In January of 2014 Stewart Stern, a former teacher of The Film School, visited Pierce College and spoke to Patrick Daughtery’s Intro to Film class about his experience with screenplay writing.

Stewart Stern is the iconic screenplay writer for popular films such as; The Outsiders, Sybil, and Rebel Without a Cause. When he finished his career in screenplay writing, he started teaching classes at The Film School in Seattle.

Stewart Stern was good friends with Denise Hartley, a humanities professor at Pierce, which aided in formed a larger connection between Pierce and the Film School.

On October 2nd of 2015 Pierce College brought in Diana Dotter to speak to students about how to be in the business of film. Dotter is the new executive director of The Film School in Seattle.

After Dotter’s visit to Pierce, a conversation about expanding classes to other colleges sparked. Initially there was talk about The Film School wanted extend their classes to shoreline community college, but ultimately they decided it would be a better option to bring classes to Pierce where film and theatre majors are already offered.

The class being offered at Pierce for summer quarter is called the Script Development Lab, the course lists; Brian McDonald, Stacy Adams, Diana Dotter, and Warren Etheredge as the instructors for this course. The course outline goes over story, pitch, production, and character.

This class does not have any special lab and equipment fees for Pierce Students and runs the regular cost of a 5 credit course that likely counts towards students credit in General Transferable elective or communications.