Spotlight
: DBEDT
Text By
Eunica Escalante
Created in partnership with the creative industries division, DBEDT
Calling All Creatives
Creative Lab Hawai‘i gives aspiring writers and producers tools for success in the media industry.
Amy Bircher sat in the middle of her living room like a child on Christmas morning. A small crop of family members surrounded her, their eyes watching Bircher watch the television screen. On it played Delivering Christmas, the new holiday-themed Lifetime mini-movie. Throughout the 15-minute film—which follows a mailman as he finds love with a widowed mother and her daughter—Bircher watched intently as the actors repeated lines that mere months before had only existed in the pages of her notebook. As the film came to an end, the credits rolled across the screen: “Written by Amy Bircher.”
“I felt nothing but love in that moment,” says the Hawai‘i Island-based writer. “Love for my craft and love for what I get to do.”
In less than six months, Bircher went from hobbyist writer to optioning her first script to a major production company, being hired to write a mini-movie for Lifetime, having it produced and aired, and landing two additional work-for-hire writing assignments. It all began when she was accepted to participate in Creative Lab Hawai‘i Writers Immersive, a year-long mentorship program that takes a group of emerging writers on a journey to grow from writers to creative entrepreneurs. Part of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism’s Creative Industries Division, Creative Lab Hawai‘i is a media, music, and fashion design accelerator providing a conduit for creative entrepreneurs to increase export of creative intellectual property, attract investment, and strengthen the state’s creative entrepreneurial ecosystem. Through year-long mentorship immersives, weekend ideation programs followed by three-months of mentoring, and public programs, the Creative Industries Division team has focused its resources toward those sectors in Hawai‘i’s creative clusters to cultivate young artists, songwriters, filmmakers and designers into more self-sufficient creative entrepreneurs.
It was during a welcome reception for the Animation Writers Immersive program that Bircher struck up a conversation with screenwriter Pamela Ribon, one of the writers on the Walt Disney animated motion picture Moana, who was acting as a mentor during the five-day immersive. Small talk turned into an opportunity when Ribon learned that Bircher was an aspiring writer with an affinity for romance novels and Hallmark movies. She quickly connected Bircher to a screenwriter and producer at Hybrid, a production company based in Los Angeles, who then passed along her work to Lifetime.
Providing these moments of synchronicity is at the core of Creative Lab Hawai‘i, which was founded in 2012 by Georja Skinner, chief officer of DBEDT’s Creative Industries Division. In 2013, Creative Industries secured the services of Michael Andres Palmieri, a Los Angeles-based transmedia writer, producer, and mentor. Palmieri has more than 25 years of experience in the entertainment industry and 20 years experience designing, facilitating, and producing programs for creative entrepreneurs. He is now the executive director of the Creative Lab Hawai‘i media program.
“The reason that I started designing these programs was that, as an executive in Hollywood, I just saw this predatory business of workshops,” Palmieri says. “They were charging thousands of dollars and delivering very little value to people who were so passionate about entering the entertainment industry.”
Together, with Creative Industries Division, Palmieri deployed the Creative Lab Hawai‘i Media Immersive, which focuses on growing creatives in screenwriting, production, web series, and interactive media or app development. This model is the basis for the Music Immersive and Fashion Immersive programs that Creative Industries has developed.
Creative Lab Hawai‘i participants—who range from screenwriters to filmmakers to novelists—are taught the finer points of creative entrepreneurship, from licensing and financing to publishing and intellectual property protection. For Josh Kim, a 2013 Writers Immersive participant, and writer and director of How to Win at Checkers [Every Time], Thailand’s entry as a nominee for Best Foreign Film at the 88th Academy Awards and the Golden Globes, this was an important resource.
“Before the Creative Lab Hawai‘i Writers Immersive, I didn’t have the same breadth of knowledge,” says Kim, who did not attend film school other than a stint at a Hong Kong film academy. “So I didn’t really have any education other than through my own reading, watching DVDs, and doing my own films. So, something like doing character sheets and round table discussions as part of Creative Lab meant a lot.”
During the workshops, industry insiders are brought in from around the country to serve as mentors. They provide the participants with real-world insight into the film industry, sharing wisdom and tips of the trade, but they can also become an important point of connection, helping the burgeoning writers bridge the gap and tap into the industry. Past mentors have included Bobby Moresco, the Academy Award-winning writer, director, and producer, whose films include Million Dollar Baby and Crash, Peter M. Lenkov, the showrunner of the television series Hawai‘i 5-0, and Academy Award-winning writer Meg LeFauve, who wrote the Pixar animated film Inside Out.
“It was almost like a star-studded experience, as far as writing and production goes,” says Chris McKinney, a Honolulu-based novelist who participated in the 2013 Writers Immersive. “Each mentor provided something different from the others.” During his immersive, McKinney, who authored the screenplay for 2011’s Paradise Broken, bonded with one of the mentors, Dennis Heaton, the showrunner for the television series Resurrection Blvd. on Showtime. “He was the one who basically attached himself to the project I was working on, and would have been the executive producer it if it got greenlit. So, not only was it instructional, but we eventually met someone we would partner up with.”
Ultimately, Creative Lab Hawai‘i delivers real results for passionate artists who have the drive, but lack the tools to break into the industry. “They always say there’s a difference between dreamers and doers,” Bircher says. “I think that before the program I was a dreamer, but after the program, I became a doer.”
Spotlight
: DBEDT
Text By
Eunica Escalante
Created in partnership with the creative industries division, DBEDT
Calling All Creatives
Creative Lab Hawai‘i gives aspiring writers and producers tools for success in the media industry.
Amy Bircher sat in the middle of her living room like a child on Christmas morning. A small crop of family members surrounded her, their eyes watching Bircher watch the television screen. On it played Delivering Christmas, the new holiday-themed Lifetime mini-movie. Throughout the 15-minute film—which follows a mailman as he finds love with a widowed mother and her daughter—Bircher watched intently as the actors repeated lines that mere months before had only existed in the pages of her notebook. As the film came to an end, the credits rolled across the screen: “Written by Amy Bircher.”
“I felt nothing but love in that moment,” says the Hawai‘i Island-based writer. “Love for my craft and love for what I get to do.”
In less than six months, Bircher went from hobbyist writer to optioning her first script to a major production company, being hired to write a mini-movie for Lifetime, having it produced and aired, and landing two additional work-for-hire writing assignments. It all began when she was accepted to participate in Creative Lab Hawai‘i Writers Immersive, a year-long mentorship program that takes a group of emerging writers on a journey to grow from writers to creative entrepreneurs. Part of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism’s Creative Industries Division, Creative Lab Hawai‘i is a media, music, and fashion design accelerator providing a conduit for creative entrepreneurs to increase export of creative intellectual property, attract investment, and strengthen the state’s creative entrepreneurial ecosystem. Through year-long mentorship immersives, weekend ideation programs followed by three-months of mentoring, and public programs, the Creative Industries Division team has focused its resources toward those sectors in Hawai‘i’s creative clusters to cultivate young artists, songwriters, filmmakers and designers into more self-sufficient creative entrepreneurs.
It was during a welcome reception for the Animation Writers Immersive program that Bircher struck up a conversation with screenwriter Pamela Ribon, one of the writers on the Walt Disney animated motion picture Moana, who was acting as a mentor during the five-day immersive. Small talk turned into an opportunity when Ribon learned that Bircher was an aspiring writer with an affinity for romance novels and Hallmark movies. She quickly connected Bircher to a screenwriter and producer at Hybrid, a production company based in Los Angeles, who then passed along her work to Lifetime.
Providing these moments of synchronicity is at the core of Creative Lab Hawai‘i, which was founded in 2012 by Georja Skinner, chief officer of DBEDT’s Creative Industries Division. In 2013, Creative Industries secured the services of Michael Andres Palmieri, a Los Angeles-based transmedia writer, producer, and mentor. Palmieri has more than 25 years of experience in the entertainment industry and 20 years experience designing, facilitating, and producing programs for creative entrepreneurs. He is now the executive director of the Creative Lab Hawai‘i media program.
“The reason that I started designing these programs was that, as an executive in Hollywood, I just saw this predatory business of workshops,” Palmieri says. “They were charging thousands of dollars and delivering very little value to people who were so passionate about entering the entertainment industry.”
Together, with Creative Industries Division, Palmieri deployed the Creative Lab Hawai‘i Media Immersive, which focuses on growing creatives in screenwriting, production, web series, and interactive media or app development. This model is the basis for the Music Immersive and Fashion Immersive programs that Creative Industries has developed.
Creative Lab Hawai‘i participants—who range from screenwriters to filmmakers to novelists—are taught the finer points of creative entrepreneurship, from licensing and financing to publishing and intellectual property protection. For Josh Kim, a 2013 Writers Immersive participant, and writer and director of How to Win at Checkers [Every Time], Thailand’s entry as a nominee for Best Foreign Film at the 88th Academy Awards and the Golden Globes, this was an important resource.
“Before the Creative Lab Hawai‘i Writers Immersive, I didn’t have the same breadth of knowledge,” says Kim, who did not attend film school other than a stint at a Hong Kong film academy. “So I didn’t really have any education other than through my own reading, watching DVDs, and doing my own films. So, something like doing character sheets and round table discussions as part of Creative Lab meant a lot.”
During the workshops, industry insiders are brought in from around the country to serve as mentors. They provide the participants with real-world insight into the film industry, sharing wisdom and tips of the trade, but they can also become an important point of connection, helping the burgeoning writers bridge the gap and tap into the industry. Past mentors have included Bobby Moresco, the Academy Award-winning writer, director, and producer, whose films include Million Dollar Baby and Crash, Peter M. Lenkov, the showrunner of the television series Hawai‘i 5-0, and Academy Award-winning writer Meg LeFauve, who wrote the Pixar animated film Inside Out.
“It was almost like a star-studded experience, as far as writing and production goes,” says Chris McKinney, a Honolulu-based novelist who participated in the 2013 Writers Immersive. “Each mentor provided something different from the others.” During his immersive, McKinney, who authored the screenplay for 2011’s Paradise Broken, bonded with one of the mentors,
Dennis Heaton, the showrunner for the television series Resurrection Blvd. on Showtime. “He was the one who basically attached himself to the project I was working on, and would have been the executive producer it if it got greenlit. So, not only was it instructional, but we eventually met someone we would partner up with.”
Ultimately, Creative Lab Hawai‘i delivers real results for passionate artists who have the drive, but lack the tools to break into the industry. “They always say there’s a difference between dreamers and doers,” Bircher says. “I think that before the program I was a dreamer, but after the program, I became a doer.”
Share: