Screenplay is a development of the Study Option, Modern Poetics. It offers a more detailed analysis of the craft of screenplay writing than is possible on the Modern Poetics course. However, Screenplay does not cover the cinematic technique of the Modern Poetics Study Option.

Screenplay begins by offering an overview of story traditions. This aspect of the course is wide and philosophical in scope. It aims to offer the student an overview of how story is related to the philosophy of the present age and how this philosophy compares with other cultures and other periods in history. The current dominance of the Aristotelian linear action and single revelation/reversal is compared to the Homeric geometrical multi-plot series of actions and revelations – Scarface is compared to Traffic. The Freudian single cause diagnostic and prevailing dialectical contrasts in story are compared with the Jungian theory of a pantheon of archetypes and the need to absorb conflicts rather than oppose them – Good Will Hunting is contrasted with Wild Strawberries. Realism and literalism (even science fiction ‘realism’) is contrasted with true fantasy, where fantasy is defined as making real conceptual values – Contact compared to The Wizard of Oz or Galaxy Quest to Star Wars. The course then moves on to look at a wide range of issues connected to screenplay technique, including Act Structures, Recognition (following Aristotle analysis of peripeteia), Inciting Incidents and Climaxes (following Robert McKee’s definitions of the terms), Death and Resurrection motifs (following Vogler and Campbell), Set-ups and Pay-offs, Prologues, Image Systems and Mythical infra-narrative. Mythical Infra-narrative basically means the underlying established myth or mythos running beneath the surface of the story. For example, aspects of the Christ Narrative are used in both E.T. and Fistful of Dollars. Faust can be found in both Angel Heart and Little Mermaid. One might also add Shakespeare: King Lear/Godfather III, Hamlet/Lion King and Taming of the Shrew/The Quiet Man. Sometimes the myth/story or mythos could be another film or written text: City Slickers/Red River, Wild at Heart/Wizard of Oz, Groundhog Day/Christmas Carol. It could even be the iconography and history of the star, for example most of Barbra Streisand's films reflect in some ways aspects of her own life, notably Yentl, Nuts, The Mirror Has Two Faces and Funny Girl. The Image System of the film may or may not reflect the infra-narrative in the way the screenplay is put together. E.T. does and there are numerous uses of Jewish/Christian image system that the film draws upon. However, although the story of Christmas Carol is similar in principle to Groundhog Day, Groundhog Day does not have ‘Christmas Carol’ Image System in the direct way E.T. borrows from the Bible.

The second half of the course moves away from the broader picture of story in the screenplay and on to the detailed writing techniques of screenplay, including in depth exposition, scene construction and dialogue. This section of the course also looks at time and space. The emphasis here is always on screenplay technique, for example when and how to use the flashback or an analysis of the way screenplays often use the bowling alley as the setting for a male blue collar ‘world’ (Big Lebowski or Pleasantville).