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The Screenwriting Sensei

Location: Zoom
Next session: Tuesday, October 7, 2025; 5pm Pacific Time/8pm Eastern Time
Leader: Paul Chitlik

Looking to break through the clutter of the writing process and kick your writing into overdrive?

Long time screenwriter, consultant, and professor Paul Chitlik, distills the keys to starting your next script off right.

PageCraft’s original Italy screenwriting retreat mentor Paul Chitlik returns with a free special workshop based on his upcoming new book, The Screenwriting Sensei.
This short seminar will kick your writing into overdrive. In ninety minutes, you will learn:
  1. How to prepare yourself to begin.
  2. What the definition of story is.
  3. The three ways to get into your story.
  4. What your story is really about (premise).
  5. How to understand your characters.
  6. The basic structure of Hollywood screenplays.
  7. The basic structure of a scene.
  8. What to do next.

In this workshop, you will create:

  1. The basic premise (theme) of your story.
  2. The beginnings of character sketches of your main characters.
  3. The basic outline of your project.
  4. The confidence to start any project.
Paul Chitlik

Photo by John Salcedo, L.A. City Films

Important Notes:

  • This workshop will not be recorded. If you would like to participate, you must join at the listed time.
  • The registration link will take you a registration page that will automatically provide you with a Zoom link upon registration. We will email registered participants a reminder the day before the workshop is scheduled to take place. If you register afterwards, no additional reminder email will be sent.
  • If you do not see the registration confirmation (please check your spam folder), please get in touch with us at info@pagecraftwriting.com.
  • PageCraft’s Code of Conduct applies to this and all PageCraft workshops, labs, and retreats. Please take a moment to review it.

About Paul Chitlik: Paul has written for all the major networks and studios in English and in Spanish. He was story editor for MGM/UA’S The New Twilight Zone, and staff writer for Showtime’s sitcom Brothers. He has written features for Rysher Entertainment, NuImage, Promark, Mainline Releasing, and others. He has directed episodes and been coordinating producer for Real Stories of the Highway Patrol and U.S. Customs Classified. He wrote and produced Alien Abduction, the first network movie shot on digital video for UPN. He wrote, produced, and directed Ringling Brothers Revealed, a special for The Travel Channel. (He had been a roustabout for Circus Vargas years earlier.) Most recently he wrote, produced and directed The Wedding Dress, for Amazon Prime.

Paul received a Writers Guild of America award nomination for his work on The Twilight Zone and a GLAAD Media Award nomination for Los Beltrán, a Telemundo show. He won a Genesis Award for a Showtime Family movie. He has taught in the MFA programs of UCLA, the University of Barcelona’s film school ESCAC, Cuba’s film school EICTV, Chile’s film school UNIACC, The University of Zulia in Venezuela, The Panamerican University in Mexico City, The Story Academy of Sweden and as a clinical associate professor at Loyola Marymount University. Now Paul is writing full time again and living near his grandson in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with his wife, television producer Beth McCauley. His book, Rewrite, is used in film schools around the world (in English, Chinese, and Korean). His latest novel is Lies, All Lies, and  his next book on screenwriting, The Screenwriting Sensei, will be published by MWP in the fall of 2025.