About The Screenplay Workshop

with Jill Chamberlain

Jill script writing speaker

The Screenplay Workshop with Jill Chamberlain

 

The Screenplay Workshop brings the lectures and coursework of story structure expert and script consultant Jill Chamberlain to a group setting. The atmosphere is collaborative, informative, and encouraging. Ever since The Screenplay Workshop’s founding by Jill in 2006, our workshops have been popular among brand new writers, seasoned professional screenwriters, novelists, film enthusiasts, and industry professionals alike. Whether you are joining us at our Austin, Texas headquarters or joining an online course, the live interactive experience and personal feedback from Jill will improve your writing in ways a book alone never can.

 

We offer ongoing group workshops, one- and two-day weekend intensives, and short courses, as well as individual, private consulting services including story consultation, screenwriting services, script doctoring, and private instruction and tutorials. We can work with your organization to tailor a seminar or workshop exclusively for your group, as we have done with past clients like Maryland Institute College of Art, Austin School of Film, Austin Screenwriters Group, Reel Women, and The Writer’s Garret of Dallas.

About Jill Chamberlain

Jill Chamberlain has helped thousands of writers, producers, and studios find and refine their stories. As a longtime script consultant, Jill knows the pitfalls that are common in screenwriting and how to avoid them. That experience and the desire to bring this knowledge to the public led to Jill founding The Screenplay Workshop.

 

Jill’s unique Nutshell Technique for screenplay story structure has been praised throughout Hollywood. Producer Callum Greene (Star Wars Episode 9, Crimson Peak, and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) said “the Nutshell Technique is like the Rosetta Stone: it cracks the code behind why we love the movies that we love. It goes way beyond tired old beat sheet formulas and instead guides you to organically write the story you want to tell.”

 

The Nutshell Technique is the basis for Jill’s book from the University of Texas Press, The Nutshell Technique: Crack the Secret of Successful Screenwriting. Since its publication in 2016, the book was an instant classic. Of the over 3,000 books on screenwriting on Amazon, The Nutshell Technique is one of the very highest rated by users. It’s on the syllabus for film schools across the country including the world renowned screenwriting program at Columbia University and is being published in Chinese Mandarin and Italian.

 

Jill has consulted on projects for major studios, for small independents, and for many, many spec screenwriters. Her students and clients have had their screenplays optioned, made into award-winning feature films, garner them Hollywood representation, land them professional screenwriting assignments, and recognized by top competitions including the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences’ Nicholl Fellowship.

 

Jill is on the adjunct faculty of Maryland Institute College of Art’s graduate filmmaking program and University of Houston’s Jack Valenti School of Communications. She studied in the MFA film program at Columbia University, where she also received her undergraduate degree in English.

Jill Chamberlain script consultant
stack of screenwriting books

The Nutshell Technique

The Nutshell Technique is Jill’s groundbreaking method of building and analyzing a story’s structure. Developed for Jill’s consulting practice, the acclaimed technique is critical to The Screenwriting Workshop. The book on the topic was released in 2016 and today is the one of the highest rated screenwriting book on Amazon.

 

We recommend buying the book as a companion to the course and to provide a refresher on the most important elements of story structure.