Writing for the Screen
This course for the beginning to intermediate screenwriter is a rigorous, yet intimate, setting in which to explore screenwriting work-in-progress. Structured as a rigorous workshop, we will explore the nature of screenwriting. Students may work on either short-form or feature-length screenplays or on a television or Web series. They will read peer work, with the entire process supported by in-class analysis and critiques thereof. We will migrate from initial idea—through character development, story generation, and rough draft—to a series of finished, short-form screenplays or a feature-length script. Fundamentals of character, story, universe and setting, dramatic action, tension, conflict, structure, and style will be explored. In conference, students may research and develop long-form screenplays or teleplays, craft a series of short screenplays for production courses or independent production, rewrite a previously written script, adapt original material from another form, and so forth.