It all begins with a script. Before any film, television show, web series, or video game can become a phenomenon, you need words on a page. The John Wells Division of Writing for Screen & Television teaches students how to create the kinds of scripts that excite creative collaborators, agents, managers, and investors and become real projects. The curriculum immerses students in the SCA tradition of crafting compelling stories and honing your narrative instincts through small workshop classes. You will learn to write short scripts, feature-length screenplays, television episodes in comedy and drama, web series, and scripts for games and other immersive media.
Our Writing for Screen and Television BFA and MFA program fall under the STEM CIP code: CIP code 50.0504: Playwriting and Screenwriting.
Writing Alumnus Josh Schwartz Creates Mentorship Program at SCA
Josh Schwartz
Alumni Profile
The SCA alumna and former Professor is now the showrunner of one of television’s hottest dramas!
Sonja Warfield
Alumni Profile
The Chair of the John Wells Division of Writing for Screen & Television
Mary Sweeney
Faculty Profile
The Bachelor of Fine Arts in Writing for Screen & Television is a unique, four-year program for students who want a real career in screen and television writing. Students work with talented writers from around the globe in small workshop-style classes, learn from top minds in the industry and working professionals, and intern at top companies in the expanding world of film, television, and interactive media.
The Master of Fine Arts, with a major in Writing for Screen & Television, is a two-year degree program which concentrates on training screenwriters to work in the entertainment industry and beyond. In addition to receiving an unparalleled master's education in the craft of writing, MFA candidates also benefit from the University's ties to the industry's top writers, directors, production companies, and studios in Los Angeles, yielding an array of internship and mentorship opportunities.
Focused on the writing of comedy, students will learn to craft comedy across multiple platforms and refine their comedic voice. The curriculum is structured with three introduction courses: the study of comedy, the craft of comedic writing, and the importance of comedy in the human experience. Students will be required to complete an original 4-unit long form project and then select 8 units of elective course work from a designated grouping of electives.
The Minor in Screenwriting covers writing for the screen from many different points of view and allows students to explore television, film and, new media writing and all of the opportunities the Division has to offer.
John Wells Division of Writing for Screen & Television
USC School of Cinematic Arts
Kristen Davis, Program Coordinator
University Park, SCA 335
Los Angeles, CA 90089.2211
Phone: 213.740.3303
writing@cinema.usc.edu
