THE ACADEMY OF FILM WRITING
ONLINE MASTER SCREENWRITING CLASSES
from author & award winning screenwriter max adams
Six Week Master Courses
Video Master Courses
Weekend Labs
COURSE DATES
2022 LAB SCHEDULE
01.08.22 || 8 PM EST: Logline Lab
01.22.22 || 8 PM EST: Lookbook Lab
02.05.22 || 8 PM EST: Logline Lab
02.19.22 || 8 PM EST: Lookbook Lab
*stay tuned for new lab dates
2021 || 2022 VIDEO MASTER COURSE SCHEDULE
2022 SIX WEEK MASTER COURSE SCHEDULE
01.11.22: The Writer's Reel
03.15.22: The First 30 Pages
05.17.22: Mastering Story Momentum
07.12.22: Character Writing
09.06.21: Dialogue Writing
11.08.22: High Concept Writing
—REGISTRATION FOR 2022 MASTER COURSES IS OPEN—
Testimonials
CK LOVE
SCREENWRITER
I believe BLOOD IN THE BONE, my feature Femmenoir, would never have been selected by the Santa Barbara International Screenplay Awards if I didn't have the brains and support of the AFW screenwriting support group and wisdom of our fearless leader Max Adams.
Tonia Kempler
Writer/Director
Thank you. You have completely given me confidence and skills I didn’t have before. Couldn’t have done this without taking your classes.
Alvaro Rodriguez
Screenwriter
Max Adams is the kind of smart, engaging teacher that made me want to be a better writer — and she helped me do it.
Kerry Valderamma
Writer/Director
Max Adams is one of the most knowledgeable and talented people in screenwriting that I know, all writers need to hear what Max Adams has to say.
Debi Yazbeck
Writer/Director
You laid the foundation, Max. Best teacher ever!
Ana Maria Montoya
Screenwriter
If you want someone to challenge you to dive deep and pull the BEST out of yourself, Max is that whip-smart coach, teacher, and mentor.
Toni McGee Causey
Author
The brilliance of taking Max Adams’ classes is you start seeing improvement in your writing almost immediately.
Julie Howe
Author/Screenwriter
I’ve taken all of Max’s classes and quite simply, her focused methods and attention to detail blow every other screenwriting class out of the water.
Jennifer Mulligan
Screenwriter
Max Adams has been a keen mentor, champion and cheerleader. Her online classes have provided me with very specific and important screenwriting tools. My short script, Minerva’s War, was a 2014 Finalist at the Lady Filmmakers Film Festival in Beverly Hills as a direct result of learning and applying these techniques.
Tony Ferrendelli
Screenwriter
Max Adams has helped to completely transform the way I write scripts. Placement of several scripts in multiple competitions is a direct result of the skills I have developed through participation in Max’s classes and workshop.
Al Finocchio
Screenwriter
Max is as smart, tough, and entertaining as she sounds in her book. It’s hard to imagine a better mentor.
Patricia Burroughs
Author/Screenwriter
The input I got from Max Adams lifted my script, ‘Redemption,’ from a SemiFinalist to a Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting award winner.
Della Vance Greenawalt
Screenwriter
Max Adams’ classes are the best I have ever taken. In every class I have experienced a “light bulb” moment that raised my scripts to another level.
Gwenda Bond
Author/Screenwriter
Max’s workshop was a transformative experience for me as a young writer.
Nancy Bilyeau
Author/Screenwriter
I carried Max’s advice over to my fiction and have now sold & published five novels.
Joan Philo
Screenwriter
It’s so big what you are to screenwriting and what you give to others and how you collect and champion writers who do more than write, they produce. That’s huge in this business of writing and what sets you above the rest.
Peter Andrews
Screenwriter/Playwright
If you want to take the next step in your writing, Max makes the difference. She’s hands-on in classes that balance essential skills with insights you won’t get anywhere else.
Stacy Baker Masand
Screenwriter
You know that saying, ‘You don’t know what you don’t know?’ That was my experience before taking classes at The Academy of Film Writing. Hands down, my writing transformed more after taking Max’s courses than any other time period or curriculum.
Dan Goforth
Screenwriter
For a screenwriter, Max Adams’ 5150 Workshop is one of the best things you can do to improve yourself and your work. If you’re lucky enough to catch an open spot, TAKE IT!!!
Kristen McNaule
Writer/Director
AFW’s 5150 workshop has given an incredible boost to my writing, thanks to the guidance of Max Adams.
Your Instructor
MAX ADAMS is an author and award winning screenwriter. She has written for Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, Universal Pictures — and a couple others to remain unnamed because no one around here wants to get black listed.
Max is a former volunteer AFI Alumni reader and WGAw online mentor, has appeared as a speaker at, among other places, AMPAS, USC, and Film Arts Foundation, is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at University of Utah and a former lecturer & instructor at New York Film Academy, is the author of The Screenwriter’s Survival Guide AND The New Screenwriter’s Survival Guide, is the founder of two international online screenwriting workshops and has the dubious distinction of having been dubbed “Red Hot Adams” by Daily Variety for selling three pitches over a holiday weekend — which made her agents cry.
[In a good way.]
She answers now to both “Max” and “Red Hot” in crowds and dog parks.
Send Me Updates!
THE SCREENWRITER’S LOOKBOOK
The key word in “lookbook” is “look.” For an artist (“artist” means you, writers) that means something someone may look at that conveys a sense of the film. Imagery, tone, big story moments that will be powerful on a screen — the entire purpose of a lookbook is to...
HIGH CONCEPT WRITING: THE CRICHTON MODEL
HIGH CONCEPT WRITING: THE CRICHTON MODEL If there is one writer who regularly nailed high concept [and did it over and over again] it was Michael Crichton. Crichton was one of the first writers to write a story about a scientific and military response to a...
A Rose by Any Other Name
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME — One of my most consistent comments on scripts is, I have difficulty differentiating between characters because characters have similar names. Listen. Character names have jobs. One job is to create an impression of character. You are...