Writing for Film, Television & Games Curriculum

This seven-week course explores the concepts writers need to be aware of and understand to make the choices that best tell their story. Whether directing a documentary or fiction film, VFS students will produce more interesting, complex films when they are aware of, understand or practice the following concepts: the evolution of cinema historically and globally, the significance and characteristics of film form, style, folklore and journey patterns, ideology, anti- narrative film and marginalized voices.

In this hands-on course, students will become completely comfortable with screenwriting software and learn to write screenplays in the correct, up-to-date, industry standard format. The focus here is on writer's drafts, not on shooting scripts, but we will also discuss the differences between them, as well as both feature film and television formats.

The best idea is nothing without the right pitch. This course is designed around structure and delivery of pitches. It is the “how” - how to present ideas dramatically and effectively. Using industry standard methods and practices, students will learn to actively pitch ideas with an eye to concept, theme and genre. This course will consist of lectures, discussions, in-class exercises and out of class prep assignments.

This course provides an overview of the narrative elements that define the dramatic genre and contemporary three act screenplay structure. Students will read and study assigned screenplays to gain an understanding of how narrative elements combine to tell a story and make a screenplay readable. Students will also be introduced to three act structure and learn how to deconstruct a screenplay into three acts. In addition, students will be introduced to the Hero’s Journey as an archetypal structure paradigm.

This is an eight week course in which students will learn how to write an effective short screenplay. In the first 3 classes we will analyse a variety of short films and discuss them in class, breaking them down in terms of character, goals, structure and theme.In the 4th class students will pitch two ideas for a short screenplay to the class and give and listen to feedback. They will then expand their pitch ideas into an 8 - 11 page screenplay, which they will rewrite twice for a total of 3 drafts. All writing is to be done outside of class time. The final 4 classes consist of workshopping drafts 1 and 2 of the short scripts. Students will give and receive feedback before rewriting their drafts.Students will be graded on drafts 2 and 3.

The concept of story is as old as human experience, language, and the desire to make sense of our existence. In this course we’ll explore how to create and deliver causally progressive character driven feature length stories with strong, compelling themes.

In order to write successfully for television, a writer must have a core understanding of genre. Through exploring the various dramatic and comedic formats, students will learn how genre informs the industry in the context and their own writing choices.

In this course, we explore the challenges of incorporating interactive narrative and archetypical folktale patterns through which we gain the secrets to creating powerful interactive worlds that prove irresistible to explore. How do we tell a story for a video game? How do we immerse the player into the game world? How do we make them care for the characters and, most importantly, make the player want to achieve a game’s ultimate goal? We also focus on understanding the techniques of developing a story in a game and giving a step-by-step guideline to creating gaming worlds with interesting problems.

Students will be guided through the various preparatory stages required to write a feature length screenplay. With a pre-selection of one of the low budget story concepts workshopped in Story and Character, the student will be immersed in the process of beating out a clear, uncluttered, causal progression of events, developing the plot into a 26-point beat sheet. The process begins with in-class discussion and whiteboard work on characters, goals, motives and the writer’s story intentions, focusing on character development and key plot points that serve the story and provide the basis of its dramatic structure. When the point of the story is clear and the structure is sound, students will begin work on their beat sheets to explore the possibilities of plot; that is to say, the key, causally progressive events that facilitate character arcs and move the story to an organic conclusion. Attention will be paid to simple questions and simple answers of what happens and why, as opposed to the specifics of how. These 26-point beat sheets (in a document with a 3-page maximum) will then be workshopped and rewritten, moving them from first drafts to viable second drafts in preparation for next term when the student will commence writing pages of their feature.

In this course, students learn the different script formats for half- hour and one-hour television series. They also discover how to write a beat sheet, outline and the first draft of a script for an existing television series. This course consists of screenings, lectures and workshops.

This term two follow up course to Story and Character is delivered in a workshop format and concentrates on further developing character and plotting their arc to fulfill expectations from the low budget feature script assignment from term one.

Plan and Start Writing a Memoir, a Novel, or a Graphic Novel.

Specifically tailored for film, this course will guide students through the steps of writing believable character-driven dialogue. With specific in-class writing exercises, students will be able to identify what makes dialogue interesting, believable and workable. They will create short scenes, from one to three pages long, which they will edit in-between classes. At the end of the course, students are expected to hand in a finished collection of scenes that demonstrate their ability to produce effective film dialogue.

In this course, students will be introduced to the design document, the primary creative document used in the video game industry. Students will learn what goes into a design document, its role within the industry, and how to best use the format as a storyteller. By the end of the course, students will have a completed design document for a game of their own devising.

This genre studies course focuses on close textual analyses of seminal crime dramas, exploring themes and traversing the latitudes and limitations of the genre through a variety of its subgenres, noting how each fulfills specific conventions while still conforming to the classical three act structure and the hero’s journey.

Sketch comedy writing is one of the most popular forms of comedic writing and can lead to a successful career in television, radio or on stage. In this class, students will learn how to create and develop original ideas and concepts for writing their own comedic sketches. They will discover the basics tools and techniques for writing comedy, deconstruct what makes a joke funny and learn to understand comedic structure. They will explore writing sketches individually, with partners and with a group in order to understand the unique dynamics of each.

In this six-week course students will develop the treatment they wrote in basic tools into a full-length feature script. A completed first draft will be workshopped in class. This process will then lead the way for second draft revisions in later terms.

In Introduction to Dialogue Design, students will learn the basics of interactive storytelling through the exploration of examples in video games and interactive fiction. This theory will then put into practice as students build upon the foundations of what they’ve learned in previous terms, by programming their own interactive narratives and dialogue trees using basic coding techniques.

Everything old is new again. How the programs of the past influence the programs we will be writing in the future. To understand the television and video games of today, it’s important to understand their beginnings. Who were the pioneers of these relatively new mediums? We examine how their creative contributions are still resonating in what the public views today. Through viewing and discussions, this course will focus on how television developed as a medium in the 50s, 60s and 70s, and how video games developed in the 90s and 2000s.

The best idea is nothing without the right pitch. This course is designed around process, structure and content. It is the “how” (how to present ideas dramatically and effectively), then the “what” (content). Using industry standard methods and practices, students will learn to actively pitch ideas with an eye to concept, marketplace, media and genre. This course will consist of lectures, discussions, in-class exercises and out of class prep assignments.

This course provides an overview of the narrative elements that define film genre and applies it to comedies by examining specific sub-genres such as Romantic, Teen, Gross-out, Dark, Family and Buddy/Road comedies. Students will study comedy screenplays to gain an understanding of how narrative elements combine to tell a story, make a screenplay readable, what creates laughter/and impact on the page and what inspires the reader.

The second act contains the body of a feature script and it is also the place that can cause the most problems. In this course, students will learn how to construct a strong second act, identify places in their features that are weak and find solutions to make their script stronger while avoiding similar problems in future scripts.

Write and pitch for documentary and unscripted (formerly “reality”) television, including feature documentaries and series, lifestyle television, reno shows, game shows, podcasts, etc.

This course builds on the principles established in “Storytelling” and “Creative Writing.” It focuses on the challenges of telling a story in the interactive and nonlinear world of computer games. Game Designers will gain an understanding of the techniques used to immerse a player in a role in an interactive world. Through lectures, game and film clips, and practical real-time exercises, students will learn the fundamental structures and emotion enhancing tools to immerse a player in an interactive environment.

In Term 5 and 6, students will design and build an Industry style project using tools and techniques that they have learned in Terms 1-4. Students will plan out their projects, what tools they will use to build them, and create a visual design. The size and scope of these deliverables requires tremendous dedication and effort, and efficient execution and ongoing team and project management. Term 4’s Preproduction Design course is a major portion of planning for the Projects. The classes will consist of mentored time to focus on team building, design documents, visual designs and technical design planning. The foundation for a Project Plan and schedule will also be created concurrently in the Term 4‘s PreProduction Project Planning’ course and allow students to begin development of their Projects at the start of Term 5.

This advanced course focuses on the modeling and texturing skills required to build professional-level portfolio pieces. Using reference gathering, Maya and ZBrush, students produce one highly polished, portfolio-quality piece. Professional workflows will be introduced to further detail models and textures. Students will be assessed on a continuous basis in class and on completed final assignments. The lessons consist of demonstrations followed by direct production workshop sessions. This course provides the students with the proper workflow for creating highly detailed pieces which will help them build out their professional portfolios. Topics covered include Hard Surface and Organic Sculpting in Zbrush, Retopology and UV unwrapping in Maya, High to Low baking and texturing in Substance Painter and engine integration of the assets created.

With game levels using ever larger environments, good quality set dressing and detailed immersive lighting is needed to enhance the game experience. In this course, we will learn how to quickly build out an environment using modular pieces, create simple lighting and composition for game levels. Students start by reference gatherings, then using Maya for UV unwrapping for tiling textures, using Substance Designer for tiling texture creation and engine integration of assets followed by set dressing, lighting, and composition of an environment in Unreal.

During this course, students will continue to work on their game project created in ‘Level Design Pipeline’ class in term 3. They’ll learn more technical aspects that influence level design as well as other areas of the Unreal Engine. Learning how to work with behavior trees to create AI states, more practice creating shaders to enhance levels, working with dynamic material instances and how to update their properties on runtime. By the end of the term, students will have more practical experience following practices and processes for designing and constructing levels for different genres of games. They’ll also have a completed game they’ve been working on for the past 2 terms that can be used on their portfolio.

Using Unity3D and Visual Studio, this course builds upon the fundamental programming skills learned in previous programming and Unity classes. This course continues to refine the students' abilities as related to game development. Topics covered include advanced object-oriented programming, programming patterns, event-based programming, animation state graphs and animation events, mission scripting, rendering and lighting implementation & performance, code performance and profiling and advanced debugging and testing. Students will create a melee combat project and a top-down shooter with mission objectives.

Pre-Production Project Planning establishes core foundation skills in the area of project management. Students will develop an understanding of project planning, execution, tracking, risk analysis and closure in the project life cycle in the field of game development. Class time will focus on project management theory and in-class, mentored practical assignments in areas such as work breakdown, estimation and scheduling, risk management, project resources, and quality management. Emphasis will be placed on developing a project plan and schedule for current game design assignments.

Taking the output of the requirements analysis class, students develop a technical design document (TDD) to fully scope out a software project. The TDD helps identify the key software features, development time-scales, test plans, prototype development, and external contingencies.

Production Documents will take the students' design and documentation skills practiced in previous terms and expand on them with a course mostly focused on document creation and editing. Most classes begin with lectures detailing a variety of gameplay mechanics and systems with a focus on what makes for a clear and complete design specification. Later in the course, once final project concepts have been confirmed, this class' assignments focus on the clear and complete documentation of the mechanics, systems and level design making up their final project games. Most classes include at least some mentored time to review and refine concepts, discuss design, and write documentation.

The development of games is not only about creativity, technical, and artistic elements; it also has diverse business aspects. This course provides students with a grounding in the three key areas of business associated with game development. The course consists of three separate sessions: Legal Wrangling; Dollars and Sense; and Marketing Savvy.

This hands-on course introduces game designers to the tools and techniques of film production. In addition to pre-production basics, the course provides a comprehensive overview of camera operation, sound and lighting techniques, as well as the storyboarding process. Each student writes a cinematic treatment and create a storyboard for a film trailer.

In Terms 5 and 6, students will design and build an Industry style project using tools and techniques they learned in Terms 1-4. Students will plan their projects, decide what tools they will use to build them, build and monitor their progress based on milestone deliverables. The size and scope of these deliverables require tremendous dedication, effort, efficient execution, active communication and ongoing project management. Project Development allows students to work solo or in teams to develop their final projects. Set blocks are designated as Mentored time. During mentored blocks, Industry-based instructors and advisors from different skill sets will be in the classroom to evaluate student work, discuss difficulties, advice or help with technical or artistic elements, and monitor students’ progress towards major deliverables and milestones. These deliverables include all goals set out during term 4 and will be presented to instructors for Green Light approval. Once the project is underway, its progress will be evaluated on an ongoing basis for course correction, scaling, rescoping or other required changes up to its completion in Terms 5 and 6. The final deliverables include a playable/functional game/app, trailer and screenshots.

The preservation of quality during game production relies on vigilant game testers to identify defects and communicate risks that may impact consumers. This course establishes the importance of analyzing, measuring, and assuring quality while challenging the often-misunderstood stigma of quality assurance. This course provides game designers the skills to reduce risk in their designs, what to expect from QA, and what crucial reporting documentation Is used to assure that a game’s quality is where it needs to be.

As crucial as a portfolio is the student’s preparation for securing their first position. This mentored workshop guides students through the process of corporate research, networking, résumé preparation and interview techniques. At the conclusion of this course, students should have several first interviews arranged with local game development studios.

Post Mortem establishes core foundation skills in the area of conducting a project post mortem. In this course students learn how to plan and conduct a post mortem. They learn the key inputs and outputs of a post mortem and discover how future game development projects can use the derived information. This course includes lectures and a mentored practical assignment using the student’s industry project.

The aim of this course is to empower students to create a compelling online presence, to showcase the work they did during their time in the program, be it art, design or programming. They also learn how to integrate their portfolio with social networks, like LinkedIn or ArtStation, to make them more desirable to employers.