7 Day Screenplay: The Complete Guide to Writing Short Films

Discover what story is, its functions from entertainment to teaching, and identify theme and message for your logline and world-building in short films.

Channel your inner voice to be poetic and emotional, using stories as vehicles to drive emotion and make audiences care, laugh or cry.

Discover how to identify a film's theme and craft a clear message that expresses your truth about human experiences, from love and sacrifice to family and immigration.

Explore Aesop's fables as concise stories with clear themes and messages, illustrating slow and steady wins the race, preparing for winter, look before you leap, and adaptable for adult audiences.

Speak from personal experience to craft a believable, real message your audience can relate to. Keep the theme and your voice central, and stay simple and authentic rather than complicated.

Develop a logline or elevator pitch by stating my story is about a central theme and its message, keeping it simple for short films.

Harness the 'what if' prompt as a powerful tool to generate ideas for short films, using imaginative scenarios—from ice cream skies to talking dogs and alien friends—to spark storytelling.

Identify your central theme and why the story matters to you to shape its core message. Explore emotions, from heartbreak to new beginnings, and complete worksheet one before day two.

Day two focuses on character mechanics, using Ace Ventura as an example, reviews day one work, and guides students to revise loglines and complete the day two character summary.

Explore the six essential questions that drive character design, showing how characters pursue goals, face obstacles, and face consequences, with Walter White as a case study.

Identify your character's external, objective want that drives the plot and the inner need—central flaw—tied to theme, with concrete examples like solving a murder or finding treasure.

Create a clear external want for your characters, keeping the motive simple so the audience understands, and use interested parties to drive conflict.

Reveal a character's inner need—rooted in virtue or vice—through obstacles and backstory, not change. Use examples from heroes and villains to illustrate how theme and message emerge in short films.

Define your character's inner needs and central flaw in a worksheet, linking motivation to loneliness or arrogance. Show the flaw's fix through plot and action to reveal theme.

Unpack motive and motivation driven by fear and pain, shaped by back story, and reveal needs that explain why characters want what they want, with murder mystery examples.

Connect with a character's motive to motivate audience empathy, using backstory, fear, and needs to drive actions and reveal growth; show that fulfillment may lie beyond material wants.

Design central conflicts as obstacles that test a character’s virtue, forcing growth and heroism through trials like money, law, or family.

Understand how high stakes and consequences shape a screenplay by identifying a central conflict, external and internal wants, motives, tactics, and the risks if characters fail.

Build believable characters by prioritizing character over plot, letting their world view reveal who they are. Make them interesting, not merely likable, and let them drive the story.

Discover the four main pillars of character design: wants, internal needs and motivations, the inciting incident, the revelation map guiding transformation, and vivid character traits.

An inciting incident is a charged moment that motivates a character to act, a catalyst to pursue what they want, with three types: magic call, protector or volunteer, or victim.

Reveal a character's internal need and moral compass to drive a heroic journey, as escalating obstacles demand active choices that connect theme, destiny, and virtue.

Develop compelling characters by defining distinct personality traits that reveal inner nature and flaws, then place them in conflict and obstacles to create interesting, not just likable, drama.

Create an interesting character by highlighting competence or a superpower, like Sherlock Holmes or Batman, then layer past loss of family and savior roles, breaking stereotypes with unusual traits.

Examine Walter White's clear wants and motives, shaped by a bitter backstory, as terminal cancer, legal and family obstacles, and a diabolical genius force change and revelation.

Review key elements of day two: wants, needs, motives, inciting incident, character revelation, traits, and moral compass, as foundational concepts to apply in the workbook data worksheet and day three.

Day three teaches structuring plots and basic plot mechanics, building on days one and two with themes, log lines, and character design, guiding your first story outline.

Explore the universal story structure and how plot drives theme in short films, using a beginning, middle, and end to craft precise, concise narratives with obstacles and actions.

Explore story mapping and the moral compass to move a character from selfish to selfless through tests, beats, and inciting incidents that drive the plot toward their goals.

Explore the nine story map points from setup and inciting incident to catharsis and resolution, driven by major choices moving through acts two, three, and four toward a climactic showdown.

Learn to craft a concise setup for short films using visuals to establish the world and status quo before dialogue, with an inciting incident in the first 30 seconds.

Identify act breaks as major choices that propel the story from act 1 to 2, creating a point of no return through scenes built on beats.

Scenes serve as building blocks of filmmaking, containing beats that act as signposts and drive cause-and-effect. Each scene has a beginning, middle, and end that move plot or character forward.

Explore the midpoint as a catalyst for complication, turning the story darker at 50% through, testing the hero's virtue with harder choices and dramatic reversals.

Explore how proactive decisions propel a character through crisis, escalating conflict toward act three, with rapid, spiral-like sequences that culminate in the final confrontation.

Master an emotionally charged crisis for your short film by using fast visuals and minimal dialogue, tying the midpoint to a pivotal character choice.

Explain how major character choices create new acts, driving the story toward a climactic showdown and a resolution that reveals the hero's virtuous transformation through catharsis.

Ensure your film has a clear ending with a big climactic test and a natural flow from crisis to resolution, tied to cause and effect and inciting incident.

Day four guides you to design an outline, or treatment, by consolidating days one through three worksheets into a cohesive short film plan, using nine story map points and mechanics.

Clarify your theme and message, craft a central logline, and complete worksheets. Build characters with wants, internal needs, inciting incidents, and transformation, guided by rising tension and key story maps.

Discover five ways to craft a great treatment by prioritizing cause and effect, economy, and a clear inciting incident, while revising to sharpen structure, emotion, and a strong hook.

Master screenwriting basics, from log lines and character summaries to the five elements of a screenplay. Prepare for day six with a ready written treatment and free Celltex sign-up.

Understand that a screenplay is the written script for film, stage, or broadcast, and learn how page counts estimate runtime and the standard formatting used.

Identify the five basic elements of screenplay writing: transitions, scene headings, action lines, parentheticals, and dialogue, all written in present tense.

Learn the five basic elements of a screenplay, from the title page and margins to scene headings, fade-in transitions, action lines, and capitalized character names, production-ready formatting and present-tense rules.

Identify the five basic elements of screenplays—transition, scene heading, action line, parenthetical, and dialogue—with examples like fade in, and complete the exercise to identify them.

Sign up for a free Celtx account to create screenplays; it's a free program that follows screenplay formatting rules, and day six covers using Celtx to format our screenplay.

Explore what a screenplay is, identify and analyze its five basic elements, sign up for a free account on Celltex, and complete the day five workbook before day six formatting.

Learn to format a screenplay by replicating the unfortunate case of Mr. Mills screenplay sample, using five basic elements, downloading from course resources, and writing it as shown in Celltex.

Explore the Celtx layout by navigating the left-hand column to archived projects and a management page, then use video tutorials and the top bar for account upgrades and settings.

Open your project in Celltex and focus on writing, ignoring tabs in the left hand column unrelated to formatting. Use the back arrow to return to the main landing page.

Learn to format a screenplay in Celltex by cycling through transition, scene heading, interior, action, and dialogue, using tab and enter, with present-tense narration and character capitalization.

Master script formatting in Celltex, from bold headlines and precise margins to zoom controls, and learn to export, print, delete, and start multiple projects in the next lesson.

Learn how to manage multiple projects in Celltex, including the free version's limits, deleting and permanently removing projects, and archiving to restore work without upgrading.

Learn to export and download a pdf, save and delete projects, and re-upload old scripts to manage multiple screenplay pdfs, with upgrade options and course resources.

Use the treatment and story map as a roadmap to craft your short film script, referencing worksheets as you outline the setup and inciting incidents for your first draft.

Translate your treatment and story map into the written page, apply screenwriting tips for the first draft, and trust the structure to reach the midpoint of your short film.

Rewrite your draft by evaluating formatting, plot, character, and structure to ensure clear cause-and-effect and a strong want; apply feedback tips and nine story points to craft compelling storytelling.

Evaluate the basics by checking script length, margins, and font for professional formatting. Clarify your why and emotion, and assess feasibility as a ten-minute short.

I celebrate your completion of the seven day screenplay course and your ongoing screenwriting journey. Engage with the Q&A and stay connected through the internet for future courses.