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Christopher Lockhart is Hollywood’s foremost story professional. As Story Editor at WME, the world's largest diversified talent agency, Chris curates projects for A-list actors such as Denzel Washington, reading and exploring through piles of screenplays, magazines, books, old movies, TV shows, and pitches in search of potential film projects. Chris began his career at International Creative Management (ICM), where he worked as script consultant to legendary talent agent Ed Limato, who represented industry giants such as Mel Gibson, Richard Gere, Michelle Pfeiffer, Liam Neeson, and Robert Downey, Jr. Chris later moved to the venerable William Morris Agency, which eventually merged with Endeavor to form WME. As an educator and consultant, Chris has lectured around the world on the craft and business of screenwriting, and he has advised on countless feature films. Chris graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with an MFA in dramatic writing and was awarded the school's Public Service Prize for his dedication to public education. He is an adjunct professor at National University's Professional Screenwriting Program. He has also taught at LA Valley College and UCLA. His writing workshop The Inside Pitch was filmed for Los Angeles television, earning him an Emmy Award nomination. Chris's creative counsel has been used on many hit films such as the 2016 Sundance Film Festival sensation The Birth of a Nation. Chris crossed over into film producing with the cult horror hit The Collector (2009) and its sequel The Collection (2012), which opened in the top ten box-office. He also wrote and produced the award winning documentary Most Valuable Players (2010) which was acquired by OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network), and that Matt Roush of TV Guide reviewed as the “Sleeper of the week...Charming and disarming…A genuine treat.” Chris has set up several other projects, including A Rhinestone Alibi at Paramount, and Crooked Creek, a modern noir thriller. Chris is a member of the Writers Guild, the Producers Guild, and the Television Academy. He lives in Beverly Hills, CA and has a ten-year-old son. Full Bio »
The Stage 32 team brings you an exclusive special event you won't find anywhere else!
Christopher Lockhart, who works with Denzel Washington, Michelle Williams, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and more is known around town as the logline whisperer. He will be breaking down effective loglines and will be listening to logline pitches to critique and help yours get better! You don't want to miss this opportunity to learn from an industry heavyweight like Chris, exclusively in the Stage 32 Writers' Room!
The Write Now Challenge
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Really enjoyed Chris's frank and honest analysis. Thank you all for setting this up. ~ Matthew W.
Love Chris learned a lot from him I recommend his logline webinar highly. ~ Traci D.
Chris is going thru these longlines, like Hurricane Ian lol ~ Christopher T.
It's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife...well, actually it's more like the Write Now Challenge Webcast: Isn't it Ironic coming at you this afternoon at 4pm (Pacific)! In this challenge, members were asked to write a short scene (no more than 5 pages) using one of the examples of irony from the Breakdown Webcast: Dramatic Irony. As a reminder the examples for irony are below: Dramatic Irony: A literary and theatrical device in which the reader or audience knows more about a situation, complication, or conflict than the characters they are following. Classical Irony: This term describes irony as it was used in ancient Greek comedy—to highlight situations in which one thing appears to be the case when, in fact, the opposite is true. Cosmic Irony: Cosmic irony highlights incongruities between the absolute, theoretical world and the mundane, grounded reality of everyday life. Socratic Irony: Socrates would feign ignorance of a subject and ask seemingly innocent—but actually leading—questions to draw out information he already knew. Socratic irony differs from verbal irony because it involves intentional deception. Verbal irony, on the other hand, does not connote insincerity or deception. Situational Irony: occurs when there is a difference between what is expected to happen and what actually happens. With situational irony, our discovery that our expectations haven’t been met are the same as the characters in the story. Verbal Irony: is when a character says something that is different from what he or she really means, or how he or she really feels. This is the only type of irony where a character creates the irony.
In this challenge, members were asked to pick their favorite antagonist or villain from film, television or literature and in - ONLY ONE PAGE - write a monologue from his or her point of view. The participants could frame this as an interrogation, a negotiation, a confession, or a conspiratorial conversation. Most importantly, writers has to make sure the scene had conflict, and the character's point of view in his or her voice. During the webcast we heard from some of our favorite protagonists, including Loki from the Marvel Universe, Terence Fletcher of Whiplash, Commodus from Gladiator, Jack Bynes of Meet the Parents, and Lex Luther of Superman among many others.
Using the Breakdown Webcast: Breaking Down the 3rd Act (in the Vault here) as your guide, identify and pull out the B-stories and/or major subplots from your Feature script and put them in a separate document as a beat sheet.
Whether it’s epic battles between giant robots, a street fight, or someone chasing after the love of their life at the airport, the vast majority of movies and television use at least a bit of action writing. So we are challenged you to write an original or polish a scene with action, and really focus on making those moments of movement pop!
One of the common complaints with scripts is on-the-nose writing. This month, we're challenging you to convey a series of emotions without using the actual words (or synonyms - no cheating!).
This week Host & Director of Script Services Jason Mirch reads and critiques Write Now submissions written by Writers' Room members. Jason offers insights on how the writers executed the inciting incidents in their projects.