Introductory Screenwriting Course

What You’ll Learn

In this course, students will examine the principles and processes that help bring stories to life on the screen. Topics include finding and developing story ideas, understanding film language, and exploring script structure. By the end of the course, students will have participated in rigorous film analysis and intensive screenwriting exercises.

Along the way, students will participate in interactive discussions with faculty and other students, all through the online platform. For a final project, students are expected to complete a film treatment (a prose description of a film), with a step outline for a feature film or television episode that they plan to write. The final assignment will be a 10 page script for a scene, showcasing topics learned during the course.

At the conclusion of this course students should have:

• Learned the fundamentals of screenwriting
• Learn how to conceptualize and structure an original movie idea into a narrative
• Experienced the critique and analysis process
• Completed a treatment for full length screenplay and 10 page script

You’ll need any screenwriting software that can export to .fountain files. There are several that are entirely free or offer a limited number of scripts for free such as Writer Duet.

• Three Act Structure
• Formatting Screenplays
• Conflict - Structures of a Scene
• Character
• Beginnings and Endings

• Movie Scenario - Write an original one-page movie scenario of your own feature-length movie idea that follows the three-act structure.
• 12 Sentence Dialogue - Write a short dialogue with 2 characters where each line of dialogue is 4 words or less.
• Logline - Write a 1-2 sentence logline of your movie.
• Critique - Write a critique of your crewmates’ 10-12 page screenplays following certain guidelines.

This class will be delivered through an asynchronous model, which means you will not have to meet at a designated time each day. Instead, the program is offered through online lectures that are pre-recorded and released each week. You can view those modules at your own pace. However, there are daily deliverables and/or weekly assignments you will have to complete and upload onto the Smashcut platform by the deadline provided in your syllabus, and faculty/TA/classmates will be interacting/collaborating with your work on this timeline. The entirety of the class takes place on the Smashcut platform. Synchronous sessions will be scheduled during the term with your professor/TA/classmates. We understand you signed up for an online course to have the flexibility of online learning, so you will have the opportunity to choose the best meeting time for your schedule.