Writers Improv Studio

11/28/2019

42 Seconds of Happiness

42 Seconds of Happiness

Thankful for all the audience reviews on Amazon Prime that keep us going! Most recent one, from this month, from "Movie Lover": '42 Seconds of Happiness is a drama that you will not soon forget. The directing style and choices add to make the story that much more compelling. Two thumbs up.'

Audience reviews are important for independent films. And if you are too busy to leave one, here's another way you can give us some love: please click on 'helpful' under the reviews you like.

Happy Thanksgiving!

10/12/2019

The Rainbow Experiment

'In a day and age in which major studios admittedly streamline film plots with the presumption their distracted home viewing audiences will be simultaneously navigating their phones, “The Rainbow Experiment” demands that you put your handheld devices down for two hours, and promises a richly nuanced payout in return.'

Latest review on Amazon Prime!

"The Rainbow Experiment” is a deeply dimensional and immersive schoolhouse drama in which a chemistry class experiment goes horribly awry, leaving a student in a coma.

Students and adult leadership wallow in the aftermath as we learn the backstories of each through some wonderfully unconventional and clever storytelling constructs, including tour guide narration from the lingering spirit of the comatose teen - played by Connor Siemer - who breaks the fourth wall to introduce us to the players in this ensemble cast. Throughout, our suspicions of humanity are largely confirmed: When tragedy strikes near and around us, it’s not the empathetic lens of the stricken we see through, but instead we’re immersed in our own absorptions relative to the event.

This is a highly ambitious film in the layering of its dramatic and suspenseful story. In a day and age in which major studios admittedly streamline film plots with the presumption their distracted home viewing audiences will be simultaneously navigating their phones, “The Rainbow Experiment” demands that you put your handheld devices down for two hours, and promises a richly nuanced payout in return.

09/23/2019

42 Seconds of Happiness

42 Seconds of Happiness

We LOVE this audience member review from September 10th, 2019 on Amazon Prime:

“42 Seconds Of Happiness” is an exquisite piece of emotional filmmaking, and one which reminds us that we don’t all need a deserted island or a prison cell to find ourselves trapped with others in unusually cramped quarters.
In this case, the inescapable setting is a family wedding in which Cybil (Becca Ayers) and Maria (Margaret Kent Murphy) are celebrating their special day. Unfortunately for Tomas (Robert Z Grant), his ex-wife Alis (Lauren Sowa) has also received an invite, and she’s bringing Marc (John Concado), whom she started seeing while still married to the suffering Tomas. As viewers, we’re dropped right into the middle of that burgeoning war zone, with wedding guests taking sides along the fault lines. Yet the real pain awaits unmasking the next morning, as that’s when “42 Seconds Of Happiness” realizes its true psychological launch point.
This is a terrific movie borne of fully realized filmmaking; it’s uncomfortable at times due to its deeply heightened understanding of human interaction, and the energies it generates to display those truths show remarkable skill in their conjuring. “42 Seconds Of Happiness” puts us in a place which at first looks very familiar, yet it’s charged with all the uniqueness of storytelling we expect from our most elite relational dynamics films.

5 Stars!

06/13/2019

The Rainbow Experiment

The Rainbow Experiment is on Amazon Prime. See below!

Review of the day:

"I wholeheartedly recommend “The Rainbow Experiment” to anyone looking for a refreshingly-unconventional Altman-esque ensemble drama about our youth (and how they compare and contrast to our current troubled generation of adults), chock full of exciting and riveting story and attitude/humor to boot! 🙂 Comparatively speaking, this film is like an Oliver Stone high school film produced by the Duplass brothers…give it a try, you won’t regret it!"

The Rainbow Experiment is now on Amazon Prime! We need 100 reviews till July 7, to show up on recommendations. Give us a boost by reviewing it there, as well as on imdb and Rotten Tomatoes!

Thank you!

12/12/2018

Paris is in Harlem

So here's the deal: this group is all about a different approach to writing and filmmaking. Those of you who have been members for a while now, know that. You also know that I have made two feature films using that approach and I am currently crowdfunding and audience building for the third one, Paris is in Harlem. And it includes a number of perks specifically inspired by that philosophy. So, whether you are in NYC or connecting via Skype, you can get tickets to audit the Paris is in Harlem workshop and have a glimpse into the process, or script consultancy for either a short or a feature film screenplay, as well as my limited courses on screenwriting and on rehearsing with actors and non actors (for actors, writers and directors)! And of course you can come meet me and the Paris is in Harlem ensemble at the Special Screening at the NYC Location of The Rainbow Experiment with silent auction! You have three more days to jump on board! I would love each one of you here to be in our crowd! So please check out the campaign and peruse the incentives, while there's still time! Or just follow and join us for the rest of the ride! Link: https://www.seedandspark.com/fund/paris-is-in-harlem

PARIS IS IN HARLEM is a multi-character mosaic set in 2017, on the day the infamous Cabaret or No Dancing Law was repealed in NYC. It follows several characters through separate but intertwined storylines that converge one winter night during an alleged shooting at a jazz bar in Harlem.

11/18/2018

Paris is in Harlem

We've done it! It is 1:11pm in New York City, and we have raised 32% of our goal in only three days! Thank you to all our supporters and followers, and please spread the word, the campaign is still ongoing: https://www.seedandspark.com/fund/paris-is-in-harlem#story. Thank you for the love!

11/16/2018

Women in Film Portraits - Independent Magazine

Great interview of Writers Improv Studio's Christina Kallas on her process, on how she deals with screenwriting rules, and on her new film, which is currently being crowdfunded with Seed&Spark: http://independent-magazine.org/2018/11/women-film-portraits-2/?fbclid=IwAR2XaoQ9G8ridOm03HKLm0O8hPUoeFh-JWr36gjiAjtzT8zBiANZ3utGJMw
You can now also follow the campaign at https://www.seedandspark.com/fund/paris-is-in-harlem and browse through the screenwriting perks for your short or feature film screenplay!

What inspired you to pursue filmmaking? I fell in love with cinema at a very young age. I grew up in Greece, in a city by the sea called Thessaloniki—also, ‘the city of poets’. The historian Mark Mazower wrote a beautiful book about it, and he called it ‘Salonica, the city of ghosts’. I am...

11/05/2018

Photos from Writers Improv Studio's post

11/04/2018

Writers Improv Studio's cover photo

07/25/2016

42 Seconds of Happiness

42 Seconds of Happiness

A circle of thirty-something friends reunite for a weekend away to celebrate the same sex wedding of a member of their group. Yet, despite their best efforts to behave themselves, a series of surprise plans, unexpected arrivals and exposed secrets lead to an explosion of drama that, coupled with the flammable combination of hurt feelings, unresolved tensions, and lots of wine cannot be contained.
Starring Becca Ayers, Vandit Bhatt, Catherine Cobb Ryan, John J. Concado, Robert Z Grant, Margaret Kelly Murphy, Laura Pruden, Toni Robison-May, Lauren Sowa, Chris Veteri.
Written & Directed by Christina Kallas. Produced by Allison Vanore. Cinematography by Dave Sharples. Feature edited by Brian R. A. Miele.
Original trailer music by Rob Gokee.

10/15/2015

Writers Improv Studio's cover photo

05/14/2014

Inside the Writers’ Room: Post #2: So What Exactly Happens in the Room?

Post #2 of Christina Kallas' bi-weekly column on TV writing at HopeForFilm asks So What Exactly Happens in the Room http://trulyfreefilm.hopeforfilm.com/2014/05/inside-the-writers-room-post-2-so-what-exactly-happens-in-the-room.html

By Christina KallasThe prevailing idea is that film, like any other art form, is made by a single genius. TV drama is, however, more often than not the result of collaboration between many writers and minds. How is that possible, and what does it mean?Writers’ rooms already existed back in the 1950s…

05/05/2014

Well, while I'm here I'll do the work — and what's the work? To ease the pain of living. Everything else, drunken dumbshow. - Allen Gingsberg

04/14/2014

All drama is about lies. All drama is about something that’s hidden. A drama starts because a situation becomes imbalanced by a lie. - David Mamet

03/05/2014

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. - Carl Jung

03/02/2014

There is no exercise better for the heart than lifting people up.

01/12/2014

Tomas

Wanna know how creating a character works? With our web series 42 Seconds of Happiness we bring the mind's work onto the stage. For instance, Tomas: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIYbCfcS4gsEifckum6JZ6NEegafIdyQe #42SoH #marriage #divorce #whenlovegoeswrong

42 Seconds of Happiness is a multi-protagonist, nonlinear story. This playlist traces Tomas' storyline through all its first season chapters. The short version: He is the victim of a decision he didn't make, which will change his life forever. Confronted by Alis' decision to separate, he realizes ho...

12/23/2013

It's never too late to be who you might have been. - George Eliot

12/15/2013

In order to write the book you want to write, you have to become the person you need to become to write that book. - Junot Díaz

12/12/2013

Exercise #7 to set the creative process of story ideation in motion: Begin a scene with a routine and interrupt that routine in the same scene. The scene may not contain any more than two characters, so one of the two characters will interrupt inevitably the routine of the other, by something the other character will not expect. It is necessary that you remain within the time and place limits of the scene as well as limit yourself to two characters rather than adding a third character or “bringing in” further assistance from the outside. As the scene unfolds, you will need to select one of the four following alternatives: (1) Both characters lower their status; (2) both characters raise their status; (3) one character raises his status while the other one lowers hers; (4) the two characters exchange their status. The goal is to let the scene flow but not control it while it does.

11/30/2013

Ike

Ike's playlist is now online. Watch/PRT https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIYbCfcS4gsF_vSK1MB2b59neUD1-fwVD

42 Seconds of Happiness is a multi-protagonist, nonlinear story. This playlist traces Ike's storyline through all its first season chapters. The short version: Ike has it all. An amazing career, a beautiful and successful wife, a sweet child -- and soon another. And he is anxious to lose it all. Whe...

11/16/2013

Felice

New playlist! Who is Felice? Chkout/PRT http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIYbCfcS4gsFWINe96NXWS6LFZpoC1nwt

42 Seconds of Happiness is a multi-protagonist, nonlinear story. This playlist traces Felice's storyline through all its first season chapters. The short version: A career woman struggling between work, motherhood and marriage. At times she is resentful of her husband for prioritizing his career, be...

10/31/2013

New playlist, and this time it's Vineke's! Follow her steps throughout the first season:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIYbCfcS4gsFynwL9wbzuZTjBpcI4xTj_

10/22/2013

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down. - Kurt Vonnegut

09/26/2013

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt. Says William Shakespeare.

09/20/2013

Don't do what you want. Do what you don't want. Do what you're trained not to want. Do the things that scare you the most. ― Chuck Palahniuk

09/17/2013

Maria

New Playlist! Follow Maria @ http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIYbCfcS4gsFMSqXZNEPnbBAzkwif4-0Z

42 Seconds of Happiness is a multi-protagonist, nonlinear story. This playlist traces Maria's storyline through all its first season chapters. The short version: Maria is Tomas' sister. Actually more than that. He has been counting on her since their mother died, so forever. Maria has no life of her...

09/11/2013

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death. - Arthur Schopenhauer

09/08/2013

Ben

Chkout/PRT our latest playlist: Ben @ http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIYbCfcS4gsFbA-NcJMyBR8guTb0EboA3

42 Seconds of Happiness is a multi-protagonist, nonlinear story. This playlist traces Ben's storyline through all its first season chapters. The short version: Ben is a student veteran. He enrolled in the army in July 2001, when he was 17. Three months later 9/11 happened. He is now a graduate stude...

09/08/2013

You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself. - Galileo Galilei

09/04/2013

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive. - Joseph Campbell

08/19/2013

Your best work comes when you are absorbed; because then your ego is away. - Keith Johnstone

08/19/2013

Cybil

New Playlist! Follow Cybil's storyline @ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIYbCfcS4gsFAC9yxQssRK7e-oMj1y-QS #42SecondsofHappiness

42 Seconds of Happiness is a multi-protagonist, nonlinear story. This playlist traces Cybil's storyline through all its first season chapters. The short version: Cybil is an artist. She takes pictures of people when they are most beautiful - when they are in love - in tribute to her father, who was…

08/08/2013

Peter

Are you overwhelmed by 42 Seconds of Happiness 42 episodes? You can now watch them character by character. Follow Peter's playlist at http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIYbCfcS4gsH8Liwdz-7vnrHf8EusLiUu

42 Seconds of Happiness is a multi-protagonist, nonlinear story. This playlist traces Peter's storyline through all its first season chapters. The short version: Peter is a cheater. But he is also always right. In short: He is a lawyer. He thinks he knows life. He thinks everything is under control....

07/29/2013

The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes amounts to certainty; the new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle. ― Hannah Arendt

07/22/2013

Sila

Her name is Sila. Her playlist is @ http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIYbCfcS4gsG_kDq-1jr54qQiTyOk7C0E

42 Seconds of Happiness is a multi-protagonist, nonlinear story. This playlist traces Sila's storyline through all its first season chapters. The short version: Sila has dedicated her life to a man, managing to hold him by getting pregnant every time it looked like he might leave. And now he is read...

07/13/2013

42 Seconds of Happiness | Chapter Forty Two | Breaking Up

The last chapter of Season One of #42SecondsofHappiness - the series is up and running! Watch/PRT Chapter 42: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FzVnsduYWM

'Can you open the door?' - 'I can. I'm good at that,' answers Cybil, but that is as far from the truth as it can be. Maria walks on Cybil sleeping with someo...

07/12/2013

I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. If one is writing for one’s own pleasure, that fear may be mild — timidity is the word I’ve used here. If, however, one is working under deadline, that fear may be intense. Good writing is often about letting go of fear and affectation. Affectation itself, beginning with the need to define some sorts of writing as ‘good’ and other sorts as ‘bad,’ is fearful behavior. - Stephen King

07/06/2013

42 Seconds of Happiness | Chapter Forty One | Silence

And then, there was silence. Chapter 41 is up and running! Chkout/PRT http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqXNU6AwCf0

'I can't do this anymore,' says Ike, and we have no freaking idea what he means. Ike has a secret. He's had a secret all along. A secret he has never shared ...

07/06/2013

In order to fly you have to create space in the open air so that your wings can really spread out. It’s like a parachute. They only work from a high altitude. To fly you have to begin taking risks. If you don’t want to, maybe the best thing is just to give up, and keep walking forever. - Jorge Bucay

07/02/2013

Film is, to me, just unimportant. But people are very important. - John Cassavetes

06/30/2013

To see what is true, from moment to moment, without any effort, but directly to experience it, is the only creative existence. Because it is only in moments of complete tranquillity that you discover something - not when you are making an effort, whether it is under the microscope or inwardly. It is only when the mind is not agitated, caught in habit, trying to achieve a result, trying to become something - it is only when it is not doing that, when it is really tranquil, when there is no effort, no movement, that there is a possibility of discovering something new. - Krishnamurti