The Immersion Philosophy

The Immersion method has 3 pillars: Discovery, Forgery, and Mastery.

In his book ON WRITING, Stephen King says:

You have to read widely, constantly refining (and redefining) your own work as you do so. It’s hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at all in some cases) should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written, but I know it’s true. If I had a nickel for every person who ever told me he/she wanted to become a writer but ‘didn’t have time to read,’ I could buy myself a pretty good steak dinner. Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.

Discovery

You’ll read, summarise, and reflect on a feature film script, and a TV pilot.

In this way, you’ll discover some of the principles of great writing without anyone lecturing you. And as you grapple with the summary, you will also learn something else.

When you summarise something, you have to decide on which parts matter the most. This will sharpen your innate understanding of story structure. Nobody needs to tell you about 3 acts or six stages. You’ll figure out for yourself.

And what knowledge do you think will last longer and be more effective?

What you were lecture on, or what you discover by yourself?

Forgery

You know what Picasso did before he achieved genius status? He copied the masters.

It is a proven learning technique in many disciplines. Here’s what Stephen King says:

Imitation preceded creation, I would copy Combat Casey comics word for word in my Blue Horse tablet, sometimes adding my own descriptions where they seemed appropriate. […] Eventually I showed one of these copycat hybrids to my mother, and she was charmed – […] She asked me if I had made the story up myself, and I was forced to admit that I had copied most of it out of a funnybook.

– Stephen King

And not just authors. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has said:

This is a thing for new writers. They will take a really good screenplay. They’ll take Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and they’ll put it next to them and they will type Butch Cassidy and the Sundance […]. I know novelists who do that with Mark Twain, and I know screenwriters who do that with the great screenwriters.

– Aaron Sorkin

We’re going to do exactly this: copy from high quality scripts in a diverse range of genres.

Halfway the course, we’ll step up our efforts a little, for what we call Mastery.

Mastery

Now you’ll apply what you learned in the first half of the course to transcribe scenes.

This is the most powerful practice, because it replicates the pro screenwriter’s brain process.

Only, instead of translating images in your mind, we will put some images before your eyes, and you will translate those into words on the page.

The Immersion **method is all about studying, copying and otherwise learning from the masters.

What constitutes a master?

The toughest part about creating this course was selecting the materials to include.

When picking the scripts and excerpts, I looked at a whole range of criteria:

• Is the format still in use today?
• Is the genre still popular?
• Did the film/show enjoy critical or public acclaim?
• Is the script’s page count realistic?
• Is the writing style engaging?

In addition, I tried to keep a reasonable balance of the following:

• film / tv
• recent / classic
• masculine / feminine
• dialogue / description
• drama / genre
• hollywood / arthouse

The excerpts also offer specific challenges, such as:

• a phone call
• a flashback
• a series of shots or montage
• text on screen
• suspense
• action

In the next step, we’re going to benchmark your skill level.