MFA student to attend inaugural workshop lab

Caroline Ryder, a graduate student at the School of Cinematic Arts, has been accepted into the inaugural Screenwriters Lab hosted by Hedgebrook — a nonprofit organization committed to empowering female writers — in partnership with Humanitas.

“Hedgebrook is a literary nonprofit that supports the work of visionary women writers whose stories and ideas shape our culture now and for generations to come,” the organization said in a press release.

Established in 1974, the Humanitas Prize recognizes film and television writers who explore the human condition through their work. The organization occasionally partners with other nonprofits, such as Hedgebrook, to advance its mission.

Ryder was accepted to the program after a rigorous round of multiple applications and interviews. Out of 130 applicants, only five were chosen to join the retreat.

This is the first time that Hedgebrook is partnering with Humanitas to create the retreat. The retreat, which will take place on Whidbey Island, Washington, will include access to writing space as well as mentors to help the participants in the writing process.

“Each writer lives in her own cottage, and meals are prepared by in-house chefs,” Hedgebrook said in the press release. “Post-residency, screenwriters will be connected with Hedgebrook’s growing community of women in the film industry who can help bring these projects to fruition.”

Ryder said she initially wasn’t going to apply for the lab.

“My roommate, Zak Shaikh, a working screenwriter and also a USC screenwriting M.F.A. grad — he graduated [eleven] years ago — mentioned the Hedgebrook workshop to me in passing, just one day before the application deadline,” Ryder wrote in an email to the Daily Trojan.

With little time to complete the first stage of the application, Ryder was surprised when she saw that she made it to the second round. Each writer had to send a copy of the screenplay she intended to work on during the retreat as part of the first stage of the application process and reflect on the screenplay for the second stage of the process.

“The second round application process was very involved and took quite some time and a lot of thinking and soul-searching,” Ryder said.

Ryder said she had to talk about her movie more in-depth during the second stage of the application.

“I had to answer, in detail, a long list of questions about my script, ‘Mimi and Ulrich,’ — questions about the tone of my film, the core audience, the theme, the main relationships, the protagonist’s internal and external goals, the central conflict and the narrative question of the film,” Ryder said.

Ryder admits that her experience as a graduate student of the School of Cinematic Arts gave her the necessary experience and skills to be selected.

“My writing and script analysis teachers gave me a core understanding of how to write stories for film,” Ryder said. “I learned that good scripts don’t happen by accident — they demand an understanding of the rules, as well as courage to follow your own instinct and not get bogged down in the rules. It’s a tricky balance. The critical studies classes gave me a much needed sense of film context. The business classes gave me a broad understanding of the industry.”

Ryder will be attending the retreat at the end of October.

“I’ll be spending Halloween in the woods,” she said.