Reflections of 2023 Black List Feature Writer’s Lab Participants

Writers who participated in last year’s Black List Feature Writer’s Lab reflect on their experience.

Every year since 2013, the Black List has held a feature writer’s lab. The 2023 event took place in Ojai, California from October 1–6. Once again, I was pleased to participate as a mentor and workshop facilitator.

Here are the reflections of the 2023 Black List Feature Writers lab writers.

Jake Burnstein & Brandon Verdi

We’ve been writing together for ten years. Ten years of our moms either liking, sorta liking, feeling meh, or downright disliking our movies. Ten years of a few industry folk telling us our scripts were “well told, BUT…” For ten years we’ve had to be our own cheerleaders. Enter The 2023 Black List Feature Lab, where we were allowed to relinquish the self-hype man burden for five full days. Five days of other people telling us our work was actually pretty good! Five days of smart people giving us smart notes. After ten years, one day would have been plenty. FIVE days was something else.

Ojai was another world, soaked in Palo Santo smoke and sunshine. Part mountain hideaway, part hippy commune — The Black List basically took over the town. We came, we ate (exquisitely well), they paid, and boy did we talk A LOT about movies. But mostly, we dove into every aspect of one another’s stories. The combined knowledge of our labmates was astounding, each script a singular creation, thought-provoking and loaded with personality and genuine emotion. And it wasn’t just the scripts that were great… the people were somehow better.

Beyond the wonderful Black List Class of ’23 (aka Scott’s Tots), there were our legendary mentors. We cannot say enough about Andrew Ahn, Stephany Folsom, and, of course, Kristen (Kiwi) Smith, who all really took the time to read and think about our script before we met. Once sitting across from them, they gave clean and thoughtful notes — always focused on what we ultimately wanted for our story.

Scott Myers, our screenwriting Jedi and fearless leader, helped us wade through some of the most intense sessions of the week. His calming presence and emphasis on finding the heart in each of our stories set the tone for everything we did.

Franklin, Megan, Kate, Shelby, Claire, and Elisa of The Black List crew are some of the kindest, most wonderful industry folk we’ve met. When they say, “you are now part of The Black List family,” they mean it. We are so excited to continue building relationships with all of them and the other lab alumni in the years ahead. We cannot thank them enough for inviting us to be a part of such a life-changing experience.

For us professionally, more has happened in the few short weeks since the lab than has happened in the previous ten years combined. We signed with a manager we’re super excited about, and our script is already being sent out. More importantly, we’ve continued to chat with our lab group, giving each other notes and advice and sharing memories from our magical week in Ojai. None of it could have happened without The Black List.

One of our fellow writers, the brilliant Lisabelle Tay (Momo), summed up our feelings on the week simply when speaking about the themes in our script, Extra Pulp: “How do we overcome alienation and insecurity? It’s only through the true regard of others, when we are seen, that we are able to become ourselves.”

Well, in Ojai we felt true regard. We saw and we felt seen. There is no greater feeling.

The Feature Lab felt like the beginning of something, possibly our careers, but most certainly, the beginning of many great professional friendships. We’re so excited to see where all these wonderful stories take this group. We can’t wait to cheer them all on in a theater someday!

Christopher Kim

Dear Mabel,
 
 You won’t remember this, but when you were one-and-a-half years old, I went on a trip to Ojai, California to work on a movie. It’s a story based on my experience with your grandma and grandpa. You’ve seen how I’m unable to talk to them because I can’t speak Korean and they can’t really speak English, right? And you know how you tell me and your mom everything? I don’t have that with my parents, and that hurts. This movie is about that hurt.
 
The new friends I made in Ojai understood the heart of that story, and spent a lot of time and energy helping me to hone that into the strongest screenplay possible. (I assume the movie has been made by the time you read this. Sorry, you’re probably still too young to watch it — it’s a little scary, kiddo.) 
 
I’ll spare you the details of the workshops we had and the mentors I gained and the friends I made — you’ve overheard me talk about it a million times over the years, I’m sure. 
 
Instead, I want to write to you about dreams. A life peppered with disappointments and failures had trained me to tamp down my wants. I wanted to make movies, I wanted to make my movies — movies that featured people that look and sound and act like our family, movies where we get to be the heroes and the villains, where we get to win and to lose. I wanted to do that so badly, and yet I almost didn’t even do anything with E.S.L. once it was written. There’s an alternate timeline where I let it sit as a PDF on my hard drive, unseen by the world. The thing is, I loved the story so much, and, as twisted as this is, I felt preemptively devastated at the thought that the world would not understand it or want it. Somehow, I managed to override my fearful instincts, uploaded it to The Black List, got some great scores, and that led me to this Lab. 
 
Some day, when you’re older, when you, like me, have had your fair share of disappointments, as is inevitable in any life, hope will feel dangerous to you. You will have a dream that feels so big and audacious, a dream that will demand so much of you and the people around you, that you almost wish it would just die. I’m here to tell you that it won’t ever die, at least not on its own. Some people find ways to kill their dreams, but that requires a lifetime of tremendous willpower — and the only reward for all that effort would be a lesson you would wearily teach the next generation with a heart full of ache.
 
Instead, teach this lesson, the one I learned in Ojai:
 
Go for it. Sometimes, the best case scenario happens. Sometimes, when we go for it, we meet the right people and get the right guidance, and that big dream becomes less and less audacious. In other words: Succumb to the dream.
 
 Love, 
 
 Appa

Kathryn Prescott

Like most writers applying for labs, I’ve been rejected from so many labs. First of all, I want to say to anyone reading this who’s been rejected from labs- keep applying to labs. If you end up on one like this, it’ll all be worth it.

This was one of the most helpful and inspiring experiences that I’ve had in my writing career to date. Sometimes when you put a group of writers or filmmakers in a room together, it can get weird. Often you don’t get to know people beyond the superficial. The Black List Lab couldn’t have been further from this. I don’t know how they did it but The Black List curated a group of people that not only clicked right away but also understood each other’s work deeply.

Scott really cares about his mentees. He gave great notes that took into account the script you actually set out to write. He took the time to learn what we were trying to say with our scripts and structured our sessions around bringing those key elements to the forefront. He was patient, calm, and always listening. Also, as someone who can’t explain the plot of Inside Out without crying, it was very validating to see him get emotional explaining how to pitch the plot of Up.

There were so many other perks to this lab- the insightful and thought-provoking advice from our other mentors, both on a career in the film industry and on our individual projects; the many dinners/movies/smores-making-sessions that the Blacklist team indulged us in; the jacuzzis in
our hotel rooms (!)

Since we parted ways, the Blacklist team has been in touch- checking in on us, asking to see our latest drafts, organizing Zooms with managers and agents, and just generally remaining a presence in our lives beyond those 5 days in Ojai. The lab participants have also remained in touch, organizing Zoom catch-ups, giving each other notes on other projects, and generally
participating in a very active WhatsApp group chat.

I can’t speak highly enough of this experience and of the Black List team in general. Thank you so much for all you did and continue to do.

Jainaba Secken

This time last year, I was in my first screenwriting class, trying to learn how to get the story stuck in my head out into the world. I couldn’t have imagined that a year later, I’d be in Ojai, California, sitting under the shade of palm trees, surrounded by brilliant writers, learning from the incomparable Scott Myers. I may have pinched myself once (or twice) to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. My Lab mates, Mentors, and the Black List Team made my time in Ojai one of the most memorable weeks of my life (I’m aware of how cheesy this all sounds, but it’s true!).

I miss so much about that week, but I miss my Lab mates most of all. I miss our early morning bike rides, strolls through town, lazy afternoons by the pool, fireside chats, and late-night conversations. I’m happy that the friendship and fun has continued well after the Lab. We scheduled our first Scott’s Tot’s Zoom Reunion, and our group chat remains active. I’m grateful for these new friends for so many reasons, but especially for encouraging me to give Taylor’s Midnights Era a chance, for our shared sentimentality over the Sound of Music, and for genuinely loving the art of storytelling. Writing is an undertaking that requires community, and I’m so grateful I’ve found mine.

The Lab was so thoughtfully curated. Each item on the agenda allowed us to grow closer. By the time we had our 6-hour workshop session with our Lab Dad (Scott), we had developed so much trust, respect, and pure admiration for one another. This allowed our workshop session to be incredibly productive, fun, and safe. We challenged each other, made wild pitches, and gave each other the courage and confidence to keep going. The connection we built is a testament to the intentional planning of the incredible Black List Team (Claire, Elisa, Franklin, Kate, Megan, and Shelby!).

I was a bundle of nerves ahead of each mentor session. After each session, I found my worry was unwarranted. My mentors happily shared their deep knowledge and hard-earned wisdom about screenwriting and the industry. They provided constructive and insightful feedback and were genuinely invested in the story I was trying to tell.

The best part of it all is that our week in Ojai was only the beginning. Since then, the support, guidance, and community have only grown thanks to The Black List Team.

Lisabelle Tay

I often think about this line from one of my favourite Louise Glück poems: ‘Life is very weird, no matter how it ends, / very filled with dreams.’ It’s true of all of life, but especially of a writer’s life. One writes, after all, because one dreams. When we watch a film, we experience a collective dreaming — but before that, the dream existed on the page, and before even that, within the writer’s imagination, deep and secret and wild.

As our cohort of seven gathered for the first time in Ojai, there was an immediate sense of recognition. We’d read each other’s scripts beforehand, and were now finally meeting in the flesh; there was also a tangible sense of shared wonder. How is this real? we asked each other, over and over. This is so weird. I can’t believe it. It was as if we’d entered a dream.

But it was real. Wonderfully, luxuriantly so. We spoke with mentors who met us not only with expertise and wisdom but frank generosity. We watched Miracle Mile on a lantern-lit lawn, on a pop-up screen that inflated like a bouncy castle and deflated when it was over. We learned about the industry from the Black List team and Lab alumni, which was like having a hand reach through the veil and hearing a voice say, Come in. We ate and drank and argued and laughed, and finally we spent six hours workshopping each other’s scripts, with hardly any pause and no discernible fear.

Simone Weil talks about attention being a ‘fundamental generosity’ — a posture that is perhaps rarer than it should be. Writer’s workshops, for example, are not always generous. In such instances it is difficult not to operate from a place of fear; we fear we will be seen and judged wanting, so we hold back and close off.

This was the opposite of that. From the other writers — and from Scott, who facilitated the workshop with a grounded, assured grace — I learned not only how my script might reshape itself into something better, but also how to pay attention. To open myself to possibility. To meet another writer where they are, in order to help them get to where they want to be.

What makes a person write? I think the answer is hunger. Hunger to make the inner dream real; hunger to make the nebulous concrete, not only for oneself but for others. Every writer knows this hunger. But it is often inward, insular, always seeking and never satisfied. Very rarely is it matched by equal generosity — and rarer still, by the granting of access.

If I had to describe the Black List Lab (and the team behind it) in two words, it would be generosity and access. These are material terms, meant to convey material impact. For something that felt so unreal, it has had tangible impact on my writing life; there are some things you simply cannot google. For writers on the margins of power, access — or the lack thereof — marks the difference between serious pursuit and material impossibility. Initiatives like the Lab make possible the tilting of the scales. Suddenly, the dream contains within itself the seed of reality. For this, and for so much else, I will always be grateful.

Here are a couple of photos of a typical nightly gathering.

The group took advantage of the expansive back yard to meet with mentors and discuss their scripts.

And here’s a shot of me with the group where we met to workshop each of their script projects.

This was my 23rd Black List feature writer lab or mini-lab and it was a special event for me. When I made a living as a musician, I lived in Ventura from 1981–1985, and even performed in Ojai several times. It was great to revisit that part of my past. More important, the retreat experience really helped create a special experience for these writers. I trust they will be friends for life.

In 2024, the good folks at the Black List are planning two labs:

The Writers Lab

Those in the Writer Lab will further develop feature scripts that they intend to sell and/or use as voice samples. Writers in this cohort will have strong interest in working within the studio system. The Writers Lab cohort will meet the week of October 14th in Ojai, CA.

The Projects Lab

Those in the Project Lab will further develop feature projects which they intend to direct. Directing samples will be required for the writer-director track but will not be a consideration in the final selection. The Projects Lab will meet the week of November 11th in Ojai, CA.

Back to Ojai! I can’t wait to return and work with both sets of lab writers!

For more information on the Writers Lab and the Projects Lab, go here.

For reflections of writers who have participated in previous Black List feature writer labs, here are some links for you.

Reflections: 2022 Black List Feature Writers Lab

Reflections: 2021 Black List Feature Writers Lab

Reflections: 2020 Black List Feature Writers Lab

Reflections: 2019 Black List Feature Writers Lab

Reflections: 2018 Black List Feature Writers Lab

Reflections: 2017 Black List Feature Writers Lab

Reflections: 2016 Black List Feature Writers Lab

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

Update: 2015 Los Angeles and San Francisco Screenwriting Labs

Update: 2014 Black List Feature Writers Lab

Update: 2013 Black List Feature Writers Lab

Reflections: 2021 Black List New Zealand Feature Writers Lab

Reflections: 2022 Black List/Women In Film Feature Writers Lab

Reflections: 2021 Black List/Women In Film Feature Writers Lab

Reflections: 2020 Black List/Women In Film Feature Writers Lab

Reflections: 2019 Black List/Women In Film Feature Writers Lab

Reflections: 2018 Black List/Women In Film Feature Writers Lab

For more information on the Black List educational programs, go here.