If you've got an idea for a script but don’t know where to start, a workshop during the Dungog Fstival could help you find your answers.

Dungog’s own award-winning  filmmaker John O’Brien will run the workshop and is keen to share his lifetime of experience and knowledge of his craft.

Mr O’Brien has written shorts that have been at the world’s best film festivals as well as television, features, music videos and educational animations.

“The workshop will help people grasp the basics of script-writing, plus there’s a toolbix of tips to take home,” he said.

“There’s a lot of basic mistakes people can make when writing a script, but there is also a lot of fairly complex mistakes too.”

Some online pre-work for the workshop will be available from mid August (students can start this whenever they like and do it in their own time). The four-hour face-to-face workshop will happen on Saturday, September 29 during the Dungog Festival.

The costs is $27 – which is heavily subsidised thanks to grant from the Country Arts Support Program. Similar workshops would run into hundreds of dollars Mr O’Brien said.

“We will take the journey from a great idea into characters, dramatic questions and dialogue, the next steps, story secrets and exercises.

“There’s some great resources in the workshop.”

Mr O’Brien hopes to host a script reading in November with some of the scripts born or developed in the workshop with talented actors bringing the creations alove.

“For all that we can teach you in a workshop, you have to go home and do the actual writing,” he said.

Bookings are essential and can be made through the Dungog Festival website.