Writing for Film

Courses

FILM 4005 - Screenwriting: Short Form.

A creative workshop in which students
write and re-write several short scripts. Examples from produced scripts will be closely analyzed, with careful attention to plot, character development, aesthetics, and mechanics. Priority is given to BFA film studies majors.
Prereq., FILM 3600.
(Junior Burke)

Throughout the semester, we generate four fully-realized pieces of writing. First, we find a short story or a chapter of a novel that was written before 1925 and therefore is in the public domain. Each writer takes that selection and adapts it to the screen. The other element of the assignment is to transform the period to modern day. The location can also be changed. A number of things invariably happen: writers who are accustomed to composing in language are now challenged to think visually, deciding what can be shown dramatically and not simply accounted through voice. They begin to see and feel the difference between dialogue on the page and dialogue on the screen, determining the most effective point to begin each scene, as well as where to end it without telegraphing what is coming next. Working with material with which they have attraction but not attachment, they are more likely to apply the needed dramatic transformation. They begin to see action as character. Also the workshop itself takes shape, students seeing elements and challenges in the works of their peers that can effectively be applied to their own writing. They begin to find their own voices within what at first seems like an exceedingly demanding form.

Once that initial assignment is written, re-written and polished, we move to an original work that is wholly descriptive, told without dialogue. That doesn’t mean that it’s silent. This script, were it to be shot, would have ambience and perhaps music, but no spoken material. By the time these are polished, they are often shorter, three to five pages. In many ways, this is the toughest assignment, as one confronts the challenge of realizing a narrative solely by fluidity and motion.

Our third assignment is concerned almost exclusively with dialogue. The guidelines are to place two characters in one setting. Each of them wants something. By the end, one gets what they want and the other doesn’t. These parameters speak to motivation and need. It also gets the writer into the framework of looking at each character and tracking those respective points of view. They begin to think as the characters and not as the writer. The voices ultimately are as distinct and dimensional as the perspectives that fuel them.

FILM 4075 - Scriptwriting Workshop

This class will discuss a number of
genres in film and drama and assign small writing exercises based on those
forms. In the course of reading and viewing, students will decide on the shape
of a substantial term project, and any form of script is acceptable.
The particular focus for discussion in the course will be on experimental
drama and "visionary film." Some of the authors, filmmakers and works to be
discussed are: Andre Breton, Luis Bunuel, Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett, Jean
Cocteau, Maya Deren, P.Adams Sitney, Adrienne Kennedy, Irene Maria Fornes,
Bruce Conner, Holly Hughes, and Jo Bonney, ed,. Extreme Exposure, an anthology
of solo performance texts. Film and theatrical works may be added for
consideration according to student interest. Grading is as
follows: 25% exercises, 25% class participation, 50% term project (Same as
ENGL 4071) (Sidney Goldfarb)