Instructor Froon and the Writers’ Classroom!
EDITED 11 Jan 2010 to add: Good heavens, the class roster is actually full!
(Click the banner below to check if any slots have opened up… or to get on the wait list.)
No, it’s not an Indiana Jones ripoff, it’s an actual UCLA Extension Writers’ Program course entitled – take a deep breath – “Beginning Writing for the One-Hour Drama: Building the Story and the Outline”… and I’ll be teaching it in the upcoming Winter Quarter 2010. The class meets for ten weeks, 7pm to 10pm on Thursdays, from January 14 through March 18 on the idyllic UCLA campus in Westwood.
You can check out this UCLA Extension page (or click on the above banner) for the official course description (and enrollment info), but here’s the course in a nutshell: (up to) twenty unsuspecting students each choose a current one-hour TV drama for which they’d like to write a “spec” episode. I whip them guide them through the process of developing episode ideas into story synopses, basic “beat sheets”, and full outlines. Along the way, students pitch their ideas in class for notes and feedback… and also form small “writing staffs” to help each other brainstorm and “break” their stories on a whiteboard, the same way professional TV writers’ rooms work. At the end of the ten weeks, each student should have a solid 12 to 15-page story outline that’s all set to be expanded into a spec teleplay.
(Had our innocent Mary Sue from my previous post taken this class, she’d've known everything there is to know (well, more or less) about the Process of Professional TV Scriptwriting before ever setting foot in the Space Slayers writers’ room…)
I bet that class is going to be awesome. I can see the room of students crying and begging for mercy now.
I was actually picturing a room of students wondering what happened to their eyeballs… *wbeg*
Now, now, you two, don’t scare anybody away.
cuts ‘n’ pastes from his syllabus:
Television writing is collaborative. Most TV scripts are born in the vigorous creative give-and-take of the professional “writers’ room” – and few TV writers can achieve successful careers unless they’re “good in the room”.
Much of this class, therefore, will be a “writers’ room” in which we’ll brainstorm ideas as a group, hear one another’s pitches, help break one another’s stories, and provide notes, feedback, suggestions, and mutual support.
To be productive, a writers’ room needs to be a “safe”, creative, and positive environment – a place where ideas and opinions are always welcomed and never belittled, where feedback is presented constructively and listened to without defensiveness. Ridicule, personal attacks, insults, and harassment will not be tolerated.
SO THERE NYAH.
Aww, I’m proud of you. That’s a pretty awesome section from the syllabus.
See, I know you talk a tough game, but really you’re a sweetheart.
Yay! Too cool, Fr!
Are you going to fine them a slab whenever their cellphones go off in class? (I’m sure it’ll be beer-o’clock in a Writers’ Room *somewhere*…)
(Wait, it’s always beer-o’clock in the Writers’ Room, isn’t it? Silly me…
)
Funny you should mention it. I’m making my Big List of Things to Yak About Each Week, and of course Week One contains all the Thou Shalt Nots (“Thou shalt not dine during class unless you bring enough for everybody”), and No Bleepin’ Electronic Devices is already on the list, along with a note to self to explain the Oz cellphone/slab rule (after I explain what a “slab” is, natch. So Much Terminology!)…