Stories II.: Screenwriting

This course is a creative workshop designed to help students acquire the basic techniques of screenwriting and dramaturgy in practice. Over the term students will develop their own screenplay for a short film (ca. 10 pages long in script format). We will study the essential theoretical and practical aspects of dramatic composition, analyse short films, and work on original ideas, developing them from a basic story outline into a treatment and finally a screenplay. Students will learn how to tell a story on film, how to structure plot and conflict, and how to create convincing characters. As a group we will analyse each individual’s work, discuss it scene-by-scene, line-by-line helping each other produce the perfect script.Week-to-week revision of the work is essential. Students will also be given other exercises and readings. For every class, students will read and comment on the work of their peers.