2021 Annual Black List Feature Lab

The Black List will invite six to eight promising non-professional writers as identified by the Black List to a month-long, intensive virtual writers workshop in September 2021. All writers involved in the Lab will workshop one feature screenplay through one-on-one sessions with each screenwriting mentor and in peer workshops. The program will also include attendance at several story-related events with professional screenwriters, executives, producers, lit agents and managers. All sessions will be held in the evenings on Zoom.

SLOAN FOUNDATION FELLOWSHIP

Writers are also available to opt in to the 2021 Sloan Foundation Fellowship.

The Black List’s 2021 Sloan Foundation Fellow at the Annual Black List Feature Lab will be a science- and technology-focused writer with a science-rooted feature screenplay. Mentoring opportunities for the Sloan Fellow will continue throughout the year following the Lab. Writers will have the opportunity to be considered for this fellowship by selecting the “Sloan Foundation Fellow” option during the opt-in process. Writers applying for the Sloan Fellowship are encouraged to have a science advisor for the project. Scripts that are selected for the short list will be asked to submit the name and title of the advisor, a brief description of their scientific area of expertise, and a statement that he/or she has read the script and attests that it is accurate. Writers are encouraged to submit this information in advance of the short list announcement as well.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a New York based, philanthropic, not-for-profit institution that makes grants in three areas: research in science, technology, and economics; quality and diversity of scientific institutions; and public engagement with science. Sloan's program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology supports books, radio, film, television, theater and new media to reach a wide, non-specialized audience and to bridge the two cultures of science and the humanities. Sloan’s Film Program encourages filmmakers to create more realistic and compelling stories about science and technology and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists and engineers in the popular imagination. Over the past two decades, Sloan has partnered with top film schools in the country, supported screenplay development programs, and has helped develop over 30 feature films including Michael Almereyda’s Tesla, Lydia Dean Pilcher and Ginny Mohler’s Radium Girls, Thor Klein’s Adventures of a Mathematician, Jessica Oreck’s One Man Dies a Million Times, Logan Kibens and Sharon Greene’s Operator, Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game, and Matthew Brown‘s The Man Who Knew Infinity. The Foundation’s book program includes support for Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures, which became the highest grossing Oscar-nominated film of 2017 and a social and cultural milestone. For more information about the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, please visit www.sloan.org or follow the Foundation at @SloanPublic on Twitter and Facebook.

THE SELECTION PROCESS

The selection process will work like this:

Up to 15 writers will be invited, based on the strength of their scripts as determined by the Black List, to submit a one-page personal statement and professional resume. From those submissions, select writers will be chosen to interview, via Zoom, and 6-8 writers will be selected by the Black List to participate in the Lab.

LAB DEADLINES

Submission Period Opens February 1, 2021

Evaluations Deadline (optional)* June 29, 2021

Submission Period Closes July 29, 2021

Short List Writers Notified July 30, 2021

Personal Statements Due August 6, 2021

Interviews August 12-13, 2021

Final Participants Notified August 16, 2021

Lab Begins September 8, 2021

* In order for new script evaluations to qualify for consideration for the Lab, they must be purchased by midnight on the Evaluations Deadline.  Please note, purchase of an evaluation is not required for consideration to participate in the Feature Lab.