The Signal School · mass media, journalism & screen
Screenwriting & Media Writing
Structure, scene, and dialogue — writing that must survive being read aloud, timed, and filmed.
The feature script from the ground up — format, scene construction, and the load-bearing beats of three acts.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~24 hours
Unit I — The Form
Screenplay format: why a page is a minute · Action lines: only what the camera sees · Sluglines, transitions, and reading like a pro
Unit II — The Scene
Every scene is a negotiation · Entering late, leaving early · Subtext: the scene under the scene
Unit III — Structure
Want versus need: the engine of character · Act breaks, midpoints, and reversals · The outline: beating it out before you write · Rewriting: the script is the tenth draft
Voice, rhythm, and evasion — writing speech that sounds real precisely because it is not.
Syllabus · 2 units · ~14 hours
Unit I — How Real Speech Fails on the Page
Transcription versus dialogue · Compression, rhythm, and the cut line · Distinct voices: the cover-the-names test
Unit II — Conflict and Subtext
People rarely say what they want · Exposition without the anvil · Silence, interruption, and the unsaid
Series engines, episode structure, and how a writers' room actually breaks a season.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~20 hours
Unit I — The Series Engine
Premise, franchise, and repeatable story · Procedural versus serialized spines · The pilot: proving the show works
Unit II — The Episode
Teasers, act-outs, and the commercial break's ghost · A-, B-, and C-stories braided · Arcing character across a season
Unit III — The Room
Breaking story on the board · Outlines, drafts, and the showrunner's pass · Writing in another writer's voice
What survives translation between forms — compression, invention, and fidelity to spirit over scene.
Syllabus · 2 units · ~16 hours
Unit I — What the Screen Cannot Do
Interiority and its screen substitutes · Cutting characters and merging timelines · The narrator problem
Unit II — Case Studies in Translation
A faithful adaptation and what it lost · A loose adaptation and what it kept · Rights, options, and the legal frame
One idea, ten pages, no fat — writing a short you could actually shoot this year.
Syllabus · 2 units · ~10 hours
Unit I — Thinking Short
One situation, one turn · Ideas you can afford to film · The last image comes first
Unit II — Writing and Rewriting
Format on ten pages · The table read: hearing the flaws · Cutting a third without losing the story