Advanced Studies Program: The Screenwriter as an author
Advanced Studies
Campus: Santo Domingo
CHAVÓN’s Script Writing Program is conceived as a writer’s lab, offering follow-ups to scripts in their idea, synopsis, plot, or first draft phases. Through classes and one-on-one sessions with both foreign and Dominican professionals of the trade, you’ll dive deep into your stories, enhancing them and bringing them to life. You will go through the basics of what it means to write a script, and find what is unique in each of your projects. The balance between group classes and tailor-made individual sessions provides a dynamic circle of creativuty, in which you will not only dive into your stories, but also learn to read and discuss others’ stories effectively.
Writing a script is one of the loneliest processes on the road to making a movie. That is why we want to create alongside you during the course of six months. Once the program is over, you will have not only a new draft of your script, but also the tools to continue working on it – as well as a group of teachers and colleagues with whom to continue collaborating. After all, it doesn’t matter if a story has been told a thousand times — as long as you need to tell it, it will always be unique.
“I don’t think plot as plot means much nowadays. I’d say we’ve all seen all the plots millions of times. What we have not seen are the characters and their relationships between them.” This quote by Howard Hawks, is the foundation of what it means to create a story today. In a creative context in which everything seems to have been told countless times, we have to find our singularities, our own syntax. The best way to create something unique is sincerity – a communion between the author, the story, the characters, and the way that story needs to be told. For that, a screenwriter needs all the tools at their disposal, and a whole lot of feeling.
Class starts on March 4, 2024
Admissions Window: From September 19 to November 30, 2023
CONTACT
Ann Marie Fernandez
Admissions Advisor
Phone: + 1 (809) 563.2802
Email: afernandez@chavon.edu.do
Calle Paseo de los Aviadores,
No. 5. Ens. Miraflores
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Audience and Objectives
The Program is aimed at students or professionals who have an idea for a feature film script and seek to:
- Strengthen a draft of their script with the necessary tools for future drafts.
- Establish or reinforce, in a useful way, the tools for script writing.
- Enhance the creative process through a dialogue with the other students and teachers.
- Enhance the voice of each author to find originality within each story.
- Offer an environment that encourages future collaborations.
Format
- Online and In-person classes
- 3-hour sessions, three times a week
- 6:00 pm. to 9:00 p.m.
- Duration of 20 weeks
- 350 hours
Each phase of the course includes group and individual counseling, directly related to the state in which each story is found and to the contents of the ongoing workshop.
Group and individual tutoring will be held outside class hours, and will be arranged between students and teachers.
The Program includes 2 in-person workshops of 1 week at the School grounds, for intensive writing retreats and group counseling. (Lodging and food costs are not included.) These classes will also be available on a virtual platform for those who cannot participate in person.
Methodology
The Program is built as a theoretical-practical project lab, offering tools to be used in each of the projects, as well as individual or collective tutoring sessions with teachers.
The course is divided into five phases:
- The first intends to return to the heart of history and make a first approach to the structure, ending with the rewriting of the synopsis.
- In the second, we will enter fully into the different structural paradigms to end with a argument version.
- In the third we will focus mainly on the character and his environment (other characters, their context, their past) in order to define their dramatic arc through the story, ending with a first version of the script.
- In the fourth we will analyze that first version from a semiotic point of view and tools will be acquired to face the rewrite, with which you close this module.
- Finally, the fifth will consist of advice from project development, both for the portfolio and for the pitch, ending with the final presentation of the projects.
Each phase includes short seminars to support other areas of writing: semiotics classes that allow them to expand their reflection process, a seminar on new narratives, to explore other creative platforms and other ways of storytelling, and a third on Show Runners and their fundamental role in the creation of a TV Series.
In addition to this, each phase will include a master class on narratology, the hero’s journey, and narrative structures. Likewise, every week, students will be able to attend, in person, the screenings organized by the Film department, in which a selection of films are screened and are then followed by a cinema forum to analyze/discuss said works with the professors or invited filmmakers.
Our Faculty and advisers are made up of prominent international scriptwriters and script doctors.
Related Post : commercial real estate in New Jersey
Admissions
Applications for admissions to the Advanced Studies Program in Screen-writing at CHAVÓN may be submitted during the application window.
Application Window:
September 19th – November 30th, 2023
Class Starts:
March 4th, 2024
Admitted applicants will be notified of the admissions decision during the following months by one of our advisors.
Requirements
• Participants must be at least 21 years old and speak Spanish
• Participants can be graduates of any discipline, but their prior knowledge and/or experience in writing will be taken into account.
• Participants must have at least one idea for a script for a feature film or fiction series or documentary, either original or adapted.
• Participants must send a brief synopsis of said idea, a motivation letter about why they want to tell that story, and a resume where they talk about their training, experience, and their relationship with film.
• Participants must have notions of writing a film script, especially in terms of format.
• Participants must have access to a specialized application for writing a film script, such as Final Draft or Celtx.
Study Program
First Module
- Basics of the Script
- Narrative Construction Tools
- From Idea to Synopsis
- Writing of the Synopsis and Individual Consultations
Second Module
- The Sequential Structure
- Foundations of the Argument
- Structural Paradigms
- Plot Writing and Individual Assessments
Third Module
- Character Construction
- Dialogue as Action (Textual Figures)
- Writing from Improvisation (Vital Drive)
- Writing of the First Version and Individual Consultations
Fourth Module
- Semiotics
- Preparation for the Rewrite
- Writing of the Second Version and Individual Consultations
Fifth Module
- Portfolio Development
- Portfolio Building
- Portfolio Consulting
- Final Presentation of the Projects
