Blank Stage Workshops

My name is Michael Harper.  I am a local screenwriter and current Head Writer at Blank Stage Productions, a Marietta-based video production company.  If you’re receiving this, it’s either because I know you personally, we’ve met at a recent marketing or networking event, or you responded to an advertisement or flier announcing the creation of a new screenwriters’ group in the metro-Atlanta area.

After much work and what seems like a slow process, I am proud to announce the formation of The Blank Page Screenwriters Group!

The Blank Page meets from 7 to 9:30 pm on the second and fourth Tuesdays of every month, beginning with the inaugural meeting on September 9th.  We meet at The Blank Stage Theater, the home of Blank Stage Productions, located inside the Artisan Resource Center at 585 Cobb Parkway, Marietta, 30060.

I’ve had some questions regarding the need for another local screenwriters’ group, considering the strong history and success of the Atlanta Screenwriters Group.  No doubt, the ASG is a fantastic resource for a writer once he’s finished his script.  I’m a proud ASG member, and I have no intention of giving up my membership, but the main differences between the ASG and The Blank Page are two-fold:  the group’s availability to the writer during the writing process, (as well as afterward;) and the fact that The Blank Page is a screenwriters’ group aligned in partnership with a working production company.

If a writer wishes, our members will give help, encouragement, critique, and maybe a little competitive nudge throughout the entire writing process.  Blank Page members will be available to help one another with troubled outlines or problematic scenes before a draft is finished, or could be involved with a second or third draft rewrite.  The group’s involvement with a script will only be to the level with which that script’s creator is comfortable.  The true purpose of The Blank Page is to get more writers writing better material, and to get that material realized.

We’ll also have weeks where we focus entirely on the self-marketing aspect of being a screenwriter, such as writing effective loglines, treatments, and/or synopses, and every once in a while we’ll practice our script pitches and “elevator speeches,” for that future moment where we one day find ourselves alone in an elevator with Steven Spielberg.

The second difference, and a really positive aspect of having a screenwriters’ group that is connected to and underwritten by a production company, is that Blank Stage Productions is looking at the group as a pool of talent for potential projects.  Over the next year, our goal is to work with the members of The Blank Page to generate three to four short films and possibly one modest feature for potential filming and submission to local and national festivals and competitions.

To that end, the Blank Page Screenwriters Group will have at our disposal the members of The Blank Stage Improv Players to read scenes or entire screenplays on stage (and possibly on camera) to really let the screenwriters see and hear what their scripts look like as they’re performed.

And to top it all off, Blank Page members will receive discounts on any screenwriting classes offered by The Blank Stage.  Our first class, “Writing For Short Films” begins on October 18th.