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Writing a feature film is easy. All you need is one gimmicky logline, as cheap and single-serving-disposable as a coffee pod from the complimentary hotel room K-Cup spinner. Once you stumble upon one of these so-called “high concept” ideas, the script practically writes, sells and produces itself. It’s creative work for stupid babies, as all filmmakers will surely agree–totally unlike, in other words, the act of conceptualizing an entire episodic series, a demonstration of storytelling virtuosity so complex and adult it straddles the border between ancient Euclidean geometry and New Age witchcraft.

Okay, so maybe that’s a little extreme. But for aspiring series creators and showrunners, structuring a workable, potentially long-running television concept requires imagination and problem-solving on both the micro- and macro- levels–a mastery of tone, plot and characterization across variable interlocking units of temporal storytelling: scenes, dramatic acts, full episodes, multi-episode arcs and complete seasons.

Exclusive: Film Independent has named the eight writers selected for the seventh edition of its Episodic Lab, designed to provide individualized story and career development for writers with original pilots for television. The participants and projects are Desdemona Chiang (Zhizha! (紙紮!)), Giovanni Maldonado Chinea & Myles Hawthorne (The Machetero), Robert Cohen & Ioana Uricaru (Overcast), Catherine Durickas (Beige Is Not Dead), Azza Malik and Robert ToTeras (Jourdain).

Cohen and Uricaru have been set to receive this year’s $20,000 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant, awarded to projects with science or technology themes and characters, to support the development of their pilot Overcast through the Lab. Dear Azza,‘s Malik, meanwhile, will receive a $10,000 grant from the Mpac Hollywood Bureau, an organization working to elevate stories by and about Muslims in entertainment.

This year’s two-week, in-person Lab will help to further the careers of Fellows by introducing them to industry veterans — including experienced showrunners,...

Imagine Entertainment has set its roster of participants of Impact 2, the inventive program where the company empowers outside voices, “creators,” paying the newcomers accepted to the program to develop TV series and movies under the watchful eye of “shapers,” a group of established industry writers and showrunners. The program, hatched by Imagine co-heads Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, this year got over 4000 submissions from 57 countries covering every continent but Antarctica. Tyler Mitchell runs the program.

The “shapers” in this year’s program are: Stacy Traub, Akiva Goldsman, Doug Ellin, Seth Grahame-Smith, Michele Mulroney, Kieran Mulroney and Sascha Penn.

Here are the newcomers whose work was accepted and who will be paid a stipend to create one new project during the boot camp, before all of the work gets pitched to the town. Traub will oversee:

Writer/actor and Chicago native Aris Mendoza is creating the half hour TV project Blasian...

Exclusive: Abi Damaris Corbin, whose short film The Suitcase is being submitted for Oscar consideration this year, has just signed with The Gotham Group. Corbin is a USC graduate first nominated for a Student Academy Award for her produced film Drone, which was funded by the university and directed by Justin S. Lee . Following that, Corbin — a Bostonian who entered college at 14 and graduated with a master of arts — was chosen by Universal Studios and USC to direct…...

On the heels of last Wednesday’s announcement in The Hollywood Reporter’s annual film school rankings that Chapman University (where I am currently teaching) remains steady at #7, the Academy announced the finalists for the Student Academy Awards.

Chapman has three films that were selected.

Typically nominees in the Animation category are from the top animation schools such as Cal Arts and this year’s success suggests Chapman is joining those ranks.

2015 Student Academy Awards Finalists

Keep checking back to Oscars.org to find out the winners and get more information about Chapman’s awards ceremony on September 17, 2015.

Alternative

Daniel Drummond, “Chiaroscuro,” Chapman University

M. Louis Gordon, “Girl in the Chair,” Nyu Tisch School of the Arts

ChiHyun Lee, “Zoe,” School of Visual Arts

Balbinka Korzeniowska, “Awaken,” UCLA

David Karp, “Disconnected,” Cornell University

Animation

Jack Anderson, “Wire Cutters,” Chapman University

Lynn Tomlinson, “The Ballad of Holland Island House,” Towson University

Alyce Tzue, “Soar,” Academy of Art University

Nicholas Manfredi, Elizabeth Ku-Herrero, “Taking the Plunge,” The School of Visual Arts

Seth Boyden, “An Object At Rest,” California Institute of the Arts

Tom Teller, “Hum,” Chapman University

Jenna Hamzawi, “Ram's Horn,” Brigham Young University

Documentary

Emily Kassie, “I Married My Family's Killer,” Brown University

Alexandre Peralta, “Looking at the Stars,” University of Southern California

Dan Kerrigan, “Rise and Shine,” Villanova University

Elinore Wright, “In Transition: Tony Chennault,” Villanova University

Eddie Roqueta, “Silencing the Thunder,” Montana State University

Meg Smaker, “Boxeadora,” Stanford University

Matthew Spaull, “Spiritus,” Rochester Institute of Technology

Foreign

Arthur Lecouturier, “Do You Even Know...,” Iad (Belgium)

Dustin Loose, “The Last Will,” Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg (Germany)

Fernanda Valadez, “400 Bags,” Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (Mexico)

Nick Rowland, “Group B,” Nfts (United Kingdom)

Patrick Vollrath, “Everything Will Be Okay,” Filmacademy Vienna / Filmakademie Wien (Austria)

Ilker Çatak, “Fidelity,” Hamburg Media School (Germany)

Ahmed Abdullahi, “Francis,” Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts (Sweden)

Narrative

Henry Hughes, “Day One,” American Film Institute

Bennett Lasseter, ”Stealth,” American Film Institute Conservatory

Stefan Kubicki, “Against Night,” AFI Conservatory

Jeremy Cloe, “This Way Up,” American Film Institute

Jesse Gustafson, “Day 39,” Columbia University

Justin S. Lee, “Drone, “USC School of Cinematic Arts

Kiel Adrian Scott, “Samaria,” New York University...