Writers Boot Camp’s Professional Membership takes you through our Full Development process to learn to complete a script every six months. Our ideal member has a dependable day job and can commit 10 hours per week, not only toward the completion of a first draft but toward the continuation of the creative process through rewriting.
Professional Membership takes you through all the stages of the writing process to create a script that is potentially a professional writing sample. These stages tend to be unknown to new writers and filmmakers who are just entering the entertainment industry, and even one project will take longer to develop than anticipated. Once you have 10 hours available per week, there are no other prerequisites to becoming a member.
In addition to creative support and free script evaluation, Professional Membership includes Writers Boot Camp’s Audience Experience- future access to our library of recorded interviews with film and TV legends, business leaders and successful alumni, as well as ongoing deals with partners. All professional members are granted access to events when visiting Los Angeles.
Professional Membership imparts unique Checkpoints, a set of professional writing and collaboration tools covering comprehensive fundamentals of screenwriting for features, television and digital production. Our goal is to provide you with a repeatable, Full Development process that confirms your own creative authority, including an evaluation method on all Four Levels of Development (Concept, Structure, Character Development & Scene Work), as well as Empowered Rewriting. For your commitment of 10 hours per week, here’s our commitment to you:
* These benefits are free and ongoing as part of membership.
Designed to reflect the nature of the screenwriting process, membership requires a 10-hour weekly commitment to your creative work in addition to scheduled sessions. In return, you will learn to stimulate your creative process, test your ideas, increase your productivity and own an incredible set of professional writing tools.
Every six months, referred to as a Project Cycle, you will be expected to fully develop a script through all its stages of generation, story development, early drafts and rewriting. The philosophy of crossing over between features and television, including series pilot development, is integral to the support and consulting provided. For anyone working in television, the timetable for spec episodes can be achieved in three to four months, though pilots can take as long as original features, or longer due to the template represented by a pilot script. Books and novels will require more time to complete initial drafts and subsequent rewrites, with the process usually two to three times the overall timeframe.
While some writers will become empowered to discard ideas sooner or brainstorm multiple versions, the tools and support are designed to anticipate advanced project stages, interim setbacks and gradual breakthroughs. A stronger, more viable idea may merit spending more time, and certain breakthroughs may inspire working on numerous scripts or partial stages of work. In most cases, each decision you make proactively can establish foundational effort toward future opportunity based on the creation of your writing sample arsenal.
Deadlines are an important part of your membership experience. While we cannot control your outside conflicts and lifestyle issues that may inhibit your 10 hours of writing each week and we expect you to work and communicate as a professional within support guidelines, a deadline and subsequent evaluation/script conference by one of the trained staff is inherent in the process every six months.
In addition to providing manageable script deadlines, each 6-month Project Cycle of the curriculum is supported by a set of unique Checkpoints–creative exercises and assignments that accelerate script completion. The flow of each Project Cycle breaks down the creative process into tasks that help you manage your work and submit material to your dedicated mentor.
Outside of LA and NY, you have the option of committing to OPM for 2 or 4 Project Cycles (that’s two or four scripts). Discussion about your availability and professional goals with a Writers Boot Camp staff member will establish a reasonable timeframe to achieve them. Audience Experience is only currently included with 4-Cycle OPM, though One-On-One Professional Members are eligible for an expansive array of ongoing benefits.
Built into OPM is an abundance of creative support via Office Hours—twice-weekly opportunities to check in with your mentor by phone or email.
Script Evaluations and Conferences that offer comprehensive reality checks on completed drafts of your projects are also an integral part of the OPM experience.
As opposed to random exercises done in a vacuum, they’re the results of your application of Writers Boot Camp’s impactful tools to your actual script. Office Hours interactions ensure that you’re effectively building your projects as you maintain forward progress throughout each Project Cycle.
The mentors for One-On-One Professional Membership include the same writers who consult in Los Angeles and New York City, all of whom have been trained by Jeffrey Gordon, founder of Writers Boot Camp.
Call 800-800-1733 and one of our creative staff will assist you, or click here if you prefer to be contacted via e-mail.
Professional Membership is made affordable by monthly payments that can be customized to fit your lifestyle. We have a generous Work-Study initiative for actors, filmmakers and recent grads who demonstrate their commitment to their creative goals. If you do have someone supporting you, work-study members who do not need a payment plan can currently save nearly 50% without sacrificing any future benefits!