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ENG 445
Screenwriting
Syllabus
In this course we will write and workshop three original short films.
The course is divided into two sections--
- learning about short films as a genre and how to create screenplays,
- writing three original screenplays for short films
What are your favorite movies? What makes them a "good story?" Why do we connect with them?
Open with Writing
Do you think of yourself as a storyteller? What kinds of stories interest you? What kinds of stories do you want to tell?
Our Stories
"A screenplay is a story told with pictures, in dialogue and description, and placed within the context of a dramatic structure."
What is a screenplay? What job does it do?
Syd Field
Field was a faculty member at the USC Master’s of Professional Writing Program, has taught at Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, the AFI and many other noted institutions. He has been a special script consultant to 20th Century Fox, the Disney Studios, Universal and Tristar Pictures.
Some of Field’s former students include Oscar winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity, Y Tu Mama Tambien), Judd Apatow (Bridesmaids, Girls), Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Walking Dead), Anna Hamilton Phelan (Mask, Gorillas in the Mist), John Singleton (Boyz N the Hood, Poetic Justice), Randi Mayem Singer (Mrs. Doubtfire), Laura Esquivel (Like Water For Chocolate).
Most notable for writing about the "three-act structure" of feature film screenplays.
Syd Field
"Introduction" p. 1-14
An Introduction to our Text Book
"To tell a story, you have to set up your characters, introduce the dramatic premise (what the story is about) and the dramatic situation (the circumstances surrounding the action), create obstacles for your characters to confront and overcome, then resolve the story." (3)
Setting Up a Story
How Storytelling Works
"My purpose in writing Screenplay was to explore the craft of screenwriting and illustrate the foundations of dramatic structure. When you want to write a screenplay, there are two aspects you have to deal with. One is the preparation required to write it: the research, thinking time, character work, and laying out the structural dynamic. The other is the execution, the actual writing of it, laying out the visual images and capturing the dialogue. The hardest thing about writing is knowing what to write." (8)
Talent
"Talent is God's gift; either you've got it or you don't. But writing is a personal responsibility; either you do it or you don't."
"Film is a visual medium that dramatizes a basic story line; it deals in pictures, images, bits and pieces of film: We see a clock ticking, a window opening, a person in the distance leaning over a balcony, smoking... The nature of the screenplay deals in pictures, and if we wanted to define it, we could say that a screenplay is a story told with pictures, in dialogue and description, and placed within the context of dramatic structure." (19-20)
What is a Screenplay
One page of screenplay is approximately one minute of screen time.
Screenplay
Format
Screenplay
Page
Syd Field's Big Idea
Joel and Ethan Coen
Born and raised in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.
Blood Simple (1984)
Raising Arizona (1987)
Miller's Crossing (1990)
Barton Fink (1991)
Fargo (1996)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Analysis of a Story
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Tuileries
by Joel and Ethan Coen
(00:20:10)
Tuileries
18 short films
(journal if time)