I have a meeting today with the teacher of the H.S. writing class about the screenwriting intro.
My plan is for 3 days, with the finished product one scene, to be table read on the third day, like a workshop, with some feedback.
So day one is just CONFLICT. Finding it, developing it, diving into it. I decided to go with a fanfic approach and suggest they use 2 characters they already know and like, so homework that night is to pick the characters they want to use and watch those two characters in action to identify CONFLICT.
Day two is SCENEWORK. Basically, how to write a scene that isn’t two people just spouting exposition. How to choose the circumstances and framework for the scene that reveal information visually. I think for this it will be discussion about scenes that stick out in peoples’ minds because of the visual reveals, and bring a couple of examples for them to table read.
That’s Friday, so they have the weekend to write a 1 pg scene, and the workshop day is Monday.
MY QUESTION TO YOU IS…
Is this a good plan? Here is actual footage of me developing this plan.
Jesus. I just realized I need three outfits for this gig.
So it’s good? I’ve never taught a high school class before.
It went really well! Obviously, you can’t teach someone to write a script in 3 days, but I started with protagonist, problems and why now (a super stealth way to deal with the dreaded logline) and followed up with developing real conflict on day 2. We settled on a logline on the third day and everyone got started writing a scene in correct format.
On the 4th day, when we read, I was amazed that everyone had come up with a scene that hit every mark!
