About

LMU Beginning Screenwriting at Loyola Marymount University's School of Film and Television is a two-week workshop in the fundamentals of on-screen storytelling, offered in both residential and online formats each summer. Set within one of the country's most recognized film schools — and in Los Angeles, the center of the American entertainment industry — the program gives high school students a structured introduction to the craft under the guidance of full-time faculty who are working professional screenwriters.

The curriculum covers the core elements of the form: structure, character development, dialogue, descriptive action, formatting, and genre. Students workshop their writing with peers and faculty, analyze both classic and contemporary films, and leave with a completed short screenplay. The residential version, held on LMU's Westchester campus, runs in two sessions (June 21–July 3 and July 5–17, 2026) and includes housing, meals, campus recreation access, and a studio tour at a local film or television production facility. The online version follows the same curriculum in a remote writer's-room format, with small class sizes that allow every student's work to be workshopped with full faculty and peer feedback.

Admission is open to rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors for the residential program; the online version is limited to rising juniors and seniors. Both require a personal essay, a short creative writing sample, transcripts, and a teacher recommendation. The residential program costs $6,500, which covers tuition, housing, meals, and field trips. The online program costs approximately $2,730 for a two-week non-credit course. Neither version offers college credit. Need-based financial aid does not appear to be available for either format.

For a student drawn to screenwriting or film production as a college direction, LMU Beginning Screenwriting offers one of the few pre-college programs taught by working industry professionals at an accredited film school in Los Angeles.