VISUAL WRITING || ONLINE MASTER COURSE
VISUAL WRITING || ONLINE MASTER COURSE
COURSE:
A Six Week Online Master Screenwriting Course
Studying with Max Adams
Course Dates: WAITING LIST
Course Fee: $475 || Course Deposit: $150
Course Location: ONLINE
Visual Writing is an accelerated screenwriting master class studying online with author & award winning screenwriter Max Adams. During six weeks of advanced study, students will study the three foundations of scene visuals, analyze produced scripts and film clips provided in class, complete advanced course assignments and exercises, and participate in weekly online discussions reviewing and analyzing course materials and course assignments with Max Adams.
COURSE SYLLABUS:
WEEK ONE: Setting Location ||
Lecture: Space, Light, Texture
WEEK TWO: Perspective ||
Lecture: The Window or the Man?
WEEK THREE: Exterior vs. Interior ||
Lecture: Car Chase is Not a Location
WEEK FOUR: Character Intro’s ||
Lecture: Short Skirt Does Not Equal Character
WEEK FIVE: Static Locations vs. Dynamic Locations ||
Lecture: Dead Movement Equals Dead Movie
WEEK SIX: Verbs & Movement ||
Lecture: Walk, Leap, or Stroll
WEEK SEVEN: Grace Week ||
No Lecture
WE WILL BE COVERING:
- The three visual cornerstones
- Setting locations visually
- Introducing characters visually
- Authorial intrusion — when & how to use it, and when you need to lose it
- Introducing visual elements from general to specific — and why that counts
- Line of sight and how to use it
- Perspective — how to create it, how to anchor it, and how to maintain it
- How to direct visuals without camera cues
- Filters — when & how to use them, and when & how to lose them
- Drawing on a reader’s visuals memory vault to enhance writing impact
- And more —
YOU WILL TAKE AWAY:
- Actionable craft tools that, implemented in your own scripts, will immediately improve your existing & future feature and television scripts, ceating stronger impact with and a cinematic reading experience for future readers and industry professionals considering material for option, purchase, development, attachment and production.
RELATED CLASSES
Questions? Send us email:
Visual Writing Email:
Ratings and Reviews
Debi Yazbeck
Anytime I read a script and wonder where in the fuck I'm supposed to be, I can't concentrate on the story. This is supposed to be visual! Max taught me how to first orient my reader so that they can sit back and take the ride of the story. There's an art to this, just like there is in the entirety of the script - this part just comes first.
Peter Andrews
This was the course I needed. Writing for speeches and for radio (no pictures) and writing novels (fill pages) had not prepared me to create clear, compelling images in readers' heads. And do in concisely. I got exactly what I was looking for with this course thanks to powerful lectures, hands-on assignments, and great discussions.
Michele Koop
This class brought my screenwriting to a whole new level, and I’ve never looked back. If you want to immerse the reader visually so that they can ‘see’ the movie as they read, and you do - Max Adams teaches how to do this succinctly yet powerfully. A must take class for any screenwriter!
Nektarios Chrissos
What can I say? It's easy for us screenwriters to visualise scenery and action within our brain, but when the time comes to write them on paper - well, you surely know the feeling. After this course, visual descriptions in your screenplays won't be the same. By implementing Max's rules, you will deliver succinct yet enticing visual descriptions in your stories; make the story 's images pop out!
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.
This was my favorite class. "Space, light, texture" is the mantra that has stuck with me and inspired me ever since. The practice we received writing scene-setting descriptions from photographs was extremely effective because it trained us to pay attention to the path of the eye wandering through a scene, and to record a sequence of visual details in the natural order.