Screenwriting

Learn the Secrets of Successful Screenwriting

If you dream of making it as a screenwriter, this course is the place to start. Learn proven techniques for crafting a script that tells a story effectively and holds the attention of your audience.

We will dissect scripts from popular films to find out what makes a good story and an engaging screenplay. Using the free platform Writer’s Duet, students will learn the accepted way to format a script. They will also gain an understanding of how to structure a screenplay and construct scenes with compelling characters, settings, dialogue and conflict. Through a variety of writing activities, students will sharpen their screenwriting skills. Finally, they will bring together everything they have learned as they storyboard, write and edit their own scripts.
 

What You Will Learn

• Practice formatting a script using Writer’s Duet, a free formatting website
• Discover how to use scene headings, subheaders, extensions, dual dialogue, sluglines, transitions and parentheticals
• Learn to establish characters, settings, stakes and a central conflict
• Explore how to structure a script by introducing an inciting incident, creating a confrontation and then resolving storylines
• Gain an understanding of how to create compelling characters as protagonists and antagonists
• Analyze how to structure an effective scene
• Practice writing dialogue that feels natural, reveals character and advances the story
• Put their new knowledge to work by storyboarding, writing and editing scripts

Return to the Sally Ride Science Junior Academy website here.

Course Number: WKSP-90137
Credit: 0.00 unit(s)

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7/13/2020 - 7/17/2020

$200

In-class

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• SECTION ID:

  147536

• CLASS TYPE:

  In-class, Traditional Classroom instruction

• INSTRUCTOR:
  

  Evans, Alissa

  Alissa Evans is an undergraduate student at UCLA who is set to receive a degree in cognitive science with a minor in film in June of 2020. Her interests range from psychology to screenwriting, and she looks forward to sharing these passions with her students. At UCLA she worked in a research lab investigating the mechanisms that underlie human learning, and she hopes to pursue a career in child psychology. However, she balances her interest in behavioral science with her love for writing and film. She worked as a staff writer for UCLA’s Daily Bruin newspaper where she regularly critiqued films, and aims to finish her first full-length screenplay within a year or two of graduating. She has also tutored students in math and English and works for a program that provides care to kids ...Read More

• TEXTBOOKS:

  No textbook required.

• POLICIES:

  1st meeting mandatory.
  Early enrollment advised.
  No UCSD parking permit required.
  No visitors permitted.
  Pre-enrollment required.
  No refunds after: 7/6/2020.
  

• NOTE:

  This is a middle school level course.

DATE	DAY	START	END	LOCATION
7/13/2020	Mon	1:00 p.m.	4:00 p.m.	Room 213, UCSD Extension University City Center, 6256 Greenwich Dr., San Diego
7/14/2020	Tue	1:00 p.m.	4:00 p.m.	Room 213, UCSD Extension University City Center, 6256 Greenwich Dr., San Diego
7/15/2020	Wed	1:00 p.m.	4:00 p.m.	Room 213, UCSD Extension University City Center, 6256 Greenwich Dr., San Diego
7/16/2020	Thu	1:00 p.m.	4:00 p.m.	Room 213, UCSD Extension University City Center, 6256 Greenwich Dr., San Diego
7/17/2020	Fri	1:00 p.m.	4:00 p.m.	Room 213, UCSD Extension University City Center, 6256 Greenwich Dr., San Diego