Module overview
Dialogue, pace, setting, and story. Understanding the nuts of bolts of scriptwriting is not only key to a successful piece of theatre, cinema, or radio, but to all forms of creative writing or literary analysis. This course will introduce you to the art of scriptwriting through workshops, seminars, and though careful study of a range of contemporary playwrights. During the course, you will have the opportunity to develop your ideas thorough tutorials and peer feedback.
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Transferable and Generic Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- present ideas effectively in a script
- translate text into performance
- manage deadlines and make effective use of your time
- revise and edit creative writing to a professional standard
- write fluently in a range of styles
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- demonstrate originality through your writing
- handle complex demands of script composition in an analytic manner
- make literary judgements of scripts in an informed way
- independently evaluate and apply compositional methods
- interact effectively with audiences via the performance of a script
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- how to write a script
- how scripts are developed into performance for different media
- how to achieve originality, linguistic versatility, and form in the handling of dialogue, action, visual effect and overall structural control in your script writing
- the process of development and revision involved in creating scripts
Subject Specific Practical Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- plan the development of a script towards a successful conclusion
- distinguish your aims as a scriptwriter
- explore ways of realising your script in performance
- create the key structures needed for a script
- revise and edit your work effectively
Syllabus
This module is an introduction to the basic skills and contexts of script writing. It is not aimed at any one specific medium but will offer introductions to the requirements of theatre, radio, television and film. You will be expected to engage in some practical drama workshops. Assessment will include an opening scene for a stage play with an outline of the rest of the play’s story; a script for stage, film, radio, or television, and a critical reflection, articulating the choices you have made with regards to the medium you are working in, and drawing on techniques learned in class and from scripts studied.
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
Classroom activity will be aimed at exploring the interaction of script and performance, as well as devoted to the basic analysis of how scripts work. Differences between the media of various types of theatre, television and cinema will be addressed both in set reading and through exploratory investigation in the seminars.
Teaching methods include
- Analysis of theatrical material for group discussion
- Practical drama work with both exemplary scripts from cinema, television and modern theatre, and with student drafts
- Managed discussion of student scripts
- Seminar discussion of the principles of script writing
Learning activities include
- Responding in detail orally to student scripts that have been read in advance and sometimes may have been presented in performance
- Studying published scripts & audio dramas for radio
- Writing drafts for both performance and seminar discussion
This module includes a Learning Support Hour. This is a flexible contact hour, 5 in total, designed to support and respond to the particular cohort taking the module from year to year. This hour will include (but not be limited to) activities such as language, theory and research skills classes; group work supervisions; assignment preparation and essay writing guidance; assignment consultations; feedback and feed-forward sessions.
Type | Hours |
---|---|
Independent Study | 123 |
Teaching | 27 |
Total study time | 150 |
Resources & Reading list
General Resources
Desperate Housewives (TV Pilot) by Marc Cherry. Script
Random by debbie tucker green. Script
The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh. Play
Blasted by Sarah Kane. Play
Misfits (TV Pilot) by Howard Overman. Script
People Snogging in Public Places (radio play) by Jack Thorne. Script
Girls Like That by Evan Placey. Play
Betrayal by Harold Pinter. Play
Chinatown (Film Script) by Robert Towne. Script
Blackbird by David Harrower. Play
Textbooks
Evan Placey. Mother of Him.
David Edgar. How Plays Work.
Dancyger & Rush. Alternative Scriptwriting.
Steve Waters. The Secret Life of Plays.
Robert McKee. Story.
Assessment
Assessment strategy
Assessments designed to provide informal, on-module feedback
- Classroom presentation of work in progress in the form of both scripts and performance
- Tutorial discussion of drafts
Formal assessments
A 15-20 minute script (15-20 pages) for stage, film, radio, or television. While this may be a complete short work, it can (and likely will) be part of a longer piece. i.e. the beginning of a pilot TV episode; the opening of Act 2 of a stage play, etc.**
A critical reflection (1000 words), articulating the choices you have made with regards to the medium you are working in, and drawing on techniques learned in class and from scripts studied.
**If you choose to write a film or television script, it must be the opening 15-20 minutes of the film or pilot episode, setting up the tone, genre, and world of the story as studied in class. For theatre and radio scripts, you may write an extract from any part of the play as long as you provide a brief context as to what has happened in the play up to that point.
Formative
This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.
Script Class discussionsSummative
This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.
Method | Percentage contribution |
---|---|
Critical commentary | 25% |
Script | 75% |
Referral
This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.
Method | Percentage contribution |
---|---|
Resubmit assessments | 100% |
Repeat
An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.
Method | Percentage contribution |
---|---|
Script | 75% |
Critical commentary | 25% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal & External