编剧基础教学大纲

一、课程基本信息

开课单位: 课程代码: ARTS1101
课程名称: 编剧基础 英文名称: Introduction to Screenwriting
学 分: 3 学 时: 48
授课对象:   授课语言: 英语
先修课程: 无

二、课程简介和教学目的

We have evolved to tell stories. 40,000 years ago, a caveman was sitting around the fire telling the story of how he faced down and killed a cave-bear. His story transported the listeners. It put them in the caveman’s “shoes” and made them feel the paralyzing fear of seeing the giant beast. It helped them experience overcoming that fear… and winning. And maybe, just maybe, if those listeners ever found themselves in a similar experience, it gave them a slightly better chance to survive. As we evolved, stories evolved. They stopped just being about just surviving better, and started being about LIVING better. Stories became a means for us to discover, explore, and pass on universal truths, as well as a way to explore our own truths, our hearts, and our own spiritual evolution. And in its highest form, storytelling has become a way to evolve society. While laws can be passed to tell people how to live, stories have the power to transform people’s hearts and souls, and make them see their world in a whole new way. If you can change the stories we tell about ourselves… you can change the world. A great deal of writing is personal. It comes from your own experiences, and from your soul expressing itself in words on paper. But there is also a craft to writing. How we tell our stories can make them better or worse. This class will focus on both of these aspects of writing. First, it will focus on helping you to find your voice. To figure out what makes you you. To understand what makes you special, and why that needs to be expressed on a page. At the same time, we’ll focus on how to tell your story in a more profound, and impactful way. To understand the craft of writing which has evolved since before Egyptians first carved hieroglyphics on stone thousands of years ago. The objective is to learn how these elements engage an audience and how we can use these elements to tell our own unique stories. The highest mark of a story is that it moves people emotionally; that it transforms the viewer, leaving them a different person walking out of the theater than the one who walked in. The objective of this class is to learn how to create engaging characters and then put then on a journey worth following—a worthwhile story. We’ll examine the elements required to create a living, breathing protagonist and the techniques required to tell his or her story. By learning these elements and techniques, we’ll better understand how to develop stories that are both unique and engaging. To that end, we’ll focus on writing exercises specifically designed for screenwriters and storytellers. This will lay the foundation for writing a short screenplay, encompassing the lessons learned over the course of the semester. To summarize, the objectives for this course are to: -- Understand what makes a movie move and transform us. -- Learn how to create memorable characters who embark on journeys worth following. -- Find personal and emotional connections to our characters and stories. (To understand what makes our own voice.) -- Write engaging scenes, create conflict using specific obstacles, and build to a -- Build your character’s world and his or her relationship to it. -- Learn the structures of Plot, Character, and Theme, and try to get them to“dance together.” -- Pitch your ideas and stories and answer questions about them. -- Develop a short treatment. -- Write, rewrite, and polish a forty to fifty page script. -- To learn the process of writing.

三、教学内容、教学方式和学时安排

COURSE SCHEDULE:
Week One, February 19: MINING YOUR OWN EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE (1)
Class Introductions
Introductory Lecture - Why do we tell stories?
Goal-setting: What do you want to learn in this class?
Review syllabus
In Class Exercise: Character & Emotion, Mining Your Own Experience
“Trip To School”
Assignments:
Character & Emotion, Mining Your Own Experience
“Favorite Toy,” “Powerful Presence,” “Frightening Person”
(Prose)


Week Two, February 26: MINING YOUR OWN EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE (2)
Storytelling Fundamentals: Seven Essential Storytelling Elements
Introduce Screenplay Format
Workshop Assignments
Assignments:
Character and Emotion: Mining Your Own Experience
“Moment of Greatest Pride”
“Moment of Deepest Shame”
(Prose)
Read: Selected Script
NOTES: The focus of weeks 1 & 2 is to mine your own emotional experiences,
and then explore the question: which of these experiences caused others in the
classroom to also feel something… and why? / Similarly, we’ll ask what types of
stories each person wants to tell, and why? / How are they linked?


Week Three, March 5: CREATING A PROTAGONIST
Workshop Assignments
Lectures:
“Creating a Protagonist” Lecture
“Protagonist’s Status Quo” Lecture: Setting your protagonist up for profound
change.

Want vs Need. Life’s Dream. Current Predicament.
Establishing inner character through behavior.
Assignments:
1) Write or describe three moments of your protagonists behaviors that crystalize
their inner character for the audience.


Week Four, March 12: ARCING A CHARACTER
Workshop Assignments
Lecture: Arcing a character.
Assignments:
1) Write or describe three moments of forced change where your protagonist is
forced to change (their need) in order to achieve their goal (their want.)
2) Read: Selected Script


Week Five, March 19: BUILDING TENSION & ESCALATION
Workshop Assignments
Lectures:
Fundamentals of scene-work - High Stakes, Opposing goals, Escalation
“What Happens Next?”
Assignments:
1) Scene of Preparation for A Significant Event & Aftermath (prose)
2) Seduction/Persuasion (Screenplay Format)


Week Six, March 26: DIALOGUE & SUBTEXT
Workshop Assignments
Lectures:
Fundamentals of Dialogue: vocabulary, personality, and psychology.
“Inside Information” Lecture
“Plants and Payoffs” Lecture
Assignments:
Creative Lie or Wrongest Person/Intruder
(Screenplay Format)
Read: Selected Script

Week Seven, April 2: THE PITCH
Workshop Assignments
Lectures:
“Sequences, History & Overview” Lecture
Creating a short verbal pitch
Workshop Assignments
Assignments:
Prepare one-minute pitch for three ideas for scripts. Rehearse pitches. Be
prepared to answer a few questions. (Verbal presentation)


Week Eight, April 9: THE TREATMENT
Pitch Three Stories
Discuss Stories
Select Story
LECTURE: Protagonist’s Journey through the Sequences: Status Quo, POA,
Debate, Lock In, Main Tension, Goal, New World, Exploration, Attempts &
Obstacles, Midpoint Reversal, Psychological Growth, False Resolution, New
Hope, Catharsis, Resolution, New Status Quo.
Assignments:
Two-page story treatment


Week Nine, April 16: THE FIRST ACT
Workshop Treatments
Lectures:
“Theme” Lecture
“Basic Story Structure” Lecture
Assignments:
Write first ten pages of script

Week Ten, April 23: THE SECOND ACT
Workshop first ten pages of script
Status Quo, POA, Debate, Lock In
Assignments:
Implement notes on first ten script pages
Write next ten pages of script


Week Eleven, May 7: THE THIRD ACT
Workshop next new script pages
Track Want vs Need & Obstacles
Track Character Change/Growth leading to Catharsis
Clarity
Assignments:
Implements notes on new script pages
Write last ten pages of script


Week Twelve, May 14: THE POLISH
Workshop the remainder of script pages
Final notes on script
Audience Engagement (Review character and storytelling elements with
respect to audience engagement.)
Assignments:
Implements notes on remainder of script pages
Final pass on scripts


MAY 21: FINAL DRAFTS DUE AT 5:00 PM

四、考核方式和成绩评定

Participation: 20% (feedback on your classmates’ work) Assignments: 40% Final Script: 40%

五、推荐教材和参考书目

书名 作者 译者 出版社 出版时间 ISBN

六、其他说明

该课程已经过面试确定学生名单。

七、教师信息

授课教师： Peter Robinson
课程负责人： Peter Robinson