My work as a screenplay consultant began in the early 90s when students in my screenwriting classes started asking to work with me individually. Initially, I structured these as “tutorials,” but when I started being approached by writers who had not been in my classes, I had to shift my thinking of them from “students” to “clients.” That was when I discovered I had become a consultant.

I had begun teaching screenwriting in the fall of 1990 when I was working as a freelance film journalist and a graduate school friend teaching at the School of Visual Arts in New York asked if I would take over his screenwriting class. We had studied screenwriting together in the Columbia University Graduate Film Division in the early 80s under Czech writer/producer Frank Daniel. The entire department was East European dominated with Czech director Milos Forman as co-chair with Frank, Yugoslav director Dusan Makavejev teaching directing, Stefan Scharff, from Poland, teaching film studies, and numerous other Slavs among the staff and students. Columbia also gave me the opportunity to study acting for directors with Brad Dourif and film history with Andrew Sarris.

I had two years of nail-biting screenwriting classes with Frank, laboring under his exacting standards. But Frank’s signature class was Script Analysis, a five-hour marathon in which we would screen a classic feature film and then Frank would lecture on the structure, character and scene elements of the screenplay. (Being pre-video days, we would re-view sequences using an “analyzer,” a 16mm projector that would go in slow motion and reverse or give a washed out freeze frame by throwing a lead screen in front of the bulb.)

In 1995, I decided to take my first shot at teaching Script Analysis at The New School in New York. I analyzed some films from Frank’s classes, but also did other films, applying his ideas in my own way. Doing a few new films each term, I began to notice things that Frank had not taught me – new structural patterns as well as departures from the classic model. I became increasingly curious about the historical precedents for these structures and decided to go back to school at New York University to study the history and theory of drama from the Greeks to the 20th century.

At NYU, I learned that three-act dramatic structure is a surprisingly new form. The Roman theorists in the first century had interpreted Aristotle’s Poetics as dictating a five-act structure, which dominated drama until well into the 19th century. I found some of the roots of today’s three-act structure while studying an early 19th century popular form called the Well-Made Play. Looking further, I learned that Ibsen had also studied the Well-Made Play and made artful use of it in his history-making A Doll’s House.

I then took on a study of 19th century playwriting manuals to track the evolution from five-act to three-act structure and found a pivotal point in a manual by William Archer, who is credited with introducing Ibsen to the English-speaking world. But it was not until close to the mid-20th century that three-act structure fully supplanted the five-act form in the writings of the drama theorists. What all this demonstrates to me is that this is a form that has evolved with time and the likelihood is, with time, other forms will evolve to replace it.

Currently, I am working on a book about story structure, building on the content of my Script Analysis classes, to be tentatively entitled, “Beyond Thrills and Chills: Looking at Character and Theme in Screenplay Structure.” Plans are also in the works for blog posts, podcasts and webinars on chapter excerpts as they become available.

Teaching
Lucasfilm, Ltd., San Francisco, CA
Pixar Animation Studios, Emeryville, CA
Film Arts Foundation, San Francisco, CA
The New School University, New York, NY
New Jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ
School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
Film/Video Arts, New York, NY

Consulting
Pixar Animation Studios, Emeryville, CA
Independent Television Service, Open Call
Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Screenwriting Workshop
Film Arts Foundation, Robin Eickman Screenwriting Award.
New York Foundation for the Arts, Artists New Works Program
National Endowment for the Arts, Media Arts Program
P.O.V., The American Documentary

Panels
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Seventh Art Film Series
Goethe Institute
The Film Workshop At Prague
New York Women In Film & Television
Bay Area Women in Film & Television

Juries
Marin Arts Council, Screenwriting Grants Program
San Francisco International Film Festival, Golden Gate Awards
Mendocino Film Festival, Narrative Features Category
Film Arts Festival, Narrative Features Category

Journalist
Premiere
The Village Voice
Ms.
Sight and Sound
Screen International
Release Print
Filmmaker
The Independent
The Off-Hollywood Report

Education
San Francisco Art Institute, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Film
Columbia University, Master of Fine Arts, Screenwriting
New York University, History and Theory of Drama