Guided by professionals, learn the craft and business of writing for film and television

Dates:  TBD 2022
Levels:  All
Class Size: 10
Fee: $2750 (Intensives are not eligible for any promotional offerings)

Today’s screenwriters are increasingly working in both film and TV.  In the industry, writers engage in the fluid conversation about which medium is best suited for an idea. In this four week intensive, you’ll study with professional screenwriters in both film and TV, then develop your idea and script with the guidance of an accomplished screenwriter.  Along the way, you’ll learn about the practical realities of the marketplace.

The COurses:

Story Structure & Character Development
Writing For Television
2-Week Script Development Lab


 

Screenwriters in a screenwriting workshop

Story Structure and Character Development | Wayne Beach

In Week 1, you'll get a solid foundation in the essentials of writing for film & TV: concept, character, story, dialogue, and structure. Learn how to seduce a viewer into your story and characters.

Writing For Television | Michael Sardo

Explore the dynamics of creating an original television series with an accomplished TV writer-producer-showrunner as your guide. We’ll analyze and discuss the mechanics of existing pilots (both series and limited series) to consider how concept and character are launched. Learn how to get an audience invested in your characters, how to layer A, B & C story threads and how to keep the stakes rising. By the end of the week you will have created a pitch that conveys the show’s world, characters, and fundamental arcs. This is the foundation for writing a pilot, and creating a series for television. By week’s end you will have an understanding of what makes a series that an audience (and a buyer) is likely to fall in love with. Most importantly, you’ll emerge with a take on a television series that is personal, distinctive, and uniquely yours.

Script Development Lab

The final 2 weeks of the intensive will be a development lab where we examine each script with regard to concept, story structure, character development, plot, theme, and dialogue. Days will be divided between time together as a group and time afforded to each writer to work on their script. Class time will accommodate lectures from an accomplished screenwriter, on the dynamics of screenwriting and discussion of student scripts. One-on-one sessions between the instructor and each student take place throughout the lab. The workshop also surveys the practical realities of the film industry in terms of getting material read and sold, finding an agent, deal-making options, and how the industry works. By the end of the two weeks, each script has been reviewed and reconstructed with a ‘battle plan’ on how to take the script to the next level. Students leave the intensive with a new set of skills and knowledge, a portfolio of work, and the confidence to move forward in their screenwriting careers.