Alison Brie and Dave Franco in Together. Photo by Ben King.
VicScreen today announced a bold new development initiative, Originate Genre, designed to nurture the next generation of Victorian storytellers to bring new voices to commercial cinema.
The Originate suite of programs, introduced through the VICSCREEN Strategy, has successfully fast tracked the careers of under-represented Victorian screenwriters, with supported projects already backed by some of the screen industry's biggest names.
The latest in the suite, Originate Genre, is a two-phase development program that will elevate live-action genre movie projects from concept to market-ready screenplays.
VicScreen will present a series of online screenwriting seminars focused on genre storytelling, presented over four weeks. Participants will receive eight hours of intensive training in action, comedy, horror, fantasy, romcom, sci-fi and thriller narratives.
Open to all Victorian writers, the webinars will be led by highly regarded program facilitator Wendall Thomas, ahead of an application-based Writers' Lab.
Eight projects will be selected to take part in the six-month intensive Writers' Lab, comprised of group, peer-to-peer, and one-on-one development sessions online and in-person in Melbourne.
Tailored to the individual needs of each project, the Writers' Lab will focus on shaping the screenplays for market, while enhancing the writer's skills and understanding of the development process. Projects will each receive a $10,000 grant towards the delivery of a polished first draft screenplay.
Both development stages will be run by Wendall Thomas, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) screenwriting professor, lecturer, script editor, development executive, and author. She has worked with Warner Bros, Universal, Showtime, Disney, PBS and NBC amongst others.
The Originate Genre online seminars will commence on Thursday 27 March 2025, with two-hour sessions across four consecutive weeks. Webinars will run on Thursday 27 March, Thursday 3 April, Thursday 10 April and Thursday 17 April at 1:00pm Melbourne time.
Minister for Creative Industries, Colin Brooks said, "Victoria has a proud history of making extraordinary movies with broad audience appeal. Through our screen strategy, the Allan Labor Government is ensuring that our state maintains its status as a global screen powerhouse and Originate Genre is one way we are backing the next generation of local screen storytellers to hone their skills. I look forward to seeing the films that result and go on to bring laughs, scares or thrills to audiences across the world."
VicScreen CEO Caroline Pitcher said, "Victoria has a wealth of genre storytelling talent, so we've developed Originate Genre to accelerate our remarkable talent and bring new action, comedy, horror or thriller projects to market. I'm excited to see more Victorian genre films that resonate globally, just like the critical and commercial success of Late Night with the Devil and Together."
