pitch – written and verbal – to the next level.

This is the forth session in the four-part webinar series: Leveraging the Power of Story to Finance Your Film

Geoffrey Smith is a double Emmy award-winning director who was at the BBC in London for over 13 years. He has made 24 films for all the major UK broadcasters, won over 40 major International awards, was listed in the New York Times Best Films list for his feature documentary “The English Surgeon”, and his last two features sold widely, had theatrical releases and screened at hundreds of film festivals across the world.

Geoffrey is now very much in demand as a creative consultant and story editor on a wide range of high-level international projects, and works intensely with directors and producers to get the very best out of their ideas and material. Complementing decades of directing and cutting room experience, he uses story archetypes to free documentary filmmakers from the tyranny of choice we all face in the field, and also maximize the emotion in their stories.

Senain Kheshgi is a South Asian American filmmaker who has gained recognition for her exceptional directorial and production skills. She has directed multiple feature and short films, among which are the award-winning "PROJECT KASHMIR" (PBS/Independent Lens) and the three-time Emmy-nominated documentary "THE DIPLOMAT" (ESPN). Senain also created, wrote, and directed the comedic docu-web series "DIVAS OF KARACHI" (PBS) and a series of virtual reality films about Syrian and Afghan refugees for Facebook, Johnson & Johnson, and Save the Children. She most recently served as Executive Producer on “A BROKEN HOUSE” a short documentary directed by Jimmy Goldblum that was shortlisted for an Academy Award and the Amazon Prime Series, “FUTURE FORWARD” a series of 6 short films about climate change, directed by Academy and Emmy winning directors.

As a three-time Sundance Fellow and a Tribeca All Access Fellow, Senain is also committed to mentoring and supporting emerging filmmakers. She has been a mentor for the CAAM Fellowship, the Firelight Media Lab, Hot Docs Blue Ice, the Sundance Women and Film Financing Lab and has served on juries and as a guest speaker for various film festivals and industry events aimed at nurturing diverse talent in the film industry.

She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where she serves on the Executive Committee for the Documentary Branch, and the Television Academy (Primetime Emmys) where she is on the Board of Governor representing Documentary Programming. Senain previously served on the Board of the International Documentary Association from 2008 to 2016.

IMPORTANT WEBINAR REGISTRATION INFORMATION:

• If you register for this entire series, you will have access to all 4 live webinars in this series, as well as the recordings.
• If you have a promo code, please enter that when selecting your ticket type BEFORE proceeding to checkout. After clicking "tickets" above, there will be ticket options and a link that says "enter promo code". You will not be able to do so at checkout.
• Once registered, you will receive an order confirmation email. Please do not delete it. Your confirmation email will contain a button that says "View the Event" which will bring you to the event page. You must be logged in to Eventbrite with the email address you used to register for this to work.
• Alternatively, if the button isn't working for you, please scroll down your order confirmation email to find and click the Zoom link there.
• If you do not see your order confirmation email within 10mins of registering, please check your junk/spam box or promotional emails. If not in those locations, please email fsprogram@wmm.com so we can reissue the confirmation email. We receive a high volume of calls and emails in the hours before the webinar, so please make sure you have what you need in advance to avoid delays in joining the event.
• If you are unable to participate live, a recording of this webinar will be emailed to all registrants and available for three months after the recording is posted.