Screenwriting Boot Camp
with Steven de Souza
In this class, Steven shares decades of hands-on experience in television and motion pictures, offering practical, time-tested methods used by working Hollywood professionals to break story, build compelling worlds, and bring unforgettable characters to life. Over four energizing days, engaging exercises, guided improv techniques, and a focused scene-writing challenge will strengthen your storytelling instincts in fresh, eye-opening ways. Whether you’re exploring screenwriting for the first time, deepening an established practice, or working in a related field, you’ll gain clear, approachable tools for rewriting, polishing, editing, and cutting for time. You’ll also learn how to thoughtfully critique your own work, discover a simple strategy to overcome writer’s block, and understand how to guide your script through studio feedback toward that ultimate goal of a green light and a red carpet.
4 Mornings: Monday 11/2–Thursday 11/5 | 9am-12pm
$895.00
In stock
Steven de Souza
One of the few screenwriters whose films have grossed over two billion dollars, Steven E. de Souza’s credits include the genre-defining films Die Hard and 48 HRS., as well as Commando, The Flintstones, Ricochet, Die Hard 2, Tales From the Crypt, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, and The Running Man and its recent reboot. Upcoming for 2027 is his action comedy Martini Shot from director Simon West (Con Air), and the WWII spy thriller Vichy for Forté Films.
A Philadelphia native, Mr. De Souza attended Penn State, where his professors included renown film restorationist David Shepherd and celebrated Science Fiction writer William Tenn. After serving in the US Army as a medic, he began writing for magazines and periodicals, with acerbic critiques on media, beginning in the legendary rock and roll journal Crawdaddy, followed by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and many magazines, including Empire, Premiere, Time Out and Sight & Sound.
His Hollywood career began with an origin story that could only occur in Hollywood: On his third day in town, he won a car on a quiz show, and on his fifth day he sold a spec script to Universal Studios and began a five year stint as a writer/producer on such
shows as The Six Million Dollar Man, Simon & Simon, V, and Knight Rider before moving on to Paramount and his first feature, 48 HRS.
Mr. de Souza has been nominated twice for the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Mystery Screenplay, and the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Film. He is a recipient of the Imagen Foundation’s Norman Lear Award for Lifetime Achievement in
Writing, the Costa del Sol’s Cultural & Film Association’s Unicorn Award, for artists whose careers span multiple mediums, and the Doctor Bird Award, which is given for achievements in the arts for people of Jamaican descent.
A frequent guest lecturer at the USC Film School and the American Film Institute, he has taught master classes on screenwriting at UCLA, The American Cinematheque, FICCI Frames in Mumbai, India, the Screencraft Residency Program in Treasure Beach, Jamaica, the London Action Film Festival, and the Tenerife Noir Festival in the Canary Islands. A long standing member of the Directors Guild of America, the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences, and the Writers Guild of America, he has served twice on the latter’s Board of Directors. His retro-noir screenplay Rex Venice will be published this year by @stickingplacebooks.