MUMBAI: After a series of successful scriptwriting workshops, Indiantelevision Dot Com now offers aspiring writers a much needed full fledged, well rounded and complete script writing course.
Qalam, a three month course, scheduled to begin on 2 August 2003 will be guided by a governing board that comprises Nimbus Communications CEO Dr Akash Khurana, Siddhant Cinevision creative director Vinod Ranganath, Indian Television Dot Com CEO Anil Wanvari, television creative professional Aditya Seth and writer-director Vijay Victor Acharya.
The course will boast a faculty that includes television luminaries like noted scriptwriters and directors including Sanjay Upadhyay, Ishan Trivedi, Sanjay Chhel, BM Vyas, Ashwani Dhir and many more. Aditya Seth will be the course co-ordinator for Qalam.
The television scriptwriting course has been born of the belief that the industry needs to absorb trained writers, just as scribes too, need to be tutored in the science and art of scriptwriting for television. Says Ranganath, “The aim is to get quality writers into the industry. Thus far, there has been no structured teaching for aspiring writers. Now that the industry is bigger than what it was a decade ago, there is a definite need for quality writers which Qalam will help provide.”
Agrees Khurana,”The objective of the course is to encapsulate the theory and craft as comprehensively as possible and apply it meaningfully on to a hands-on writing experience.” He adds, “Aspiring writers need navigation. Qalam hopes to provide them with a compass.”
The Qalam syllabus has been broken down into three modules, crafted specially to cater to different skill sets that need to be mastered by the students. In the first module, trainers will initiate students in the rudiments of story ideas that are relevant to television, the different kinds of concepts that work for the medium and the creation of the characters that go to make up a complete story. The second module will deal with how to weave a story into an interesting teleplay, the graphing of a story for the teleplay, the difference in the teleplay for different kinds of stories and on how to create the cliff hangers that define a teleplay.
The third module will deal with the construction of the scene and dialogue. The fourth module will have students creating a story from an idea/concept, creating the characters, developing plot points and overall graph. They will be required to write an episodic teleplay and dialogues for an episode. 
Says Indiatelevision Dot Com CEO Anil Wanvari, “The aim of Qalam is to ensure that channels and production houses have a bunch of talented writers that will help take the industry to the next creative level.”
The course will run for 12 weeks with three interactive sessions per week. The weekend sessions will be longer, and the focus will be to illustrate the educational experience with the help of video sessions. Additionally, participants will be urged to take part in the discussions, ideation and analyses. Interactivity will be the keyword for the entire course.
Each module of the course will take up to three weeks and six to nine sessions. Admission to the course will be decided on the basis of an entrance test aspirants will have to answer, that will test their language, perception and ideation skills. The questionnaire will shortly be put up on www.indiantelevision.com along with eligibility criteria, course content and other details.
The course fees have been set at Rs 10,000. Indiantelevision Dot Com is also looking for partners to offer scholarships/fellowships for deserving candidates who may not be able to afford the fees.
For further details on the course, contact Rinku at Indiantelevision.com on 26730986/0969.