Please Note: All students enrolled in the course are required to have an email account and fill out a student questionnaire. Please do so before proceeding.
Dennis Potter, The Singing Detective (Course Booklet)
You are required to:
1. Have a valid email account (WAM or other on-campus account preferred but not required)
2. Check your email regularly.
3. Since you are reading this on the web, you have presumably already logged on to the Rosebud Project web site and found the section of the site devoted to the class. Now, navigate further to the Student Questionnaire and fill it out completely by the first class session.
WEB SITE & EMAIL REFLECTOR
In addition to providing the syllabus, schedule and other kinds of conventional class information, the site will also make available clips from films which are under study, animated definitions of film terms, links to other relevant sites, and so on.
I recommend that you bookmark the URL for the site.
In conjunction with the site, email will function as an integral part of the course. It will be used to convey general information concerning assignments and so on, but it will also serve as a forum where script problems may be discussed as they might be on a chat site. Take advantage of this. Script writing, like film making, is a collective effort. Input and commentary from your colleagues is not only helpful, but part of the process.
A few ground rules:
1. Confine your postings to class-related materials or questions. The email reflector is an extension of the class, not a place to let off steam or publish irrelevant stuff. Remember, everything you post on the reflector will be read by everyone in the class, including the instructor.
2. If you wish to respond individually to a message, rather than sending one to the entire reflector, do not, repeat, do not hit the reply button on your browser. If you do, you won't be replying individually, but you will be addressing the entire class and cluttering a lot of mailboxes needlessly. Send your reply to the individual's email address.
SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE COURSE
WHAT THE CLASS IS NOT AND IS:
This is not a writing "workshop" in which students share their work with their colleagues and submit themselves to critiques by them. My personal experience has been that this kind of pedagogy works well only when all the members of a workshop already have acquired some considerable experience in their writing, and when they all have approximately the same level of it. Since this will not be the case for our course, it will follow a different model.
Neither is the class a direct or indirect form of therapy.
Further, this is not a "how to" class (i.e., "How to write a screenplay in 21 days and become rich and famous.") Neither is it a class which will provide a set of formulas guaranteed to ape the predominantly abysmal material churned out by the industry. The fact is, no matter how many formulae are applied or used, no one can be taught mechanically how to become a screenwriter.
What we can accomplish, however, is an understanding of the way in which personal imagination, experience, and knowledge of film as a craft and art may produce screen material which helps us understand, confront and/or examine our lives. Film is a visual--above all, a visual--narrative medium. It tells stories about human beings (no matter what antropomorphised beasties may prance about the screen). And the fact is that human beings have no knowledge of anything other than human experience. Film is a medium which, kinetically and aurally, renders that experience is the form of dramatic narrative.
This is a course, then, intended to introduce the beginning student to the conventions, problems, and possibilities of the screen writing form. By "screen" is meant the big screen, the theatrical motion picture screen. Feature films are, in effect, the foundation for other modes of kinetic narrative. The course being a basic one, it therefore does NOT deal with the problems and specifics of writing for television nor video nor for web-centered distribution systems such as streaming. The writing you will do will be done according to the conventions of motion pictures.
The class will examine film footage through in-class screenings, analyzing such footage from the perspective of the dramatic and cinematic problems inherent in it, and discussing how such problems have been solved--to the degree that they have--in the screenplay and in the film. Some of these solutions--and failures--should then suggest similar strategies for you to use in your individual writing assignments.
The importance of your own assignments cannot be stressed enough: without your own writing the raison d'être for this course simply ceases to be. Thus, whether short or long, the writing assignments will stand at the heart of the course. This is one of the important reasons why in this course you will not be assigned any one of the many screen writing "manuals" which seem to be proliferating like mosquitoes in Maine. In my experience, all that they accomplish is to push the beginner in the direction of the obvious clichés engendered and encouraged by Hollywood practices. The direction recent screenwriters need to take is, on the contrary, towards the fresh, the new, the original, the daring.
So, rather than "How To..." books, the assigned reading is the script to Dennis Potter's magisterial work "The Singing Detective."
A caution: Many people believe that because they go to the movies a lot they know much about film making, scripting, etc. This is roughly the equivalent of someone setting up as a physician because they've been to the doctor a lot. Film is a complex and elaborate form; screen writing must operate from a base of detailed knowledge about that form. Well-meaning friends & relatives are not necessarily the best judges of good script material.
NATURE OF ASSIGNMENTS
You will be required to go into a public setting (to be detailed in class). You will proceed to identify a character (or characters) about whom you will invent a story, obviously fitting the story to the type of character you have identified. This will be the story which your film will tell. The assignment will be discussed in detail at the first class session.
A course in a subject such as screen writing obviously cannot be to any degree successful unless writing occurs. It is somewhat artificial to try and make all this fit the usual academic calendar and the usual rubbish about grades. But the fact is, we have no choice: we do work within the constraints of the academic calendar, and I do have to issue grades to you at the end of the semester.
Believe it or not, however, there is considerable benefit to be gotten from this. Screen writing is never a task carried out in the absence of judgment: one always writes screenplays for others, even if the writer is a one-person film maker. Furthermore, screen writing is above all a craft which is practiced in the rewriting of material. And in any professional situation there will always be constraints of time. So, let's use what we have and turn it to advantage.
In order to do this, though, you have to do the writing--and the rewriting. You have to turn in the assignments on time (as defined in the Assignment Details on the Schedule & Conferences Page), in the acceptable format, and as the assignment calls for. Remember, you cannot ever hope to get a scene--or a fragment of a scene, right the first time. This cannot be overstated. You must allow yourselves enough time for rewriting all your assignments. Plan your time accordingly!
All assignments will be due at the beginning of the class period on the indicated on the schedule. Papers are late from that moment on. All late papers will be docked one grade for each school day of lateness.
Much more important than the grading, however, is the fact that the assignments are designed to be sequential and cumulative: you will use materials from them in the construction of your final project, a fully realized (if short) screenplay. More about this will be explained in class. But you should realize that in failing to meet any of the specific term assignments you will be undercutting your ability to do your final screenplay. A word to the wise...
GRADING
Your grade will be earned on the basis of the assignments as noted on your assignment sheet, your demonstration, in your class participation, of your grasp of the principles of screen writing which we will be discussing and of the assigned reading, and your preparation for the story conferences (aggregating for the remaining 15% of the total grade).
I emphasize again that even more than for other kinds of writing, screen writing demands constant rewriting, followed by more rewriting, followed by more rewriting. Enough time is afforded between assignments for you to do just that. You cannot hope to get it right the first time. Don't let that discourage you, but realize that is very much part of the process. This is the nature of the beast.
As mentioned above, the subject for your written assignments will be discussed in class. Your own imagination will be critical in their choice: the choice of a bad subject can often sink an otherwise good effort. So, expect to give your imagination free range, and spice it with your wit, creativity, and, most important of all, your sense of personal commitment. Write about things that you care about. More, write about things that you care passionately about. It would be difficult to overstate this last point.
The final choice of subject for your own assignments will be your own but will be based on the excercise described above. I will help you make your choices by indicating possible problems in scope and/or an excess of ambition, a fairly frequent problem with beginning screenwriters. I will be very much on the lookout for the equally commonplace bulimic excesses of tricks and devices, such as special effects, which too often are used as substitutes for genuine story values. This is not to say you can't call for the use of such devices. It is to say that they must be appropriately used.
A word of caution also to stay away from one or all of the various formulas which may be part of the current vogue. Be original. Look for your way to tell your story. Define a field of action in which your own insights can be given full play. Most of all, get out of your immediate surroundings, either in time or in place. Of course one can write a good script about sorority houses, or drunken undergraduates, or the drug scene. But besides these vastly overworked and ultimately limiting subjects, there are thousands and thousands of experiences--your experiences--which can provide not only rich stories, but also some insight as to the working of these strange animals called people.
Remember: screenwriters share with all other writers the ability (and/or the desire) to deal imaginatively with human experience. But, even though you will be much concerned with images, realize that these images are first of all born of words, of sentences, of paragraphs; in a word, of writing. So you must be aware of, and develop, the tools which writers use: a keen eye for human experience, for the look of things, and for the sounds of the spoken language, its rhythms, its particularities, things which make one line of dialogue stand out in one way or another. Language, perception, imagination: these will be your tools. Be imaginative in your use of them. And enjoy the pleasure of stretching these faculties, so often undervalued in academic situations.
LAST WORD: This is a writing class. You will, therefore, be expected to use correct spelling and proper grammatical and rhetorical construction. This does not mean that you cannot write colloquial dialogue. It does mean that you have to pay attention to basics.
SCREENPLAY FORMAT
The question of screenplay format need not detain us unduly. At the first class session I will hand out some sample pages from a screenplay. We will discuss format briefly at that time. Other samples will be available on our web site [Click on FORMAT]. Simply reproduce the format used in the pages of script you will receive and/or consult.
OFFICE HOURS
My office hours are noted below. At all times you are encouraged to come and see me at any stage of the writing process, for whatever class-related reason. If you can't make it during the regular hours, see me before or after class or send me an email message and we'll set up an alternative time. Email is a much more efficient way of contacting me than voice mail.
Tues Wed & Thurs 1:15-2:30 or by appointment
MITH, 2M 100E Mckeldin
Phone: 5-8927
email: ml26@umail.umd.edu
DISABLED STUDENTS
Any student with a documented disability is requested to contact the instructor at the earliest opportunity in order that appropriate accommodations be made.
