Screenwriting the Heart of Story

Everyone loves the movies, especially young people. At the heart of any good film lies a powerful story. The structure of the story is as old as Aristotle?s Poetics and as modern as the latest Hollywood blockbuster. In this workshop, the students, teacher(s), and artist collaboratively craft the script for a short film, drawing from this age-old structure. The process not only teaches students about screenwriting, but also furthers their understanding of ?story?, literature, mythology, and drama and develops skills expected by the State?s Essential Learnings in the Arts. The focus of the workshop is not on performance or film production, rather it is on the art of creating a compelling story and the craft of putting that story into screenplay form. The Six Trait Writing method will be used throughout. Screenwriting naturally lends itself to other subjects, integrating science knowledge as science fiction, for example, or history skills by portraying the past. Just as George Lucas drew from mythology when writing Star Wars, the class can also draw its stories, characters and settings from a rich range of cultural traditions. At the end of the workshop, students will have both their original script and a videotape of the performance of that script to take home.