MA MA Performance: Writing

We select applicants according to potential and current ability in the following areas:

• The quality of your supporting material and statement
• Your critical abilities and awareness of the cultural and social context within which you practice
• Your communication skills and preparedness to participate collaboratively in debate and practice
• Evidence that you have the confidence and ability to benefit from and contribute to the learning environment at postgraduate level.

Your personal statement should reflect on your readiness to engage with self-directed learning; that you are able to learn from experiences (trial and error), and that you are motivated to learn from others.

Graduates from MA Performance: Writing will be equipped to work with creativity and focus in diverse environments, and to design and explore their own ways of working, confident in building and maintaining working relationships, yet also aware of their unique role in being the ‘champions’ of the story.

The aspiration for graduates is that they are prepared to embark on professional practice as dramatic writers and storytellers with:

• a knowledge of dramatic media and forms, an understanding of the landscape and practice of dramatic writing, and an insight into what constitutes successful writing and writers
• a range of technical facilities and capabilities, such as script formatting, project planning, dramatic structure and re-writing
• a body of practice-based projects, experience, and finished scripted works
• an appreciation of their developing voice as an artist, with the imagination and confidence that such self-reflection can afford
• a body of connections and experience with leading industry practitioners, projects and ideas.

Performance: Writing explores the theory and practice of writing for a variety of different dramatic outlets, live performance, film, television, audio and digital media. It will provide you with a challenging, supportive and inclusive postgraduate learning environment in which to develop your writing. The course is embedded within the Performance programme at Central Saint Martins and, as such, you will encounter and work alongside students and staff with diverse interests, motives and experiences. This is critical to learning in an art school; you are encouraged to embrace opportunity and alternative perspectives whilst remaining centrally focused on your own individual development.

Unit 1: Skills and Practices 1

Unit 1 examines the techniques, issues and debates surrounding the theory and practice of dramatic writing and writing for performance. It covers different forms including theatre, TV, audio and digital media.

Unit 2: Skills and Practices 2

Building on the strategies developed in Unit 1 this unit explores the cinematic experience, film theory and writing for film, and how to structure and format a short film screen-play. It also introduces you to writing for animation with a collaboration with the MA Character Animation students.   This allows you to develop your collaborative skills and explore the experience of writer as team member.

Unit 3: Professional Preparation

Unit 3 prepares you for professional practice and what it means to forge and have a career as writer. This it does, by encouraging you to identify your writer’s voice by reflecting on your ideas, vision and personality expressed in your work. You will research and choose ‘outlets’ for their work. You will be shown how to construct a personal and professional development plan. You will be taught pitching skills and approaches to self-production. You will explore complementary opportunities available to you as a professional writer, including script reading, editing, development and facilitation.

You will also take part in a symposium organised by the student cohort. You will be encouraged to explore key aspects of storytelling and their relevance to your work.  You will be encouraged to reach beyond the course to create a community of practice of writers by inviting companies, artists, filmmakers and organisations to respond to shared themes.

Unit 4: Final Portfolio