Reflections of 2018 Black List Feature Writer’s Lab Participants

7 writers. 7 mentors. 6 days. 1 incredible experience.

From August 5–11, 2018, seven screenwriters gathered in Los Angeles for the 5th Annual Black List Feature Writers Lab. The writers — Amber Alexander, Chris Basler, Ryan Jow, Halia Meguid, Cody Newton, and Kim and Mai Spurlock— had been selected on the basis of scripts they had uploaded to the Black List website and a personal statement about the story they are writing as well as their creative aspirations.

It was an incredible week and a fantastic learning experience for the lab participants. Easy to see given the slate of professional screenwriters who served as mentors for the lab writers: Jessica Bendiger, Max Borenstein, Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi, Tess Morris, Kiwi Smith and myself.

I asked the lab writers to share thoughts on their experience. Here they are!

Amber Alexander

“Generosity overload” is how I would sum up my week at the 2018 Black List Lab.

Before arriving to our utopia screenwriting week set in the haven of Manhattan Beach, our screenplays were shared with our fellow Lab Fellows. The pages I read were rich with risk-taking worlds carefully crafted by talented writers. These writing witch-wizards with pens and laptops turned out to be some of the most incredibly kind, generous and wonderful people I’ve ever met and are now lifelong friends.

Sunday afternoon I checked into my hotel room in Manhattan Beach in my jeans and flannel shirt. My “fish outta water” feelings quickly turned to gratitude as I read the letters from past Lab Fellows, revelled in the Black List swag, and had a moment of, “this is what it feels like for an actual dream to become reality.” It was a beautifully surreal moment. One of many moments to come.

Monday morning we sat down as a group with one of our mentors, the story-crafting genius Scott Myers. During our week with Scott I learned more about story and process than I did from all the previous screenwriting talks, workshops and books I’d read combined. One personal takeaway I had was that in order to create worlds which breathe authenticity and specificity, we must work from a place of truth and connection to the material. When we do the “personal life work” and embrace our whole selves, it will have a ripple effect into our writing, allowing bold truth to splash onto the page. (Also, Scott’s pitch workshop is incredible and amazing and I most definitely put it into real-life practise already.)

A highlight I have to note was being treated to a screening of BLINDSPOTTING along with a follow up dinner with the co-star and co-writer Rafael Casal. He shared about how the journey to get BLINDSPOTTING made took ten years from initial concept to arriving onscreen. (And all the independent filmmakers sing, “hell yeahhh.”)

During the week we dove into our scripts identifying points to workshop and rewrite with the help and guidance of our mentors. I was overjoyed to spend time with Kiwi Smith, Phil Hay, Tess Morris and Max Borenstein. Each person gave so much of their time to go over our scripts and offer incredibly insightful points to consider in approaching the further development of our scripts. I came out of those meetings inspired, challenged and with a solid rewrite plan.

And in between meetings and story chats — there was the food. Now, I had heard rumours of Megan’s exceptional culinary taste, but nothing can prepare you for the feasting that happens during the Black List Lab. NOTHING, I SAY. We broke bread (and warm, fresh biscuits with whipped herbed butter) while snacking on salmon belly tartare and kanpachi crudo. We shared in dinners of smoked carbonara and spinach cavatelli. The wine overflowed. The conversations filled with shared revelatory moments experienced throughout the day. Community was built.

The Black List team has created and championed an experience that is revolutionary. Kate is the living embodiment of brilliant-cool (sit down The Dude). Lauren will be running a studio one day. Terry is a hilarious genius tech-guru and not at all a serial killer and Megan, well, Megan is wonder woman. Megan’s work in crafting the lab and facilitating this experience for a bunch of insecure writers is nothing short of actual magic. And then there’s Franklin. Every time anyone tried to thank him, he redirected the thanks to his team. Everytime. He’s started a movement for writers and for filmmakers that is about inclusivity, opportunity and giving voice and that’s evident in every aspect of how the Black List operates and is embodied in their team.

During our last night together, Franklin shared words with our group that will stay with me for a very long time. He spoke how each one of us were there — around that table — for a reason. We weren’t the one who accidentally slipped into the lab. Our work brought us to this place and we deserve to be there. *cue tears* Because if you’re like me you live with that wonderful haunting beast called Imposter Syndrome. I’m not smart enough… I don’t live in a film centre… I grew up in the middle of goddamn nowhere… I don’t have the right schooling.. I have no idea how to use commas…

Those six days made me feel recognized as a writer. As I reflect about my time at the Lab, the importance of that feeling has become amplified. To be recognized. To be acknowledged. As writers we live in a semi-isolated world where rejection is our pillow, silence is our blankets, and the “let’s circle-back” is our damn mattress (I’m terrible with metaphors, please roll with it). Every aspect of the Lab was carefully thought out and designed to not only sharpen our work, but to bring life to the core of our beings. It was as if a very kind megaphone was following us around saying, “You’re worth it. Your work is worth it. Remember this feeling.”

And to you my fellow writers who are spending yet another day in your pyjamas talking to your characters and crafting worlds, I hope you grab ahold of that kind megaphone and let yourself know that you are worth it. Your work is worth it. Go write. Xo.

Chris Basler

Since leaving the 2018 Black List Feature Lab, I’ve worked very hard to think of a better, more satisfying week in my life, one where literally everything felt right, and to be honest I don’t know that I can. So much of the time, writing can feel like an exercise in futility, banging your head against a wall over and over again with no sense of progress or satisfaction. To be invited to a lavish hotel in the company of up-and-coming writers, industry gurus like Franklin Leonard and Scott Myers, and big name working writers for a week dedicated to the craft, then, felt the wall had finally crumbled, had finally revealed the light on the other side.

We discussed the art of endings with Michael Arndt (TOY STORY 3, STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS) and the business of pitching with Lindsay Doran (GHOST, DEAD AGAIN). We got insider tips on general meetings from Franklin Leonard, and of course, constant, invaluable support in digging into our scripts from Scott Myers, (who single-handedly saved my flailing elevator pitch with a brilliant take). The mentors were no less incredible, each of them devoting hours of time to discussing our scripts one on one. It was like a spa week for my writing — healing it, scraping off the dead skin, and leaving it refreshed and ready to take on the world.

But it was also like, well — a spa week. Never-empty plates of foods at some of LA’s best restaurants, and drinks aplenty; a relaxing boutique hotel as our home base; the company of not just other dazzled (and dazzling) writers, but of the amazing Black List team. Lauren, Kate, Terry, and Olivia were as welcoming and encouraging as anyone could hope for, and helped made each of us feel like a member of the Black List family. And Megan, who organized the whole thing, is on a whole other plane — how does someone pull off a week as flawless as that? This is a truly special group of people, who care about writers not just in the abstract, but as people, and being in their presence helped restore a lot of my faith in this industry.

The bonds I formed with the other writers in the lab were also something that will stay with me — each of us, on some level, arrived feeling like we were the ones who didn’t belong, that our script had slipped in as a fluke. But that speaks to the caliber of scripts selected: there wasn’t a single weak link, neither in the writing or in the writers, and the worlds and ideas I was introduced to just among my peers in the Lab have kept my mind racing ever since. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have shared that experience with, and I’m proud to have been a part of such a talented group.

I’m still thinking about the lab, weeks later, and already wishing I could do it again, already jealous of the next group of writers who gets to experience it. So much of writing is cold, thankless, daunting work, but the Lab is a week long warm hug that reminds you it just might all be worth it.

Cody Gifford

What would David Mamet say about the Black List Feature Lab?

To preface, he’s said of writers that, ‘Writers in Hollywood permit ourselves to be treated like commodities in the hope that we may, one day, be treated like valuable commodities.’ Invert Mamet’s axiom and you’re warming to what it means to be a Feature Lab participant. For one week you and your fellow participants share in fellowship, sumptuous meals, and a mutual love for a dizzyingly diverse set of stories. For one week, in our little corner of the universe, Franklin Leonard and his team flip Hollywood’s traditional feature script — where the writer is featured unceremoniously at the bottom of the totem pole.

A not so subtle shift occurs upon entering the program; you encounter a group dedicated to story, obsessed with character, bursting with passion for our profession and, maybe most conspicuously, fiercely dedicated to the development and comfort of others. You go into the woods, hoping to discover that something about yourself that cannot be taught, but must be learned through the crucible of trial and error. So you take a chance. And take that first step past the tree line.

In these woods you find world class writers. You talk story and life for hours on end until the two blend together and, if only for a moment, you realize you no longer recall where that line blurred because…here you are. In the woods. Where learning from masters of the craft is as natural as another Tuesday morning.

You receive the practical tools of your trade: how to pitch; how to actually pitch; how to approach and navigate the gamut of industry meetings; how to tame a wild structure to the even wilder psyches of your characters; how to take a note; how not to take a note; and how and when to throw all of it out the window in service of your story.

It has been emphasized before, and shall herein be reiterated: You are fed — well-nourished in body, mind and soul. You are challenged, for muscles grow not without first being torn. And it is thus that here, in these woods, you discover something about yourself. Surrounded by beautiful souls sharing in this journey, suddenly it ends. And you return to the real world, different. Alone now, but changed. You sit at your desk. Set eyes on your script. Reach for your tools. And pick up the pen.

So what would Mamet say of the Lab?

He’d probably say that sort of thing doesn’t happen to a writer in Hollywood. Sounds like a fairy tale.

And he’d be right.

Ryan Jow

There was no way I could have known the kind of experience that would be waiting for me at The 2018 Black List Feature Writers Lab. Even now, looking back on it, I can’t be entirely sure something so amazing really happened. From the moment I arrived at the Manhattan Beach hotel, the excitement never ceased. I was coming from LA already but it felt like a getaway vacation where you’re surrounded by hugely knowledgeable mentors, unbelievably delicious food, a wonderfully fun Black List staff, and six seriously talented fellow lab members. It was fast paced but every workshop was highly efficient and I learned more about writing in my week there than I had in the years of learning on my own.

Each day I was met only with encouragement and empowerment. I am grateful to have had people loan me their ears to hear my stories and I am even more grateful to have had the honor of listening to theirs. You will be hard pressed to find a group as warm, thoughtful, and fun as this one. I am so glad to have made so many new friends and I will long cherish all the memories we made together.

I came in unprepared and not knowing what to expect. But no amount of expectations could have prepared me for the amazing experience I had at this year’s lab.

Mai and Kim Spurlock

My sister Mai and I flew JFK to LAX on a Sunday morning. By Sunday evening, we were sitting in a private room at Love and Salt in Manhattan Beach, eating some of the best food in our lives, at a long table surrounded by the hilarious and gregarious Black List Lab team and five fascinating screenwriters.

The lab was an incredible and edifying experience. We learned so much not only about our script, but about writing in general. Between mentoring sessions and the workshops with our guru Scott Myers, I feel like we probably got a year’s worth of film school education in just a few days. We dove deep into our screenplay and didn’t really come up for air until we returned to New York with a Moleskin full of insight from not only our accomplished screenwriting mentors, but from Franklin Leonard, founder of the Black List and the lab. These notes have become the blueprint for the next draft of our script.

Learning about the business side of things was also pretty crucial. From pitching to generals to self-presentation, we came away armed with a new skill set and level of confidence for any meetings that we may have in the future. The training made it all feel much more concrete and real, rather than nebulous and scary. We also love the fact that we had the opportunity to put what we learned into practice at an actual meeting.

It was clear that meticulous planning had gone into the structure and schedule of the lab, and that the intense script and pitch work was practical preparation for our general meeting at the end of the week. Again, concrete experience in addition to abstract learning.

Finally, the bond we forged with our fellow writers as we parsed scripts and enjoyed meal after incredible meal will last a lifetime and we look forward to reading and sharing work in the months to come.

So…there you have it. We were lucky enough to be invited to a beautifully thought out and rendered learning experience with a group of talented and kind-hearted fellow writers. It was a singular experience that we will always remember. We are proud and grateful to be a part of the Black List Lab family.

The thing about these Black List writing labs: The participants become part of the larger Black List family. They support each other as they continue their respective and collective creative journeys. Indeed, the labs themselves are only the beginning of the learning process. To see how previous Black List writing lab participants are doing, check out these links:

Update: 2013 Black List Screenwriting Lab

Update: 2014 Black List Screenwriting Lab

Update: 2015 Chicago, New York, and Toronto Black List Screenwriting Labs

Update: 2015 Los Angeles and San Francisco Screenwriting Labs

Update: 2016 Black List Screenwriting Lab

Scripts optioned. Writers signing with reps. TV staff writing positions. Movies made. Nicholl winner. Lots of wonderful stories and in general, great to see the creative spirit flowing from these talented individuals.

I’m proud to have been a mentor at every single Black List feature writing lab event along with some incredible screenwriters who took time from their busy schedules to mentor the lab participants.

Finally, a quick shout-out to 2018 Black List crew: Amber, Chris, Cody, Halia, Kim, Mai, and Ryan. It was great spending a week with you, working on your stories and doing a deep dive into the craft and business of screenwriting.

As I say… Onward!