2-Part Live Seminar via Zoom on Tuesday, May 7th & Thursday, May 9th, 2024  from 5:00PM - 7:00PM Central

Now Enrolling!

Instructors Brian and Jason Cleveland each have over twenty years of experience as writers, producers, and distributors of animated feature films. Recently their film Seal Team, produced in South Africa, was on Netflix's top ten in five continents. Their film Ainbo: Spirit of the Amazon played theatrically around the world. A follow-up: Kayara is currently in production in Peru and Panama. Executive producers of Ratchet and Clank, based on the hit video game, and The Little Vampire, based on the bestselling books, Brian and Jason have been involved in animation projects in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Their company, Cinema Management Group, based in Beverly Hills and Paris, was the international sales agent and executive producer of Loving Vincent, an Academy Award and Bafta nominee. Behind the scenes, Brian and Jason have rewritten animated feature scripts of projects in Europe, Africa, and South America. While not writing animation, Brian and Jason have written, produced, and distributed multiple other films, having just completed the screenplay for Break on Through, which tells the story of war photographers in Vietnam.

The Magic World: A Journey into Global Animation Screenwriting course will consist of two ZOOM sessions, each session two hours, on May 7^th and May 9^th, 2024.

The two-hour sessions will focus on:

• Defining The Magic World and why it’s mandatory in an animated feature screenplay.
• Understanding important aspects of screenwriting for animation, such as concept, structure, outline, action, and opportunity.
• Walk through animated screenplays from a structural point of view to observe the characteristics that successful animated features all have in common. Examples such as Ratatouille, Coraline, Spirited Away, Klaus, Loving Vincent, Coco will be studied.
• How to develop characters, big and small. Stories are about characters, and good characters always make good stories. Build an active protagonist, a villain, allies, enemies, friends, and family. Learn to have fun developing characters and never waste even the smallest one.
• An overview of the current state of the animated film industry from a global perspective. The world gives us endless story ideas, and when done well, an animated film can speak profoundly to the entire world as few other genres can.
• The business of animated movies in the international marketplace with a walk-through of the process of buying and selling animated movies at markets such as The American Film Market, The European Film Market, and the Cannes Marche Du Film.

• An understanding of the animation genre within the global film market.

• Knowing how to identify the magic world and create a winning story structure for an animated film through screenplay analysis.

• Understanding what makes great characters and how to create them.

• Tips to break into the global animation business by understanding what producers, distributors, and sales agents are looking for in an animated film.