Introduction to Screen and Performance Writing
Course Convenors: Ros Davies and Caroline Smith
Course Code: CINE 1006
This course will introduce you to the principles that underpin writing for the screen and for performance. Each element is one semester long. Writing for Performance will introduce you to the creative skills necessary to write drama for performance, including: generating dramatic dialogue, the relationship between the everyday and staged performance and applying conventions of performance writing to your own ideas. Writing for the Screen will both encourage you towards creative self-expression and familiarise you with established conventions and commercial practices of screen writing: looking in particular at genres within short and medium length narrative drama. Readings and screenings are included in both semesters.
Indicative Reading:
Parker, P The Art and Science of Screenwriting
Brenner, A, TV Scriptwriter’s Handbook
Dancyger, K & Rush, J, Alternative Scriptwriting; George, Kathleen E. Playwriting: The First Workshop, 1994; Mamet, D. Three Uses of the Knife: on the Nature & Purpose of Drama, 1998