Ticket Giveaway: “The Psychology of Story-Telling” with Lindsay Doran
There is a fantastic event happening later this month featuring one of the most insightful and inspirational people involved in the Hollywood film business. Read on:
On February 20 at 7:30 pm at the Writers Guild Theater, Lindsay Doran may change everything you think you know about screenwriting.
Presented by the Black List and the WGAw Committee of Women Writers, Lindsay’s talk, which was the subject of the New York Times article “Perfectly Happy, Even Without Happy Endings” and which was excerpted in her TEDx Talk titled “Saving the World vs. Kissing the Girl,” examines what the field of Positive Psychology can teach us about about the secrets of writing a satisfying movie and how our deep-seated fear of the saber-toothed tiger keeps them a secret.
Lindsay is the producer of such movies as SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (for which she was nominated for an Oscar), Stranger Than Fiction, Nanny McPhee and Dead Again. (She was also the Executive in Charge of Production on THIS IS SPINAL TAP!) She does story consulting as the Script Whisperer® on high level studio projects and has appeared on the Script Notes podcast.
Spoiler Alert: This talk gives away the ending of every movie ever made.
LINDSAY DORAN
Lindsay Doran has worked in the movie business for more than 30 years as a studio executive and as a producer. She has served as the President and COO of United Artists Pictures and as the President of Sydney Pollack’s Mirage Productions. She currently divides her time between her producing duties and her work as “The Script Whisperer®” — anonymous consultation for studios on high priority script development.
Lindsay’s first film credit was as Executive in Charge of Production on the mock-documentary “This is Spinal Tap.” As a producer, her credits include “Dead Again,” “Sense and Sensibility,” “Nanny McPhee,” and “Stranger Than Fiction.”
As an executive, Lindsay worked on dozens of films including “The Sure Thing,” “Stand By Me,” “Pretty in Pink,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Planes Trains and Automobiles,” “The Naked Gun,” “Pet Sematary,” “Ghost,” “The Thomas Crown Affair,” and two James Bond films — “The World is Not Enough” and “Tomorrow Never Dies.”
She is the winner of numerous awards including the Golden Globe Best Picture award and the British Academy Award for Best Film, both for “Sense and Sensibility.” She was also nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Picture category for “Sense and Sensibility.”
Lindsay tries to be guided by the Three Rules of Drama, found in an ancient text, as the basis for what motion picture entertainment ought to be:
#1 It must be arresting and amusing to the drunk.
#2 It must address the question, “How should we live?”
#3 It must address the question, “How does the universe work?”
Note: Ticket fee exists only to cover the cost of the venue graciously offered by the WGA at a discount. Neither Lindsay Doran nor the Black List will benefit from this event. Any surplus will be donated to the Writers Guild Foundation.
I posted two items about Lindsay and her ideas previously:
Then when I was part of the Black List Screenwriters Lab in Las Vegas last October, I had the pleasure of hearing Lindsay give her presentation first-hand. It is terrific.
The bad news: The event is sold out.
The sort of good news: You can go here to put your name on a waiting list.
The really good news: The Black List has made available 7 tickets for Go Into The Story readers. What I’d like to do to determine who receives those tickets is reprise something we’ve done before which led to one of the most popular posts ever on this blog:
Write words of encouragement to someone you don’t know about to embark on writing their first complete screenplay. No more than 100 words.
Here are some examples from the previous contest:
We spend our lives searching within ourselves for something majestic, something big enough for people to take notice. If only for a moment. That’s what writing is really all about — the trying, the journey. Most of us never get there. But in traveling that inner road and attempting to get it on paper, we discover things about ourselves that elevate us higher, no matter how small the leap up. Good luck.
John Geraci
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That burning feeling you have inside of you is your amazing story waiting to be told. Set it free and change the world with your words.
Brett Miller
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Since screenwriting is about “less is more”…
…why not?
And because it’s also about rewriting, I’ll add:
Try to tell the story that, if you could only tell one story to the world before you died, make it this one. It adds an urgency and personal connection that you might not get any other way. Good luck.
(Frankly, I needed this pep talk as much as you did.)
Noah Pohl
Franklin and I were so blown away by the responses last time, I aggregated the best of them and put them into this post here. Whenever we tweet it, the post gets a huge response.
So yes, this is about finding 7 people to attend a wonderful event with Lindsay Doran. But it’s also about contributing another wave of inspiration from the GITS community to new writers. So give voice to your inner Muse!
Deadline: Wednesday, February 12 at Midnight Pacific (U.S.).
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