Thinking about how your live stage show could have a life beyond the stage?
This 2-day workshop will show you how to take an existing performance designed for the stage and translate it for Film/TV.
What happens when you move from a medium where the audience is physically in the room to one where the camera controls what they see? You’ll learn how to preserve the voice, character, live-stakes, rhythm, and theatricality that make your live work unique, while taking advantage of cinematic storytelling (camera positioning, editing, sound, locations, etc.,)
We’ll touch on several adaptation formats, from comedy specials, mockumentaries, scripted TV and film, semi-scripted, to unscripted, variety, game show, and animation.
Participants will work on:
- Identifying the central (indispensable) elements of their live piece
- Learn how to kill your darlings: what to keep, lose, expand, or reinvent for the screen
- Finding the right format for your idea
- Exploring how to utilize cinematic storytelling to amplify your material
- Building and expanding out your now limitless world
- Translating audience interaction/ the fourth wall experience into something cinematic
- Ensuring a character/persona has enough depth and longevity to sustain a larger story
- Creating a 1-2 page pitch doc and other important pitching materials
- How to think like a producer (budgets and mandates)
Class Dates:
Saturday & Sunday
October 10th & October 11th
1:00pm - 4:00pm
in the Upstairs Elysian Classroom
About the Instructor
Katie Wilbert is a professional screenwriter and live performer based out of LA and Las Vegas. She performs immersive clown/comedy with the international circus company, Spiegelworld, and is the co-deviser of the absurdist comedy show, Mr. Chonkers.
Katie spent years in film and television development at Kicked to the Curb Productions, where she read hundreds of scripts, developed original projects, and adapted books for film and television. Since then, Katie has written and sold several original screenplays, including the Netflix feature A Vineyard Christmas. She currently has two films in production and is a staff writer on a Roku Original series.
As a performer, Katie has starred in Comedy Central’s sketch series Brief & Futile Love Stories and regularly appears in comedy sketches on FOX NFL Sunday Preshow each football season. She loves teaching screenwriting classes and comedy workshops, and has served as a keynote speaker at the Romance Writers of America conference for the past two years.
Class cancellation policy: No refunds, exchanges, or transfers.