Festival of Benefits from a Professional Table Read

Journeyman actor of stage and screen, Scott Cohen and consummate artist, playwright and screenwriter Anastasia Traina know a thing or two about scripts. Whether it’s through Scott’s long and celebrated tenure of film and stage roles or Ana’s deft hand at crafting character and drama for stage and screen, their combined experiences have honed their toolkit for understanding and getting the most life out of mere words on a page.

CS (Christopher Schiller): You guys started offering this panel workshop years ago. How did that come about? What was the original goal back then? And has that changed over time?

AT (Anastasia Traina): When we first started this, we wanted to extend to the community an ability to access screenwriters and actors that were working professionally so that they might get an idea of what it was like to work in the business. I think that it was very important to us because we really wanted to make storytelling as screenwriting accessible to people and also to give them the ability to hear their work through professionals and show them the process and hopefully inspire them to go deeper and have a better understanding of the screenwriting process. And I actually think that out of the long history of the screenwriting workshop, we have inspired a few people who went on to get great agents and work in the business.

SC (Scott Cohen): One of the things that has been a really important aspect of how we approach our work is to allow people to understand that their story, whatever their story was, was important, and that it had value. We try to create an environment where for each person coming in with a screenplay the way we guide them is through acknowledging that their story needs to be told and how they can better tell that story. That becomes our guiding principle, that idea of authenticity and story.

AT: I think that the importance of cinema is so underrated these days because of commerce and people wanting to make a quick buck. But the art of cinema has been slightly lost and its ability to change generations.

We were just talking about one of the early films from the beginning Spider-Man series (Spider-Man 2, 2004) and how beautifully that was written (screenplay by Alvin Sargent). Sitting in that movie theater with my son, he was very young, that story inspired him to do great things. And as I've watched the subsequent "Spider-Man" films, it has disintegrated. It's just, what super-duper FX can we use? Maybe we'll do it in 3D and charge more. But they've lost how to inspire a generation.

This is what I also thought was so amazing recently in seeing Oppenheimer (2023). People were saying, “Cinema is dead. Nobody wants to go to the cinema. COVID killed that.” But it's not true. If you create cinema that is epic and is about something of great importance, bigger than us, people will come.

SC: So I think that for us in terms of this workshop, it does become about, the urgency, the need to tell a story and how we can inspire people to focus on what their story may be. We feel like this is the artist's struggle. That is partly why we love doing the workshop, because we feel like, let's share what the struggle is so other people could join us on the way. [laughs]

AT: So really instilling in people that if you feel an urgency, there's a magic that happens when you're right. It almost writes itself because you need to get this out. I have had many things where I write like that, where I guess I have to. And it just comes. I've written a play in three weeks that is my best play to date. And people still talk about it. And I've taken years to write some movies that have never seen the light of day because they're just ideas. We really want to instill in people that it isn't about an idea, but rather a need to tell the story.

CS: Having done this so long, what are some of the more interesting and unexpected revelations you've discovered in the writing process and/or participating in cold readings over the years?

SC: Well, Ana talked about the idea that as we've gone through this process- and we've literally done it for 20 years- and Ana has been through a lot of groups where she's done cold readings of material. But she feels that as she watches other people hear critique or hear [an] opinion or hear guidance or support, or encouragement, or whatever they're hearing, there's an acknowledgment of how closed or how open someone is.

And so, Ana realized over time that she feels like she's become more open by watching others not be open and how you realize that, 'Oh, they're not getting anywhere.' They're not hearing this. They're not moving forward. You become more open because you realize, 'Oh, well, that's what I need to work on for myself, because I need to be clear and open.'

AT: I've developed the method which is that I now listen to everything and say, 'Uh hum.' And I write everything down. And then I forget about it. And then when I go to rewrite, it's the clear notes that I work on. Whatever sticks is usually the truth of the matter after all of the initial defenses have gone away. Because we all have ego and nobody wants to hear notes. They want to hear, 'You’re brilliant.' And that's not really helpful for anyone. Filmmaking is a collaborative endeavor. So you need to trust the people around you that they're going to have your back.

SC: This is the challenge though. We're actually asking people that come to this workshop to trust us. - And that's actually kind of difficult because, why? Why should they trust us, right? So we depend on the fact that we have experience and we know. But that doesn't mean you should trust us. That's why we always talk about it's more about being positive than it is about being negative. There's no reason to be negative and that builds trust. So hopefully people would kind of listen to us.

AT: Yes, because if you work on people's strong points then the errors or whatever usually work themselves out because they go, 'Oh, OK, I see that. Maybe I need to change this.' But to come from a negative point of view is not very helpful at all for anyone. So we really strive to be as positive, as nurturing, for people to tell their stories and maybe perhaps lift it into a more universal realm. We might help them, give them a couple [of] hints about that. Because personal stories are great, but there is a line where you lift it to art and that's going to the universality of humanity.

CS: What should a writer prepare for and expect to get out of a reading session? How far along in the development process of a work should a reading be considered a help if you can find it available? And what are the practical limits to what you can expect out of a reading session?

SC: I think that at any stage, it's OK to get a reading. It's where you're stuck and where you need to hear something in order to figure out what comes next or you might not figure it out even in a reading.

A great point Ana brought up was that it's great if you come in and you just want to hear your words read because that's cool. And you're just like, 'Wow, this is awesome.' That's cool, that's great. But to really grow and evolve and take it a step further, you want to come in with a clarity of purpose. And so you are asking the question, even if you don't actually ask that question, but you somehow know what you're looking for in order for the critique to work for you.

AT: Right, because we always ask the question, 'What would you like out of this reading?' And that is a big hint for us in how to guide and to give feedback.

What I think is the most beneficial is for a screenwriter to come in with is their first 10 pages. Because in those 10 pages, I personally can tell if they have reached everything that needs to be met, I'm just talking technically now, to tell the rest of the story. If you're writing a full screenplay the inciting incident usually happens by page 10. And that tells you exactly what the trajectory is for this screenplay, where it's going to go or where it could possibly go. I mean, we never know, but the possibilities are set in motion from that inciting event. So I say, bring in your first 10 pages.

SC: So clarity of purpose and bringing in those first 10 pages, that will determine whether you're on the right path or not.

AT: Also in the first 10 pages, you could tell the tone of the movie, if I'm gonna be like Woody Allen, if I'm going to be like Wes Anderson, like Todd Solondz, like Martin Scorsese. Each of these guys has a voice, a tone, how they tell their story. And that should also be prevalent in those first 10 pages. I want to hear people's voices. The more someone comes in with how they see things, how I see this movie, what colors I want to be in it, what era is it, 1970, 2050, all of these things add to your voice. All of that adds to the tone and texture.

SC: What was the third part of that question?

CS: What are the practical limits that you can expect to having a script read?

SC: I think that a practical limit is thinking you will get a definitive answer. I actually say this a lot when we're doing it and I say it jokingly, but I say, 'Trust me, but don't trust me.' It's only an opinion. What's really important, and it's very difficult, it's not easy to do, but it is to follow your own lead. It's to follow your own bliss and to somehow understand who you are and how you identify and how you tell your story. And however that may be, that's how it is.

So whatever we say and whatever any actor says, you'll get lots of different thoughts. We try to give space for everybody to say stuff. The goal is really to write down what everybody says- exactly what Ana was saying- and then mull it over.

Which is why we're doing two days this year. So if there's anybody that wants to go home and think about what was said and then rewrite, then that's kind of cool. And then we’ll reread it.

CS: So any other insights or ideas you'd like to share? Is there anything in a similar vein that you'd like to try in the future that you haven't incorporated yet?

SC: It's so practical, but the real thing would be an all-day workshop and not to do it just for three hours and that people actually work on their stuff during the workshop. We once tried to do a week, which was pretty successful, but organizationally and for us time-wise, it is really, really difficult.

AT: I would love to lead some of the writers in a real writer's workshop. Give them an event and they're all writing this event and they have like three hours to do it. So you start it and you give prompts: where you are, what year it is, you killed your mother, and then you write a story. But everybody writes the same story. And then you come back and then we hear all the different voices. I think that's really fun. That is something I'd like to try in the future.

Film Festival and Screenwriter Panel Info

FilmColumbia is an annual film festival that takes place in the quaint town of Chatham, NY in Columbia County and this year runs from October 20^th through the 29^th always offering a great selection of quality films and other fare. This year, the screenwriting panel is being held over two days, during the mornings of October 28^th and 29^th. Details of all the festivities and how to get tickets are available at the FilmColumbia website.