What is Farmhouse?

Farmhouse is a week-long intensive screenwriting workshop for writers of all levels of experience, situated near Il Castello di Tabiano, in the idyllic hills of Northern Italy. Attendees will participate in daily workshops, screenings, and group discussions, led by two seasoned Hollywood screenwriters while enjoying plenty of independent writing time. Delicious meals, pasta-making sessions and a tour of the spectacular city of Parma, are all part of the experience.  

The Back Story

The Farmhouse Screenwriting Workshop is the brainchild of Patty Meyer and Laura Harrington, Patty and Laura met six years ago at a dinner party where they discovered they both wrote screenplays for many of Hollywood’s biggest studios and talents, including Martin Scorsese.

Having spent a decade teaching at the AFI Conservatory and the past seven years helming the MFA Screenwriting Program at Loyola Marymount University, Patty wrangled Laura to share her brilliance as a fellow faculty member. Patty and Laura are deeply devoted to excellence, to creating original scripts with powerful themes and characters with emotional authenticity. With their successful industry careers, and having taught many aspiring young writers, they recognize a shared, uniquely effective strategy for helping writers crack the structure of their screenplays and advance compelling stories while preserving a unique voice.

The inspiration for the Farmhouse Screenwriting Intensive for the duo is a chance to offer instruction to a broad demographic of writers, a fun and romantic—but intensive—working and learning experience.

It’s a common fact that over 90% of scripts are rejected because of structural problems and underdeveloped characters. Too often, good stories fail to reach their potential audience.

Knowing first-hand how driven, determined and patient a writer needs to be, Patty and Laura want to teach writers how to avoid common pitfalls and efficiently create stories and scripts that work on all levels.

Together, they have elevated the usual, superficial approach to screenwriting instruction. By sharing their innovative skillset, they are able to teach both new and experienced screenwriters how to integrate story, character and structure, saving an enormous amount of time and anguish later on.

Why is it called Farmhouse?  Because writing a screenplay is all about work. Vision. Screenwriters need to sweat, get their hands in the dirt and harvest all that’s beautiful, wild, pathetic, funny, frightening, dangerous and vital about life. Like farmers, screenwriters use skill, patience, laughter, tears, intuition and the magic fertilizer of research to grow something worth all the effort. While farmers rely on wind, sun, rain and simple seeds to grow verdant fields, screenwriters use something no less magical and organic: the art of turning raw experience into story gold.

CONSULTATIONS:

After our intensive week-long workshop, Laura and Patty will be available to consult on your works-in-progress.

Press the apply button and complete a brief application form.

Please call or email if you have any questions and we’ll respond ASAP.