The final project will be an original, self-contained short screenplay (10-15 pages) which students will outline, write and revise during the last 3 weeks of the class.
The “Screenwriting I” course offered at The Barrow Group served as a fantastic platform to jump-start my writing career. As someone who had no formal education or experience in the field, the class provided a very basic and intuitive structure to the art of screenwriting. Once the fundamentals had been establish, the professor, Lorrel Manning, reinforced these concepts by having the class read various screenplays from well-known films. We also immediately put these new skills to use by writing our own scenes. As the weeks passed, the writing went from single scenes to multiple scenes to our very own short films. Lorrel provided direct and invigorating feedback along the way to ensure we kept our dialogue and scene construction focused. Although the class has ended, the ongoing assistance from colleagues and Lorrel has been indispensable as I journey through my new career. By the end of the eight week program, I not only learned how to write a screenplay, I wrote one myself. I also made invaluable contacts in the industry with the same interests and aspirations as myself that I intend on valuing for the years ahead.
–Sean Jussen