Overview
This introductory course examines writing for theatre, film, television, audio drama, digital video, and emerging media. It treats the script as a blueprint for embodied, voiced, visual, sonic, and collaborative storytelling, addressing premise, theme, dramatic action, conflict, objectives, character arcs, scene construction, structure, pacing, dialogue, subtext, silence, visual storytelling, sound, format conventions, stage directions, screenplay terminology, adaptation, genre, and audience.
Through close analysis of scripts and selected produced works, students investigate how medium, genre, audience, and production conditions shape creative decisions. Workshops develop premise generation, character and story development, scene writing, table reads, staged readings, peer feedback, redrafting, and professional communication with performers and production teams. The course also addresses representation, consent, authorship, intellectual property, and practical submission standards.
Learning Outcomes
- Construct correctly formatted short scripts for performance or audiovisual media.
- Create purposeful characters, scenes, and sequences using dramatic action, objectives, conflict, structure, and pacing.
- Distinguish showing from telling and apply visual, sonic, spatial, and embodied storytelling techniques.
- Compose dialogue, silence, subtext, stage directions, and screenplay action appropriate to medium and genre.
- Analyze how medium, audience, production conditions, and format conventions influence creative choices.
- Revise scripts substantively in response to live, recorded, and written feedback.
- Collaborate professionally with writers, performers, directors, and production teams using clear communication practices.
- Evaluate issues of representation, consent, authorship, intellectual property, and ethical creative practice.
- Explain the relationship between script form and produced work across theatre, film, television, audio, and digital media.
Timetable
| Type | Length | Frequency | Period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lecture | 2 hours | Weekly | All semester |
| Workshop | 2 hours | Weekly | All semester |
| Tutorial | 2 hours | Fortnightly | All semester |
| Practicum | 2 hours | Fortnightly | Second term |
Assessment Schedule
| Type | Description | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Assignment | Script analysis and comparative media response | 15.00% |
| Deliverable | Short script portfolio: premise, character, scene, and sequence exercises | 25.00% |
| Attendance | Workshop participation and professional peer feedback | 10.00% |
| Assignment | Table-read revision submission | 15.00% |
| Capstone | Formatted short script | 25.00% |
| Assignment | Reflective commentary on process, collaboration, and production context | 10.00% |
Teaching Staff & Programs
This course is delivered jointly by faculty from the participating programs listed below. In line with the Douchewater Way, the University of Sexology tailors core instruction directly to each cohort's specific discipline — adapting curriculum to program needs rather than forcing students into a one-size-fits-all model. Learn more about our approach at The Douchewater Way.