I'm reposting what I received in an email yesterday from the Writer's Guild of SA. They're bringing Andrew Walsh down to Joburg and Cape Town in May to give a workshop on the topic of writing dialogue and narrative in an interactive medium... pretty sweet!!!
WGSA is proud to announce our next international workshop:
From London and the depth of cyberspace, we welcome writer/director Andrew S Walsh to JOHANNESBURG and CAPE TOWN!
An award winning video games writer with credits which include the immensely popular Prince of Persia, Need for Speed, Lego City and various Harry Potter episodes, Andy Walsh will share not only his experience as a writer, director, producer and story consultant, but is also a one-stop shop from concept to pre-production; from scripting to voice, performance capture and localisation. In addition, he has credits in film, television, radio, stage plays and animation, offering local writers the full package of learning how to spread their talents from film and TV across the full spectrum of new media.
Venue:
To be announced
Dates
Johannesburg: 10 to 11 May 2014
Cape Town: 17 to 18 May 2014
Times
8h00 to 17h00
Workshop content:
Writing dialogue and narrative in an interactive medium
This two day workshop will mix talks with workshop exercises which cover a wide range of interactive writing challenges from concept to shipping. Learn to recognise and analyse the different challenges offered by the various platforms, narrative genres and gameplay genres that face writers working in this medium. If you'd like to know the jargon, common pitfalls, career paths, formats, narrative structures, speech design principles and to get the chance to test out these elements, then this is the workshop for you. Organised by an industry veteran with experience on more than 60 game titles as well as film and television, these two days will contain vital information for those new to writing, established writers wishing to examine a new approach to their work and anyone wanting to dig deeper into the impact of interactive narratives.
Andrew S. Walsh is an award-winning writer/director with credits across film, television, theatre, radio, animation and videogames. A man of many job titles he has appeared as writer, director, speech designer, narrative designer, narrative producer, story consultant, script editor, motion capture director, camera director, voice director, story producer, story liner, story editor and once mysteriously as 't - by', something which he can only attribute to being a tea drinking Englishman.
To date he has worked on more than sixty videogames including Fable Legends, Prince of Persia, Harry Potter, Risen, XCom, Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol, Medieval II: Total War, SOCOM, LEGO City:Undercover, X3 Reunion, and the new Need for Speed : Most Wanted. His film work includes the English version of Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva, while in television he has learned a lot about accents having worked on projects involving Yorkshire men in woolly hats (Emmerdale), Geordie school kids (Byker Grove), a bunch of Canadians (Risk) and variety of others too diverse to mention. His latest play, an adaptation of the Wind in the Willows, was performed in London over the summer. He won the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Videogames Award for Prince of Persia in 2009 which made him very happy. He hopes to continue doing things like this because he appears to be good at them.
He is currently working as Lead Writer at Lionhead Studios, and is developing projects for the stage and screen for Sixteenfeet.co.uk . In any spare time he is the Treasurer of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain.
Bookings essential admin@writersguildsa.org. Limited space available - so BOOK YOUR SPACE NOW!!!!
Pay before 28 February 2014 and qualify for the EARLY PAYMENT special.
Price list:
WGSA is proud to announce our next international workshop:
From London and the depth of cyberspace, we welcome writer/director Andrew S Walsh to JOHANNESBURG and CAPE TOWN!
An award winning video games writer with credits which include the immensely popular Prince of Persia, Need for Speed, Lego City and various Harry Potter episodes, Andy Walsh will share not only his experience as a writer, director, producer and story consultant, but is also a one-stop shop from concept to pre-production; from scripting to voice, performance capture and localisation. In addition, he has credits in film, television, radio, stage plays and animation, offering local writers the full package of learning how to spread their talents from film and TV across the full spectrum of new media.
Venue:
To be announced
Dates
Johannesburg: 10 to 11 May 2014
Cape Town: 17 to 18 May 2014
Times
8h00 to 17h00
Workshop content:
Writing dialogue and narrative in an interactive medium
This two day workshop will mix talks with workshop exercises which cover a wide range of interactive writing challenges from concept to shipping. Learn to recognise and analyse the different challenges offered by the various platforms, narrative genres and gameplay genres that face writers working in this medium. If you'd like to know the jargon, common pitfalls, career paths, formats, narrative structures, speech design principles and to get the chance to test out these elements, then this is the workshop for you. Organised by an industry veteran with experience on more than 60 game titles as well as film and television, these two days will contain vital information for those new to writing, established writers wishing to examine a new approach to their work and anyone wanting to dig deeper into the impact of interactive narratives.
Andrew S. Walsh is an award-winning writer/director with credits across film, television, theatre, radio, animation and videogames. A man of many job titles he has appeared as writer, director, speech designer, narrative designer, narrative producer, story consultant, script editor, motion capture director, camera director, voice director, story producer, story liner, story editor and once mysteriously as 't - by', something which he can only attribute to being a tea drinking Englishman.
To date he has worked on more than sixty videogames including Fable Legends, Prince of Persia, Harry Potter, Risen, XCom, Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol, Medieval II: Total War, SOCOM, LEGO City:Undercover, X3 Reunion, and the new Need for Speed : Most Wanted. His film work includes the English version of Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva, while in television he has learned a lot about accents having worked on projects involving Yorkshire men in woolly hats (Emmerdale), Geordie school kids (Byker Grove), a bunch of Canadians (Risk) and variety of others too diverse to mention. His latest play, an adaptation of the Wind in the Willows, was performed in London over the summer. He won the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Videogames Award for Prince of Persia in 2009 which made him very happy. He hopes to continue doing things like this because he appears to be good at them.
He is currently working as Lead Writer at Lionhead Studios, and is developing projects for the stage and screen for Sixteenfeet.co.uk . In any spare time he is the Treasurer of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain.
Bookings essential admin@writersguildsa.org. Limited space available - so BOOK YOUR SPACE NOW!!!!
Pay before 28 February 2014 and qualify for the EARLY PAYMENT special.
Price list:
- Standard price for members R3500
- Standard price for non-members R5000
- Early payment (before 31 December): members R2800
- Early payment (before 31 December): non-members R4000
- Bulk sales - 5 or more: Individuals and Corporate - all attendees to become members R2500
- Bulk sales - 10 or more: Corporate - all attendees not members R3000
Comments
EDIT: Oh sorry, I see, ignore me.
Also, where's the Cape Town love?
I feel as if learning writing from someone who actually writes for games means than you can talk to someone who knows that:
- you're not writing alone. You are working with a whole team of people!
- everything you write, costs. Add a level? Add another character? Branch a plot? They all add to your production costs.
- you're not necessarily writing to develop characters; you may be writing to manipulate the player herself, and that's arguably much harder.
- A WHOLE BUNCH OF STUFF I DON'T EVEN KNOW I DON'T KNOW
I mean, if I look at movie/advertising art vs game art, they share a lot of core principles, but there's enough different that I don't think I could cover it in one workshop. I can only imagine that it's the same thing in writing.[edit] Ninja'd. ;)
Who's in the Writer's Guild here?
With that, @LexAquillia: Sign me up! :D Do you need me to PM/email you any details?
If you are at all interested in any form of game writing, be it plot, story, character, dialog, etc., then spending 2 full days in a focussed environment with Andrew Walsh where you can pick his brain is worth much, much more than the Rands that you'll be paying; even if you only walk away with one or two great ideas that allow you to make your next project that much better.
Future-you will thank you for dusting off your credit card and using it to level up your skills; not something that is always easy to do down here at the bottom of Africa!
I got other people/person interested too :) So we should get 10 no prob.
(I'd be signing up as a non-member.)
Ugly paste from the mail:
Date and Time:
DURBAN: 7 May 2014 from 18h00 to 22h00,
JOHANNESBURG: 10 to 11 May 2014
CAPE TOWN: 17 to 18 May 2014
Standard price
- Members R3500 / DBN - R900
- Non-members R5000 / DBN - R1300
Early payment (before 31 March)- Members R2800 / DBN - R700
- Non-members R4000 / DBN - R1000
Bulk sales - 5 or more: Individuals and Corporate*hangs head in shame*
[From WGSA email]
WESGRO is supporting 10 placements for individuals and companies based in the Western Cape (one employee per company)
Please send the following by 16h00 Friday 09 May 2014 to asanda@wesgro.co.za
Company Name
Name of representative and ID number
Proof of company registration / trading and proof of company address
A paragraph stating why the employee wants to attend written by the employee
Only ID number if a Sole Proprietor
Please Note:
Attendance of both days is mandatory as is signing a register – nonattendance will subject the company / individual to possible removal from other such missions
Cost is free to employee who is a WGSA member otherwise the employee or company must pay the WGSA R 500 difference or join the WGSA – contact admin@writersguildsa.org about joining
The above terms and conditions are subject to review and the offer may change depending on the response.
Wesgro Film welcomes a follow up paragraph after the event stating what the master class has done for your company.
For further information please email: asanda@wesgro.co.za
https://www.google.com/maps/@-26.1929533,28.0323178,20z
I imagine we can just jump around and wave our arms wildly, and someone will find us. :P