Peter Fox, veteran script writer, reader and analyst, offers a course in Screenwriting at Tripeg Studios in Hamden, CT. Photo courtesy of Peter Fox.

If you’ve always thought you might like a career in screenwriting, Peter Fox, of Synthetic Cinema, wants to nurture your dream. In conjunction with Tripeg Studios, Hamden, Connecticut, Synthetic Cinema offers The Inside Track Workshops for Screenwriters with Peter Fox, a series of classes designed to help jumpstart your move to Hollywood.

But don’t start packing.  Fox offers no magic elixir. He encourages no delusions.

“There’s no secret, no holy grail,” he declares. “Just lots of pain and rejection.”  He pauses dramatically – his acting training and standup comedy timing kicking in now. He smiles. “And a lot of incredibly hard work.”

What Peter Fox tells his students is that while there is no potion, there is a formula. Of sorts. 

“Screenwriting is no mystery,” says Fox. “If you know who your main characters are, how to visually establish their behavior and actions, you’re halfway there. “While Peter doesn’t expect you to find your way all alone, he rejects the notion that the popular screenwriting seminars like those offered by screenwriting guru Robert McKee will work for everyone.

“The process of screenwriting is intensely personal,” Fox suggests, squinting a bit as he searches for the right words. It’s not like any other kind of writing. And it can’t be done in a large group over a weekend.”

Fox’s approach to the course seeks to expand on the personal aspect of the process.  “At the beginning of the first class, we give each participant a brand new, small, shiny notebook.”  The gift is intended to be a pocket-sized companion, a device for recording observations and comments on the people they come into contact with every day.

Explains Fox: “It’s a way for each screenwriter to stay close to the characters he or she will create.  And it’s the first of the many tools to learning the skills, for investigating the craft of screenwriting, which is, essentially, only the first part of the process of production.”

“Screenwriting is very different from other kinds of writing,” continues Fox. “It’s the first stage on the road to production, and it has its own culture, its own structure which is binding. But it’s a structure that is rooted in the classics.”

A good screenplay, insists Fox, is all about the hero’s journey, the same journey described in The Poetics, Aristotle’s classic analysis of Greek literature.

The principals of screenwriting are also drawn from the psychological  discussions of Carl Jung and the mythological treatises of Joseph Campbell, who built on Aristotle’s precepts to define modern culture. The approaches have been recently popularized in Hollywood, and Peter Fox brings them to Hamden by way of Christopher Vogler’s book The Writer’s Journey, the current Bible for professional screenwriters.

Fox, who moved to Connecticut from Hollywood only recently, discovered Vogler’s book during his tenure as a Hollywood script reader and story analyst.   He explains,  “Vogler was working for a studio when he read Campbell’s Hero with A Thousand Faces, and he thought, ‘Wow. This is what screenwriting is all about.’”

Vogler’s precept, explained in the book’s introduction, is that, “the hero’s journey is nothing less than a handbook for life, a complete instruction manual in the art of being human.

The Hero’s Journey is not an invention, but an observation. It is a recognition of a beautiful design, a set of principles that govern the conduct of life and the world of storytelling the way physics and chemistry govern the physical world.”

Once a prospective writer understands The Hero’s Journey, maintains Fox, one will find their way into the story in short order. “The character moments are broken down into images. Dialogue and character choices are devices to underpin the visual images that tell the story. You only have 120 pages or less to tell your story, so you have to get in late and leave early. You must grab the core thematic element and run with it, never dropping it once.”

The search for the story, says Fox, is easier from this approach. “Know your hero and what your hero wants. What forces oppose the hero; what is at stake. And know how your story will end.”

Unlike the process of writing a novel or even a short story, the screenwriting process allows the writer no time to discover the direction of the story. If the writer isn’t moved in a specific direction, impelled by the Hero’s objectives, the story will not evolve. But if the writer begins with a clear sense of what the journey is, the story will unfold clearly.

“I try to show my students that the right preparation and dedication to hard work coupled with a logical, reasonable level of expectation for success will stay the writer’s course,“ says Fox. “I have learned that this is a harrowing world where you are always baring your soul.  Rejection is rife. And you need to continually refine your product in order to get it made into a movie.”

Fox is eager to share the fruits of his experiences in Hollywood. Before going to Hollywood, Fox performed stand-up comedy in New York and studied acting at the Duality Playhouse with Piero Dusa. He earned his Master of Fine Arts from the American Film Institute in screenwriting and went on to cover hundreds of screenplays, and has written, produced and directed film and videos at the corporate and independent level. His experiences have provided a comprehensive education and have recently begun to take off in some important ways.

Fox and his partners have just sold PREDATOR ISLAND, a film they wrote and produced, to Universal Pictures.  The group is presently preparing to take their next project EAT into production this summer.  

“For me,” says Fox, “It’s all about locating the events of my life and finding the themes that predominate. If I remove myself and reconstruct the experiences around the character I have devised, I find my screenplay fairly writing itself.” 

Which is the gift he offers each of his students.

For further information visit www.Syntheticcinema.com.

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