Category: From the Labs

Filmmaker Meedo Taha participated in Sundance Institute’s annual Screenwriters Intensive with his project “Other People.” The Intensive provides emerging screenwriters the opportunity to hone their craft in a two-day workshop focused on the development of a fiction feature screenplay. Below he shares his insights and creative breakthroughs from that experience.

Beth de Araújo is a Los Angeles–based writer/director who was recently featured in Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. She was selected for the 2018 Asian American Fellowship, and attended both the Screenwriters Intensive and the Screenwriters Lab with her feature screenplay Josephine, which will mark her feature directorial debut.Trying to analyze what I wanted my first feature to be was a daunting task.

Amanda Spain is a documentary filmmaker and 2016 Documentary Film Creative Producing Lab Fellow who is currently producing “Bathtubs Over Broadway” (formerly known as “The Industrial Musicals Movie”).
I’ve always believed there are very few life-changing moments. Instead, I have thought our journey is made up of a series of small moments that take us down twists and turns that become our story.

I’ve always loved cat’s claw flowers.
They’re invasive and unruly and often found growing on the most blighted, run-down houses in the city of New Orleans. They’re a little bit like hope in that way.

Lauren McBride is an independent film producer based in New York City and a 2017 producing fellow with her project “Selah and the Spades.” Learn more and apply for the Creative Producing Lab & Fellowship or the Documentary Creative Producing Lab & Fellowship. I nearly didn’t apply to the lab.

Filmmaker Grace Lee (“American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs”) participated as a creative advisor at the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program | CNEX Workshop and Documentary Summit in Beijing earlier this year. Below she shares learnings gleaned from working collaboratively with filmmaking teams on their rough cuts.
I arrived in Beijing after a 13-hour flight from New York, jetlagged but thrilled to be a creative advisor at the Sundance / CNEX Documentary Story and Edit Lab.

I started writing my script Layne about a year ago. When I sat down, the story flowed. I was feeling very confident, and had a good handle on where I was going and how to get there.

The public call for submissions is now open for the 2018 New Frontier Story Lab! Apply here or visit our FAQ.
I am a technologist, but my son says I can’t tweet properly. So here is some advice distilled from my time with my and Callum Cooper’s project Porton Down at the the 2017 New Frontier Story Lab, in tweet form:
If you want money: look for a community.

Hannah Pearl Utt (co-writer/director) and Jen Tullock(co-writer) attended the 2017 Directors and Screenwriters Labs with their project “Stupid Happy,” which follows dysfunctional, codependent sisters Rachel and Jackie who believe they are orphans after the death of their father, only to find out the mother they thought died when they were young is not just alive, but the star of their favorite soap.“Whose story is this?”
Hannah: That was the first thing Joan Tewkesbury asked me when I sat down for my first advisor meeting of the first week of the Sundance Institute Directors Lab, and I promptly burst into tears. If you’re interested in participating in the Labs, there’s something you should know upfront: everything you’ve heard about them is true; “it’s really hard to explain the experience,” “they can be terrifying,” “totally transformative,” “once-in-a-lifetime experience,” “not a lot of time to sleep,” and because of all that, “lots of crying.

Darcy Brislin and Dyana Winkler attended the 2017 Screenwriters Lab as part of the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, established to support the development of screenplays with science and/or technology themes. Click here to apply for the 2018 Sloan Commissioning Grant & Fellowship,“But why on earth would she stay with him?”
Pencils poised, we sat across the table from writer Erin Cressida Wilson, wrapping our brains around the most profound, soul-searching question within our script.

Kevin Sharpley recently attended the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program’s Story Development Workshop supported by the Knight Foundation, which offers intensive story development sessions for a group of select nonfiction filmmakers from the Miami area. Below, he shares his learnings: the questions you should ask when developing your documentary film.When I walked into the room at the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program’s Story Development Workshop in Miami, it felt electric.

When I applied to the Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab, I knew there was something wrong with my script. When I interviewed for the lab, I once again shared that feeling. And then when I got the call from Michelle Satter and Ilyse McKimmie welcoming me and my story (Selah and the Spades) into the fold, I felt a quiet relief—like finally getting an appointment to see a doctor after months of a very sore throat.