Matthew Robbins, a major Hollywood director, producer, scriptwriter and script consultant, graced the emerging filmmakers at Whistling Woods International and shared some priceless insights on filmmaking. Matthew Robbins recalled his own years, at film school in the University of Southern California (USC) in the mid 1960s, where along with George Lucas, Hal Barwood, Walter Murch et al, he had been part of the core group which through innovative techniques and effects went on to success in Hollywood. He collaborated on George Lucas' landmark film THX 1138 (1971), which was Lucas' first feature-length project as a director; he won the Best Screenplay award at Cannes in 1974 for The Sugarland Express, the first film directed by Steven Spielberg. He later co-wrote and also acted in Spielberg's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977). He however made light of the achievements of this group of filmmakers who, along with Francis Ford Coppola, Walter Murch, Brian de Palma, and the Cohen brothers, turned around American cinema in the 1970s.

The supposed interaction with the students soon turned into an invaluable Workshop in Screenwriting as the tireless master craftsman “distilled a whole semester on writing in one hour” in his own words. He emphasized students to "Think visually", before incorporating dialogue in a script and to "Challenge themselves to find ways to get the point across visually. He said “Movies love textures and objects, even silent objects. Also, a good Actor, with a look, a gesture can convey more than five lines of dialogue." He reminded with humor that Movies are visual and “it is not Radio” .

He also discussed role of the Film Editor and termed it "a late arrival on the writing team" and that "the story is told on paper, in rehearsals, in shooting, and then, critically rewritten on the editing table."

He suggested students invest time and talent in writing screenplay, before picking up the camera, he said "Write your Script, and then, Rewrite your Script, then, Rewrite it again" and also advised that "In addition to watching movies which everybody likes to do, it would be very useful to read screenplays of great movies, movies that you admire. You will see why those movies stay with you”. Describing his own methodology of working out the story which is without giving into the seductive delights of description and dialogues, to write in and use, "small cards with large markers" ('3 by 5 cards') ,which is "to give the blue-print of the story, the most time consuming part of a film project." He also reminded how the dramatic structure of feature film writing is by nature, different from the episodic television drama series.

He reminded the students that in his early days, his now enviable and famous group made movies just "for the sheer excitement of making movies, without expectations of any kind."

And finally, for Whistling Woods International Institute, he said "I wish I had been able to come here as a young film student because, I had nothing like the facilities that I have seen in WWI"