. . .
The short form: Based on my few years experience of 'writing
for Hollywood,' and on a graduate degree partly in filmmaking at University of
Iowa, and on the few professional and oodles of student and home videos and
films that I've made or crewed on, I teach two courses at Wittenberg in screen
writing.
They are:
English 322: Screenwriting
in which students learn to write a movie, in movie script format, and commit a
portion of that written script to video, using what's called 'continuity
editing' technique (more on this below). Thus they learn the craft of screen
writing, which implies playwriting, andalso how to film (angles,
lighting, sound, etc.) and edit their script, using Wittenberg's S-VHS video
cameras and Panasonic (analogue) editor.
The other course, which ran for the first time this past spring ('98), is
English 322: Personal Documentary,
in which students write a literary journalism piece about, someone--a
professional artist, say, or a college baseball pitcher, or an editor of a
national literary magazine, or a wild and crazy fellow student
poet/novelist/actor, and so on), or something, like senioritis
or a personal essay of some sort, or, really, almost anything in between. They
are also making a documentary film on this subject, even as they write it as
journalism, get feedback from classmates, and rewrite it. It's two courses in
one--a lot of work but a lot of fun. Read the description.
The long form:
Further discussion planned for here, about film and video at Wittenberg.
Meanwhile, one can always click on
Communications to see what we have to say about that.
Or, one can return to the Dix Home Page, and
browse further.
