Disciplines

In Short Story, students will learn the essentials of fiction and nonfiction story writing.

In nonfiction, they will start by exploring basic news structures, ethics and the importance of choosing the right perspective when reporting the details of the story. This will progress to feature writing and all forms of creative nonfiction.

This learning will then be applied to writing well-informed and researched fictional short stories. Approximately 80% of the best movies and series are adapted from novels and articles, therefore this discipline is essential to all Creative Writing students and will be a required discipline for all three years of study.

Students will also be required to continually practice the art of transforming their stories into different formats within the other three disciplines in the course for every project outcome.

The Screen Writing: Film & TV discipline will explore a variety of formats including Documentary Writing, News Magazine Shows and Serial Writing and how these formats affect the narrative being told.

Students will learn the art of writing character-driven narratives in all formats, as well as a variety of different structural and stylistic rules needed to build strong narratives, e.g. character and story arcs, world of story and sub-cultures, different act structures, genre conventions and the elements of conflict. There will also be a strong focus on writing rich and plausible dialogue and how this fits into building three-dimensional characters who play an active role in their on-screen journeys.

Essential to this discipline is giving students the tools to format all scripts correctly, as well as relevant supportive documentation e.g. the one-page pitch, the beat sheet, script breakdowns and treatments.

In Play Writing, students will learn about dramaturgy and how the limitations of live performances on stage transform narrative principles.  Students will also learn how to format plays correctly and also, the rules to follow when writing these types of scripts.

They will learn about the terminology relevant to playwriting, the differences between conversation and drama, and stories and plays as well as the meaning of action and how it relates to character and dialogue. Students will also learn about the history of playwriting in South Africa e.g. protest theatre and its role in the fight against Apartheid.

In Promotional Writing, students will explore the art of writing to persuade an audience. Students will learn the principles of brand identity, design, social cause and explore the ecology of the marketing landscape. They will also learn how to analyse universal consumer motivations, as well as the basics of SEO optimization and social media practices.

Students will be required to apply this knowledge in the creation of various projects, including Branded Content, Public Service Announcements, Game Shows, press releases and other brand campaigns that include gamification strategies and techniques, cross platform campaigns and web / mobisodes.