Harvey Ovshinsky's screenwriting class
returns to the War Memorial this fall

Michigan movie madness doesn't just afflict the Miley Cyrus fans who lurked outside Grosse Pointe South this summer, hoping for a picture or autograph. The state's surge as a film location has many wondering if they might have a script in them.

A class this fall at the War Memorial will help would-be screenwriters find out.

Led by Detroit media legend Harvey Ovshinsky, left, "How to Write Your First Movie Script in Six Months" will do what its title suggests, serving as a "workshop, support group, boot camp" for anyone who wants to try their hand at this dramatic art.

"It's like a Weight Watchers for aspiring screenwriters," said Ovshinsky, a west sider who taught writing for years at the Grosse Pointe Academy. "Three hours a month we have our class, and they have their homework, and then they check in, and they either have lost weight or not."

A 100-page screenplay looks deceptively easy to write, he said: "All that white space!" And many have started their own movie story. "It's the finishing that's hard.

"I'm very direct with people," he said. "I tell them nobody cares about your story, unless you can figure out a way to make it into somebody else's. The challenge is to universalize the experiences, and find ways to make readers or viewers connect with it."

Ovshinsky said that while success in screenwriting has been a perennial dream for writers for years, there's no question the recent tax-incentive program in recent years has made the dream burn brighter for many.

"People who live here see movies being made here, and they want to tell their stories," he said. "And Michigan is the Saudi Arabia of content." But, he added, "It's the industry that fuels the class. There are so many terrible movies out there, and my students watch them and think, 'I can do that."

Ovshinsky has, himself. He wrote "P.J. and the Dragon," a film script that was sold and optioned, and "The Keyman," and has won numerous journalism and broadcasting awards, including a national Emmy, a Peabody, a duPont-Columbia University Award, an Iris Award from the National Association of Television Programming Executives, and the American Film Institute's Robert M. Bennett Award for Excellence.

The class meets the third Monday of every month at the War Memorial. Enrollment details are available at the War Memorial website, or by calling directly, (313) 881-7511. The class starts Sept. 20, and costs $328 per person.

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