Screenwriting for Short Films
About the Course:
The course will focus on the development process of a screenplay for a 5-10 minute short
film, from initial idea to completed draft.
The format of each session will cover: relevant theory for each stage of development; writing
exercises; screening and discussion of film excerpts; and group workshopping and feedback.
The aim of the course is to equip participants with the practical creative skills to craft a
feasible, production-ready screenplay. It is preferable (but not a prerequisite) that participants
come along with a potential early-stage project in mind that they wish to develop.
About Adam:
Adam Spellicy is an award-winning screenwriter who recently migrated
to Hobart from Melbourne. He began his film career as a writer-director,
helming three short films - The Body Watchers (2009), Mystic Eyes
(2009) and Keeper (2012) - before specialising in screenwriting.
More recently, he scripted the short film We’re Not Here (2019, Dir:
Bonnie Moir), which premiered at Los Angeles Outfest and was
awarded Best Screenplay at the 2020 Sydney Mardi Gras Film Festival.
In 2021, he wrote director Tom Campbell’s short The Bends, which
premiered at Melbourne International Film Festival and received an
AACTA Award nomination for Best Short Form Drama. His second
collaboration with Campbell, the supernatural short Analog Medium, had
its world premiere at the 2024 Edinburgh International Film Festival and
is a proof of concept for a horror feature entitled Murder Ballad,
currently in pre-production.
Adam also has many years experience teaching screenwriting at tertiary
institutions such as RMIT, Swinburne, SAE and Collarts, and is
passionate about helping other aspiring filmmakers unlock their creative
potential.
Course Overview:
Week 1: Concepts & Loglines
This week will cover strategies for brainstorming short film ideas, and how to shape those
ideas into a Logline: a single-sentence expression of a story’s premise.
Week 2: Character Development
This week will cover developing dramatically functional characters: how to set them up with
a bold stroke, their consistent core, paradoxes and flaws, psychology and backstory.
Week 3: Dramatic Question & Theme
This week will focus on the dramatic question that provides the story’s driving engine, as
well as discovering and defining theme – what the story, at its heart, is really about.
Week 4: Structure, Outline & Treatment
This week will focus on different structural approaches used to shape cinematic stories, how
to create a step outline with index cards, and how to write a synopsis and treatment.
Week 5 – Writing in Screenplay Format
This week will focus on the various elements that comprise a screenplay, how to write
effectively in the format, and a screenwriting software tutorial.
Week 6 – Writing Scenes, Dialogue & Subtext
This week will focus on different types of scenes, how to shape and link them, and how to
work with visual imagery. It will also cover tips for writing authentic-sounding dialogue, how
to work with exposition, and how to write subtext.
Week 7: Screenplay Workshop #1
Participants workshop their first draft screenplays. Table-reads and peer group feedback, plus
advice on how to give and receive useful notes. Participants then incorporate feedback into a
second draft of the screenplay, in preparation to workshop again next week.
Week 8: Screenplay Workshop #2
This week will repeat the workshopping process with participants’ revised drafts, with a
focus on future development of the project.
Wed, 18 Feb, 6:30pm - Wed, 8 Apr, 8pm AEDT