Powerful Character Development with Pixar's Finding Nemo
What you'll learn
- Write strong, gripping characters that develop and change to move your audience
- Use a simple model to improve your story
- Analyse films with the model to further your learning
Requirements
- You should have a DVD/Blu-Ray or online rental of Finding Nemo ready to watch alongside the course
- You should already be familiar with basic screenwriting theory and terms
- You should ideally have a screenplay you're working on but are having problems with
Description
Why do audiences engage with films like 'The Wrestler', 'Little Miss Sunshine' and 'The Conjuring', but you're struggling to make your screenplay as powerful as you know it can be?
How do you create genuine, emotional character development and change in your protagonist that isn't forced and obvious?
How did a father taking his son for a walk lead to the highest grossing animated film of all time?
The answers lie in the Cataclysm to the Crux.
If you're a student or aspiring screenwriter, bogged down in complicated theory with a story you're struggling to convey, then grab your copy of 'Finding Nemo' and work with this course as I show you a simple model that cuts to the very heart of a powerful story.
This is a brief course delivered in bite-size chunks, using Pixar's elegantly simple smash hit 'Finding Nemo' to demonstrate a model of character development and change for you to use in writing, developing and perfecting your screenplay.
This course has previously:
- Been taught in a Screenwriting Masters course to help colleagues develop their screenplays
- Published in a screenwriting magazine, edited by a Senior Advisor to the London Screenwriters' Festival
but has now been vastly improved, reworked and optimised for Udemy - and you!
This is a brief course:
- 1 hour of lectures
- 1 and a half hours of Finding Nemo
- Tests
- Worksheet + Summary Notes
- Numerous references and links in the Appendix
So you won't get bogged down in complicated theories...
You will:
- Look at your own protagonist
- Assess problems you may be facing
- Learn about scientific theories and how they change
- See how we can apply that to characters
- Understand how that culminates in our model
- Work through Finding Nemo
- Recap with conclusive lessons
Cue up your purchased or rented copy of Finding Nemo, and let's begin!
Who this course is for:
- Screenwriting, or story writing, students, or other hard working aspiring writers
- Students who are getting bogged down in too much complicated theory
- Students who are looking for a brief, simple course to cut right to the heart of powerful writing
Instructor
![Will Snow](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 64 64"%3E%3C/svg%3E){kind=avatar}
- 4.6 Instructor Rating
- 34 Reviews
- 350 Students
- 1 Course
A Screenwriting Masters graduate, I know all about the frustrations and emotional turmoil that developing your own screenplay can entail. I worked for years on feature film scripts, animation scripts, TV scripts and short films - both my own and my colleagues’, collaborating and supporting each other.
I’m also a McKee seminar student, have worked as a script reader at UK’s Ealing Studios and the late Anthony Minghella’s Mirage Films London offices. I’ve reported on screenwriting festivals, and written articles for the ScriptWriter magazine.
The philosophy, importance and abundance of storytelling in every aspect of our lives remains one of my utmost passions.
While toiling away on my own screenplays, to earn a living I worked on some of the biggest budget films of recent years, supervising the processing of their digital footage. I’ve racked up work on four Marvel films (Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor: The Dark World, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron), the 23rd James Bond outing Skyfall, and worked in the Editorial departments for Disney’s Frankenweenie animation and John Carter extravaganza. The fact that they got released without any of their footage being lost or deleted I guess means I was okay at the job.