Screenwriting: How to Write a Short Film

Films under 20 minutes are more popular than ever, easier to make than a feature, but don’t always play by the same rules. If you’ve often thought of making your own short video, join Xaque Gruber as he leads the next Laura (Riding) Jackson Adult Writers Workshop on Saturday, February 15, 2020. Through videos and brainstorming, you can learn how to craft a powerful short film.

Xaque Gruber moved to Vero Beach from Los Angeles in 2016 to be near his parents, David and Joann Gruber, after his father was diagnosed with a life-limiting illness. In happier times, the younger Gruber had made brief annual visits to our city. After three sometimes difficult, often joyful years here, he has decided to make Vero his home base while continuing his work in film.

“I felt very bogged down in Los Angeles,” he says. “I would never have made these shorts if I’d stayed in Los Angeles.”

A selection of films from his 13-year West Coast career comprised the greater part of the “Hollywood to Vero” program. These included his 2007 interview with Phyllis Diller on her 90th birthday; a clip of Gruber’s appearances as “Francisco,” a fictional party planner on the FOXTV reality show, “Hell’s Kitchen”; a segment from a 2008 TV docu-series Gruber directed profiling cancer survivor Mary Olsen Kelly; and a movie trailer for the 2012 feature film “Broken Roads,” a drama for which Gruber wrote the script.

Gruber also introduced “Humans of Vero Beach,” a documentary short directed by Vero resident Kenneth George that was dedicated to the memory of Gruber’s father, who died from complications of Alzheimer’s last May. When the elder Gruber entered a care facility here in 2017, Xaque found a way to enliven not only his father’s days there, but those of other patients, as well. The film features an exuberant Gruber in a colorful chef’s apron, leading sing-alongs in the common room with residents whose illness does not preclude their capacity for creative fulfillment.

“Screenwriting: How to Write a Short Film” is the third in a series of Adult Writers Workshops presented by the Laura (Riding) Jackson Foundation. All skill levels are welcome! Workshops are held at LRJF Writing Center at 1914 14th Avenue in Vero Beach from 9:30 am -12:30pm and registration is $45 and is available online at www.lauraridingjackson.org. If questions, more information may be available 772.569.6718. The Laura (Riding) Jackson Foundation is a 501 ©3 tax exempt organization.

Visit www.lauraridingjackson.org or call 772-569-6718