INTRODUCTION TO SCREEN WRITING COURSE AT THE CREATIVE HUB
Over ten weeks, film and TV veteran Alan Brash (coordinator), Christina Milligan and other industry professionals, including specialist script editors and screen producers, will take you through the fundamentals required to write short films, features, and TV series. Learn about basic script structure templates; become familiar with the language and medium-specific rules of screenwriting; learn what’s required to write drama in any form, and what makes a screenplay different from writing prose or plays. Find out how to recognise subtext and why you need it in your writing. Learn what makes characters feel authentic and engaging. Discover the purpose of dialogue and how to effectively write everything in a scene that’s not dialogue.
Between them, Alan and Christina have worked on several top-rating TV series both here and in Australia, both as screenplay writers and script editors. Alan has taught screenwriting at Unitec and South Seas Film & Television School, having worked in the film and TV industry going back to the early 1990s, including writing for Shortland Street and creating the TV3 dramedy The Strip. His directorial debut, the short film Be Careful…, played at the Show Me Shorts Film Festival in 2010.
Christina has over 25 years experience in the film and television industry as a producer, writer and script executive. Her television writing credits include the top-ranked Australian dramas McLeod’s Daughters and All Saints. Her script editing credits include the hit television series Gloss and Erebus: The Aftermath, and the Emmy-nominated historical New Zealand series Hanlon. As a producer she shared an NZ Best Film Award with Ian Mune for his feature adaptation of Bruce Mason’s The End of the Golden Weather and she has recently produced Nights in the Garden of Spain, an adaptation of the Witi Ihimaera novel. Her short film work includes the 2010 Berlin Film Festival winner Aphrodite’s Farm and 2010 Sundance hit This Is Her. She has sat on and chaired various film and television boards.
The course will be a mixture of tips, explanations and information from Alan and others; illustrations from successful short and feature films & TV programs, and in-class exercises and discussion. You don’t need to come to the class with story ideas, though there will be some opportunity for feedback about any ideas you do have if you wish to share them.
For more information contact The Creative Hub: enquiries@thecreativehub.net.nz or download an enrolment form from www.thecreativehub.net.nz.
The course begins on 31 May and runs for 10 weeks on Tuesday nights, 6-8pm. We look forward to seeing you there!
The Creative Hub Rooms, Maritime Museum | 31 May for 10 weeks | 6 – 8pm