Drishyam Sundance Screenwriters' Lab conducted a screenwriting session

Mumbai: As a curtain raiser to the inaugural edition of Drishyam Sundance Screenwriters' Lab 2015, a Master Class on Screenwriting was held at Mumbai, yesterday. It was held in collaboration with Manish Mundra and Sundance Institute.

The event was graced by the presence of all the seven creative advisers of the lab: Srdan Golubovic (Circles), Erik Jendresen (Band of Brothers), Rose Troche (The Safety of Objects, The L Word), Habib Faisal (Do Dooni Char), Sriram Raghavan (Badlapur, Ek Haseena Thi), Shridhar Raghavan (Yennai Arindaal) and Kasi Lemmons (director of Eve's Bayou, Talk To Me and actor in Silence of The Lambs and Candyman).

The audience consisted of young, aspiring screenwriters who had applied for the lab, but could not to make the final cut. Also present were the screenwriters of seven selected projects for the lab, (Geetu Mohandas / Mulakoya (Liar’s Dice director), Raj Rishi More / Pirates (Chief Assistant Director, The Lunchbox), Atanu Mukherjee / Unknown Faces, Ritu Sarin&Tenzing Sonam / The Sweet Requiem, Sandhya Suri | Santosh, AnayTarnekar / Untitled Tiger Project, Dnyanesh Zoting | The Monster) which begins in Goa from April 12-16.

The Master Class was moderated by Eric Jendresen, who kicked off the discussion by speaking about his own experiences of writing a script and inviting the other advisers to share their respective processes. The discussion was mostly centred around the personal experiences of the creative advisers, how they choose what stories to tell, how they build their characters and how they design a screenplay around these characters.

Pointing out films like The Lunchbox and Court, Srdan Golubovic, said that Indian cinema is at an exciting and dynamic stage, which young writers can tap into. On his personal working style, he said: "I come from a place which is very difficult to live in, but very inspiring for filmmakers, because there are so many stories around us. I make films when I am strongly moved by an issue or a social phenomenon, but I try to transform that into an intimate and personal story my viewers will be able to relate to. Cinema is not about presenting social or political case studies, but about telling relatable, personal stories. I make films to provoke and raise questions not to send out a message." He added, “A script is a happy marriage of poetry in content and mathematics in structure.”

Badlapur director Sriram Raghavan shared an anecdote about the time he narrated the script of his film Johnny Gaddar to a filmmaker friend. "He said something I will always remember: 'The plot has no life and life has no plot'. I rewrote the script keeping this in mind and the result is out there for everyone to see."

Eric Jendresen summed up the Master Class saying, “The best way to protect your script is to not be protective of it.”