Writers Guild Foundation
I’ve been following @WritersGuildF on Twitter for some months now, the social media moniker of the Writers Guild Foundation. I dug a little deeper and discovered the person behind the tweets: His name is Kevin Ott who is the Director of Media and Special Projects at the WGF. We chatted over the phone and I learned about many of the Foundation’s initiatives, some of which are great resources for writers around the world.
So here is a Q&A with Kevin all about the Writers Guild Foundation:
What is the Writers Guild Foundation?
Put simply, we’re a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of writers and writing. That means we spend our time doing three things: Promoting writing skills in underserved populations like military vets and low-income high schools; offering low-cost (and sometimes no-cost) learning opportunities to emerging writers — things like interview panels stocked with the hottest screenwriters working today, and online videos that pick the brains of the masters; and preserving the screenwriting treasures of the entertainment industry — whether those treasures are movie scripts, teleplays, radio scripts or new media scripts, or even ancillary materials like photographs of great screenwriters or early drafts of popular works. We’ve even got the typewriter that Robert Bloch used to write PSYCHO (the original novel).
For those writers who live in Southern California or visit L.A., the Foundation has an incredible library. Could you tell us what resources are available there?
The Shavelson-Webb Library is an INCREDIBLE resource for writers. It’s the only writer-focused script library in the world. That’s not to say there aren’t other amazing libraries out there, but ours is the only one dedicated entirely to the craft of screenwriting (and television writing, etc). We have roughly 30,000 items, including screenplays, TV episode scripts, textbooks like STORY and SAVE THE CAT, and more. We’ve also got a new and absolutely wonderful searchable online catalog, which you can use to find scripts based on title, author, awards garnered, and a slew of other variables. Before I worked here, I used to visit the library regularly. So you know I’m not just shilling. :)
Seriously: As many of you know, the best way to become a great screenwriter or television writer is to read scripts. And this is the best place in town to do that. And bearing in mind that the GITS audience is more of a feature screenplay crowd, it’s also a great place to write an excellent TV spec. We’re pretty good at getting new copies of the shows everyone is watching, like ONCE UPON A TIME or PARKS AND RECREATION.
If there’s a down side, it’s that because of agreements with the studios that donate the scripts, we can’t distribute them online; you’ve got to come here to read them. But when you do, you can rest assured that you’re reading the actual script — whether it’s an early draft, the shooting script, or whatever — and not a transcription someone posted on the web.
The Writers Guild Foundation also sponsors some great outreach programs such as high school writing workshops, military veterans writing workshops and visiting writers program. Could you give us some background on those initiatives?
Obviously we’re extraordinarily proud of these. The essence of our High School Screenwriting Workshop: We send specially trained working writers — actual WGA members — into high-needs schools to teach screenwriting classes. And the results are amazing. Kids with criminal histories, 13-year-old parents, kids living in group homes, etc. Right now the program is in the middle of a period of amazing growth; we’ve just expanded into “continuation” schools where students have actually been kicked out of their starting high schools for a myriad of reasons. These schools are often labeled ‘last chance schools’ as this becomes the students last chance to finish high school, get themselves together and turn their lives around. We’ve also expanded into two ninth grade classes, whereas we had previously focused on older students, we found that the 9th graders were extremely able to absorb the 2 week fast-paced class. All of them have learned the value of creativity, good writing, self-expression and sticking with a task until it’s done. But screenwriting isn’t necessarily the goal as much as a tool; we’re not looking to create budding professional screenwriters here, just to use screenwriting to show these kids how much talent and possibility they have inside themselves.
The Veterans Writing Project has a special place in my heart, since I’m its project manager. Essentially it’s aimed at providing a resource specifically for military vets. We host about 60 vets here in the WGA offices for one weekend each April. They meet in small groups with working TV and screenwriters like Robert Ben Garant (RENO 911!, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM), Phil Beauman (SCARY MOVIE), Peter Casey (FRASIER), Winnie Holzman (WICKED) and more. Then, once the weekend is over, they’re invited to come back once a month to continue the process: They learn about writing in general, they workshop their own, and more. Sometimes they’re able to get script notes. It’s a great opportunity to vets to learn to tell their stories in a more compelling way.
The Visiting Writer Program is also growing! Previously, we would put together a working writer with a classroom looking for more information about the craft, and they’d hook up via Skype or some other videoconferencing app. But we recently hooked up with an organization in South Korea with a mission similar to our own, and sent HOUSE creator David Shore over there to lecture to Korean students!
Of special interest to Go Into The Story readers are the various events the Foundation makes available either online or on DVD such as The Writer Speaks, Anatomy of a Script, Writers on Writing, and Notes on Craft. What are each of those and where would someone go to access that content?
Our outreach programs are extraordinarily important to us, but yeah, you’re right: Aside from the library, arguably the most valuable thing we provide to emerging writers is our (again, pretty amazing) events series. Right now the best way to learn about our upcoming events is to go to our website and sign up for our email alerts. You can do it right on the front page. And don’t worry, we won’t overstuff your inbox like some nonprofits do; the vast majority of our email alerts are for upcoming events (though we do send a few fundraising-specific emails out toward the end of the year).
Most of our events are available online or in DVD form. Here’s a quick roundup of our events series:
NOTES ON CRAFT: Panel discussions exploring the various aspects of writing feature screenplays, from plot to character to the first 20 pages.
ANATOMY OF A SCRIPT: A series of 90-minute-plus interviews with creators, focusing on one script — whether a feature screenplay or a TV pilot. Typically takes place in February-March.
WRITERS ON GENRE: Panel discussion exploring the different film genres, from comedy to science fiction to action and more.
WRITERS ON WRITING: These are our “an evening with” events. Each one is a one-on-one interview with a specific writer about his or her body of work. This is not so much a series — Writers on Writing events are peppered throughout the year.
THE WRITER SPEAKS: Videotaped interviews with groundbreaking screenwriters and television writers. More on this in the next question!
A pretty recent effort is the Writers Guild Foundation UStream channel which allows people from all around the world to watch events live online. What are the details regarding that?
In the past year or so we’ve made a pretty strong effort to create a stronger online presence, and most recently we’ve begun streaming all of our events online. You can go to our Ustream page to watch most of our events from 2012 and a few from 2011. Most are between $5 and $10 to watch, but a few are more expensive. We have great names like Paul Thomas Anderson and David O. Russell, as well as panels of writers grouped by genre. You can also visit the Videos and Books section of our website, where you can watch all those videos as well as purchase DVDs of our older events.
But we have a good amount of free stuff available as well, on our YouTube page. We have our entire 2011 ANATOMY OF A SCRIPT series free to watch, which includes great interviews like HOMELAND creators Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, and THE LIVES OF OTHERS writer Florian Henckel von Donnersmarch.
Most excitingly (to me), I’ve recently begun moving our THE WRITER SPEAKS series online! THE WRITER SPEAKS is a series of long-form interviews with groundbreaking writers like D.C. Fontana (STAR TREK), Buck Henry (THE GRADUATE), William Goldman (BUTCH CASSIDY & THE SUNDANCE KID), Richard Matheson (THE TWILIGHT ZONE) and more. I just posted the first one — an interview with Carl Reiner. It’s 51 minutes of amazing.
The Writers Guild Foundation is a non-profit entity, so you accept donations, correct?
Absolutely. In fact, we’re at the tail end of our annual fund drive. But we’re always in the market for funding — we subsist entirely on donations. For instance, 100 percent of my salary comes from donations, so if you find these interview responses charming or charismatic in any way, you should definitely consider donating.
Seriously, though: Donating money gets library scripts catalogued faster. It gets archival items preserved. It funds education for needy high school kids and deserving vets. It lets us continue to provide the highest-quality learning opportunities for writers all over the world.
Anything else we should know about the Foundation?
Yes! Right now we’re in the midst of our Holiday Sale of Extraordinary Experiences! It’s pretty awesome — you can purchase a meeting with an agent, drinks with a showrunner, a show visit, dinner with a screenwriter, and more. We’ve got big names like the Gersh Agency, Andrew Marlowe (AIR FORCE ONE, CASTLE), Heather Hach (FREAKY FRIDAY), Billy Ray (THE HUNGER GAMES, SHATTERED GLASS) and more. We do it every year and it’s always a big hit.
As you can see, the WGF is a great outfit and hopefully you will take advantage of the resources available to you as a writer. And if you’re a WGA member, be sure to include the WGF in your end-of-year charitable contributions. Even if you’re not a Guild member, consider supporting the WGF and its outstanding array of outreach programs.
Some links:
Here is Kevin’s bio:
After working in newspapers and teaching college in my native PA, I moved to Los Angeles and began visiting the WGF library, then volunteering at events. After about a year, I was hired as a part-time office coordinator, then brought onto staff as the full-time Director of Media and Special Projects. I live in Los Feliz with my girlfriend but we want to move to a better apartment.
You can check out Kevin’s latest creative endeavor here.