March 2013
Scriptwriting 1
A successful short-film is not simply an abbreviated version of a feature film but entails a different kind of storytelling. Edgar Allen Poe’s description of a good short story is as relevant to film as it is to literary fiction. A good short story, he said, is not just “an incident or an episode extracted from a longer tale,” but a work of narrative-art that “impresses the reader with the belief that it would be spoiled if it were made longer.” Designed as a writing workshop, this course will address the many facets of writing screenplays for short films. Students will develop at least three scripts (2-8 pages long), from idea to end product, through individual and collaborative exercises, rewriting, and discussion of their works-in-progress. Students are encouraged to write scripts that can be produced with resources available to most students.