FREE DRAMA!!
Conducted Tours to the Most Dangerous Region on Earth
Script Editing & Consultancy Services Available
Billy Marshall Stoneking and Christina Conrad have joined forces to provide a revolutionary and illuminating script consultancy service for Australian and overseas filmmakers.
As experienced filmmakers themselves with extensive production credits in both fictional and factional film and television projects, they are keenly aware of the creative and dramatic problems and opportunities confronting screenwriters, writer/directors and producers, struggling to find the characters and the actions by which the characters' stories might be told.
Their radical method, which employs the "grammar of drama" in the service of CHARACTER-BASED, MEDIUMISTIC storytelling, has contributed to the success of films like Chopper, and the AFI award-winning ABC-TV drama series, Stringer.
Long- and short-form dramas that have received the Stoneking/Conrad treatment have gone on to win major awards at the AFI, BAFTA and Slamdance, and have garnered two, Academy-Award nominations.
Grounded in a profound understanding and appreciation of DRAMA and COLLABORATION, and developed over years of working with writers, writer/directors, producers and film practioners, the MEDIUMISTIC method as employed by Stoneking and Conrad proves that script editing works best when it works to ILLUMINATE the characters and their story, thus enabling the storyteller to free the characters and confront the dramatic possibilities that are buried in the script.
Some Definitions:
A DRAMATIC story presents an identifiable character (or characters) whose active pursuit of a goal in the face of seemingly insurmountable opposition and obstacles leads to a satisfying cessation of the action, but only after producing ever-increasing problems with ever-greater risks for the characters while heightening the audience’s emotional involvement.
Collaboration is a mutually respectful and creative interaction between skilled individuals working towards a common goal based on a shared understanding concerning the nature of the work they are engaged in.
In drama, like war, you must hate somebody or love somebody; you must have a position or you cannot stand what goes on.
__________________________
GIVE YOUR SCREENPLAYS THE EDGE THEY DESERVE
STONEKING and CONRAD encourage writers to tell stories that MEAN something to them – that is, stories in which the storyteller has an emotional investment, stories that the storyteller feels passionately connected to and needs to tell.
The role of the script editor is to ILLUMINATE - to help the storyteller uncover and fully explore the emotional meaning of their stories, and to ensure that clearly dramatise the storyteller’s understanding and connection or disconnection with the world that inhabits him/her.
It is a truism, but probably worth repeating: the journey of the storyteller is a journey of self-discovery. It starts from the known and moves towards the unknown. It isn’t simply a case of the writer writing a story; the story also writes the writer!
Stoneking and Conrad have consulted on numerous award-winning and commerically successful short and feature films, documentaries and temevision series, including WHAT GROWN-UPS KNOW (Jonathan Wald); Chopper (Andrew Dominick), RICHARD (Maya Newell), BONFIRE (Melissa Anastasi) and BIRTHDAY BOY (Sejong Park), ALI AND THE BALL (Alex Holmes), among many many others.
BOOK YOUR CONSULTATION TODAY!!!
Above: Screenwriters' group in Anaheim, California, expressing their prejudices. Courtesy of Woody.
SCRIPT ASSESSMENTS and STORY CONSULTATIONS
with Billy Marshall Stoneking
Features (90-110 pages) - Basic reading fee: $300.
Face-to-face consults (Features) :
$150 per hour (ADG, AWG, SPAA discount)
$200 per hour FULL PRICE
Written assessments also available (by application)
LEVEL ONE ASSESSMENT (Written)
3-5 pages : $750 (Discount) $950 (full)
LEVEL TWO ASSESSMENT
6-9 pages : $950 (Discount) $1,100 (full)
Example package:
for 105-page feature script (AWG Discount)
Reading fee $300
Level Two assessment $950
Face-to-face (Q & A) x 2 hrs $300
TOTAL COST $1,550
__________________________
SCRIPT ASSESSMENTS and STORY CONSULTATIONS
with Christina Conrad
Features (90-110 pages) - Basic reading fee $200.
Face-to-face consults (Features) :
$50 per hour (ADG, AWG, SPAA discount)
$80 per hour FULL PRICE
NOTE: Written assessments not available.
Example package:
for 105-page feature script (AWG Discount)
Reading fee $200
Face-to-face consultation x 6 hrs $300
TOTAL COST $500 (AWG discount)
__________________________
Minimum fee for feature
reading fee + 1 hour consult = $400 (Discount)
__________________________
To book in your script, write to Billy
