BC(M) Industry Talks: Screenwriting Roundtable

B.Comm(Media) Industry Talks is a webinar series for students in RMIT’s Bachelor of Communication (Media) program. This talk was recorded live on Friday 18 September 2020.

SCREENWRITING ROUNDTABLE

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
Ernest Hemingway (1961)

As long as there have been screens, there have been those who write for them. Screenwriting is a popular aspiration for RMIT Media students, so we thought we’d bring together our screenwriting experts for a roundtable discussion on craft, method, writers’ block, working as a writer, and everything in between.

This special Industry Talk is a roundtable discussion between screenwriters Stayci Taylor, Alan Nguyen, and Dan Binns as they speak about their experiences writing for film, TV, documentary, corporates, online and mixed media.

We discuss our inspirations, and getting started, the craft of writing for the screen, working with directors and other crew, as well as the challenges and opportunities of working as a writer.

Stayci Taylor (she/her) is a screenwriter, script editor and story consultant whose credits include ten seasons of an award-winning bilingual serial drama and a co-creation of a prime-time sitcom. She currently works as a researcher, lecturer and co-manager with the Master of Media program at RMIT. She is co-editor of two books about script development, forthcoming in 2020 and 2021.

Alan Nguyen (he/him) is an international-award-winning writer and director working across TV, film, theatre, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). He has written scripts for Melbourne Theatre Company, SBS, December Media and Matchbox Pictures / NBC Universal. He served as VR designer for a film-opera (supported by Arts South Australia, Vitalstatistix and PADA) and editor for two groundbreaking AR comic book anthologies published by EyeJack.

Daniel Binns (he/him) is a screenwriter and producer who moonlights as a Media Lecturer at RMIT University. He has written for lifestyle and documentary TV, corporate media, and drama. Dan produced The Aussie Who Baffled the World (2012) for National Geographic, and The Code (2011-2015) for Fox Sports.