Currently I am reading a book called Producer To Producer about producing independent film. It’s a great resource, packed full of helpful information, so I can get my feature projects off the ground with a pool of investors. One of the tools for writing a feature is to map out successful films. The way it works is to literally study the film by writing down what happens minute to minute, find the inciting incidents, the turning points, the “all is lost” moment, and the obligatory happy ending and study the build up, timing, pacing, and dialogue. The dialogue in a film should be concise and always push the story forward. You can learn a lot from studying the characters too. It’s a completely different way to watch a movie. I take pages and pages of notes and break it all down like a math formula. For nerds like me, it makes the story more like a complicated math problem, and I was always good in math.

Another helpful book for story that I read recently is Change Your Story, Change Your Life by Jen Grisanti. My husband worked with Jen on Aaron Spelling’s last show “Wanted,” and I always love talking to her because she is such a nice and authentic person with a wealth of knowledge about story. Running programming at Spelling Television and as the VP of Current Programs as CBS/Paramount, Jen was extremely involved in several successful shows and knows what works. Now she runs her own company and helps writers through consultation and her published books which are honest and relatable. I am so grateful for authors like Jen, who share their knowledge with others. It’s tremendously generous and builds a great community for writers who want to learn and grow.

As someone who not only writes, but also produces and directs, I usually start with a script. You can go the route of improv or write something off the cuff which can yield great results. Since I love being on set, I might start doing a weekly cast call for fun content to edit quickly and post. I want to be behind the camera and in production because I enjoy it so much. I also have several feature scripts on my plate at the moment that I do not want to be distracted from, so if I do this “day of” style production, it will only be once a week for now. Each week I can cover different types of stories from women oriented stuff to LGBT content to guys on the town. It’s a great way to work with talent who I may end up casting in upcoming feature films.

Right now, we are finishing the process of getting the Epic footage from Playground into the AVID so we can begin syncing sound and start editing. If all goes well tonight, syncing can begin tomorrow. Everything is looking really good. Here are a few pictures from Playground.

Marc Yellin

Juliette Larsen & Bea Schreiber

Lars Slind

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