THE PROFESSIONAL SCREENWRITING FELLOWSHIP

The Professional Screenwriting Fellowship is a new career development program which Motion Picture Industry Institute is launching in 2023. It is purpose-built to speed the career-launching and furthering process, as well as significantly improve the upward trajectory of the careers of emerging and mid-career working professional screenwriters for feature films and/or series.

This intensive and comprehensive, part-time, tuition-free, online program combines the best elements of :

  1. A career accelerator sharing access to high-impact career-building strategies and channels for faster, more effective navigation of the struggle years.
  2. A master class providing unique access to higher level collaborative creative process and story craft skills.
  3. A professional networking and on-going career-building support community.

Built on over three decades of MPii’s industry-leading research into career-strategies among working professionals, this new program is designed to reduce the stressful, confusing and often counter-productive aspects of “the struggle years” that the vast majority of future and even mid-career professional screenwriters experience as they attempt to launch and further their careers.

This new part-time, 12 month program is for emerging and mid-career screenwriters, as either:

  • A supplement for those already enrolled in or who have completed a graduate screenwriting program, and want additional support in launching their careers.
  • A booster rocket for those who have already started their career launch or may already be working as a professional screenwriter, who can benefit from extra, higher-level support in furthering their careers.
  • An alternative to a traditional graduate film school screenwriting program, for aspiring screenwriter interested in a faster track to a successful career launch.

As a high-level program, the Professional Screenwriting Fellowship focuses on the three areas that, according to MPii research, most affect career success for professional screenwriters. The same research indicates those subject areas are also the least well-understood, and the least taught to future professionals even at the top film schools and within the industry itself. Therefore, not only do most emerging professional screenwriters lack the knowledge, insights and skills that are most necessary to launch and further meaningful careers, but so do most mid-career working professional screenwriters. 

Those key subjects areas are:

  1. Industry best Career Launch Strategies, including more successfully obtaining quality representation, mastering networking, and other career-launching and career-building support.
  2. Navigating the complex collaborative creative process known as Hollywood story development. Avoiding ‘Development Hell’ while building powerful “we’ve worked together” professional relationships required for a sustainable career. 
  3. The career-long process of continually building master-level story craft skills, including all the various forms of breaking story and pitching, to be able to consistently deliver top-quality results under deadline.

As part of MPii’s long-standing commitment to promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in the entertainment industry, in addition to being tuition-free, this program uses a unique application process, which is less about judging and more about helping applicants find the right fit.

For more information about this program, and to apply, check out the detailed FAQ for the program, The first cohort begins on September 11, 2023. Applications are now being accepted.  There is no application fee.