Mentorship FAQ
Are mentorships free?
Alas, no. I’d love to be able to run subsidized mentorships, but until a sponsor can be found, fees apply. However, the fees are the same as or less than one unit in many tertiary degree or diploma scriptwriting courses and screenwriting courses. Moreover, in my mentorship, you receive eight one-to-one tutorials with me over a period of months (as you work on the idea for a brand new feature film), plus a lot of my time spent reading and re-reading your materials, and all of my expertise both as an award-winning scriptwriter, playwright and novelist, and as screenwriting teacher and consultant who is routinely invited to lecture at leading film schools and advise around the world.
How much does it cost?
Contact me for details. The amount of one-to-one time with me means the mentorships are not cheap. With currencies going up and down I've stopped advertising costs. Assume you will pay as much as a semester course at a top film school - except your time with me is one to one, not as one person in a class.
Am I eligible for a mentorship?
Your experience level does not matter because I work individually with you. I have worked with every one from newcomers to very accomplished writers, and we simply proceed at the pace appropriate to the individual.If you are prepared to bring the necessary seriousness and commitment to the mentorship and do the necessary hard work, I will seriously consider you for a mentorship, but I will need to talk to you by Skype to make sure you are at the right point in your writing career for the mentorship to be of use. I do reserve the right to say that I won't take you if I feel that you won't benefit from our time together for some reason. This is rare, but it very occasionally happens. You can end the mentorship too. If either of us feels that the mentorship is not working or can't continue (for example, if you fall ill) we both have the right to end it. While I will refund whatever money is owed to you from tutorials you have not had, unfortunately I cannot refund the deposit or fees paid for tutorials you have received, or work that I have done.
What exactly is a mentorship?
A mentorship consists of , eight one-hour private one-to-one tutorials of one and a half to two hours with me held over a period of three to four months, , often a little longer, during which, under my guidance and with my feedback, you invent a brand new idea for a feature film or TV series episode and proceed with it as far as you can in the time we have together. You email me your week’s work the day before your tutorial and I read it and give you detailed feedback during the tutorial. During the week I may well email you thoughts on your project or helpful links to assist the week's work, and if you're stuck you can contact me for help. The idea is that you devote some months of your career to a highly intensive study of scriptwriting techniques and learning a range of skills in structure and creativity under pressure. Crucially, the mentorship is a joint venture with me in learning about yourself as a writer. Together and in a very supportive and positive way we work to isolate and increase your strengths, simultaneously pinpointing your problem areas so that you can be conscious of them and bring in strategies suggested by me to combat them. Mentorships should be viewed as a period of intensive personal study in screenwriting techniques that will assist you in your writing for the rest of your career, not as a fast way to progress a specific script or idea. And I stress, you do not work with me on a script, film project or even a film idea that you already have.
But why can't we work on an idea that I already have?
There will be many scripts in your life. The mentorship is about exploring and opening out your talent, equipping you to become a better and more confident writer and do-it-yourself script doctor, taking you into a higher league with all of the scripts you will write - all in a fail-safe situation. Working on an existing script is not the best training method because the emotional and often financial or educational investment that you have in an existing project can seriously interfere with your ability to be self-critical and with my ability to be frank and tell you if and when I think the project has serious problems. We get distracted into trying to make something work that may or may not be doing you justice, and for my part, I become a de-facto co-writer, which is not a role which, in this context, I’m interested in playing. By contrast, when you work on something from absolute scratch, you can view your work with complete objectivity and, crucially, you can take risks safely. And, if you want to, you can go into genres and structures you have never touched. You can learn all the insider techniques in plotting, structuring, character development and all the other things that I can teach you (and that otherwise could take you years to learn by trial and error) about going from the very beginnings of an idea through to structuring a whole story. You can, too, specify certain techniques or styles that you want to polish. I tailor our time together to you.When you have finished the mentorship, you take your new skills back to your other scripts, which will usually progress much faster and at a much higher level than before. You will have learnt much better how to stand on your own feet. You will usually find, too, that the new project that you worked on in the mentorship then becomes something that you really want to progress. In fact sometimes people get so excited by their new project that they put their other projects on to the back burner and forge ahead with the brand new project.
But I want advice and help on a specific script - That’s completely valid. You just need me wearing a different hat – as your script consultant rather than in a mentor role. For details on my script consultancy services click the links on this page. Please note I am not always available.
What's the mentorship work-load?
You have eight one to one tutorials with me, one and a half to two hours a week, in private (and yes, you can reschedule, see below). You are expected to read my book The 21st Century Screenplay: a comprehensive guide to writing tomorrow's films before the mentorship starts and to complete set work each week which you email, scan or fax to me the day before your tutorial. Once you have enrolled, but prior to the first tutorial, I will give you a couple of exercises to complete and return, and these we discuss at our first tutorial. I will take you at your own pace, but you should set aside two or three hours at least per week for intensive work, and half an hour each day for short daily exercises that I will give you in creativity under pressure. If you want more work I'll give it to you – as much as you like – and I'll give you feedback on all of it.
Nobody else seems to teach like this. Why do you?
I have devised the mentorship scriptwriting training system out of my experience as a writer and out of many years of teaching screenwriting locally and internationally in leading film schools. In my opinion, mentorship is the fastest, most thorough, most personalised and highest quality teaching method that I can give you. It is in my opinion absolutely the best way for me to teach and for you to learn about yourself as a writer and about the craft. You proceed at your own pace, at your own level of experience, and with the opportunity to reschedule around your commitments. For me, it is the most rewarding form of teaching because it is so personalised and so focused on equipping you as an individual, to stand on your own feet and become the best writer you can. Unlike group screenwriting training, the mentorship is tailored around you specifically, and we work intensively on you, in private. While group training, used widely in film schools can be invaluable for certain aspects of the learning process (lectures, for example), out of my twenty five years of teaching, I don't believe that group critiquing is worth the enormous time it takes, and I feel one-to-one is not an optional luxury, but a vital component of writer-training.
Do you provide online meetings?
I do a lot of local and international work by Zoom and email and it works well.
Can I re-schedule tutorials?
Yes, absolutely. That's one of the joys of the mentorships for both of us – because sometimes I have to reschedule too. Sometimes people just have to miss a week or two because of industry commitments or personal issues. We make the tutorials up later. But I do ask that you give me notice that you're cancelling your tutorial at the latest the night before (except of course where the events are completely unexpected). If you don’t, unfortunately you have to forfeit that tutorial because I have scheduled that time especially for you and if I’m just sitting there waiting for you it’s time wasted that I could have spent on other work.
What work do I have to do before the Mentorship starts?
Unless I know your work well already, you need to complete two pieces of work before the mentorship starts: a) a scene that I will ask you to write on a specific topic, so that we can discuss scene construction and dialogue in our first tutorial: b) a creativity under pressure exercise. You will receive details in good time.As I've said, I also ask that you read The 21st Century Screenplay very thoroughly before the mentorship. This is because we'll refer to it during the mentorship and If you've already read it it means we can progress faster.
What happens now?
Your first step is to contact me and say that you want a mentorship. I'll then get back to you for a Skype call, and, if you still want to go ahead, I'll put you on the list for the next round of mentorships. I'd advise you to apply quickly if you plan to because the places get taken very quickly. When I have confirmed that you have a place, I will ask you to make a non-returnable deposit and send you details about payment. Please note that tutorials cannot start until the full payment is received. This leaves me time to take the next person on the waiting list if you drop out.
Refund policy
Please make up your mind carefully before paying your deposit since I cannot refund your deposit money because saving you a place means turning down others. However, while the deposit is not refundable, if you do have to drop out, you can put the deposit towards Script Consultancy services from me at some later date. Similarly, if, as sometimes happens, work commitments mean you have to drop out of the mentorship midway, you can put fees for the tutorials you have not had towards Script Consultancy fees. There are no refunds for tutorials you have attended. I hope that answers all of your questions.
If you'd like to go ahead just contact me and we'll take it from there.
Alas, no. I’d love to be able to run subsidized mentorships, but until a sponsor can be found, fees apply. However, the fees are the same as or less than one unit in many tertiary degree or diploma scriptwriting courses and screenwriting courses. Moreover, in my mentorship, you receive eight one-to-one tutorials with me over a period of months (as you work on the idea for a brand new feature film), plus a lot of my time spent reading and re-reading your materials, and all of my expertise both as an award-winning scriptwriter, playwright and novelist, and as screenwriting teacher and consultant who is routinely invited to lecture at leading film schools and advise around the world.
How much does it cost?
Contact me for details. The amount of one-to-one time with me means the mentorships are not cheap. With currencies going up and down I've stopped advertising costs. Assume you will pay as much as a semester course at a top film school - except your time with me is one to one, not as one person in a class.
Am I eligible for a mentorship?
Your experience level does not matter because I work individually with you. I have worked with every one from newcomers to very accomplished writers, and we simply proceed at the pace appropriate to the individual.If you are prepared to bring the necessary seriousness and commitment to the mentorship and do the necessary hard work, I will seriously consider you for a mentorship, but I will need to talk to you by Skype to make sure you are at the right point in your writing career for the mentorship to be of use. I do reserve the right to say that I won't take you if I feel that you won't benefit from our time together for some reason. This is rare, but it very occasionally happens. You can end the mentorship too. If either of us feels that the mentorship is not working or can't continue (for example, if you fall ill) we both have the right to end it. While I will refund whatever money is owed to you from tutorials you have not had, unfortunately I cannot refund the deposit or fees paid for tutorials you have received, or work that I have done.
What exactly is a mentorship?
A mentorship consists of , eight one-hour private one-to-one tutorials of one and a half to two hours with me held over a period of three to four months, , often a little longer, during which, under my guidance and with my feedback, you invent a brand new idea for a feature film or TV series episode and proceed with it as far as you can in the time we have together. You email me your week’s work the day before your tutorial and I read it and give you detailed feedback during the tutorial. During the week I may well email you thoughts on your project or helpful links to assist the week's work, and if you're stuck you can contact me for help. The idea is that you devote some months of your career to a highly intensive study of scriptwriting techniques and learning a range of skills in structure and creativity under pressure. Crucially, the mentorship is a joint venture with me in learning about yourself as a writer. Together and in a very supportive and positive way we work to isolate and increase your strengths, simultaneously pinpointing your problem areas so that you can be conscious of them and bring in strategies suggested by me to combat them. Mentorships should be viewed as a period of intensive personal study in screenwriting techniques that will assist you in your writing for the rest of your career, not as a fast way to progress a specific script or idea. And I stress, you do not work with me on a script, film project or even a film idea that you already have.
But why can't we work on an idea that I already have?
There will be many scripts in your life. The mentorship is about exploring and opening out your talent, equipping you to become a better and more confident writer and do-it-yourself script doctor, taking you into a higher league with all of the scripts you will write - all in a fail-safe situation. Working on an existing script is not the best training method because the emotional and often financial or educational investment that you have in an existing project can seriously interfere with your ability to be self-critical and with my ability to be frank and tell you if and when I think the project has serious problems. We get distracted into trying to make something work that may or may not be doing you justice, and for my part, I become a de-facto co-writer, which is not a role which, in this context, I’m interested in playing. By contrast, when you work on something from absolute scratch, you can view your work with complete objectivity and, crucially, you can take risks safely. And, if you want to, you can go into genres and structures you have never touched. You can learn all the insider techniques in plotting, structuring, character development and all the other things that I can teach you (and that otherwise could take you years to learn by trial and error) about going from the very beginnings of an idea through to structuring a whole story. You can, too, specify certain techniques or styles that you want to polish. I tailor our time together to you.When you have finished the mentorship, you take your new skills back to your other scripts, which will usually progress much faster and at a much higher level than before. You will have learnt much better how to stand on your own feet. You will usually find, too, that the new project that you worked on in the mentorship then becomes something that you really want to progress. In fact sometimes people get so excited by their new project that they put their other projects on to the back burner and forge ahead with the brand new project.
But I want advice and help on a specific script - That’s completely valid. You just need me wearing a different hat – as your script consultant rather than in a mentor role. For details on my script consultancy services click the links on this page. Please note I am not always available.
What's the mentorship work-load?
You have eight one to one tutorials with me, one and a half to two hours a week, in private (and yes, you can reschedule, see below). You are expected to read my book The 21st Century Screenplay: a comprehensive guide to writing tomorrow's films before the mentorship starts and to complete set work each week which you email, scan or fax to me the day before your tutorial. Once you have enrolled, but prior to the first tutorial, I will give you a couple of exercises to complete and return, and these we discuss at our first tutorial. I will take you at your own pace, but you should set aside two or three hours at least per week for intensive work, and half an hour each day for short daily exercises that I will give you in creativity under pressure. If you want more work I'll give it to you – as much as you like – and I'll give you feedback on all of it.
Nobody else seems to teach like this. Why do you?
I have devised the mentorship scriptwriting training system out of my experience as a writer and out of many years of teaching screenwriting locally and internationally in leading film schools. In my opinion, mentorship is the fastest, most thorough, most personalised and highest quality teaching method that I can give you. It is in my opinion absolutely the best way for me to teach and for you to learn about yourself as a writer and about the craft. You proceed at your own pace, at your own level of experience, and with the opportunity to reschedule around your commitments. For me, it is the most rewarding form of teaching because it is so personalised and so focused on equipping you as an individual, to stand on your own feet and become the best writer you can. Unlike group screenwriting training, the mentorship is tailored around you specifically, and we work intensively on you, in private. While group training, used widely in film schools can be invaluable for certain aspects of the learning process (lectures, for example), out of my twenty five years of teaching, I don't believe that group critiquing is worth the enormous time it takes, and I feel one-to-one is not an optional luxury, but a vital component of writer-training.
Do you provide online meetings?
I do a lot of local and international work by Zoom and email and it works well.
Can I re-schedule tutorials?
Yes, absolutely. That's one of the joys of the mentorships for both of us – because sometimes I have to reschedule too. Sometimes people just have to miss a week or two because of industry commitments or personal issues. We make the tutorials up later. But I do ask that you give me notice that you're cancelling your tutorial at the latest the night before (except of course where the events are completely unexpected). If you don’t, unfortunately you have to forfeit that tutorial because I have scheduled that time especially for you and if I’m just sitting there waiting for you it’s time wasted that I could have spent on other work.
What work do I have to do before the Mentorship starts?
Unless I know your work well already, you need to complete two pieces of work before the mentorship starts: a) a scene that I will ask you to write on a specific topic, so that we can discuss scene construction and dialogue in our first tutorial: b) a creativity under pressure exercise. You will receive details in good time.As I've said, I also ask that you read The 21st Century Screenplay very thoroughly before the mentorship. This is because we'll refer to it during the mentorship and If you've already read it it means we can progress faster.
What happens now?
Your first step is to contact me and say that you want a mentorship. I'll then get back to you for a Skype call, and, if you still want to go ahead, I'll put you on the list for the next round of mentorships. I'd advise you to apply quickly if you plan to because the places get taken very quickly. When I have confirmed that you have a place, I will ask you to make a non-returnable deposit and send you details about payment. Please note that tutorials cannot start until the full payment is received. This leaves me time to take the next person on the waiting list if you drop out.
Refund policy
Please make up your mind carefully before paying your deposit since I cannot refund your deposit money because saving you a place means turning down others. However, while the deposit is not refundable, if you do have to drop out, you can put the deposit towards Script Consultancy services from me at some later date. Similarly, if, as sometimes happens, work commitments mean you have to drop out of the mentorship midway, you can put fees for the tutorials you have not had towards Script Consultancy fees. There are no refunds for tutorials you have attended. I hope that answers all of your questions.
If you'd like to go ahead just contact me and we'll take it from there.
