Tuesday, July 8
Members-only and included with membership.
***This class is on demand--watch at your convenience in the member classroom.***
Have you ever wondered how character, stakes and pacing interact in your world?
Change one, and you change all three.
With examples from various TV shows and movies, including 'Only Murders in the Building,' 'Will Trent,' 'Mare of Easttown,' and 'Inglourious Basterds,' book-to-film producers Marilyn R. Atlas and Elizabeth Lopez discuss the importance of balancing character development and plot progression, the role of ensemble casts, and the integration of various genres in storytelling.
The talk is filled with practical exercises for writers to improve pacing, such as charting emotional arcs and setting up emotional pivot points. The session is wrapped up with takeaway thoughts and a Q&A session that offers practical advice on visualizing scenes and the importance of surprises and twists in keeping an audience engaged.
Marilyn R. Atlas is a talent & literary manager, award-winning producer, and co-author of Dating Your Character. Her clients have appeared in shows such as Star Trek, Fringe, Pretty Little Liars, How to Get Away with Murder, 90210, Revenge, Hart of Dixie, NCIS:LA, True Blood, Dexter, Chuck, Castle, and Criminal Minds. She was film producer on Real Women Have Curves for HBO, which won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival; A Certain Desire, starring Sam Waterston; and Echoes, which won the Gold Award at the Texas International Film Festival.
In addition to producing a variety of programming for the cable/ pay TV market. In live theater, Marilyn co-produced the West Coast premiere of the musical God Bless You Mr. Rosewater by Ashman and Menken (the writers of Enchanted and Tangled). Real Women Have Curves – The Musical is opening on Broadway April 2025. She also co-produced the award-winning play “To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday,” co-produced a play in San Antonio called “Detained in the Desert,” and produced a movie for Lifetime based on a book called “The Choking Game.”
Marilyn herself has been in development on pilots for Showtime and ABC Family. In addition to Marilyn’s film/TV credits, she has sold (first time) novels Chasing the Jaguar to HarperCollinsto Hachette Book Ave Maria Bed & Breakfast to Grand Central Publishing, and the Hungry Woman in Paris, Group, and the Last Ride of Caleb O’Toole to Sourcebooks Her Lifetime movie The Choking Game based on the YA book by Diana Lopez aired in summer 2014. She is also featured in the book Write Now! from Penguin/Tarcher. She is the co-author of a relationship-based, screenwriting guide called Dating Your Character, about an organic approach to character creation for Stairway Press’s Summer 2016 catalog.
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