Course: Advanced Screenwriting Mentored Workshop Schedule: Class meets 5 times between June 16 and August 25, 2012

Price:$230 for the non-members

Discounted rate of $175 for ATLFF365 members

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Location:  GSU Campus - ATLFF365 Offices (1 Park Place, SE, 30303)

Course Description:The “Advanced Screenwriting Mentored Workshop” with instructor Kathy Cabrera is designed for students who have a screenplay that is ready to be fully developed and written. Students will receive mentored guidance in a collaborative small group setting to help develop their initial story into a detailed outline, and to start writing their screenplay pages. The class will meet five times between mid-June and late August 2012.

The course is best suited for students who are already up to speed on the elementary basics of writing screenplay (as covered in the February-May 2012, 4-course series “Screenwriting 101”). Students with knowledge of the screenwriting basics who are new to taking classes with the Atlanta Film Festival 365 are welcome to join (prior classes, like Screenwriting 101, are not required pre-requisites).

Students can work at their own pace but will have the opportunity each class to share their story outlines and excerpts of the scripts they develop in the course for direct feedback from the instructor and fellow students. Students will be expected to also provide collaborative feedback on each other’s work, and can also submit the work they develop between classes via email (and an online Google Group) to the instructor and each other for feedback as well. While some students at the earliest stages of a project may use this course as an opportunity to fully develop their story into a detailed outline and complete the first 30 pages of a script, students who are further along in their projects can also treat each class meeting as a deadline and expect to finish a full draft of their script for review by the instructor. The dates of each class follow:

• Class 1: Sat, June 16, 2012
• Class 2: Sat, June 30, 2012
• Class 3: Sat, July 21, 2012
• Class 4: Sat, Aug 11, 2012
• Class 5: Sat, August 25, 2012

The class will meet from 10AM to 12:30PM on each of the above dates. If more than 10 students join the class, a second afternoon session will be offered to accommodate additional attendees.

Students enrolled in this course who finish a screenplay they started in the class will have until September 20, 2012 to submit it for one review only by the instructor for formatting and high-level story notes. The Atlanta Film Festival 365 will also waive the $40 entry fee for students who wish to submit a script developed in this course into the 2013 screenwriting competition (entry deadline November 1, 2012).

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Instructor Bio:

Kathy Cabrera is a graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television’s MFA in Screenwriting program. In addition to penning six feature-length screenplays and a drama television pilot, Cabrera has also written and produced several short films. Cabrera has one screenplay optioned and was a finalist for the 2007 NAACP & NBC Screenwriting Fellowship and awarded the 2008 Young and the Restless Fellowship in Television.

A short film she co-wrote with UCLA MFA director Walter Richardson and produced entitled Forgive Us Our Transgressions was awarded the Silver World Medal at the 2010 New York Festivals International Television & Film Awards. The short film, a thesis project for Richardson and Cabrera as part of the UCLA MFA program, was also sponsored by Panavision, Kodak and Technicolor and received generous financial support from the Directors’ Guild of America (DGA) when it was awarded the distinguished Frankenheimer Fellowship. Cabrera and Richardson are currently partnering on a new documentary featuring retired world champion boxer Terry Norris and his mission to protect the long-term health and lives of boxers. Cabrera also produced Atlanta writer-director Jenna Milly’s debut short film, A Peacock- Feathered Blue, which screened first at the Atlanta Film Festival in 2009 and went on to become a featured selection at Austin Film Festival, The Baltimore Women’s Film Festival, London Short Film Festival, LA Shorts Fest, DC Shorts Fest and Branchage International Film Festival in England. Kathy also penned the script for the short film Stew, starring Lourdes Benedicto of the ABC drama V.

In addition to filmmaking and currently working as a freelance writer-producer, Cabrera also serves as the Director of New Media for Carabiner Communications, where she leads the agency’s social media and video initiative to help businesses create a narrative in their messaging to engage their audiences and to build and integrate social media tools and compelling content into their communications campaigns. Cabrera is the media manager for celebrated storytelling guru, movie industry expert, and longtime chairman of UCLA’s legendary graduate program in screenwriting, Richard Walter; as well as Peter Desberg, Professor, California State University Dominguez Hills and Jeffrey Davis, Screenwriting Department Chair and associate professor of film and TV writing at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, co-authors of SHOW ME THE FUNNY!: At the Writers’ Table with Hollywood’s Top Comedy Writers.

Cabrera earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication studies from Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. She began her own journey in learning the craft of screenwriting by attending classes at the Atlanta Film Festival (then called IMAGE Film & Video Center).