Train under the award-winning playwright, Karen Jeynes, in this online scriptwriting course, and write your masterpiece play, TV series or movie script.
Our courses run all the time, all year round. Sign up and start your course whenever you want.
This is your chance to:- Write scripts for five TV stations, 550 radio stations or dozens of local theatres
- Learn scriptwriting skills via the quickest, most convenient medium: correspondence
- Write a sellable script
- Receive individualised feedback on your writing, and one-on-one coaching with your tutor
- Get all the marketing tools you need to sell your script
Course curriculum:1. What's in a script?
* A brief understanding of the role of the scriptwriter in film, theatre and radio
* Exercise: Write a review of a film or play focusing on how the script succeeds or fails
2. Plot and structure
* The dos and don'ts or the rules and how to break them
* Exercise: Write an anecdote from real life, then rewrite it with different structures and see how that changes the story
3. Character
* How to create characters, flesh them out and let them have their way
* Exercise: Create four characters in detail that grow out of the story you used in structure.
4. Dialogue
* Text and subtext
* The difference between written and spoken text
* Exercise: Analyse the sample scripts. Take two of your characters and write a dialogue between them.
5. Action
* Scripts are performance material, they are alive
* Exercise: Using your other two characters, write a scene with little or no dialogue, focusing on action.
6. Beginnings and endings
* Where to start and how to end
* Exercise: Analyse the examples and then write two possible beginnings and two possible endings for your story.
7. The technical staff
* Remembering the limitations and joys of the mediums
* Exercise: Write a detailed explanation of which of film/theatre/radio is best for your script and why.
8. Knowing your market
* Discussion of the South African scene
* Exercise: Write a treatment for your script, including characters, scene breakdown and sample scenes
9. Cutting and editing
* Being brutal and “taking it out” while maintaining the truth
* Exercise: Take a sample scene and cutting it to the minimum. Look at your scene order and see if you could change things around, and what effect that would have.
10. Your script
* Putting it all together
* Exercise: Write a final script review, taking note of what works and what doesn't
* Exercise: Complete your short script
Sign up and start your course anytime! For a career in writing,
go to
www.sawriterscollege.co.za.