WRITERS WORKSHOP
Thursday, August 21
1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.   Attucks Theatre
Friday, August 22
1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.   Attucks Theatre

The MABFF invites you to join them for a Writers Workshop that introduces the tools, vocabulary, and techniques used to tell a screen story and take an original idea to outline form. In addition to providing basic three-act structure, the economic use of dialogue, visual storytelling elements, the development of complex characters, the revelation of background information, and the effective use of dramatic tension, you will become familiar with screenwriting terminology as scenes from well-known films are analyzed on video to reveal structural elements in the writing. By the end of this workshop, you will have gained valuable insight into the writing process and the necessary tools to create marketable screenplays.

Moderator: Michael Ajakwe Jr.
An Emmy-winning producer and two-time NAACP Theater Award winning playwright/producer, Mike has been blessed to successfully work in three mediums over the last 14 years:  TELEVISION  --  He's written on 11 shows, including "Martin," "Soul Food", and "Eve"; FILM -- He wrote the movie Crip for Artisan Pictures (now Lionsgate) and producers Bret Ratner (Rush Hour trilogy, Xmen 3) and Russell Simmons; In ’07, Pascal Altum Productions hired Mike to write and direct a drama/action No More Bloodshed, starring Taraji Henson, Jason George, and Tommy Ford; He is working on a show about Doug Williams, the first Black quarterback to win the Super Bowl, a movie adaptation of the Bruce McAllister critically-acclaimed short story and novel Dream Baby, and a film about Curt Flood, a baseball player who changed the way business is done in pro sports when he sued the league, which he hopes to bring to the big screen. THEATER – Since 1993, he's produced 15 plays, and written and directed 9 that have garnered 27 NAACP Theatre Award nominations, winning 5.   He recently adapted his critically-acclaimed, published one-act play, Happy Anniversary, Punk! as a short film -- which he also produced and directed. Happy Anniversary Punk! won Jury Award, Best Short Film and Audience Award, Best Short Film at the 2007 Mid-Atlantic Black Film Festival in Norfolk, Virginia.