Thursday, June 23, 2016

JOIN THE PRODUCTION TEAM AT SIFA


ADVANCED DIPLOMA is SCREEN & MEDIA at SIFA 

SYDNEY INSTITUTE FILM ACADEMY

WE MAKE FEATURES & FEATURE DOCUMENTARIES

TELEVISION DRAMA & COMEDY SERIES 

MUSIC VIDEO CLIPS

TRAILERS

REALITY TV PROGRAMS 

LIVE-TO-AIR CURRENT AFFAIRS & ISSUE BASED ARTS PROGRAMS. 

NO SHORTS! NO LECTURES! NO “FORMAL” TEACHING! NO SITTING IN CLASSROOMS, PASSIVELY RECEIVING 2nd HAND INFORMATION YOU CAN’T IMMEDIATELY APPLY. 



JOIN THE REVOLUTION! 

Send expressions of interest to 
stonekingseminars@hotmail.com 
or to 
Anthony.McGann@tafensw.edu.au

FOR MORE DETAILS CLICK HERE

NEXT INTAKE IN JULY - STILL TIME!!!


JOIN THE PRODUCTION TEAM AT SIFA


ADVANCED DIPLOMA 
in SCREEN & MEDIA at SIFA 

SYDNEY INSTITUTE FILM ACADEMY

WE MAKE FEATURES & FEATURE DOCUMENTARIES

TELEVISION DRAMA & COMEDY SERIES 

MUSIC VIDEO CLIPS

TRAILERS

REALITY TV PROGRAMS 

LIVE-TO-AIR CURRENT AFFAIRS & ISSUE BASED ARTS PROGRAMS. 

NO SHORTS! NO LECTURES! NO “FORMAL” TEACHING! NO SITTING IN CLASSROOMS, PASSIVELY RECEIVING 2nd HAND INFORMATION YOU CAN’T IMMEDIATELY APPLY. 

JOIN THE REVOLUTION! 

Send expressions of interest to 
stonekingseminars@hotmail.com 
or to 
Anthony.McGann@tafensw.edu.au

FOR MORE DETAILS CLICK HERE

NEXT INTAKE IN JULY - STILL TIME!!!





STUDENT SCREENWRITERS WANTED FOR FEATURE FILM


Looking for a team of 8 to 10 screenwriters that would like to collaborate to write an out-of-the-box genre feature (zombie film) to be produced in 2017 by SIFA (Sydney Institute Film Academy. Project mentors are Bernie Zelvis and Billy Marshall Stoneking. Film will be shot on location in and around Galong NSW (west of Canberra) over a fortnight. Writers of the screenplay are eligible to apply for positions on the film (director, producer, design, sound, editing, etc) Feature to be shot multi-cam on IPhone6+ Script to be completed by end of 2016. If you'd like to join the writer's table and be involved in this project, we welcome expressions of interest to stonekingseminars@hotmail.com - This is one of the production projects on offer through the SYDNEY SCREENWRITERS' STUDIO. Please apply! 

Monday, June 20, 2016

TEST DRIVE SYDNEY SCREENWRITERS' STUDIO FOR FREE


TEST DRIVE the Sydney Screenwriters' Studio FOR FREE!

As a special introductory offer, S.I.F.A. (Sydney Institute Film Academy, Randwick TAFE) is offering prospective candidates to the year-long Screenwriters' Script Development Studio a chance to "test-drive" the program by attending a ten-week workshop conducted by writer / producer Billy Marshall Stoneking (Gayby Baby), AT NO COST!

At the conclusion of the ten-weeks, participants - at their discretion - will be elegible to enrol for a further 12 months at a nominal cost, which also includes participation in productions as well as workshops in directing, producing, editing, and design.

The 10-week session is limited to 20 participants. First come / first served. Interested parties are invited to send their names and contact details to Anthony at


or call / msg Billy Marshall Stoneking for more details on 0437 864 487

FREE WORKSHOP COMMENCES   Monday, 5th September at 10 am, and meets every Monday for ten weeks.

Location: Randwick TAFE, Level 1, Rm 122, Randwick NSW AUSTRALIA - HURRY!

CHECK OUT THE PRODUCTION STREAM - S.I.F.A. offers students on-the-job learning with opportunities to work on feature dramas, feature documentaries and TV drama and comedy series, including Reality TV shows.   


Sunday, June 19, 2016

LIVING THROUGH YOUR CHARACTERS



You have to live in and through the characters of a screenplay. You have to feel the experience of their struggles and wounds. When the writing goes well, you You wake up thinking their thoughts, planning strategies for confronting their problems.  Their burdens are your burdens. Their distress affects you as if it were your own.  The difference is you must avoid dictating what they should. They must have the freedom to dictate what will write.  You don’t get to determine their needs and capabilities, and you sure as hell don’t get to decide the validity of their boundaries. You must leave your personal prejudices behind. You must leave your ego at the door. You are not the expert on their life; they are. Listen to what they are telling you. Keep open to what they are showing you.  Your abilities and opinions are are necessarily relevant to what they desire or require. Don’t make your own anxieties a reason for imprisoning them. Free Drama! Liberate the characters!


- BILLY MARSHALL STONEKING

Friday, June 17, 2016

PIECES OF THE PUZZLE


Writing a terrific screenplay is harder than doing a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, okay? Only so many wannabe writers want to keep all the pieces inside the box with the lid securely shut. And they shake it and shake it, hoping the pieces will eventually come together and mean something great, but they never do.  

Others will actually open the box and stare at the pieces and try to assemble an approximate picture keeping everything inside the box. Alas, there is never enough there to make a complete picture.

To tell the truth, writing a screenplay is nothing like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. It's more like emptying the box on a giant kitchen table and discovering that there are 5 or 6 or even more difference puzzles all mixed together and not knowing which pieces one can trust to make a complete picture. In the beginning you can never tell if a piece belongs to the puzzle you're working on or not. And if that isn't bad enough, you soon discover that there are parts of pictures on both sides of every piece and your partner or kid is wondering what's for dinner.

- BILLY MARSHALL STONEKING

CHARACTERS ALL THE WAY DOWN


To really understand the character-driven screenplay, you have to understand the process by which they are conceived and written. And to understand the process you have to first acknowledge that the character-driven drama is found as it written, and written as it is found, and the finding necessarily involves more than the characters in the script. It involves an active and dramatic interaction between and among ALL of the characters necessary for finding the story. These include not only the story’s characters, but also the story’s audience (the conception of which is always an imaginative act, even for producers); the writer/storyteller character, who shares in, complicates, obstructs and aids the main character/s in dealing with the dramatic problem; and the writer’s tribe or tribes which form the contextual circumstances in which the writer has been initiated, including his/her geographic, family, societal, cultural and spiritual relationships as well as the economic, political and legal traditions he/she has been heir to.

- BILLY MARSHALL STONEKING

Thursday, June 16, 2016

SPECIAL OFFER! SYDNEY SCREENWRITERS' STUDIO









Try The Sydney Screenwriters' Studio -

TEN sessions over ten weeks, absolutely free !!


As a special introductory offer, S.I.F.A. is offering prospective candidates to the year-long Screenwriters' Workshop a chance to "test-drive" the program by attending a ten-week, workshop conducted by writer / producer Billy Marshall Stoneking, AT NO COST!

At conclusion of the ten-week workshop, participants - at their discretion - may elect to enrol for a further 12 months at a nominal cost, which also includes workshops in directing, producing, editing, and design.  Participation is limited to 20 participants. First come / first served. Interested parties are invited to send their names and contact details to Anthony at

 Anthony.McGann@tafensw.edu.au

or call Billy Marshall Stoneking for more details on 0437 864 487

FREE WORKSHOP COMMENCES Monday, 5th September at 10 am, and meets every Monday for ten weeks. HURRY!

More details at http://www.wheresthedrama.com/workshops.htm

Saturday, June 11, 2016

THE TERROR OF SCREENWRITING


Don't look down, don't give up. You have to fight for the good stuff. It's a life-and-death kind of thing. You think you can make something intense and not hurt for it? The struggle is something most people have no stomach for. They get halfway there and say "she's right, that'll do" - but it's never right and it never does what you needed it to do. It's worth your soul (almost) to find the perfect imperfect character.

- BILLY MARSHALL STONEKING