Graduate Certificate in Writing for Dramatic Media

Program Overview

This graduate certificate in Dramatic Media equips students from non-Film disciplines with screenwriting skills, preparing them for careers in television, transmedia, and feature-length projects. The program emphasizes professional formatting, pitching, and collaboration, with assessment through direct observation, industry feedback, and a capstone experience. The minimum GPA requirement is 3.00.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

The purpose of this graduate certificate is to enable graduate students in disciplines other than Film to learn about different dramatic media at a competent level. It adds value to a graduate degree that is not in Film and can increase the candidate's career options in their respective field. The certificate prepares candidates to "pitch" inventive writing for performance at a professional level and develop the skills needed to execute those "pitches" as complete screenplays. Candidates can work in television screenplays or other transmedia fields in addition to feature-length projects.

Outline:

• Coursework includes 12 credits, with 6 credits in Screenwriting courses (FILM 722) and 6 credits from a selection of required courses.
• Required courses include Story Development (FILM 615), Writing for Television I & II (FILM 618 & FILM 619), Advanced Cinematic Structure (FILM 720), Ensemble Screenwriting (FILM 723), The Adaptation Screenplay (FILM 724), Writing for Assignment (FILM 725), Advanced Screenplay Analysis (FILM 726), Advanced Screenplay Theory (FILM 727), and Graduate Production (FILM 728).
• The program emphasizes professional on-page formatting techniques, the rationale behind various formatting choices, executing verbal pitches, collaborating on verbal pitches, identifying and evaluating story elements in a pitch, revising work based on critical analysis, recognizing structural strengths and weaknesses of completed written draft, communicating critical analysis in a collegial manner, and creating original works of dramatic media from inception through multiple drafts in a professional manner.

Assessment:

• Assessment methods include direct observation and interaction with course instructors and current MFA Writing for Dramatic Media Degree Program students, feedback from guest artists and industry professionals on scripts, and a two-hour "capstone experience" consisting of an oral defense of a selected screenplay and a review of all work completed during the program.