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Master Class

Doc U: Writing Master Class with Mark Monroe

3470 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 980, Los Angeles CA 90010

See what LA Times film critic Kenneth Turan had to say about Mark Monroe as writer of three films premiering in the same year at the Sundance Film Festival.

Join us for the latest installment of our Master Class series with writer Mark Monroe, whose work on such high profile documentaries such as The Cove and Fed Up has made him the "go-to" writer and indispensable collaborator for numerous top documentary producers and directors. By breaking down and explaining his process and using highly illustrative examples from his career, Mark will prove how the right writer can make the difference between projects having great potential and those that deliver the goods. Mark's collaborative process with producers, directors and editors is the key. How he works with the creative team and his contributions to the structural, thematic and narrative elements of a documentary make him an integral and vital part of the process. Mark will show how you, too, can learn to see your stories with fresh eyes and take your films to the next level.

Mark will cover:

  • What a writer brings to a documentary
  • Key elements of documentary storytelling
  • Seeing your documentary through a writer’s eyes
  • How his collaborative process works
  • What you might be missing by not working with a writer
  • Feedback on your current film project.
  • Illuminating excerpts from recent documentaries that show how the writer can transform a documentary – and solve significant problems in structure, tone, and theme

This class is appropriate for:

  • Documentary directors and producers who want to improve their own approach to writing and learn more about what a writer does on a documentary and how he/she can make major contributions to your film
  • Writers looking to bolster their skills, develop their eye for documentary storytelling, and learn to collaborate more effectively with the creative team
  • Film students and recent graduates
  • Mid-career changers who want to learn more about writing for documentary

Mark Monroe

Co-founder of Diamond Docs, a creative collaboration with Director/Editor Paul Crowder and Producer Morgan Sackett, Mark Monroe is an award-winning documentary filmmaker with an extensive list of theatrical writing credits. In 2008, Monroe wrote The Cove, produced in association with Diamond Docs, which won the Audience Award for Documentary at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and went on to win the 2010 Oscar® for Best Documentary Feature. Monroe’s other credits include: Mission Blue (Berlin International Film Festival, 2014); Fed Up (Sundance 2014); The Summit, (Winner, Best Editing Sundance 2013); Who is Dayani Cristal?, (Winner, Best Cinematography, Sundance 2013); Sound City (Sundance 2013); The Cove (Oscar® for Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Script, W.G.A. 2010); The Tillman Story; Chasing Ice (Winner, Best Cinematography Sundance 2012); Stolen Seas; Last Play at Shea; Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos, (W.G.A. nomination Best Documentary Script, 2007); and Amazing Journey: The Story of The Who. Monroe made his feature film directorial debut with Morning Light, produced by Roy Disney and released theatrically in October 2008. Currently, Monroe is working on 6, Academy Award® winner Louis Psihoyos' follow-up film to The Cove and a crowdfunding campaign for a rock and roll immigration film about a musical prodigy called Lucchy. A journalism graduate from the University of Oklahoma, Monroe began his career in television as a newswriter for CNN in Atlanta. Before writing for film, he produced more than sixty hours of biography-style programming for TV. For more on Mark Monroe: www.diamonddocs.net, www.jerkswithunderwoods.com