No dreck.

Barbara Nicolosi wants Christian writers to tell moving, dramatic, mainstream stories—and to tell them well.

Nicolosi visited Chicago recently to look into holding a session of “Act One: Writing for Hollywood,” a screenwriting school for Christians, here.

The idea, she said, is to bring Christian perspectives into a popular culture that for years has reflected a godless worldview. And to do it with material that will sell at the local multiplex.

“The starting point is a person who sees God as a factor in their lives,” Nicolosi said. “When an artist has no faith, he’s only sure of one side of the human experience and that’s darkness. That’s kind of the worldview we’ve been seeing for the last 25 years, and it’s getting tired.”

Nicolosi, a former Daughter of St. Paul who worked as director of project development for Paulist Productions and has a film degree from Northwestern University, wants Act One to provide an entrée for Christian writers. The three-year-old project is the brainchild of InterMission, a group of mostly evangelical Christians in the entertainment business, and its month-long classes are open to students of all Christian traditions.

To bring the program to Chicago, Nicolosi would need to find a place to hold it and about $125,000 in sponsorships.

Don Woznicki, who recently completed his third year at Mundelein Seminary, would love to see Act One come to Chicago.

Woznicki spent summers working on the California set of the soap opera “Sunset Beach,” and has long enjoyed movies. But as he grew up, he began to question the messages the movies carried.

Seeing “The Crow,” with Brandon Lee opened his eyes, he said.

“I saw such a powerful impact the media had, and how shallow sometimes the themes would be,” he said. “I went to see the movie with my friends, and they thought it was great, but the whole theme of the movie was revenge.”

Seeing the way movies and television treat the Catholic Church helped persuade him that more people of faith must be involved in the entertainment business, to educate their colleagues as well as to produce work from a faith-filled perspective.

“We have a tendency to look at it like Hollywood’s evil,” Woznicki said. “The people aren’t necessarily evil. They’re misinformed, and they have this misconception of the church.”

Railing against the culture won’t change it, Woznicki said.

“We’re hitting Hollywood over the head saying no, no, no, no,” he said. “The church has such a wealth of wisdom. It’s a matter of having a positive approach. We could bring Hollywood around and help invite that.”

When he worked on “Sunset Beach,” he said, the desire of the producers and actors to do right surprised him. He spent about 20 minutes one day with an actor who played a priest on the show, and who was having problems with his character.

“I was surprised to learn that he was very much concerned about the sanctity of his character,” said Woznicki, who hopes to serve as a liaison between the church and entertainment media.

To have the voices of faith make it to the big or small screen, they must presented professionally and competently, Nicolosi said.

Christian screenwriters must present the work in the same format as any other professional writer, and must obey all the precepts of structure and plot that conventional screenwriters follow. They must not expect points for being nice.

“I worked with a Christian production company on a project once, and it was awful,” said Nicolosi. “They were not very professional, but they were very nice, and it seemed like they thought that should be good enough. …It’s ludicrous and insulting because it’s so naïve. We have to stop celebrating mediocrity in the Christian community, even in our churches. If you can’t sing, don’t stand by the microphone.”

One of the first lessons Act One screenwriters learn is how high their standards must be.

People send screenplays with no plot, “bordering on a sinful lack of respect for human beings,” Nicolosi said. “That makes so many of us in Hollywood want to scream. There are no standards, no sense of professionalism. Imagine if we did that in our Catholic hospitals. Media is that important. It has to do with the health of our souls and spirit. We can’t be fooling around with this.

“You don’t send something when it’s good enough,” Nicolosi tells her students. “You send it when it’s great.”

So far, Act One has held its month-long screenwriting schools in New York and Los Angeles. About half the people involved now are working in the entertainment business and the other half are working on their screenplays.

To help students learn what producers are looking for, she has them screen about 20 films and read three or four screenplays before the sessions start. Then students spend the first week studying the “the beauty and the power of the art form,” Nicolosi said. “This is a medium that should be ours, because it’s the word made flesh.”

The second week, students work on the basics of story and structure; the third week, they discuss various genres; and the fourth week, they look at the business side of things, such as how to get an agent.

Each student gets to work on his or her own screenplay during the session, and they all get their own mentors. The mentors—people who are already in the entertainment business—spend at least an hour a week with the students, and help the students develop contacts once they finish.

Based on the results of the first Act One class held in Hollywood in 1999, the program seems to take two or three years off the process of breaking in as a writer, Nicolosi said.

“Are they going to set their face into the wind and persevere?” she said. “The one thing we can’t provide is that perseverance.”

For more information, visit www.actoneprogram.com