LECTURES

Teaching, Narrative, and the Craft of Screenwriting

Brandon Willer is a screenwriter, producer, and educator with more than a decade of experience working across television, animation, podcasts, and interactive storytelling, alongside long-standing service as an Adjunct Professor in the Writing for Screen & Television division at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Since 2019, Brandon has taught both undergraduate, graduate, and advanced workshop courses focused on long-form television storytelling, adaptation, collaboration, and professional writers’ room practice. His teaching bridges academic rigor with real-world industry experience, helping writers understand not only how screenwriting works, but why certain narrative choices matter.

His lectures are designed for aspiring writers, media professionals, and intellectually curious audiences who believe in the power of narrative and want to better understand how stories shape meaning, perspective, and culture.

Lecture Topics & WORKSHOP Courses

Breaking the Series: Writing the Long-Form Television Season

An immersive look at how writers’ rooms develop, structure, and sustain serialized television. Drawing on professional writers’ room practices, this class explores season arcs, episode breaks, outlining, and narrative momentum across a full series order.

Undergraduate Television Thesis: From Concept to Pilot

A capstone-style course examining the process of developing an original one-hour television series. Topics include concept development, series engines, pilot structure, pitch materials, and the transition from idea to polished script.

The Television Pilot Rewrite

A deep dive into revision as a core creative act. This class focuses on diagnosing structural issues, clarifying tone, strengthening character, and refining story engines through successive drafts of a one-hour drama pilot.

Collaboration in Screenwriting

An exploration of collaborative authorship in television writing. Using co-writing models and writers’ room dynamics, this course examines creative workflow, shared voice, conflict resolution, and the practical realities of writing with—and for—others.

Writing the One-Hour Drama

A craft-focused workshop on the narrative architecture of one-hour television. Topics include act structure, pacing, thematic clarity, and balancing character interiority with plot-driven storytelling.

Adaptation and Interpretation

Drawing from experience adapting novels, history, and existing IP across formats, this workshop explores adaptation as an act of interpretation. Emphasis is placed on point of view, narrative compression, and the ethical and creative choices writers make when translating stories across media.

Professional Writers’ Rooms: Structure, Power, and Process

An inside look at how professional television writers’ rooms operate, including hierarchy, decision-making, revision processes, and the relationship between creative intent and production realities.