Screenwriting & Narrative Design Program (Postgraduate) (P400)

Program Description

Program Overview

The three-semester Screenwriting & Narrative Design graduate certificate program provides students with the knowledge, writing experience and hands-on skills necessary to become screenwriters for the ever-evolving media field, as well as narrative designers for game and interactive storytelling worlds.

Full Description

The Screenwriting & Narrative Design program will educate you on the challenge of writing a well-structured story within linear and nonlinear contexts. The elements of character, dialogue, scene, setting, texture, style and tone are rigorously explored. You will master the subtle variances of language employed through structured and open-world storytelling as you create memorable stories and scripts for film, TV, games and interactive media. Opportunities will be provided to work with fellow students (directors, actors and designers) on student-led projects as well as potential research projects.

Program Requirements

The Screenwriting & Narrative Design program requires students to have access to:

  • a laptop capable of running Final Draft and MS Office
  • a Netflix subscription
  • a stable/high-bandwidth Internet connection

Career & Postgraduate Study Opportunities

Career Options

Creative writers for entertainment are able to move across multiple platforms, including film, television, interactive storytelling, gaming and animation. Potential job titles include:

  • script writer
  • assistant producer
  • advising writer
  • creative writer
  • content writer
  • interactive media writer
  • staff writer
  • editor
  • story editor
  • showrunner
  • narrative designer
  • creative designer
  • script consultant
  • story consultant
  • freelance writer

Industry

Professional storytelling/writing/content development is a highly competitive yet exceptionally rewarding field. Though concentrated around major cities such as Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles and New York, the globalization of the industry has meant that writers for media can work on projects all over the world.

As the television and film industries shift in response to changing trends such as online access to traditionally aired content, the industry supplements its series and films with online and interactive content. As the Internet becomes a major gateway for consumers to access traditional media, the industry is becoming increasingly entrepreneurial with the advent of webisodes and web series. These new avenues have opened up a new area of development for the screenwriting field.

Mitchell LeBlanc, one of our Screenwriting and Narrative Design students, won the 2017 Reddit Screenwriting Contest. He also successfully placed top 10% in the Academy Nicholl Fellowship, a prestigious international screenwriting competition.

Mitchell had this to say about the Screenwriting and Narrative Design program:

“At the onset, by its very nature, writing tends to be a lonely endeavour. The program gave me an opportunity to share what I had learned in my solitude and to glean what others learned in theirs. Combine that with a faculty that genuinely cares about your trajectory and it’s no surprise I emerged a better writer.”

2019 Screenwriting and Narrative Design Graduates
Take a look at the recent graduates of the program, some of the work they have done and are currently working on.

Mitchell LeBlanc
Ontario College Graduate Certificate

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