immersion

A Feature Screenplay Lab

Go deeper into the film only you can make.

Features give writers room to immerse themselves more deeply in character, intention, cinematic language, rhythm, structure, and world.

IMMERSION is for writers who arrive with a completed feature screenplay and want the time, space, and individualized attention to explore what their film can become.

Rather than pushing the screenplay toward formula or market expectations, the lab asks a different set of questions:

What is this film really trying to do?
What makes it yours?
And how can every element of cinema help you express it?

Participants receive six individual development sessions, with dedicated rewriting time between meetings.

The extended process allows writers to move beyond surface-level notes and engage more deeply with the screenplay as it evolves.

THE PROCESS

Over the course of the lab, we may explore:

PERSONAL VOICE
What makes this film yours? Where are your particular observations, contradictions, curiosities, experiences, and ways of seeing the world present in the screenplay?

PRIMARY INTENTION
What sits underneath the plot? What question, feeling, tension, idea, or human experience keeps pulling you toward this film?

CHARACTER & POINT OF VIEW
Whose experience are we inhabiting? What does the film allow us to see, hear, understand, or misunderstand through that perspective?

CINEMATIC LANGUAGE
How can image, sound, editing, performance, production design, movement, framing, silence, and rhythm become part of the writing itself?

STRUCTURE & RHYTHM
What shape does this particular film want to take? Where should it expand, contract, linger, withhold, surprise, or breathe?

WORLD & EXPERIENCE
How fully does the screenplay invite us into its world? What details make that world specific, lived-in, sensory, and emotionally resonant?

Throughout the process, writers are encouraged to question not only whether something works, but why it belongs in this particular film.

SIX SESSIONS. ONE EVOLVING SCREENPLAY.

The six-session structure allows the development process to unfold over time.

Instead of receiving a large set of notes and disappearing to rewrite, writers have the opportunity to write, reconsider, experiment, return, and go deeper.

Each session builds on the work that came before it, while leaving room for discoveries made during the rewriting process to change where the conversation goes next.

The result is a development experience centered not on rushing toward a “finished” screenplay, but on giving the work the sustained attention necessary to discover what it can become.

ONE-ON-ONE DEVELOPMENT + COHORT COMMUNITY

Participants also become part of an I AM CINEMA writing cohort, gathering throughout the lab for conversations beyond their individual screenplays.

These aren't group notes sessions.

They're opportunities to talk about creative practice, collaboration, sustaining yourself as an artist, meeting potential collaborators, navigating the filmmaking landscape, and building genuine relationships with other filmmakers.

The screenplay is developed individually.
The filmmaker develops within a community.

WHO should apply?

Writers and writer-directors with a completed feature screenplay who want to move beyond conventional script development and engage more deeply with personal voice, artistic intention, and cinematic expression.

This is for writers willing to question familiar solutions, experiment with form, and follow the screenplay toward something more specific and personal.

Come with a completed screenplay.
Go deeper into the film only you can make.

Your Questions, Answered

  • IMMERSION is for writers and writer-directors with a completed feature screenplay who are ready to engage deeply with their work.

    It is especially suited to filmmakers interested in personal voice, cinematic experimentation, human complexity, and discovering the form and language most appropriate to the film they are trying to make.

  • Our focus isn't on pushing scripts toward formula, convention, or perceived market expectations. We work with writers to uncover what is specific to their voice, clarify what they are trying to express, and explore how the tools of cinema can communicate those ideas through image, sound, behavior, rhythm, silence, perspective, and more.

  • Not exactly.

    We aren't teaching a single method for how screenplays should be written. The lab is an individualized development process centered around your screenplay, your intentions, and your voice.

  • Absolutely. Those elements are part of the process, but we examine them in relationship to the film you're trying to make rather than applying a predetermined formula.

  • Writers enter with a completed screenplay and participate in a series of one-on-one development sessions, with time for rewriting between meetings.

    Short screenplay participants receive three individual sessions; feature screenplay participants receive six.

  • Sessions are conversations about your screenplay, your intentions, and the possibilities within the work. We may examine character, structure, individual scenes, dialogue, visual storytelling, sound, point of view, rhythm, or larger questions about what the film is trying to express. Each session will respond to the needs of the individual screenplay rather than following a rigid notes template.

  • No. Script development takes place privately in one-on-one sessions. Cohort gatherings are designed for community-building, conversation, and professional relationship-building rather than group script notes.

  • Yes. While development is individual, community is an important part of the program. Our goal is for writers to leave knowing not only more about their own work, but also a group of fellow cinematic artists.

  • Yes. Because the lab is centered around developing an existing screenplay, applicants should have a complete draft when they apply.

    It doesn't need to be polished. In fact, a screenplay with room to explore and evolve may be particularly well suited to the lab.

    • Application

    • Screenplay

    • Link to previous work

  • Applications are considered based on the screenplay, the writer's connection to the material, the potential for meaningful development through the lab, and alignment with the spirit of I Am Cinema. We're not looking for scripts that already feel "finished." We're looking for writers ready to explore.

  • Absolutely, but both writers must attend lab sessions together.

    The same goes for writer and director teams.

  • No. Your screenplay and all rights to your work remain entirely yours. Participation in the I Am Cinema Writers Lab does not give I Am Cinema any ownership interest in your project.

  • Sessions will take place online or in person, if able.

  • Short Screenplay Lab Fees:

    $495 (special 1st year cohort pricing $395), which includes:

    • (3) two hour individual development sessions

    • (3) cohort mixers

    • Final Artistic Compass

    • I Am Cinema Writers Lab alumni community

    Feature Screenplay Lab Fees:

    $995 (special 1st cohort pricing $795), which includes:

    • (6) two hour individual development sessions

    • Full initial screenplay read

    • Targeted reading of revisions between sessions

    • Creative exercises/prompts as appropriate

    • (6) Cohort networking gatherings

    • Final Artistic Compass

    • I Am Cinema Writers Lab alumni community

  • We're looking for writers who are curious about their own work. Writers willing to question easy choices, move beyond convention, take artistic risks, and look more closely at why they're telling this particular story. You don't need to arrive knowing exactly what your voice is. Discovering more of it is part of the work.

  • We don’t want financial hardship to be a barrier for anyone.

    As available, for each session we will offer one or two supported and/or fellowship spots per cohort, funded by donors specifically interested in artist development.

    Standard Tuition: $995
    Supported Tuition: $695
    Full Fellowship: $0