Black List Screenwriters Lab Participants Announced
It’s official:
SIX BOOK TRIP TO INAUGURAL BLACK LIST SCREENWRITERS LAB
Aspiring professionals to join mentors Brian Koppelman, Jenny Lumet, Billy Ray,
Kiwi Smith, & Scott Myers in Las Vegas
LOS ANGELES (September 25) — This afternoon, the Black List unveiled the names of the six screenwriters who will make the trip to downtown Las Vegas next week for its inaugural screenwriters lab.
Hosted by Tony Hsieh’s Las Vegas Downtown Project, the Lab will consist of a week-long intensive workshop with mentors Brian Koppelman, Jenny Lumet, Scott Myers, Billy Ray, and Kiwi Smith focused on elevating the writers’ best sample as identified by the Black List website and preparing each writer for the realities of life in the professional trade.
The inaugural Black List Lab fellows and their projects are as follows:
Jan Arnold — Born and bred in South Central and passionate about cinema, music, and Los Angeles culture, Arnold is the author of AFRONELL, the story of a teenage musician from South Central juggling conflicting identities while struggling to create a band during the emergence of the punk rock scene in late 70s Los Angeles.
Minhal Baig — A Chicago native and graduate of Yale University, Baig is the author of BURY MY HEART, a dark thriller in the vein of DRIVE and FIGHT CLUB that chronicles the descent of a detached advertising executive into a world of profound moral ambiguity.
Robin D. Fox — Recently signed by Caliber Media Company via the Black List website, Fox is the author of THE BRIGHT AND HOLLOW SKY, which follows two boys, alone in different parts of the country, who struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world full of brutality and loss.
Gia Gordon — A Cultural Anthropology and Film graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Gordon currently lives in Los Angeles and produces promotional films for mission-driven organizations. Her script follows an American Peace Corps teacher who joins the resistance against Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
Nick Malik — A Philadelphia native, 2013 Nicholl Fellowship Semifinalist, and graduate of New York University, Malik is a father of two. His dramedy, YEAR OF THE WOODCOCK!, follows “a delusional cripple who blackmails his estranged brother into finding him a date for the biggest night of his life.”
Casey Scharf — A native of South Florida and graduate of the University of Virginia currently living in Studio City, Scharf adapted his own recently published Huffington Post article on the Julian Petroleum scandal into the script JULIAN THIEVES.
The Evolution of Black List
In 2005, Black List founder Franklin Leonard surveyed almost 100 film industry development executives about their favorite scripts from that year that had not been produced as feature films. Since then, the voter pool has grown to roughly 500 film executives. Over 225 Black List screenplays have been made as feature films, which have collectively earned over $16B in worldwide box office and have been nominated for 160 Academy Awards, winning 30, including three of the last five Best Pictures and seven of the last twelve screenwriting Oscars.
In September 2012, the Black List launched a membership site for industry professionals that functions as a real-time Black List and screenplay recommendation engine. A month later, Leonard further extended the Black List’s mission by inviting screenwriters from around the world to upload their scripts to its database for a fee, have them evaluated by professional script readers and, subject to that evaluation and their recommendation algorithm, sent to over 2,000 film industry professionals for consideration. The Black List has partnered with the Writers Guild of America, East, the Writers Guild of America, West, Warner Bros Pictures, and the Sundance Institute to continue its mission to promote great screenwriting via education, advocacy, and access.
For more information on the Black List, please visit: http://blcklst.com/
CONTACT: Franklin Leonard franklin@blcklst.com
This is yet another example of how the Black List continues to be an innovative force in creating new opportunities for outsiders to break into the Hollywood filmmaking community. I applaud Franklin Leonard for his continuing commitment to a vision he has had since the inception of the Black List nearly a decade ago: To honor and advocate for great screenwriters and superior screenplays.
The Black List Screenwriters Lab is a terrific opportunity for these six writers. Speaking personally, I am excited to read their scripts and work alongside a notable group of successful screenwriters to help the participants in the Lab take their stories to the next level.
Congratulations to Jan, Minhal, Robin, Gia, Nick and Casey. See you soon in Las Vegas!
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