Our instructors are award-winning industry professionals who currently work at the top of their field while guiding and mentoring students to the highest standards of professional excellence. Graduates of this program will have the ability to define the components and structures common to a variety of script format and be able to develop a writing schedule and work within it to create measured content within specific deadlines and timeframes. They will be able to construct work schedules to ensure deliverables and timelines are met and acquire skills that permit them to generate creative ideas on a daily basis, navigating and overcoming “writer’s block” and similar creative obstacles. Most importantly, they will graduate having written a series of spec scripts for film, television, and movies of the week. The 12-month Screenwriting for Film & TV diploma program empowers students to take their ideas from concept to fleshed-out reality, harness their creative abilities, write at a professional level, and know how to effectively market their scripts. Taught fully online through live instruction, in a virtual classroom setting, this program will have you interacting with classmates and instructors on a daily basis from anywhere in the world to get your scripts to levels you never dreamt possible. But becoming a great writer is only half the battle. We’ll also provide you with the essential business know-how required to write for a living. Through practical hands-on work, deadline-driven projects, and regular critique from fellow screenwriters, graduates of this program will leave with both experience writing in a variety of formats and the business savvy required to make a living in the screenwriting industry.
Online requirements:
Our online classes are held over Zoom meetings. Students will be required to download the application or access Zoom through the web. Further instructions for accessing the classes will be shared with registered students before the first class.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT: Applicants with mature students status, and/or students whose first language is not English, below are the minimum scores required from any one of the following tests in English proficiency: IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC or Cambridge. If necessary, we may also require a telephone or in-person interview.
Costs: Domestic: $14,900 International: $14,900 Materials Cost: $1000
Our Screenwriting program consists of a total of twenty courses running over 12 months within a dynamic 960 hour program of live, online instruction in a virtual classroom setting.
This course explores and imparts both the creative and technical processes required by professional screenwriters to find their own voice, generate strong story ideas, construct stories, and write scripts formatted to industry standards.
Students will explore the story development and filmmaking process from script to screen through film viewings, critical analysis, historical contextual reflection, and relationship to modern audiences.
Web Series: Students will learn the elements of a successful web series. As they explore the broad possibilities of the form, they will create an original sketch and longer form series, developing concepts from idea, to script, to revision.
Short Film: Students will learn the elements of successful short film through the development of short screenplays, active storytelling workshops, and a collaborative writing project.
Students will construct a spec script for a half-hour comedy series. They will learn how to professionally format their scripts and incorporate the elements required of this format.
Students will learn the ins and outs of the entertainment business from understanding the roots of how Hollywood began to how they can craft a career for themselves in the business today. They will also learn how goal set, time manage and create positive habits required to have a successful writing career.
Students will continue to explore the story development and filmmaking process from script to screen through film viewings and critical analysis in the context of specific genres and genre conventions.
Web Series: Students will continue to develop their working knowledge of key web series elements through the ongoing development of their original sketch and longer form series.
Short Film: Students will continue to develop their working knowledge of key elements of successful short film through the ongoing development of short screenplays, active storytelling workshops, and a collaborative writing project. “
Students will continue to develop their spec script for a half-hour comedy series.
Students will learn how to structure, outline, and write their own original feature length screenplay, with a final length of 90-110 pages.
Students will learn the ins and outs of the entertainment business from understanding the roots of how Hollywood began to how they can craft a career for themselves in the business today. They will also learn how goal set, time manage and create positive habits required to have a successful writing career.
An investigation of the meaning and importance of story in which students will take a variety of approaches to self-expression through story and the cinematic form.
Students will continue to explore the story development and filmmaking process from script to screen through film viewings and critical analysis in the context of Canadian and Indie films and story conventions.
Students will construct a spec script for a one-hour dramatic series and format it to industry standards.
Students continue to structure, outline, and write their own original feature length screenplay, with a final length of 90-110 pages.
An introduction to the various types of professional pitches and pitch opportunities students will encounter in their lives as professional writers.
An investigation of the meaning and importance of story in which students will take a variety of approaches to self-expression through story and the cinematic form.
Students will continue to explore the story development and filmmaking process from script to screen through film viewings and critical analysis in the context of non-traditional films and filmmakers.
Students will continue to develop their spec script for a one-hour dramatic series.
Students workshop their feature scripts in a writer’s room setting, giving and receiving professional notes designed to help them improve and polish their stories to a professional standard.
This final course of the business component of screenwriting prepares students to navigate the film industry after they graduate.
LAWRENCE DAVIDSON Kris With No Kitchen
Vancouver Acting School helped me realize that screenwriting could actually be a real career if I was willing to put myself out there and make it happen!
