COURIER

Scriptwriting

Develop your creative and technical screenwriting skills and create a Film or TV Drama script that audiences will love.

COURSE CONTENT

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MODULE 1 | CONCEPT & PLOT
•    Establishing the Concept
•    Expanding the Concept and Developing the Plot
•    The Brain Dump
•    Elements to The Story
•    The Main Challenge 
•    The Story's Key Points 
•    Knowing the Story's Theme
•    Identifying the Hero and The Villain
•    Identifying the Other Heroic and Villainous Characters and How They Contribute
•    Establishing the Hero’s Goals
•    The Hero's and Villain's Actions and Their Consequences
•    Establishing a satisfying and appropriate story climax

MODULE 2 | STRUCTURE
•    Page-Per-Minute structuring
•    The purpose of each act
•    Three-Act Structure.
•    The 5- key-points structure
•    Optimising the act transitions
•    Applying the Inciting Incident, Point of no Return and other plot points / reveals
•    Maintaining the structure while protecting the drama

MODULE 3 | PACING
•    Knowing the Importance of Pacing
•    Making Sure That Our Story Is Effectively Paced
•    The Manipulation of Time
•    Establishing How the Series Is Broken Down
•    Calculating How Long Each Scene Is
•    Deciding What Needs to Be Portrayed with Each Scene
•    Determining the Number of Episodes aLength of The Episode
•    Establishing Our Key Scenes
•    Knowing the Purpose of a Scene
•    ‘Active’ And ‘Inactive’ Scenes
•    The Tone of a Scene
•    What A Scene Must Have to Have Purpose
•    Introducing the Step Outline
•    Elements of The Step Outline climax 

MODULE 4 | CHARACTER
•    Creating Characters for a Show 
•    What Is A Character
•    Thinking of Our Character as A Real Person
•    Creating Realistic, Three-Dimensional, Nuanced and Ultimately Relatable Characters
•    Knowing the Story’s Characters Helps the Story’s Development 
•    Developing the Hero, Villain and Other Major and Minor Characters
•    Writing the Character Profile – Biography, Journey, Effect
•    Character Questionnaire
•    Creating the Perfect ‘World’ For Their Story
•    Establishing the Story's Environment, The Geography, Climate, Era
•    How That World Impacts the Story and Its Characters

MODULE 5 | DIALOGUE
•    Knowing the Value of Dialogue, What It Achieves
•    Appreciating Real-Life Conversation Versus Dialogue
•    Mastering True-To-Character Dialogue
•    Raising the Game, Knowing Good Versus Great Dialogue
•    Using Dialogue to Establish and Optimise Character Relationships
•    Using Dialogue to Show Key Reveals and Portray Emotions
•    Creating Dynamic Dialogue and Dialogue Beats
•    Using Subtext to Add Complexity.
•    Knowing What Not to Do with Our Dialogue
•    Creating the Perfect ‘World’ For Their Story
•    Establishing the Story's Environment, The Geography, Climate, Era
•    How That World Impacts the Story and Its Characters

MODULE 6 | ADAPTATION
•    Accepting That Screenwriting Is Different to Writing Novels 
•    Knowing Where to Start, To Pick Out A Novel’s ‘Tent-Pole’ Moments
•    Deciding What to Keep and What to Drop
•    Accepting That Much of The Book’s Story Will Be Changed
•    Learning That the Craft and Technical Skills of Screenwriting Are Crucial 
•    Working with A Script Editor
•    Knowing the Pitfalls of Adapting Our Own Novel 
•    Contests, Agents and Producers – How to Sell An Adaptation

MODULE 7 | FORMATTING
•    Realising the Deal-Breaking Reasons We Worry About Formatting 
•    Learning Script Formatting by Script Reading 
•    Knowing Why We Format
•    Realising What A Scene Should Achieve
•    The 1 Page / 1 Minute Rule That Isn’t A Rule
•    Deciding on Our Script’s Length and Why
•    Choosing the Software That We Use to Write
•    Setting Up Our Script
•    Elements of Our Script
•    Embracing the Rules and Knowing When to Break Them
•    Knowing When (And Definitely When Not) To Use Scene Numbers

MODULE 8 | SELLING YOUR FILM OR TV DRAMA
•    Our Screenplay Is Done – So What’s Next?
•    Getting into A Writers’ Group
•    Collaborating on Your Film or Show’s Development
•    Working with An Editor 
•    Getting Agent Representation
•    Developing Synopses, Treatments and Other Supporting Documents
•    Getting Script Visibility with Screenplay Competitions 
•    Packaging Our Film or Series
•    Contacting Producers, Directors and The Rest of The Production Industry 
•    Performing the Elevator Pitch
•    Pitching at Festivals and Pitchfests 
•    Approaching Funding Bodies 
•    Getting Paid for Our Scripts
•    Writing on Existing TV Series

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