Master Storyteller T. Shawn Taylor to Host Workshop on March 6th as Part of No Malice Film Contest
Master storyteller T. Shawn Taylor will be hosting a virtual workshop on Saturday, March 6th, at 10am CST. This exclusive webinar is open to all as part of the No Malice Film Contest, presented by the Roger and Chaz Ebert Foundation, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation (with a grant from Healing Illinois and The Chicago Community Trust). The contest is currently inviting young filmmakers who are residents of Illinois between the ages of 11 and 21 to create short films that explore and promote racial healing.
The winners of the contest will have their films exhibited at a red carpet screening at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois on July 31st of this year, and at the Ebertfest Film Festival in Champaign, Illinois September 8-11. They will also win cash prizes ranging from $500 to $2,000.The film entries can be submitted up until Friday, April 30th. You can find all the details here, and you also watch a video in which I discuss the contest rules here.
Ms. Taylor’s workshop will be the last of a series of five dynamic seminars on how to make films and how to find stories for your films. Her previous experiences as a journalist at the Chicago Tribune and her work in public relations taught her the importance of the five W’s: Who, What, Where, When and Why. She is putting them to good use in a documentary she is making about the Black men in a small town in Illinois. She will share more specifics of using your gut to help determine your story.
You may watch the previous phenomenal workshops as webinars and register for the contest at bit.ly/NoMaliceFilmContest. To watch the recorded first four workshops, click on the following links:
Troy Pryor’s “Create, Don’t Wait!”
Rita Coburn’s “Directing: The Storyteller”
Steve James’ “The People in My Films: Portrayal and Relationships”
Pamela Sherrod Anderson’s “Seeds for Story” (stay tuned for link)
To register for the upcoming workshop “Trust Your Gut: The Stories You Were Born to Tell,” click here.
SATURDAY, MARCH 6TH, 2021
T. SHAWN TAYLOR PRESENTS “TRUST YOUR GUT: THE STORIES YOU WERE BORN TO TELL”
A self-described nerd who wrote short stories and poems in grammar school and charged kids on the playground a quarter apiece to read them, in 2006, Shawn tapped into that entrepreneurial spirit to found Treetop Consulting, a boutique communications firm, following a successful career in newspapers that spanned the Midwest. Still a journalist at heart, Shawn has employed her interviewing and research prowess to examine the social, emotional and economic impact the early deaths of Black men have on families and communities in the documentary in progress “Gone Too Soon: America’s Missing Black Men.” In October 2019, she graduated from Kartemquin Films’ Diverse Voices in Docs program for aspiring filmmakers.
Shawn has built a reputation as a skilled writer and master storyteller, developing content on a range of topics including social justice; gender and racial equality; equal pay; equity in education; and entrepreneurship, among others. A trained flutist and master Hoola Hooper, Shawn’s motto is, “Whenever possible, start at the top.”
