Start Dates: Mar 5, 2012 • April 9, 2012 • Jun 4, 2012 • Aug. 6, 2012 • Sep 3, 2012 • Oct 1, 2012
Online School of The New York Film Academy
Do you have the ideas but lack the experience as a screenwriter to get them in screenplay form? Would expert instruction and feedback help shape your idea into a marketable screenplay? Now, you can receive professional instruction and feedback from an award winning screenwriter while you learn to write an original screenplay of 90-120 pages on your personal computer and on your own time schedule.
This course is equivalent to the eight-week screenwriting workshop that is available on-campus at the New York Film Academy. It is offered online over a nine-month period with online sessions once a week.
For more information please email cmayes@nyfa.edu or to register call (212) 674-4300
Award Winning Instructors
Claude Kerven received his MFA from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts. Kerven has directed over 25 shorts for Saturday Night Live. Director for Emmy Award winning Afterschool Specials - Birthday Boy, Candy Store, and the David Brenner Show. Co-wrote Mortal Thoughts, starring Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, and Harvey Keitel. His work has been nominated for a DGA Award and Cable Ace Award.Carol Mayes, (producer, writer, director), has years of industry experience. She has worked on a diverse array of projects for network television, as well as independently produced shorts, features, and animation. Her films as writer/director, "Commitments" (starring Allen Payne & Victoria Dillard) and "Rituals" (starring Regina King, Isaiah Washington, & Jenifer Lewis) were produced for BET Pictures and Lifetime Television, respectively. As a winner of the Disney/ABC Writing Fellowship, she has written features & television scripts for Disney Studios and ABC Television. Other credits include, writer, "East St." pilot episode for The N Network, and producer for segments on PBS' "Sesame Street". Other honors include, finalist for the Chesterfield Writer's Film Project, and awards from the Toronto International Film Festival, Director’s Guild of America, the CINE Golden Eagle, Student Academy Award Nomination, Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, and Urban World Film Festival.
Carol Mayes holds a Master of Fine Arts from The American Film Institute and a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University.
Seth Michael Donsky is the founding chairman of the screenwriting department at the New York Film Academy. He holds an M.F.A. in film from Columbia University where he was a twice awarded the Dean’s Fellowship, the highest merit award granted at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. He is a two-time national finalist of the Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmaker Contest. His short film, Loopy, won a generous development grant from Hallmark Entertainment, screened at festivals around the world, including the Cinequest film festival and the Short Film Festival of Clermont-Ferrand, and was nationally broadcast on The Independent Film Channel. His debut feature film, Twisted, which he wrote and directed, premiered at the 47th Annual Berlin International Film Festival where it was nominated for the Teddy Award. Twisted was distributed theatrically in the U.S. and throughout Europe and screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which awarded Seth an honorarium for the work. Additionally Seth is an internationally published journalist who has written for The New York Press, The Daily Beast, Gotham Magazine and Los Angeles Confidential among other titles. His most recent project, The Usher Treatment, a gothic drama, has been optioned by RFC Productions, founded by the late Robert F. Colesberry, co-creator of HBO's The Wire.
Online Learning
New York Film Academy’s online learning is interactive and participative. Students complete one course at a time, progress to the next course in the same way as students who meet at our on-campus classrooms and work in teams with their classmates for special projects.The Screenwriting class is held completely online and was developed by the same faculty that created the rigorous curriculum that is used in our one-year classroom screenwriting program. Rather than gathering in a traditional classroom, students and instructors interact electronically, resulting in increased access for students by allowing them to control the time and place of their participation.
Lectures and screenings are made available weekly for download or stream, assignments are posted and classes will meet online once a week for discussion and critique with the instructor.
Our online school allows you to work independently and in groups, no matter where or when you work. When students log on to the Online School website, they can:
- check their email.
- complete coursework through electronic forums.
- log in and participate with their classes when and where they choose.
- communicate online with classmates, instructors, and academic counselors.
- complete 100% of their educational and administrative activities online.
Rigorous Curriculum
Screenwriting is the foundation of which filmmaking is built on. A writer is very much like a craftsman who must train by doing-- writing every day possible. This is why NYFA requires, daily assignments and weekly deadlines.Students are required to complete 38 weekly live workshops with the instructor online. Downloadable mini-lectures and sample screenplays demonstrate concepts and help students prepare for assignments. Throughout the program students will receive extensive feedback and script notes from the instructor on their screenplay.
Upon completion of the program, students will have gained an in-depth understanding of story structure, character, conflict and dialogue, and the completed first draft of a feature length film script (90-120 pages); which students can pitch, produce, and try to sell.
Program Topics
Story Generation introduces students to the workhorse of the screenwriting business -- treatments. On fast and furious deadlines, students will be expected to create two high concept screenplay ideas, flesh out characters, and organize their story structures. The end product will be two treatments, which can be used as the foundation for their feature-length screenplay.Screenplay Analysis is designed to further students' knowledge of the intricacies of feature-length screenwriting. Each week, students will be required to read a script prior to an in-class screening of that same film. The instructor will then critique the film as it is screened, offering minute-by-minute observations focusing on such topics as subplot development, visual storytelling, turning points, planting and pay-off, and character development.
Elements of Screenwriting introduces students to the craft of screenwriting, establishing a foundation for all future writing. Through lectures and clips, the instructor will highlight a specific topic that students will then analyze in classroom discussion and practice through skill-building exercises.
Screenplay Workshop Sessions are student-driven classes in which student work is evaluated and critiqued. Deadlines will be established that guide students in the development of a feature-length screenplay from logline to treatment, then from outline to screenplay. Each student will be allocated one-half hour of workshop time every month in which his/her work will be critiqued. A constructive, creative and supportive atmosphere will be strongly encouraged.
In the second half of the year the workshops continue, providing students an arena in which to complete the final draft of their screenplay. This will be the perfect place for students to practice the art of discipline, as they will be expected to work at their own rates and to present scenes only every month.
Screenplay formatting will be a major focus, and students will learn how to write scene descriptions, to describe characters and locations, and to develop action sequences. Course topics covered include:
- classic screenplay structure
- elements of the scene
- developing the character
- character arcs
- antagonists
- dialogue
- writing the visual image
- theme
- conflict
- flashbacks
- fantasy sequences and dream sequences
- voiceover
- text and subtext
- developing your writing style
- tone and genre
- visualization
- revealing exposition
- creating a compelling second act
- climaxes and resolutions
- beats of the scene
