Creating the One-Hour Television Pilot
Get a crash course in creating powerful one-hour pilots in this intensive class that covers all the basics of writing original stories for television.
What you can learn.
- Develop a rough idea into a viable television series that can generate 100 episodes
- Build compelling characters that audiences will keep coming back to see
- Practice pitching pilot ideas and learn about the ever-changing TV marketplace
- Read and respond to work of other writers in class
About this course:
Anyone who wants to work as a professional television writer has to be able to submit top-notch original material to agents and showrunners. In this fast-paced course, you take your idea for a one-hour TV series and run it through a basic structure of beginning, middle, and end. From there, we talk about the world of your show and the characters who inhabit that world. Finally, we work those things into an outline for a pilot episode, write intensively, and get feedback from the instructor and fellow participants. Throughout this process, you learn how to envision the world of your show; create characters and conflict, build a storytelling engine; and nail down your show's structure, tone, story, and act breaks. By the end of course, you have strong act breaks, a full beat outline, and both a one-page and ten-page pitch document.Winter 2021 Schedule
Available Format(s):
These courses have regular meeting times and are fully online, via remote instruction. Click “See Details” below for more information.
Enrollment limited to 15 students. Visitors not permitted. $150 nonrefundable. Internet access required.
This course uses remote instruction. As such, instructors use Zoom to offer live class meetings at the designated class meeting time. Students must be present at course meeting times as each student’s final grade may include scores for participation. Please inform your instructor if you will miss a class meeting. You are responsible for any class information you missed. We suggest you arrange with a fellow classmate to share their notes when feasible.
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