Paul Brown: “Desire and passion to create and give to others.” Master class by an American screenwriter, director and producer for SPUFT students

On November 15, 2019, a workshop was held by Paul Brown, a professor at the New York Academy of Motion Picture Arts, who devoted more than 20 years to cinema.

Paul Brown considers himself the most screenwriter. On his account the films “Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam”, “The X-Files”, “Star Trek: Voyager”, “First Wave” and others. "Quantum Leap" he shot as a director. He was nominated three times for the Emmy Award and Golden Globe. Paul Brown is a laureate of the Edgar Award, founded by Mystery Writers of America, for "Best Television Drama Screenplay."

The master class for participants of the XIX Open International Festival of Student Films “PeterKiT” began unexpectedly. Paul Brown stepped onto the stage and said after a short pause a few words: “Desire. Strong feelings. Passion". Actually spoken these words made even students who habitually checked their mail on mobile phones or leaf through messages on social networks habitually at that time. By the way, later he asked to turn off all the gadgets for a while in order to plunge into the atmosphere of co-cooperation, co-experience, co-feeling...

Screenwriter and teacher Paul Brown is sure that only someone who is passionately living his life, who has different sad and joyful experiences can write a story that will offend every viewer. The gift to give, sincerity, the ability to recognize the second “I”, the “shadow” of another other person under the mask are the basis of the method of Paul Brown who several times taught a scripting course at the Moscow branch of the New York Academy of Motion Picture Arts.

Growing up in the small town of Venice, California, he studied a lot and seriously. Among his teachers there is an actress who studied according to the Stanislavsky system, so much of the basics of acting was transmitted to him through “Russian” lessons. The Russian “gene” apparently made Brown’s collaboration with Russian students more productive.

A graduate of Oxford University, Paul Brown has a master's degree in literature. He graduated with honors from the University of California at Berkeley, where he received a bachelor's degree in English literature. It is not surprising that during the workshop Ancient Greece sounded, the Delphic oracle, Shakespeare, Ibsen were mentioned ... Reliance on European culture is the foundation and powerful cultural layer that nourishes artists so far and helps them to comprehend the basics of dramaturgy. And this was demonstrated by the American Paul Brown.

He quoted Shakespeare several times. This fragment was from a Macbeth monologue:

«Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing».

This is the key to understanding fate and life. In order to illustrate how the story is built in a good movie, Paul Brown showed fragments of the famous film “Silver Linings Playbook” (2012) directed by David O. Russell, who himself wrote the script. The film was played by famous Hollywood actors Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, Robert de Niro and Jackie Weaver and many others.

The author of the master class selected fragments very accurately. He was able to immerse us in the world of the film and put us in the very center of the conflict between the main characters without showing us the entire movie. Practically without using any special terminology, Paul Brown showed us how the director established our connection with the characters through empathy, then aroused curiosity in us. And now we unconsciously wait for the development of action, wait for the heroes to open up to us, take off their masks...

Paul Brown spoke directly to the audience to specific people. Although he didn’t start the question-answer game, he only had a few cues and a sense of return to the audience. Moving on stage, he went down to the hall, and it seemed that each of four hundred people was listening to him one on one. The American way of conducting a master class looks very simple, but in reality it’s complicated and not everyone can conduct it. An experienced and open-minded educator, Paul Brown was able in two and a half hours to give an important lesson not only in screenwriting, but also in life philosophy.

The meeting was concluded with the American screenwriter and director Paul Brown, rector of St. Petersburg State University of Cinema and Television, Professor Alexander Evmenov, who thanked the guest for his brilliant master class and invited him to our university to continue communication with students. The offer has been accepted!

This remarkable event was held during the St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum 2019 and the project “Grand Master Class of Cinema Schools” with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.                    

Head of the Department of Drama and Film Studies,
Professor Svetlana Melnikova