Creative Writing

The Storytelling in the Entertainment and Media Industries course examines the various industries that utilize visual storytelling, including film, digital cinematography, creative writing, and media communications. The course familiarizes students with the different types of visual art forms, genres, scripting styles, and organizational structures that each discipline utilizes, as well as how formatting of visual art might be redesigned for transmedia impact. Students will also build a firm understanding of the various skill sets common in the visual arts industries in order to develop the skills most sought after in their prospective careers.

The Creative Skills Development course introduces students to the tools for developing a creative method. Through building brainstorming techniques, discovering methods for overcoming writer's block, and drawing inspiration from the world around them, students learn how to spark and maintain their creative flow.

In the New Media Tools course, students will evaluate new-media tools along with past methods and media outlets. Students will examine these communication avenues and their effectiveness. Students will explore a variety of media used in digital and online environments to accomplish course projects and further their understanding of new-media tools, including images, text, and streaming video and audio. Students will gain an understanding of the unique possibilities and challenges of new media by learning the technology, techniques, and methods of storytelling on multimedia platforms. By studying examples of existing interactive programs, students will develop strategies to solve real-world problems, which will assist them in their future media careers.

The Multimedia Storytelling course introduces students to the creative structure of the visual medium. Students will learn the building blocks of visual storytelling, such as how to communicate moods, emotions, ideas, sounds, and scenery through props. In this course, students will learn how to represent the four-dimensional world through clear and evocative writing.

The Scriptwriting Techniques course introduces students to the foundation of successful writing for film and television. Students will learn the fundamentals of formatting using industry-standard software, structural techniques, character development, conflict, and scene construction. The similarities and differences among formats will be evaluated, enabling students to make successful writing choices for each platform.

In the Project I: Creative Writing course, students will apply knowledge of character creation, plot development, story structure, and visual storytelling to create a collection of written work. Students will examine the current media landscape to identify high-demand skill sets. Additionally, they will utilize tools of revision, editing, word economy, industry-standard formatting guidelines, and software to create a portfolio project plan to demonstrate the range of content they developed.

In Portfolio I: Creative Writing, students will refine their collection of written work for their portfolio project. They will reflect on their writing and revision processes to deepen their understanding of the workflow common to professional writers across various mediums and audiences. Students will also refine and execute their portfolio project plan.