Summer School Screenwriting

An intense and enjoyable introduction to the art of visual storytelling for film and TV.
This three-week Summer School course aims to support aspiring writers in developing their creative writing skills in the area of screenwriting.

Lehrende

Keith Cunningham Head Lecturer
Screenwriter and head writer Keith Cunningham consulted on dozens of projects, led hundreds of seminars, and trained thousands of writers, directors, producers, and commissioning editors. His screenwriting and teaching career profits from his insights as a psychologist and specialist in creativity with years on set as a cameraman and lighting gaffer. The author of “The Soul of Screenwriting: On Writing, Dramatic Truth, and Knowing Yourself” has taught at AFI New York, the Director’s Guild, the Writer’s Guild in L.A., and numerous institutions, companies, and broadcasters all over the world. Keith Cunningham has been a guest lecturer at the ifs for over 12 years, and served as Substitute Professor of Serial Storytelling from 2016-2017. In addition, he headed the Writer’s Room Lab at the Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Heidelberg (DAI).

Alexander Daus Assistant Lecturer
Alexander Daus bought his first book on storytelling when he was 18 and fell in love with the theory of it all. He became a raging nerd hell-bent on understanding how it works. He started his career at the theatre, where during his two internships he saw drama come to life for the first time. He then went on to write, direct and produce a number of short films and shortly after moved to Berlin, where he worked as runner, set-manager, concept artist, screenwriter and script consultant for film productions and short film projects. Finally his dream came true and he was admitted to study screenwriting at the ifs internationale filmschule köln. Currently, Alexander works as a freelance writer, script consultant and writing instructor in Cologne. He is a regular lecturer at the ifs, giving workshops for the BA Screenwriting and MA Serial Storytelling since 2012.

Programm

In an enjoyable, supportive setting and through a combination of theory, practice and collaborative exercises, an international group of participants learns about all key aspects of this craft, ranging from premise, theme and topic to characters and character orchestration, from plot to scene structure, and from setting to subtext. Formal aspects like screenplay formatting, text forms and industry conventions are touched upon as well as tools and devices that help writers tell stories visually. All of these aspects, however, are never seen as stand-alone entities, but viewed as means supporting writers in finding and conveying the stories they want to tell. Any theoretical input is immediately applied to writing exercises before the participants eventually enter into the story development of their own original short film script.

Learning Outcomes

The Summer School Screenwriting supports writers in finding and voicing their vision, providing them with useful tools and essential screenwriting skills. In the end of the three-week course, participants will have developed a screenplay for a short film or a written work of comparable scope.

Struktur

Week One

Topics
• Introduction
• Finding your voice and expressing yourself through stories
• Screenwriting essentials (part I)
Format
Lectures, workshops & exercises

Week Two

Topics
• Screenwriting essentials (part II)
• Story development – short film script
Format
Lectures, workshops, writing & script consulting

Week Three

Topics
• Story development – short film script
• Feedback and conclusion
Format
Writing & script consulting

Voraussetzungen

This program is open to aspiring writers from various backgrounds, e.g. high-school students, current undergraduate students, postgraduate students, or media professionals from other fields. As the Summer School Screenwriting will be held in English, applicants need to have English language skills of B2-level or higher.

Registration Documents

• Registration form (fully completed and signed)
• CV (English language)
• Idea-outline for a short film (1 page)
• Copy of student ID (when requesting student discount rate)

Summer School Screenwriting