I had a great time. He gave a very thorough and entertaining presentation on his storytelling process. Among my favourite pieces of wisdom were...
*The importance of relating all aspects of your script back to the central theme.
*Character can be expressed through physicality (posture, clothing, expressions, etc.). Dialouge and captions may not even be needed to describe your character's...er, character.
*Redundant narrative is the kiss of death.
*Ideally, good dialogue should advance the plot and reveal character.
*The artist does the work of an entire film crew (casting, lighting, set design, wardrobe, etc.).
The highlight of the day was listening to Mr. Cooke read chapter one from THE HUNTER and scroll through the illustrated pages on a Power Point screen. It was a great insight into the storytelling process and the choices he made.
I even got a couple of my books prettied up.
