March 6 – Special Pre-Oscars Meeting (FREE)

StoryBoard Development Group Presents

A Special Exclusive StoryBoardDG.com Pre-Oscars Event!

Meet online from 7:00-10:00 PM Pacific Time on March 6th (the Monday before the 95th Academy Awards) to discuss this year’s ten Oscar-nominated screenplays!

If you’ve never been to a StoryBoard meeting, or have previously attended, now’s your chance to participate in the fun with writers and filmmakers for free! Instead of our usual script analysis and in-depth screenwriting discussion of a single script, we’ll have a casual conversation about each of the ten nominated screenplays and discuss their chances of winning the industry’s top prize.

***HOW TO REGISTER*** If you wish to participate in this event, please send an email to StoryBoardDG@gmail.com prior to March 6 and you will receive an email with login instructions on the day of the event.

Don’t worry about reading the scripts. Just try to see as many of the films as you can before the meeting. Here’s how:

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

The Banshees of Inisherin
Martin McDonagh
HBO Max, Amazon digital rental, DVD/Blu-ray

Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Daniels
Showtime, Amazon digital purchase, DVD/Blu-ray

The Fabelmans
Steven Spielberg / Tony Kushner
Amazon digital rental, DVD/Blu-ray

Tár
Todd Field
Amazon digital rental, DVD/Blu-ray

Triangle of Sadness
Ruben Östlund
Amazon digital rental, DVD/Blu-ray

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

All Quiet on the Western Front
Edward Berger / Lesley Paterson / Ian Stokell
Netflix

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Rian Johnson
Netflix

Living
Kazuo Ishiguro
currently in theaters

Top Gun: Maverick
Ehren Kruger / Eric Warren Singer / Christopher McQuarrie
Paramount+, MGM+,
Amazon digital rental,
DVD/Blu-ray

Women Talking
by Sarah Polley
currently in theaters

DANNY HERCULES will lead the not-so-in-depth discussion. Danny is the creator, publisher, and one of the authors of ScripTipps, a line of inexpensive ebooks on screenwriting conceived in part by his participation in StoryBoard. An award-winning filmmaker, Danny was co-founder and president of San Diego Filmmakers and sat on the board of directors of Scriptwriters Network where he ran their writers groups and staged readings programs. In 2012 he published the popular young adult Christmas novel North Pole High: A Rebel Without a Claus and later adapted it into a musical through the Academy of New Musical Theatre, where he also wrote the book for Chaturbate: The Musical, which premiered at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2017. A member of StoryBoard’s Screenplay Discussion Group since November 2009, Danny has never missed a meeting.

Note: StoryBoard will hold our regular Screenplay Development Group meeting on Monday, March 13.

November 13 – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

(registration deadline: Friday, November 10)

Meet on the Fox Studios backlot on November 13th for an in-depth analysis and discussion of the screenplay THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI.

Logline: In this darkly comic drama, a mother personally challenges the local authorities to solve her daughter’s murder when they fail to catch the culprit.

Screenwriter: British filmmaker MARTIN McDONAGH began his career as a playwright, winning the Drama Desk Award for The Beauty Queen of Leenane in 1998, three Laurence Olivier awards, and four Tony Award nominations. His first film, a short called Six Shooter, won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short in 2004. He followed that up with 2008’s highly acclaimed In Bruges, which won the BAFTA award for Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for an Oscar in the same category and a Golden Globe for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy). In 2012 the writer-producer-director released Seven Psychopaths starring Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, and Christopher Walken.

Three Billboards stars Frances McDormand (Fargo, Blood Simple), Woody Harrelson (Cheers, True Crime, The People vs. Larry Flynt), Sam Rockwell (Moon, Matchstick Men), John Hawkes (Deadwood, Winter’s Bone), Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones, The Station Agent), Abbie Cornish (Sucker Punch, RoboCop), Caleb Landry Jones (X-Men First Class, Get Out), and Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea).

Producers and Production Companies: Writer-director McDonagh produced alongside Pete Czernin and Graham Broadbent of UK production company Blueprint Pictures (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel). Blueprint’s development executive Ben Knight co-produced.

Film Festivals: Three Billboards premiered in competition at the Venice International Film Festival on September 4th where it won the Golden Osello for Best Screenplay. It also won the Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award, an award some consider to be the “starting gun” of the Oscar race. The film has played at, or is scheduled to be screened at, major festivals in Zurich, Hamburg, Hamptons, San Diego, Mill Valley, London, Chicago, Twin Cities, Philadelphia, and Austin.

Release Date: Opens in limited release on November 10 (Fox Searchlight). If you plan to see the movie before our meeting, reading the script before watching the film is advised.

Rated R. 115 minutes. 103 pages. Dark Comedy.

JEFF KITCHEN will provide in-depth scrip analysis and lead our discussion. Jeff is a sought-after script doctor and working writer who has taught screenwriting professionally since 1989. He is the author of Writing a Great Movie: Key Tools for Successful Screenwriting, and has trained development executives from all the major studios who have consistently said that he teaches “the most advanced development tools in the film industry.” Creative Screenwriting listed him as one of the top five screenwriting teachers working today. Visit his website DevelopmentHeaven.com.