Program Feature: Screenwriting
Screenwriting is an exciting, creative, and labor-intensive art that can be learned. Every screenplay begins with FADE IN. Let’s get started.
Join Matt Friedman for “Introduction to Screenwriting” on Wednesdays bi-weekly from Jun 30 – Aug 18, 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm. This class will focus on discussing and developing story ideas, and sharing comments and suggesting solutions; an introduction to the three-act structure and the critical importance of the first 10 pages; the use of conflict to move the story forward, and creating compelling characters and character arcs.
Matt Friedman teaches filmmaking at the Governor’s School for the Arts in Norfolk, Virginia. He wrote the local independent feature comedy, Moving, in the early 2000s (for which he won “Best Screenplay” at the Digital Visions film festival in Chicago), then his second script won him a fellowship to the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, where he was the inaugural recipient of the Sloan Foundation Fellowship for science themes in film. He has also kept himself busy over the years as a volunteer EMT, and a graphic & web designer at Frame25 Productions.
Here’s why Matt thinks you should take his class:
People should take this class because unlike any other kind of writing, screenwriting is a hilarious tangle of arcane rules. Learning it is a little like taking a potions class at Hogwarts; it’s possible to learn it on your own but it definitely helps to have a wacky professor around to keep the brew from fizzling out or melting off your eyebrows. You’ll learn the differences between prose and script writing, learn some secret keys to formatting and story structure, watch some fun videos, and get started on your first Oscar-winning screenplay.
Who are Matt Friedman’s favorite authors?
I’m most fond of old fogeys like Dickens and Austen, but also new fogeys like Cixin Liu and Toni Morrison, funny folks like Douglas Adams and Christopher Moore, nonfiction types like Gladwell and Isabel Wilkerson and Carl Sagan and Clay Jenkinson. Screenwriters too many to mention… Lawrence Kasdan, Barry Jenkins, Greta Gerwig, Paul Thomas Anderson, Aaron Sorkin, Charlie Kaufman. I hate lists.
Find Matt Friedman on social media @filmtraveler
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If you have either taken the Introduction to Screenwriting class, completed an early draft, or who have an outline/treatment of a complete story, consider The Screenwriting Workshop!
Join Diane Fine for “The Screenwriting Workshop” on Tuesdays bi-weekly from Jun 22 – Aug 31, 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm.
This workshop will focus on the all-important revision process in screenwriting, with members sharing the successes and difficulties encountered in the scripting process for feature-length, short, or TV scripts.
Diane Fine has been a professional screenwriter and “script doctor” in Hollywood for over 20 years. Her credits include Storm starring Martin Sheen and Luke Perry, Firetrapstarring Dean Cain, Lori Petty and Mel Harris, Art Heist starring Ellen Pompeo and Billy Baldwin, and Purgatory Flats starring Brian Austin Green, Nick Turturro and Gregg Henry. The BET movie-of-the-week she co-wrote, Fire & Ice, starring Kadeem Hardison and Lark Voorhies, was one of the highest-rated MOW’s in BET’s history and was nominated for an NAACP Image award. A graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, she has taught screenwriting, creative writing and elements of storytelling to children, teens and adults in Los Angeles. After recently relocating to Norfolk, she currently teaches Screenwriting as well as Film Production at Old Dominion University.
See a full catalog of our Summer classes, workshops, and seminars and register HERE.
***Tuition assistance and flexibility is available to all who request it, no questions asked. Just select the “I want to talk about tuition assistance” box when checking out!
