Willamette Writers Portland Presents

Writing a Hallmark Movie with Randall Jahnson

Everyone loves Hallmark movies but have you ever thought of writing one? Join us Tuesday, February 7th at 7:00 pm at 1336 NW Flanders St, Portland, OR when Randall Jahnson tells us the ins and outs of writing a script for the Hallmark Channel. Screenwriter Randall Jahnson recounts the thrills, chills, and spills of writing the original movie “A Nashville Legacy” (premiering February 26) for the prolific network. Randall will discuss working within the parameters of the iconic Hallmark brand and break down the development process from the initial pitch to the delivery of the final draft, including Hallmark’s requisite nine-act structure. Q & A to follow.

Randall Jahnson has been a professional screenwriter for nearly 40 years. A graduate of the UCLA film school, he’s worked with such remarkable filmmaking talent as Steven Spielberg, Penelope Spheeris, Spike Lee, Brad Pitt, and the late Jonathan Demme. Among his credits are the punk rock Western Dudes, The Doors, The Mask of Zorro, and episodes of the classic HBO comedy-horror series, Tales from the Crypt. He also wrote the epic Western video game, Gun, which was voted Best Story at the 2005 IGN Video Game Awards. Most recently, he penned two episodes of S.O.Z.: Soldados o Zombies, a Spanish-language sci-fi-horror series from Amazon Studios plus an original movie, A Nashville Legacy, for the Hallmark Channel. He grew up in Southern California watching reruns of The Twilight Zone and reading the short stories of Ray Bradbury. He lives in Oregon where he continues to write and teach screenwriting. Occasionally, he drinks scotch with Bigfoot.

The meeting will be Hybrid so if you plan to attend via Zoom please read the Zoom details below and then register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUqf-mrqjguHNLDgp9UAljCJv4Yv67_rsnw 

About your chapter meetings

Willamette Writers meetings are open to all writers, 18 and up. Guests are welcome to make a donation to help support the cost of the meeting (we believe in paying our speakers for their time and skills). This meeting is run by volunteers. We look forward to seeing you there!

Young writers are encouraged to join our Young Willamette Writers meetings. Sign Up! Any high school or middle-grade writers are welcome to join us. Sign up for our email list at: http://eepurl.com/hRubBf  A registration link will be sent to our email list before our next meeting.

MASKING: Willamette Writers continues to require mask-wearing at our in-person, indoor meetings. If you are unable to mask, we invite you to join us at one of our online Chapter Meetings. Here is a link to our policies.

Zoom Details

You have to be logged into your own personal Zoom account to attend this meeting (to create a FREE account, go to Zoom.us).

Once you are logged in to your own personal zoom account, register for the meeting in the link provided above.

On the day of the meeting, log into your Zoom account and then click the link zoom sent you in your email when you registered with the link above. If you are logged into your personal zoom account, you can also click the link above and register again if you need to. If you have not done this before, we encourage you to try logging in a half hour before the meeting begins. We had to change our meeting access because of a few inappropriate guests, but we want to continue to keep our meetings open to the public.