TWO-YEAR SCREENWRITING CONSERVATORY

The New York Film Academy Two-Year Conservatory Program in Screenwriting is a four semester (16-weeks per semester) full-time program. The curriculum is designed to immerse energetic prospective screenwriters in all aspects of the discipline. The first year follows the curriculum outlined in the One-Year Screenwriting Program.

The Conservatory Program provides a creative setting with which to challenge, inspire, and perfect the talents of its student body. Students follow an intensive curriculum and achieve multiple learning goals.

The strength of the program is based on a high concentration of intensive writing workshops designed to challenge the individual writer, plus a sampling of hands-on production experience not usually associated with advanced writing programs.

During the second year, students begin working on their Thesis, a feature length screenplay or episodic television series. The thesis should represent the best work a student is capable of, and when complete, be of professional industry quality. In advanced workshops, students use knowledge gained in the first year to slowly and deliberately construct their Thesis Screenplay.

SEMESTER THREE OVERVIEW

At the beginning of Semester Three, students must form a thesis committee. The thesis committee should consist of a primary advisor (and a Two-Year Conservatory Screenwriting Faculty member) and two readers. The thesis advisor works closely with the student throughout the process, while the readers act in a more consulting role, reading only the initial treatment and the final screenplay. Students must meet at least once a month with their thesis advisor in order to ensure compliance with New York Film Academy standards, and to seek assistance in the realization of their respective creative visions. Semester Three classes are infused with an emphasis on perfecting craft, and exposing them to the realities of the film industry.

The focus of the semester is on "professionalism". It is designed to prepare Two-Year Conservatory students to enter the industry as professional screenwriters and a life in the industry after graduation.

Thesis Options:

Thesis Option A: Feature Film
Students may choose to write a feature length film speculative ("spec") screenplay.

Thesis Option B: Episodic Television
Students may choose to write a pilot and bible, based on a six episode season, for an episodic television series.

Second year courses

Short Script Workshop
Students write short scripts to be used in later production workshops. By developing a film without dialogue (silent film) students learn the value and strength of images within the medium. Emphasis is put on maintaining structure and incorporating all elements of visual storytelling within the short form.

Short Script Production Workshop
Using short scripts written in Short Script Workshop, students produce their own short films thus broadening their perspective of the filmmaking process as a whole. Teaming with students in the NYFA filmmaking program, Two-Year Conservatory in Screenwriting students act as a crew member on the set of films they have written.

ELECTIVE: Adaptation Workshop
Popular and fascinating stories are always in high demand for screen adaptation. Studios often buy the rights to "stories" whether in the form of a play, magazine article, newspaper article or book with the intention of hiring a screenwriter to adapt it for the screen. With this in mind, students learn how to adapt a story from another medium into the highly structured visual form of a screenplay. Typically in adaptation, crucial moments of the story must be identified while others are eliminated. In all instances, imagination must be employed for the successful execution of rearranging one form into the other. Students share their work with fellow students during in class critiques.

Advanced Thesis Workshop I
In this Seminar/Discussion series, students structure, develop, outline, and write a first draft of their thesis projects. These projects are approved by the Thesis Committee and overseen by the Committee and appointed student advisors throughout the semester. Students may choose between Thesis Option A) Feature Film or Thesis Option B) Episodic Television. Working inside the classroom, in consultation with their instructor, and through extensive writing outside of the classroom, students develop drafts that are polished and finished in Advanced Thesis Workshop 2 in the fourth semester.

Advanced TV Writing I
This is an intensive screenwriting seminar that teaches students the art of creating situational comedy. This course teaches and assesses the aesthetic elements of writing sitcoms, including both the formal requirements of the genre as well as the basics of technique. Students write their own sitcom and have their work critiqued during in class workshops.

Cinema Studies II
In this course, students expand upon the concepts of Cinema Studies I and explore the principal theories of film through advanced critical reading of texts and a close examination of films. The texts to be pursued comprise several groups. Classical film theory includes Eisenstein, and Godard. The critique of classical film theory includes Burch, Perkins, and Henderson. The course also explores semiotics, psychoanalysis, and poststructuralism, feminist film theory, avant-garde theory, Soviet editing and antirealism.

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