Maggie Greenwald

Your favorite novel has never been made into a movie, a little-known historical figure is your personal role model, or a relative’s journey of survival fascinates you. These are some of the preexisting sources that inspire us to write movies. Working from novels, biographies, historical incident, true crime, etc., students will develop feature-length screenplays. From pitching ideas, detailed outlining, and creating mood boards in order to develop cinematic storytelling skills, this course will take the student through the process of distilling the preexisting material into a three-act narrative structure. We will explore elements of screenwriting that include story structure, character development, visual storytelling, and point of view in order to expand and deepen the writer’s craft. Students will develop their screenplays in an intimate workshop, where work will be shared and critiqued in a safe and constructive atmosphere. Conference work will include customized instruction, such as preparatory writing assignments, watching films, and assigned readings.

The goal of this class is to develop, write, and workshop a short screenplay—up to 15 pages. Students will pitch stories in an open, roundtable process that will provide an opportunity for them to understand the potential and feasibility of their ideas. The class will explore the elements of screenwriting—including story structure, character development through action (behavior) and dialogue, visual storytelling, and point of view—in order to expand and deepen the writer’s narrative craft. We will schedule readings of the work in progress, followed by critique and discussion of the work. The course will culminate in a full table-read of each screenplay, a process that allows the writer to hear his/her work read aloud by classmate/actors in each role, leading to a final production-ready draft. For conference, students may choose between developing another idea for a short script or long-form screenplay. Those who need extra attention to make their in-class projects production-ready by the end of the semester may also receive that opportunity in conference.

This course will guide students toward the production of a short film. On the first day of class, all students must have a short screenplay, no more than 12 pages, that they intend to develop, prepare, and finally shoot and edit for this class. The preparatory process includes table reads and critiques of the screenplays, so the students can revise as their directing process advances. Students will create look books, cast actors, and direct unscripted exercises that relate to their material. During class, students will also practice staging and shot selection of scenes from their screenplays on the soundstage. Students with less experience will be given additional directing exercises to bring them up to speed. This will lead to the production and editing of the completed film. The final films will be screened and critiqued in the final weeks of class.

Our stories make us human, and the way that we tell our stories is as distinctive as our fingerprints. During the first few weeks of class, each student will write a short screenplay that will be used as the basis for learning the processes that a director uses to actualize his/her unique creative vision for a film. Development of the screenplay will continue in conferences. In class, lessons about the meaning of shots, concepts in staging and camera movement, creating look books, and directing filmed character exercises will immerse the student in the director’s preparatory process. Camera and editing workshops will provide a basic understanding of the tools of filmmaking. These tools will be applied to making storyboards and shot lists for directing a final, significant scene from the student’s screenplay. To further grasp the essential power of editing to the filmmaking process, each student’s footage will be given to another student to edit and show, following the director’s cut, in order to help us understand the power of “the cut,” as well as the seemingly infinite possibilities of the footage. Conference work will eventually shift to a focus on directing. Here, the professor will assign scenes from pre-existing screenplays for each student to direct, providing an opportunity for students to apply the skills developed in class to create a vision for someone else’s story—thus making it their own.

Working from pre-existing material that may include a novel, play, short story, historical incident, current event, biography, or personal history, each student will develop and write a dramatic, feature-length screenplay. Students will pitch ideas in an open, round-table process that provides an opportunity to understand the feasibility of the project. The writer will explore the material for the most cogent and interesting elements in order to develop characters and focus the story into three acts. What are the through lines in the original the text? Which scenes best and most efficiently tell the story? Then, each student will edit and consolidate his/her material or move away from the original in order to fulfill the story as a film. Writing exercises will focus on cinematic storytelling and character development, while table reads provide an opportunity for an intimate workshop process.

Your favorite novel has never been made into a movie, a little-known historical figure is your personal role model, or a relative’s journey of survival fascinates you. These are some of the preexisting sources that inspire us to write movies. Working from novels, biographies, historical events, true crime, etc., students will develop feature-length screenplays. From pitching ideas, outlining, and building mood boards in order to develop cinematic storytelling skills, this course will take the student through the process of distilling the preexisting material into a three-act narrative structure. Students will develop their screenplays in an intimate workshop, where all work will be shared and critiqued in a safe and constructive atmosphere. The goal: Acts I & 2, completed; Act 3, outlined.

From pitching ideas, developing detailed outlines, and creating mood boards in order to develop cinematic storytelling skills, this course will take the student through the process of writing a feature-length screenplay. The screenplay may be based on an original idea or preexisting source, including historical incident, biography, true crime, etc. In an intimate workshop setting, the writing will be shared and critiqued in a safe and constructive atmosphere as students develop their craft. By the end of the semester, each student will have completed a first-draft feature screenplay. Participation is essential to the process, and attendance is mandatory.

A scene from your favorite novel haunts you, a peculiar event in the news leaves you incredulous, you are fascinated by an historical event or personage or amazed by the journey of a relative from a distant land. These are some of the many preexisting sources that fuel our cinematic, story-telling imagination and call us to write movies. Focusing on the craft of adaptation, we will study the development of numerous films based upon novels, plays, short stories, etc.—analyzing the transitional process from original source to screenplay and then to final film. How is expansive, complex source material distilled into a successful screenplay? How does one expand material from a brief news event or poem into a complete three-act narrative? Using folktales, short plays, and current events as prompts, students will write short, adapted screenplays in order to further develop the craft of three-act, dramatic screenwriting. As part of the shift to screenwriting, students will create mood boards, inspired by their own projects, to further develop cinematic storytelling skills. The final project will be a short, 15-page screenplay adapted from source material of the student’s choosing. (A student may adapt their own work, as well.)