COURSE OVERVIEW
Stories are one thing that separates us humans from all the other species on the planet. As far as we can tell, humans have been sharing stories since our existence. They can be entertaining, hilarious, frightening, edge-of-seat-riveting, zany, really so many things all at once. And while we often turn on a movie to relax and maybe even escape for a time, stories are also powerful tools that convey information for us to live our lives better.
This class will teach some of the basics of storytelling, nonfiction script writing and fictional screenwriting. It’s a lot of ground to cover in 15 weeks, and to cover it, the class will combine some lecture with a lot of hands-on writing and editing. After all, one major takeaway from this class is that writing is rewriting.
This course capitalizes on the short form. Students will develop both a nonfiction short script and a fictional short script over the 15 weeks (plus spring break and holidays) that the class meets. Like a good feature-length script, a good short film script contains all of the elements that make a story tick: plot, character, theme, beginnings-middles-ends, conflict, twists, turns, reversals, great dialogue, etc.
Learning the short form helps students grasp the basics of screenwriting which can then serve as a foundation for writing a feature. The focus of this class is to teach students the fundamentals of screenwriting and storytelling to advance one’s knowledge of the craft of writing for the screen.
Our goals will be as follows:
- The fundamentals of storytelling
- The fundamentals of scriptwriting
- Completing a short A/V script and four drafts of a fiction script
With a focus on storytelling and writing short film scripts, this course will help students learn:
- Basic research methods
- How to create character and story
- How to show action, rather than tell it
- How to write concept sentences, loglines, step outlines, synopses and treatments
- How to write (and properly format) both
- a nonfiction A/V script and
- a fictional screenplay
- That writing is rewriting.
The course is split into two halves. The first half focuses on documentary storytelling and scripting. The second half focuses on writing and revising a fictional short and presenting two drafts in two class workshops.
The aim of the course is to help students develop basic skills necessary to write and revise scripts for upper-level VAT production classes and beyond.
THE COURSE IS HEAVILY WEIGHTED ON THREE WRITING PROJECTS
EACH WEEK students will be assigned reading and writing homework that they are expected to come to class having completed. Students who do not do the homework assignments will not be able to easily participate in in-class activities. The class requires students to complete work in a timely manner and to bring much of that work to class to rework it. Again, one of the course mantras is: writing is rewriting. Students must turn work in on time or within the two-week grace period most assignments have. Failure to do the homework will result in a failing grade because the projects can only be completed if all the work assigned before them is turned in.
Nonfiction Project aka The Doc Project
The first half of the class focuses on nonfiction aka documentary filmmaking.
In it, students will take a long news feature (which meets certain criteria) and
reimagine it as video elements from which a hypothetical documentary script
can be crafted. So, for example, people quoted in the article would effectively
be on-camera interviews, important places would translate into b-roll,
important stats could be rendered as graphics, etc. Students will draft and
revise loglines, outlines, treatments and synopses and ultimately a two-column
(aka A/V) script.
Fiction & Revision Projects
For the other two major projects, students will write a short screenplay using
three-act structure, developing it through writing and revising a
logline, treatment, step outline, and synopsis as well as presenting two
different drafts (of the four required drafts) to the class in two workshops.
PLEASE NOTE:
To receive credit, ALL assignments must be
posted to Brightspace by the due date as a PDF.
No work turned in later than two weeks will be accepted.
Emailed homework will NOT be read, graded,
or otherwise factored into your grade.
