MA Screenwriting

University of Hertfordshire

This module explores the dual aspects of film storytelling in the written script and in its translation to the visual medium of film, through production practices. You will consider a range of screenwriting and storytelling methods, and see how these translate from script to screen, as well as how actors and directors interpret written direction. Screenwriters learn about how to write for the screen, while filmmakers learn how to adapt a script into a moving image. Additionally, the module introduces you to the environmental impact of global and national production methods, regulations and policy, and ways in which to reduce the carbon footprint of productions with the accredited BAFTA albert certification training and assessment.

This module aims to equip you with a range of research skills which can be deployed in academic and professional contexts within your chosen area of discipline. Focusing on both academic and industry research and presentation, key skills addressed include those of research management, critical evaluation, academic conventions, research methodologies, and a range of modes of contextual analysis. The module provides an opportunity for you to engage with a cross-section of people and environments from throughout the creative industries, seeking an understanding of how your own practice may be located within these contexts, locally, nationally or globally.

This module explores and applies the skills required to plan and prepare to work on and participate in the completion of a professional film production (documentary or fiction) or feature length script in readiness for application in one of the following Semester C modules: 7CTA2011 Major Project in Film Producing 7CTA2012 Major Project in Screenwriting 7CTA2076 Major Project in Film Editing and Post Production 7CTA2101 Major Project in Factual and Documentary 7CTA2102 Major Project in Cinematography 7CTA2103 Major Project in Directing It provides an overview of scheduling and budgeting for a professional film production, as well as protocols of working with cast/contributors and crew, story outlines and script planning (including synopses, treatments and beat sheets), scheduling, production management and budgeting, casting, preparing to direct and how a director works with their creative team, pre-production cinematography and lighting design, post production and editing considerations, post workflows, marketing and delivery, post-completion sales and the value chain. A pre-production pack, aimed to inform the writing of a feature script or production of a short film, is typically created in readiness for the major study.

This module enables you to realise a substantial script at Masters level, having negotiated the work to be undertaken in the 7CTA2020 Major Project Development and Planning module prior to this. Supported by a mentor staff member, you will receive one-to-one tutorials and mentoring sessions during the various stages of the scriptwriting process – including draft reviews – in order to assist you in generating independent, self-managed project work at an advanced level. The Major Project offers a setting in which you can increase your confidence in creative decision making, whilst expanding awareness of the requirements of film style and technologies, the marketplace and audiences. With tutor supervision, you are expected to work independently and to manage the challenge of their Major Project.