Scriptwriting

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• distinguish your aims as a scriptwriter
• revise and edit your work effectively
• explore ways of realising your script in performance
• create the key structures needed for a script
• plan the development of a script towards a successful conclusion

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• how scripts are developed into performance for different media
• the process of development and revision involved in creating scripts
• how to achieve originality, linguistic versatility, and form in the handling of dialogue, action, visual effect and overall structural control in your script writing
• how to write a script

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• present ideas effectively in a script
• translate text into performance
• revise and edit creative writing to a professional standard
• manage deadlines and make effective use of your time
• write fluently in a range of styles

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• interact effectively with audiences via the performance of a script
• handle complex demands of script composition in an analytic manner
• independently evaluate and apply compositional methods
• demonstrate originality through your writing
• make literary judgements of scripts in an informed way

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.

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 weekly contact hour, 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.

Resources & Reading list

General Resources

Blackbird by David Harrower. Play

Girls Like That by Evan Placey. Play

Random by debbie tucker green. Script

Blasted by Sarah Kane. Play

People Snogging in Public Places (radio play) by Jack Thorne. Script

Desperate Housewives (TV Pilot) by Marc Cherry. Script

The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh. Play

Chinatown (Film Script) by Robert Towne. Script

Misfits (TV Pilot) by Howard Overman. Script

Betrayal by Harold Pinter. Play

Textbooks

Steve Waters. The Secret Life of Plays.

Evan Placey. Mother of Him.

Robert McKee. Story.

David Edgar. How Plays Work.

Dancyger & Rush. Alternative Scriptwriting.

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.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External