Screenwriting Course with Ferdia Mac Anna

Ferdia Mac Anna -- Novelist, Playwright, Screenwriter and Lecturer in Film and Drama -- is teaching a new screenwriting course that aims to help budding writers complete a first draft screenplay in 12 weeks.

This course is geared primarily for people who have an idea for a film in their heads, but have struggled to get it on paper or past the treatment stage into a coherent screenplay structure.

The course will examine:

• The Three Act Structure (and the alternatives)


• Story and Plot


• Character Arc and Character


• Development


• Visual Writing


• Screenplay Emotions


• Theme


• Dialogue and Plot Points


• Plus the basics, such as Log-lines, Step Outlines and Treatments.

Class begins on Tursday March 27th at Airfield House, Dundrum from 7 - 9.15pm, and continues each Tuesday for twelve weeks. Ideally, the student will attend class one night a week, and then receive email instruction at a prearranged time later in the week where written work (treatments, first draft of act 1 etc) can be assessed and notes provided -- in other words, a process of on-going script and story editing and assessment. When the student comes to class the following week, they should have taken the notes on board and moved their project forward.

The classes will be small -- no more than eight students -- to ensure
that there will be individual attention to script, story and
character.

The fee for the course is €800 euros, but all Guild members will receive a 10% discount.

Further mentoring will be available after the twelve weeks should the student wish to bring their script to second or third draft stage or even beyond.

Email: talldub55@eircom.net

(Ferdia Mac Anna is a novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, as well as a BAFTA winning producer for Custer's Last Stand Up. He works as a freelance producer and director and also lectures in Screenwriting, Media Production and Practice at IADT and was until recently, Head of Writing and Directing at the Irish Film Academy. He also works as a script and story consultant for film and television productions. Recently, he has been added to the Irish Film Board's roster of approved script editors.)