Wiktor Piątkowski
Screenwriter, producer, lecturer and owner of Bahama Films.
Thematic workshop
Hitchcock said a film should use dialogue only when there is no other way to tell the story. This workshop is about all the other ways: one day, three writing exercises, and practical techniques for writing visual, “filmable” screenplays.
The upcoming workshop are in:
Days
Hours
Minutes
Seconds
Portfolio
Three scenes written during the workshop, each one projected, workshopped with the group, and given detailed feedback
Format
One 8-hour meeting: about 70% writing and feedback, 30% theory and tools
Language
The workshop will be in English!
Visual screenwriting – thematic workshop
Everyone can tell a story. Telling a story in pictures is a craft, and it has to be learned. A screenplay is not a novel. It is a set of instructions for a director and for actors, and when the film is already clear on the page, they can see straight away what to do with it. Writers who write clearly and visually get hired more often.
This workshop is a one-day intensive on how to do it. We work on telling the story through action, behaviour, objects, and places, instead of through dialogue and description.
It is a good workshop for playwrights and novelists who want to learn to write for film, and for experienced screenwriters who want to write more visually. Every screenwriter can get better at this.
How does the workshop look?
The day begins with a lesson on how much a film can tell us with no dialogue at all: who a character is, where they are, and what they want. After that, the day is built around three writing exercises. Before each exercise there is a short lesson, and after each exercise there is a feedback session run like a writers room, where everyone is encouraged to give feedback on each other’s scenes.
You will get the three prompts the evening before the workshop, so you can start thinking about them. All the writing happens in the room. Bring your laptop, because during the feedback sessions we put your pages on the screen and discuss them with the whole group.
Every lesson is built on examples. We watch scenes from classic and contemporary films that tell their story visually, take apart how they were built, and look at how the same moment works on the page. Then you write your own, and you get feedback on it the same day.
We also name the most common pitfalls in visual writing: scenes that explain instead of show, action lines nobody can film, feelings written down where behaviour should be, information handed to the audience in dialogue. For each one you get a technique you can use immediately, in this workshop and in your own scripts afterwards.
You will leave with three scenes, feedback on each of them, and a method you can use in your own writing.
Testimonials from Our Students
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Workshop programme
- What a film can tell us without dialogue: character, place, and story through action
- Action lines: nouns, verbs, atmosphere, and writing only what can be seen and heard on screen
- Character is action: choosing the activity that shows us who a character is
- Showing what a character feels through behaviour, objects, and surroundings
- Common pitfalls in visual writing, and practical techniques to fix them
- Scene studies: visual screenwriting in classic and contemporary films
Your coaches
Wiktor Piątkowski created and co-wrote HBO’s first original series produced in Poland (Wataha) and the first Polish romantic comedy produced by Netflix (Squared Love). Over the last 17 years he has worked as showrunner, head writer, screenwriter and producer on various shows (crime series, soap operas, scripted reality, period dramas, sitcom), with more than 2000 hours of TV produced. A sitcom he co-created and co-wrote, Just Push Abuba, premiered in 2018 on ZDF. Wiktor is the head writer of the first Polish TV series produced by Viaplay (Murderesses), the first co-production between Canal+ and Polsat (Sortownia) and the first political thriller series produced by Polsat (Vote of no Confidence). Wiktor’s filmography includes, among others, the feature films Heart Parade (Netflix) and Holidays Backwards (which he also produced), and the TV series War Girls.
Wiktor graduated from the Polish National Film School in Łódź, the Warsaw School of Economics, and Warsaw University (psychology), and is an alumnus of Serial Eyes (organized by the Deutsche Film and Fernsehakademie Berlin, and the London Film School), European TV Drama Series Lab, European Showrunner Training, Canneseries Writers Club, The Owl, Midpoint, Racconti and Berlinale Talents. He has participated in many screenwriting courses, led by, among others Syd Field, John Truby, Robert McKee, Linda Seger, Dov Simens, Glen Benest and Sammy Montana. The list of his mentors includes James V. Hart (Dracula, Hook, Contact), Frank Spotnitz (The X Files, The Man in the High Castle), Graham Yost (Speed, Justified) and Jeff Melvoin (Northern Exposure, Designated Survivor, Killing Eve).
Wiktor Piątkowski is also a member of SEAN, the Dirty Dozen Collective, the Polish Filmmakers Association (SFP) and the Polish Screenwriters’ Guild. He has a PhD in television marketing, runs screenwriting workshops in Poland and abroad, and manages Bahama Films, an independent production company based in Warsaw.
Jacob Ramsay
Jacob Ramsay is an American filmmaker and MFA graduate in Film Directing from FAMU Prague. He spent nearly a decade working in the New York film industry, with credits including HBO’s Vinyl (Scorsese), A24’s How to Talk to Girls at Parties (Mitchell), and Maggie’s Plan (Miller), before moving to Central Europe to write and direct. His screenplays and film projects have won awards at international festivals, and his short films have been included in the Cannes Short Film Corner and screened worldwide. He designed and taught a practical directing course at FAMU International, served as a script doctor, and has taught filmmaking workshops in the United States, Macedonia, Czech Republic, and Italy. He is based in Warsaw, where he writes, directs films and music videos.
Class location
Visual screenwriting
Thematic workshop
800 PLN
- 8 hours in a small group
- 3 writing exercises
- learning to tell the story through pictures