Comedy Webinar Series
Comedy is the angry art. It attacks the institutions in the world, social behaviour and the conduct of society. But comedians know that if you harangue people with how awful the world is, no one will listen to you. As a comedy writer, if you can pull the mask away from hypocrisy and greed, expose pretentiousness, stupidity, cruelty for what it is and get people to laugh, then maybe things will balance. In this series of three webinars, Robert McKee dives deep into the nature, principles and structure of this pointed genre.
Webinars in the Series:The Genius of Comedy The Keys to Comedy The Structure of Comedy |
Story Craft Webinar Series
As a writer, you alone have the tools to craft the vehicle that carries us on our search for reality, our best effort to make sense out of the anarchy of existence. And now, more than ever, the world needs your stories. Following the success of his Spring Webinar Program, Robert McKee returns this fall to deliver the crucial insight you need to understand your work in the context of the story universe, to hook and hold the interest of your audience and to lift your story from a good telling, to a work of art.
Webinars in the Series:The Story Universe Story and the Reader/Audience Story as Art |
Love Story Webinar Series
We create love stories in order to explore, express and experience love from the safe distance of art.
Following the success of his Comedy Webinar Series, Robert McKee returns online this fall with three webinars on the beautiful expression and delightful agony of the Love Story. Learn the history and nature of love, the storytelling principles involved in crafting a love story, and how you can mix and merge genres to create something truly unique.
Webinars in the Series:The Nature of Love The Six Subgenres of Love The Ten Conventions of Love |
TV Webinar Series
The recordings of all six live events in the series are now available. If you weren’t able to join us in November, you can now gain instant access and catch up at your convenience.
TV series have an enormous advantage over film. With the potential to tell a story over dozens of hours, writers have the power to reveal character complexity and depths of humanity no medium has ever delivered in history. This fall, Robert McKee teaches the evolution and strengths of long-form storytelling, how to design your series across multiple seasons, and the depths you can reach in character and story complexity.
Webinars in the Series:The Age of Long-Form Television Designing Story for Television Maximizing Your TV Series |
2020 Full Spring Program
With the unprecedented events of recent months, and subsequent spread of the coronavirus, writers are increasingly stuck at home. So this spring, as we confront this global crisis together, Robert McKee is bringing his lifetime of narrative insight and legendary teaching to you…
Webinars in the Series:Building a Scene The Art of the Inciting Incident Character Dimensions Dialogue: The Hidden Story in Subtext The Principle of Antagonism The Core Elements of Genre |
Building a Scene
Every writer must strive towards this ideal: Include no scene that doesn’t turn. You must work to round every scene from beginning to end by turning a value at stake in a character’s life from positive to negative, or vice versa. Adherence to this principle may be difficult, but it’s by no means impossible.
The Art of the Inciting Incident
The Inciting Incident is the first major incident in your story. At some point, as you write, you will need to answer these questions: How do I set my story in action? Where do I place this crucial event?
Character Dimensions
Dimension is the least understood concept in character. The industry insists on “round, three dimensional characters,” but when pressed, few could actually tell you what that means, let alone create one.
Dialogue: The Hidden Story in Subtext
Without expressive dialogue, story events lack depth, characters lose dimension, and story flattens. More than any other technique of characterization, dialogue has the power to lift a merely complicated telling into the full array of complexity.
The Principle of Antagonism
A protagonist and their story can only be as intellectually fascinating and emotionally compelling as the forces of antagonism make them. The more powerful and complex the forces opposing the character, the more completely realized character and story must become.
The Core Elements of Genre
All writers are genre writers. Whether it’s an action blockbuster such as AVENGERS: ENDGAME, or a crimedy like the excellent PARASITE, every story flows from a tradition of core events, characters, and values delineated by the genre in which it was written. The writer’s first task is to identify the genre, or combination of genres that will inspire his or her creativity. The second is to master its possibilities.