Pitt Film Studies Program to Partner With Steeltown Entertainment Project in Feb. 20 Workshop

The University of Pittsburgh Film Studies Program in partnership with Steeltown Entertainment Project will hold a workshop from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Feb. 20 in the seventh-floor Alumni Hall Auditorium. The workshop, titled “The Director’s Pitch: Transforming Screenplays Into Productions,” is one of a series of events for the Steeltown Film Factory screenwriting competition.

Launched in November, the Film Factory competition called for students and aspiring filmmakers to submit their 10-12 page, Pittsburgh-inspired screenplays for judging by such top filmmaking professionals as 300 (2006) producer Bernie Goldmann, CBS Television’s Two and a Half Men director (and Pittsburgh native) Jamie Widdoes, Lionsgate producer John Dellaverson (A&S ’68), and Pittsburgh-born Carl Kurlander, a Pitt senior lecturer, Hollywood screenwriter, and television writer-producer.

In a January workshop at Carnegie Mellon University, the top 10 finalists were chosen and asked to rewrite their scripts. Five finalists will be selected from this group of writers at the Pitt workshop. The panel, moderated by Kurlander, will include Widdoes and Heide Waldbaum, production manager for Avatar, who will discuss the elements of directing with a focus on these screenplays.

Those chosen at the Pitt workshop will go on to the next round at Point Park University.

The Film Factory competition includes a $25,000 total prize package, which will be used to produce the winning film or films in the southwestern Pennsylvania region during the summer of 2010. The completed films will be screened during the 2010 Three Rivers Film Festival.

Tickets for the Pitt event, available online, are $10 for adults and $5 for students.

For more information on the Steeltown Film Factory, contact Jodi Klebick at jodi@steeltown.org or visit www.steeltownfilmfactory.org.

For more information on Pitt’s Film Studies Program, contact Jennifer Florian at jrf16@pitt.edu or visit www.filmstudies.pitt.edu/.

—Patricia Lomando White