The 12-Week Screenwriter: Start (and Finish!) Your Movie Script in 3 Months

Course Details

You read, you write, you have a great eye for story?after all, you are a media professional, right? So why take an introductory class in screenwriting? You'll just have to sit through all that basic stuff that professional writers know already (tone, word count, dramatic appeal). What you need to learn is structure, dialogue, character, and development, which you won't get to in a class for first-timers. And what do you need the most? To finish your script! In this intense workshop, our instructors will guide you as you complete all three acts of your screenplay, workshop it, and perfect it?but most of all, finish it.

In this class, you can expect to learn:

• The three-act punctuation structure of screenwriting
• How to enhance your storytelling abilities and create more drama in every scene
• How to format and structure your screenplay
• How to create effective, memorable characters
• What to do with your screenplay when it's finished

By the end of class, students can expect to have:
A full first draft of your completed screenplay.

Admission requirements:
To apply, you must submit a letter of interest (including work history) and a fiction or nonfiction writing sample that should not exceed 2,000 words.

Instructor Bio

Max Adams's Courses

Max Adams' original script Excess Baggage was purchased by Columbia Pictures and released in 1997 starring Alicia Silverstone. Since dubbed "Red Hot Adams" by Daily Variety she has worked with Columbia Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, and Tri-Star Pictures. Her uncredited adaptation, The Ladykillers, starring Tom Hanks and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, was released in 2004. Her non-filmic writing credits include journalism, short fiction, essays, theatre, humor, and radio. She is the author of The Screenwriter's Survival Guide Or Guerrilla Meeting Tactics and Other Acts of War (Warner Books). She is the recipient of a Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences and an Austin Heart of Film Screenwriting Award. She has been a guest lecturer and/or instructor at Austin Film Festival, University of Southern California, Film Arts Foundation, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Willamette Writers Conference, Northwest Screenwriters' Guild, New York Film Academy, and Gotham Writers Online. Max lives and works in Los Angeles California. She holds a B.F.A. in film from the University of Utah.