WOWS YOUNG WRITERS!
Catalina Walsh, student, Luis Pérez-Tolón, Miami Dade College,
Margaret Lazo, Senior Vice President, Employee Relations, Telemundo,
Mimi Belt, Vice President, Artistic Development, Telemundo, Felipe Silva, student,
Perla Farias, Vice President, Telenovela Development, Telemundo,
Mike Pustizzi, Director, O & S and Compensation, Human Resources, Telemundo.
On Saturday, October 8, 2005, the Suncoast Chapter presented an intriguing seminar to a roomful of young interested writers. Some were professional. Some were students. All were fascinated by the story told by representatives of the Telemundo Network and Miami Dade college.
Early this year, Telemundo decided to take bold steps to create their own telenovelas. Most telenovelas are imported. Telemundo wanted to make their own. Original, relevant to their audiences and fresh. They partnered with Miami Dade College to design a course of study that would teach how to write Spanish-language telenovelas. They called the course “Taller Telemundo Escritores” (Telemundo Writers’ Workshop.)
By March 2005, 4,400 applications were received. 33 students were accepted for a 10 month hands-on fellowship. During the seminar, Mimi Belt delivered a stimulating challenge to the writers in the audience. She read half of a story in Spanish and then asked each person to take a pad of paper and pen and write the closing half of the story. After a few minutes of furious scribbling, she had a number of writers read their stories. One young man wrote the dialogue in Spanish and the stage directions in English. The stories read by all the writers were a terrific demonstration of the creative ingenuity required to write successful telenovelas.