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news and events
Calling All Members From Amy Minyard BAFTA Events and Membership Officer
We are now through the exhaustive period of membership renewals, which grows each year due to our ever increasing numbers. We have currently reached 4,000 BAFTA UK members as well as members of BAFTA Cymru, BAFTA Scotland, BAFTA North, BAFTA East Coast or BAFTA LA.
The summer also saw us say goodbye to a valued member of the team, Juliet McCulloch, whom many of you will have dealt with over the past few years. My personal thanks go to Juliet for all of her hard work on behalf of the Academy. Toby and I would also like to extend our thanks to all members for being so patient with us through the renewal period.
We look forward to welcom- ing you to the Academy throughout the coming year. One highlight of this year’s renewals process was seeing the generosity of so many members who contributed to the Raising the Roof Campaign and your kind support is most appreciated.
The Events and Education Committee met in September and new members were elected to the committee. We are looking
forward to a very busy autumn with events for screenwriters, net- working evenings, a night with the London Film Festival, a debate about violence in kids entertainment and more.
Upcoming Events October 25 and October 26 BAFTA and the Screenwriters Workshop Present Scriptwriting Workshops with Richard Walter
Chairman of the Graduate Screenwriting Programme University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)
Hollywood is splendidly, wretchedly, wonderfully, dreadfully democratic. It doesn’t matter if you’re a stu- dent or a professional, or what your name is, or if you’re well connected. All that matters is what’s on the page.” This is according to master script-doc- tor, Richard Walter, who will be making his first ever seminar appearance in the United Kingdom with these workshops.
Walter currently is the Chairman of the Graduate Screenwriting Program at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) where he has been teaching for more than 25 years. As head of the most presti- gious screenwriting program in the United States Walter has seen his students acquire great Hollywood success. His students’ notable works include Jumanji, Outbreak, Backdraft, Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible and much more.
Since joining the staff at UCLA Walter has written Escape from Film School, a novel that incorpo- rates much from his real life, Screenwriting: The Art, Craft, and Business of Film and Television Writing, which has sold more than 100,000 copies, and his latest which has caused the applicant pool for his UCLA programme to triple since its release, The Whole Picture: Strategies for Screenwriting
Success in the New Hollywood. These books have served as a ref- erence for many writers and often times even as textbooks used in screenwriting courses.
Walter’s two-day workshop is recommended to those ranging from passionate screenwriters to anyone with an inkling of fascina- tion in the craft because this is a rare opportunity to benefit from Walter’s aptitude.
Known by his students as a “dramatic taskmaster with a sure eye for both dramatic coherence and a good sell” - those attend- ing the workshop will have the opportunity to find this out first hand. If you attend both days you can submit your very own screenplay to Richard Walter who promises to read and later respond to all that he receives at no additional cost.
Tickets for these workshops are £100 per day to BAFTA members.
October 27
The Kodak Short Film Showcase
his ever popular event sends one lucky film-maker off to Cannes with Kodak. To have
your say in who goes, book for the event via our October Programme. We will screen the short-listed films and the audi- ence will vote for a winning film on the night.
October 28
BAFTA at The Times 47th London Film Festival
Whatever Next: Making The Follow- WUp Film
e are all familiar with the tales of woe associated with making a début fea-
ture film, but do things get any easier for film-makers as their careers progress?
Certainly, there are a number of celebrated first-time film-mak- ers who have found, or still are finding, it a challenge to get their second features off the ground. Audiences loved Carine Adler’s Under The Skin, Jamie Thraves’ The Low Down and Julian
Simpson’s The Criminal, so why have we had to wait so long for their follow-up films?
Is it just to do with the system of film financing in the UK or is it that we are always looking for the new at the expense of develop- ing the talent we already have?
This discussion will feature a panel of established and upcom- ing film-makers who will discuss some of the obstacles facing directors as they approach their second features and enquire what it is about British film culture that prevents the nurturing of promise in both arthouse and commercial cinema.
We will examine the profes- sional choices available to film- makers and ask what solutions might be found for this rarely addressed issue.
All tickets are £8 and can be booked from October 9 by phon- ing 020 7928 3232 or through www.lff.org.uk. From October 17, the Leicester Square ticket booth will be open from 12.00-21.00 (opposite Empire cinema).
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