Skip to Content

Future Students - Courses

click here for a printable version of this page  

Script Writing

Unit Code: LPW704




Duration

Contact Hours

Campus

Prerequisite

Corequisite

12 weeks or equivalent

3 Hours per Week

Lilydale

LPW700 The Writerly Selfor equivalent

Credit Points: 12.5 Credit Points

Related Course/s:

A unit in the Master of Arts (Writing)

Back to Top

Aims & Objectives:

This unit aims to:

  • Enable students to develop scripts for presentation to a nominated audience
  • Investigate how adaptations occur in the utilisation of verbal scripts for visual deliveries, cinema, TV media and multimedia
  • Examine relevant literary and cultural theories that offer frameworks for understanding film and television narratives

After completing this unit students will have:

  • Insights into how to develop a script concept and proposals
  • Understand script structure and development
  • Skills in script writing

Back to Top

Teaching Methods:

Virtual lectures, virtual tutorials, electronic media, reading and practical exercises and e-tutors, e-mentors and e-peer groups.

Back to Top

Assessment:

Script Outline 60%, Participation in weekly Discussion Threads 40%

Back to Top

Content:

  • Storyboarding
  • The pitch and the treatment
  • The filmscript
  • Characterisation
  • Building the plotline
  • Soap Operas and Sitcoms
  • Sports writing and advertising
  • Finding the structure
  • Screen writing as a process
  • Formatting

 

Back to Top

Reading Materials:

Dancyger, K. 1995, Alternative Scriptwriting, Boston: Focal Press.

Drouyn, C. 1994, Big Screen Small Screen: A Practical Guide to Writing Film and TV in Australia, St. Leonard’s, N.S.W: Allen & Unwin.

Phillips, W. H. 1991, Writing Short Scripts, Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press.

The Macquarie Dictionary.

The Macquarie Thesaurus.

The Macquarie website: http://www.macnet.mq.edu.au

Schellhardt, L. & Logan, J. 2008. Screenwriting For Dummies (For Dummies (Career/Education). New York: Wiley.

Straczynski, J. M. 1996, The Complete Book of Scriptwriting, Writers Digest Books, U.S.A.
Trottier, D. 2005. The Screenwriter's Bible: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script. Los Angeles: Silman-James Press

And the following electronic links:

Cyber Film School: http://www.cyberfilmschool.com/
Screenwriters Online: http://www.screenwriter.com/insider/news.html
Cinemedia Home Page: http://www.cinemedia.net/
Storymind.com. Screenwriting: http://storymind.com/dramatica/
Hollywood Screenwriters Network: http://hollywoodnet.com/scriptindex.html
The Visual Writer: http://www.visualwriter.com/
David Chandler’s Media and Communications Studies Site: Film Studies: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Functions/mcs.html

Back to Top