Annika Wood: winner of local screenwriting scholarship
By Nick Palm
Staff Writer
Annika Wood wrote her first play when she was just four years old. From that moment, she knew writing was going to be a big part of her life. And it was the magic of cinema that first sparked her interest.
“My grandparents had a VCR, so as a kid I watched a lot of movies,” Wood said. “They never banned me from watching anything. Sometimes I would stay up until one in the morning watching movies.”
Wood, a City College student in the cinema department, was recently awarded the inaugural Filmmaker Education Screenwriting Scholarship by the San Francisco Film Society. The scholarship was awarded through the Colleges and Universities Program, new to the SFFS.
“We are thrilled to be offering our first Filmmaker Education Scholarship to an inspiring student such as Annika,” said Joanne Parsont, SFFS director of education, in a press release. “The originality and style of her screenplay submission clearly demonstrated the vision and skills of a talented young writer with the potential to take full advantage of our screenwriting program. We look forward to witnessing the end results of her hard work.”
Wood was awarded the scholarship after one of her screenplays, “Backwater,” was submitted by her City College screenwriting instructor Denise Bostrom.
“‘Backwater’ is a crime story set in the swamps of Louisiana, deep in the bayou country,” Wood said. The story of “Backwater” came from blending two local legends told to her by her grandfather while growing up in Louisiana. “I’m not sure how true they are, but I just never forgot them,” Wood said.
The scholarship, according to the SFFS, will pay for Wood’s tuition fees in one of their advanced-level screenwriting workshops, called From Rough to Polished.
Born and raised in New Orleans, Wood is on track to receive an A.S. degree in cinema at City College next year. However, this is not her first college experience.
Wood holds a bachelor’s degree in television production from Loyola University.
“They gave me a really great scholarship,” she said. “But they didn’t have a film major. They only had television.”
After graduating from Loyola, Wood worked in television advertising as well as writing and producing in a television news room. The whole time her heart remained in film.
“I thought I could jump right over from one to the next,” Wood said. “But they’re very different, and it’s hard to make the jump. So I decided to go back to school.”
These days, Wood is driven by the hope of someday becoming a professional screenwriter. “It’s what I do all the time now,” Wood said. “If I’m not in class, I’m writing. I’ve finished two scripts this year.”
When working on a new screenplay, inspiration comes to Wood naturally.
“A couple of my screenplays have been sparked by dreams,” Wood said. “I don’t write them down initially, but if I have a dream that I’m still mulling over a month or two later, I’ll write it down. I wrote the screenplay I’m currently working on in my head while I was driving home from Tahoe.”
The writing process itself becomes a piece of fine art when Wood starts writing. “After the first draft, you’ve got the block of clay. With the second draft, you start to make it into your sculpture. You hack away at all the unnecessary things, and you bring out the shape,” she said.
The film industry, especially in Hollywood, is known for its cutthroat attitude and competitive nature that often discourages young filmmakers and screenwriters from pursuing their dreams. “You have to give it 100 percent and not look back,” Wood said. “Because everyone you’re competing against is that way. Anyone that’s going to shake out and rise above the rest has to be thinking that way.
“If you’re willing to put in the time, and willing to make sacrifices in other areas of your life — it’s no guarantee — but you’re giving yourself the best possible odds to succeed. You have to give it a shot,” Wood explained as a mantra that would be good for any young artist with a dream to follow.
