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Student experience
Overview
Meet current student, Danni Zhang
Bachelor of Fine Arts (Screenwriting) student Danni Zhang talks about what excites her about a career in screenwriting.
I love the way audiences are engaged and taken on a ride through the power of storytelling. I include myself in this. That is the power of television and the power of cinema.
Danni Zhang
The play of words and the design of story is the way I love to be involved in shaping a cinematic experience. It all starts with the page, but it doesn’t end there. What this course has taught me is the art of collaboration. I have witnessed the way that words come to life in the company of directors, cinematographers, and other creatives who are as passionate and dedicated to visual storytelling as I am. What we write is not written to be read but written to be seen. I would not study anywhere else; it’s the hub of creativity in the heart of a beautiful city.
The BFA (Screenwriting) provides an immersive and experiential studio-based education, focusing on the origination and development of stories for the screen. With the creative, collaborative and technical skills gained, you'll be optimally placed to make a significant impact in the national and international creative industries.
Faculty of Fine Arts and Music
The course is taught at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, the proud home of the Victorian College of the Arts and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.
You’ll enjoy access to incredible facilities, including cinemas, digital vision and audio post-production facilities, visual art studios and technical workshop facilities, purpose-built dance studios, libraries, theatre and performance spaces, and animation and stop-motion studios.
While studying at the Faculty, you will have the chance to benefit from a range of partnerships and engagement activities at major arts companies in Melbourne's Arts Precinct, local and national festivals and sister institutions around the world.
Explore the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music
Wilin Centre
Situated in the heart of Melbourne's Arts Precinct, the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development provides exposure to contemporary Indigenous arts practices and supports the recruitment of Indigenous artists, academics and students.
Luke Devenish
Meet the staff
Luke Devenish, lecturer
Luke Devenish is a novelist, screenwriter, playwright and lecturer who currently teaches Screenwriting at the Victorian College of the Arts. He has published a number of internationally successful novels, including his latest novel, The Heart of the Ritz. He tells us why he is drawn to write about certain stories and characters.
As a gay man, I grew up with a firsthand understanding of what it is to be marginalised. It was no one’s fault, societal attitudes existed in the 70s and 80s that are much diminished now, and in a way I’m grateful for having lived through less enlightened times. The legacy of it is my keen empathy with others who suffer marginalisation – which is the experience of being disregarded and overlooked by the wider world.
I have such a fascination for history, but not for well-trodden stuff; I look for the stories behind the story. In doing so, it’s invariably obvious to me who the most marginalised people are in any given past period: women. This is why I’m so drawn to their stories, and most especially to those of women who triumph in spite of their marginalisation. But there are others to be found in this camp, too, so their stories also inspire me.
Learn from the best
Your teachers are practicing artists who are well-connected to industry, and there are course-integrated opportunities to collaborate with students from other creative disciplines.