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| Unit name |
Writing and Directing for Film and Television |
| Unit code |
DRAMM0014 |
| Credit points |
20 |
| Level of study |
M/7
|
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
|
| Unit director |
Dr. Jimmy Hay |
| Open unit status |
Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None
|
| Co-requisites |
DRAMM0015 Film and Television Production Technologies and Techniques
|
| School/department |
Department of Film and Television |
| Faculty |
Faculty of Arts |
Description including Unit Aims
This unit introduces the craft, conventions, and key understandings in writing and directing for film and television. Each student makes several short films in directing, and produces a short fiction or documentary script. Teaching and learning cover:
- the form of the fiction screenplay and documentary script
- where ideas come from, and the process of adaptation newspaper adaptation exercise
- how to make Pitches and write proposals and treatments
- telling stories in pictures
- location and how to make use of the character of place
- the function of character in drama and documentary
- dialogue for the screen and in performance
- key conventions in the structuring of screen narratives
The unit offers a broad and very practical foundation in the conventions and processes of writing and directing for the screen. It enables personal expression and requires students to work in groups as part of the secondary aim of creating a course culture and establishing and ethical and procedural foundation for course work.
Intended Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:
- Understand and work creatively with the imperatives and conventions of storytelling through images for the purposes of a short film.
- Write a script for a short fiction or documentary project, that shows awareness of dramatic conventions and professional techniques.
- Engage in the on-going analytical review of their own and others’ work and accommodate editorial feedback into the scripting process.
- Work in groups to share and persuasively articulate ideas for the production of a short film that engages with specified narrative challenges, collaborating with others from different backgrounds to agree and achieve common objectives against deadlines.
Teaching Information
Lectures and workshops, practical instructional sessions, sessions of student presentation, script tutorials, short student films produced to structured brief, analytical screening/review of student films
Assessment Information
1 x Short Film (50%) and 1 x 10 page Script (50%).
Reading and References
- Dancyger, Ken and Cooper, Pat (1997) Writing the Short Film (Focal Press)
- MacKendrick, Alexander (2004) On film-making : an introduction to the craft of the director (Faber)
- Mamet, David (1992) On Directing (Penguin)
- McKee, Robert, (1998) Story: substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting (Methuen)
- Vogler, Christopher (1999) The Writer's Journey - Mythic Structure for storytellers and screenwriters (Pan)
