Storytelling
Students will explore the work of character development in terms of script writing for short films, commercials, music videos, tv and documentaries.
This course in screenwriting is critical for writers, directors, producers and other creative practitioners involved in the interpretive process. Writing covers the essentials of storytelling for films and goes into detail about structure, character development, three-act breakdown and writing effective dialogue. This course also introduces students to writing for television.
Students learn the following disciplines: Formatting a treatment and screenplay properly. Understanding structure and story. Creating memorable characters. Writing a 4-page non-dialogue script. Conveying meaning with visuals, not words. Writing dialogue. Writing scene descriptions and exposition. Writing loglines and treatments. Understanding mythic structure in storytelling. Character development in the screenplay. Dialogue development. The fundamentals of form, structure, character development and dialogue in feature and short screenplays.
When the students have finished the course they can:
Skills:
- Understand basic story structure & character development.
- Understand the function of characters in a story.
- Design the inciting incident/the dramatic question.
Knowledge:
- Character development and arc.
- Be able to analyze various master plots for different genres.
- Act 2 breakdown (progressive complication stage).
General Competance:
- Write effective dialogue that disguises exposition.
- Write an effective crisis, climax & resolution (Act 3).