TUESDAYs, Sept. 8th - Nov. 10th* | Ever wonder how your favorite films seem to connect the perfect image with the perfect words? In Visuals in Screenwriting, we'll explore the connection between what's on the screen and what's on the page in classic screenplays, and through writing exercises. We'll discuss how screenwriters form meaning on the page through the use of images and objects. By the end of this course, you'll understand the interplay between a screenwriter's choice of imagery and their choice of words, allowing you to unlock the potential in your own screenplay in-progress!
This course will be a hybrid seminar/workshop where students will read parts of screenplays (TBD) from the films we love, analyzing them for the screenwriter's use imagery, objects, and visual cues, and also generate scenes based on writing exercises and writing prompts. Lastly, there will be a workshop element to the course, where students will be able to workshop a portion of their screenplay in-progress.
*No class on Sept. 29th & Oct. 27th
Sam Moussavi is a writer and educator who's lived in California for the better part of the past 20 years. After completing an MFA in Long Fiction at the University of San Francisco in 2014, Sam published two series of YA novels for EPIC Press (2015-2018) as well as written several screenplays, with one, "Golden State: Pilot", placing fourth in the ScreenCraft Screenwriting Contest in 2024. One title of Sam’s YA titles, Texas Fridays: Dallas, won the South Dakota Teen Choice Book Awards (Drama) in 2018. In addition, Sam is a professor of English Literature and Criminology at CCSF, San Francisco State University, and Sonoma State University, respectively. In addition to teaching and writing, Sam’s writing primarily concerns the connection between California's past and present.