Learn the craft

The Fellowship

The Academy is open every hour of the day, which is exactly why some scripts never finish. The Fellowship is the opposite: 12 chairs, eight weeks, fixed dates, an assignment you have to file every week, and two scheduled pitch sessions where the room hears the project out loud. Intake is by score — a completed read of 130+ takes a chair outright, anything under it takes the waitlist.

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The eight weeks

  1. Week 1

    The Project Under Oath

    State what the script is actually about before anyone flatters it.

    File your premise in one paragraph, your protagonist's want in one line, their need in one line, and the single scene you know is not working. No pitching. Diagnosis only.

    Read the lesson behind this week →
  2. Week 2

    Pressure-Testing the Premise

    Find out whether the idea can survive a second act.

    Run the premise pressure test on your own logline, then rewrite the logline three different ways — cheapest, boldest, truest — and say which one you're building on.

    Read the lesson behind this week →
  3. Week 3

    The Sag Autopsy

    Middle acts die of comfort. Name the comfort.

    Map your midpoint. List every scene between page 40 and page 70 that could be cut without breaking the plot, and defend the three you refuse to lose.

    Read the lesson behind this week →
  4. Week 4

    Pitch Session One — The Room Hears It

    Pitch session

    Say it out loud to people who can't see your outline.

    Run the Pitch Room Simulator, then file your two-minute pitch as written text plus the three questions that hurt the most and how you'd answer them next time.

    Open the Pitch Room Simulator →
  5. Week 5

    Dialogue That Withstands the Name Cover Test

    Cover the names. If you can still tell who's talking, you're clear.

    Pick a four-page scene, cover the character names, and rewrite until each voice is identifiable. File the before and after of your worst exchange.

    Read the lesson behind this week →
  6. Week 6

    Stakes, Escalation and the Antagonist's Want

    An opponent with a plan is worth ten pages of tension.

    Write the antagonist's version of the story in a page — their want, their plan, and where they believe they are winning. Then list the three scenes your protagonist should be losing.

    Read the lesson behind this week →
  7. Week 7

    The First Ten, Rebuilt

    Nobody reads page sixty of a script that lost them on page three.

    Rebuild your first ten pages, run them through the First Ten tool, and file what the tool caught that you had already talked yourself out of fixing.

    Read the lesson behind this week →
  8. Week 8

    Pitch Session Two — Graduation Read

    Pitch session

    Submit the rewrite, take the score, take the room one more time.

    Submit the revised script for an Armageddon Score read, file the score movement against your intake read, and pitch the finished project to the room.

    Open the Pitch Room Simulator →