USC's School of Cinematic Arts - Writing Sample Question

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Southern California
1

Hey! So I’m applying to USC’s school of Cinematic Arts, and one of the requirements involves a writing sample. There’s three different options that I’m given for this assignment. The three are

-A description of a four-minute film that contains no dialogue. It can be fiction or non-fiction. The story has to be communicated visually.

-A dialogue scene between two people. Provide a one-paragraph introduction describing the two characters in screenplay format. (no more than three pages)

-Describe a concept for a feature-length movie, fiction or documentary, which you would like to develop. (no more than two pages)

The major I’m applying for is film production. I only have experience with editing and directing, none with like screenwriting. My friend said the dialogue scene would most likely be the easiest. My question is, which would/did you do, and if you did the second one is the whole scene only dialogue? or like the characters move locations, can there be pauses. I suck at describing. Okay so imagine this (this isn’t my idea it’s just an example) two guys are talking about, lets say sports. Then the scene changes to the next day. Can you do that? or does the dialogue have to take place during one period of time with no scene changes. I would call and ask SCA but unfortunately they’re closed for thanksgiving. I am aware I shouldn’t have waited this long, but I can’t go back in time.

Thank you!

2

My daughter applied for film production as well. She chose to write a dialogue scene. While her scene was continuous, I do not see how it would matter, as long as it meets their listed parameters. A scene usually implies one continuous shooting sequence… and likely at one location during one time frame. Her scene was such, but it was not only dialogue. It involved standard narration, setting the scene and describing movements.

I would not necessarily recommend connecting scenes involving more than one location and different times… but if you are extracting 3 pages from a larger script, maybe that would be acceptable and make sense to them. But as written in the description, I would not recommend that approach.

I would encourage your second approach… a single dialogue scene that takes place during one period of time with no scene changes. It says no more than 3 pages… so a good 2 page scene may suffice.

Good Luck