The GITS Club

On Tuesday, we announced the beginning of The GITS Club. As the mastermind of the idea Jeff Messerman put it in the announcement:

I’d like to extend to all of you a hearty invite to THE GITS CLUB. The idea is that this will be a small, safe community for everyone to bounce their material off a (hopefully) friendly bunch of fellow screenwriters. Partials are welcome. Single acts, first pages, single scenes, whatever you wish to try. Consider it a happy place to fail.

And over time, hopefully succeed. Jeff has graciously agreed to handle the task of moderating the boards. I will drop by from time to time, but I see this as a GITS community thing — so finally it’s up to you to make it work.

One thing Jeff and I have discussed is as something to motivate writers is to set this up: Promote someone’s pages posted on The GITS Club boards to the blog proper, anything from a scene to an entire sequence 8–15 pages. What I proposed to Jeff is that we start that as a bi-weekly thing (every 2 weeks) and see how that plays. Along with the wider feedback from GITS readers, I would commit to providing my own in-depth analysis and comments, using the basic tools I use on my own work, those of my students, and on script consultations (e.g., what is the point of the scene; what type of scene is it; what is the scene’s beginning, middle and end; how does the scene tie into the sequence; how does the scene tie into the plot; what are the functions of the characters involved in the scene; does the scene enter late and exit early, etc).

The value in this is at least three-fold: (A) The writer will receive an even more comprehensive response to their pages, both from peers and professionals (myself and any others who care to contribute their feedback); (B) The writer will get additional exposure to their writing by being promoted on GITS; © GITS readers should benefit from reading the writer’s pages and ensuing commentary, a learning opportunity with (hopefully) lessons they can apply to their own writing.

So to recap: Every two weeks, Jeff and I would select some set of script pages, either scenes or a sequence a writer has posted at The GITS Club, or excerpts from a larger post (an act, partial, or complete draft) to be posted on GITS — with the writer’s consent — for a more public discussion including my own analysis and feedback.

Do you like that idea? Any suggestions or tweaks to the basic concept?

To check out The Gits Club, you can go here.

UPDATE: I’m schedule to be traveling on business when this posts, so the numbers may be higher, but when I checked The GITS Club just now (Wed nite), there were already 44 members signed up — in just about 24 hours. Great initial response. Let’s see if we can make this thing work for all the participant’s benefit.

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