women Made: Notes from 50% of the population

beats breakdown of oscar winning short

1:00 PM - 1:20 PM

AC will break down of 2025 Oscar Winner, I AM NOT A ROBOT’S beats, Victoria Warmerdam’s high end, contained sci-fi/dry dark comedy short (22.5m)

1:20 PM - 1:50 PM

Slideshow on PREMISE, from Chapter 2 of John Truby’s book, “Anatomy of Story.”

MENTOR SASHA STEWARt DISCUSSION & Q&A

Sasha Stewart is a Peabody and Writers Guild Award-winning TV writer, producer, and creator who creates work that elicits joy, has a positive impact. She created and staffed on her own critically-acclaimed, 9x Emmy-nominated limited-series dramedy Dying for Sex (FX) starring Michelle Williams (Golden Globe Award winner) on Hulu (U.S.) and Disney+ (Worldwide). Also staffing on docuseries, Amend: The Fight For America (Netflix), The Fix (Netflix), and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore (Comedy Central), Sasha also writes for the Peabody Awards podcast, We Disrupt This Broadcast. Other awards include winner of the 2024 NRDC Climate Storytelling Fellowship for co-written, half-hour comedy pilot, Bill on Earth, a PSA starring Jane Fonda on CBS Sunday Morning, which went viral on TikTok, Sasha also participated in the 2020 Comedy Think Tank on Paid Family Leave, the 2023 Stand Up For Humans comedy show, and is a winner of the 2020 Yes and… Laughter Lab. Now part of the Laughter Lab’s Leadership Committee, she contributes to the New Yorker, McSweeney's, and Cosmopolitan. She developed a women’s healthcare docuseries with Samantha Bee and Soledad O’Brien.

1:50 PM - 2:10 PM

Mentor: Sasha Stewart, staff writer on DYING FOR SEX will discuss the trajectory of her TV writing career, which brought her thrillingly to the WGAE Awards stage this year to win for the category of Best Limited Series with the DYING FOR SEX team, followed by a brief Q&A.

2:10 PM - 3:00 PM

Sasha will give notes on two table reads from two of our cohort’s contained scripts.

break

3:00 PM - 3:10 PM

(10 Minute Break)

EXERCISE: Get your short into a beatsheet, pronto!

3:10 PM - 4:00 PM

If you haven’t already done this, it’s the keys to your kingdom. As Terence Taylor says, “… knowing where I was going with a story was my first step to being able to complete one that had a flow and a point.”

Read Aloud: several cohort to read their exercise and get notes from the Team.

Industry BLAST

4:00 PM - 4:30 PM

NYWIFT INFO SESSION with Katie Chambers, Senior Director of Community & Public Relations of
New York Women in Film & Television, with accomplished NYWIFT member screenwriters actively involved in NYWIFT Programs, Jaclyn Powell and Jennifer S. Wilkov.

Katie Chambers is a communications executive and event producer supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Currently, the Senior Director of Community & Public Relations at NYWIFT, where she drives Communications and Membership strategy and co-produces Special Events including the Muse Awards for Women of Vision & Achievement. She received national recognition for her work at NYWIFT as one of Association Trends’ top “Young and Aspiring Executives” in 2021, and was recognized by New York Society of Association Executives with their “Rising Star” award in 2020. She serves on the board of one of New Jersey’s leading volunteer organizations, the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs (NJSFWC), and is a regular contributing writer for From Day One, a media outlet focused on innovations in corporate HR. Katie was previously a talent agent in the Youth & Young Adult Theatrical division at Abrams Artists Agency, and has worked for leading entertainment companies including Buchwald, Manhattan Theatre Club, and Scott Rudin Productions.

Jaclyn Powell was a litigation trial coordinator where she excelled at crafting winning legal arguments. Tired of jousting with invisible corporate masterminds, Jaclyn moved to NYC to take on the world through screenwriting and filmmaking. Jaclyn wrote and directed over 10 short films in two years, followed by four 48-hour film festivals. Jaclyn received numerous awards for her short and feature film screenplays and is finishing her first TV pilot. Known to perform stand-up when she can be persuaded to hit the stage, Jaclyn has been a member of NYWIFT since 2017 and co-host of the New Works Lab since 2020. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7516862/ 

Jennifer S. Wilkov is a multi #1 international bestselling award-winning author, an award-winning freelance writer, and a creative and story consultant for first-time writers and seasoned authors assisting with the essentials to become a bestseller: a great project, a strong platform and a well-polished pitch, presentation and hook for their project. She passionately teaches and educates writers as a speaker and program producer of workshops, at writers conferences and events from coast to coast, and for groups such as the Writers Guild of America East, Motion Picture Association, and New York Women in Film & Television where she leads the Writers Group as a platinum member.