Workshop "Beyond Structure" by David Freeman 2011 @ ICAT, Chennai

Holly wood’s master script writer at ICAT, Chennai

David Freeman, Hollywood’s renowned screenwriter and script consultant, was here at Chennai on 1st April 2011, with LA's, New York's, and London's most popular screenwriting and development master class “Beyond Structure” exclusively for students of Image College of Arts, Animation & Technology (ICAT).

Many of his past students are now Oscar winner writers and directors who contributed to some of the seminal films of Hollywood like Pulp fiction, Total Recall, Star Trek: Voyager & Deep Space Nine, The Simpsons, Good will hunting, The X-Files and many more. His master workshop “Beyond Structure” is world famous. Mr. Freeman is also associated with video gaming industry. His famous book “Creating emotions in games” is a bible for game designers and developers all around the globe. Students from Visual Effects, 3D Animation and Game Design were present, to get useful tips from the master screen writer.

Mr. Freeman started his workshop “Beyond Structure” with a methodical discussion over PIXAR films. An overview of the animation industry and the new trend set by PIXAR was explained. Characters like Wall-E, Nemo and numerous others including character from Indian movies were deconstructed for the student’s benefit to understand them better. The workshop then went on with further discussion on script writing techniques. The script guru shared some marvelous and handy tips with the students of ICAT. His unique and captivating ‘Character Diamond technique’ was not only insightful, but was also a useful tool for students, to make their own interesting characters. His other techniques of crafting a unique and psychologically complex character were quite appreciated by the students.

Character development was then followed by important elements of plot development. He explained the importance of a well crafted plot. He has developed his own techniques of constructing an interesting plot which he shared with the students. Students who will soon be making their own films, found these tips extremely fascinating and helpful. An interesting presentation studded with clips of famous films was shown to students. Even Game Design and advertising Design students found important tricks of their trade. His plot development techniques are equally applicable in films, advertisement and video games.

Student’s film club was inaugurated by Mr. David Freeman at the end of the session at ICAT. He suggested, for making a good film students must watch movies and try to analyze different aspect of it as discussed during the workshop. This workshop was a nice journey for the student s of ICAT. The club plans to take his lesson forward by sharing knowledge with other students in and around Chennai during their upcoming events.