Digital platforms in performance: radio drama, podcasts, video games, YouTube, and other online platforms

This course is part of the University of Cambridge’s MicroMaster’s program in Writing for Performance and Entertainment Industries. How can you utilise the innovative creative world of online digital platforms to advance and create new material as dramatic writers? We will be looking in depth at how to find an digital form that stimulates you as a writer. Do you want to write interactive gameplay ‘script’ for the video game industry? Or learn how to write soundscapes for radio drama and podcast plays? Perhaps you want to create new content for your own YouTube channel? We will be looking at how narrative skill and digital production coincide in all these mediums. We will consider successful professional examples of digital narratives; look deeply into the changing form of scriptwriting in the video game industry, as well as acquire a knowledge of how to reach a target audience online. This is a comprehensive introduction to writing and innovating digital content. Learning to write for online platforms, and how to communicate most effectively with an online audience, is now an highly transferable skill for any profession. Digital expertise, flexible thinking, and expert storytelling abilities are now essential in a diversifying global job market - come and learn essential new skills, and have fun doing it! You will be set writing exercises over the course of the module, and you will asked to keep a brief creativity journal to note how your ideas progress and how your intuition leads you into productivity. By the end of this module, you will have completed several pieces of script in a range of digital mediums of your choice.