SCREENWRITING SYLLABUS

 

SCREENWRITING I

 

Do you want to learn how to write a movie? This introductory screenwriting course will teach you the basics. Students in this class will learn the fundamental components of screenwriting by studying produced movies and by writing their own. Students are required to write a short silent film, a ten minute short film and a 20-30 minute short film, as well as a synopsis for a feature length film. All work will be developed and analyzed in an interactive workshop environment. The class is taught by a professional screenwriter.

 

SCREENWRITING II

 

This intermediate level screenwriting course picks up where Screenwriting I left off: the writing of feature length screenplays. The goal of the class is the completion of a first draft of an original feature length screenplay, after developing a pitch, a synopsis and an outline. The reading and analysis of six to eight screenplays is also required. Like Screenwriting I, this is an interactive workshop class taught by a professional screenwriter.

 

EPISODIC WRITING I: SPECS

 

Students will write a “spec” episode of an existing series. In the lecture component of the class, emphasis will be placed on the long-term structure of one of the series the students are writing. The purpose of this class is to understand how a series functions and how writing the episodic form differs from other dramatic forms.

 

EPISODIC WRITING II: PILOTS

 

Students will write an original pilot. In the lecture component of the class, emphasis will be placed on both pilots and the series that emerge from those pilots. The purpose of this class is for students to take their first venture into writing generative work in the episodic form.

 

PLAYWRITING I

 

A playwriting workshop required of all Dramatic Writing majors and designed for the beginning playwright. Students are required to complete 50-70 pages of a full-length stage play with an outline of the complete play. The first third of the course focuses on exercises to help students develop a story idea with the complexity and depth to sustain a full-length play. The reading and analysis of four to six dramatic texts is required in conjunction with the student’s original work. Students must come to the first class with two ideas for a full-length play. Each idea should be described in a one page summary.

 

 

 

SKETCH COMEDY WRITING

 

This is a sketch writing workshop class. A survey of sketch genres and approaches will be integrated with writing assignments and rewriting of one's own sketches: both privately and collaboratively. The goal is for each student to emerge from the class with several polished sketches. For this class, it helps to have a good sense of humor that you want to get even better at putting down on the page.  There will be a lot of group critiquing and occasionally group rewriting.  So it helps to stop thinking that your first draft is perfect.  Because it isn't.  This can be a pretty wild class, so it also helps to never think that comedy can go "too far."  The course may have a guest lecturer.

 

 

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