Hi,
I am preparing to apply to UCLA MFA in Screenwriting in the fall (as well as applying to a few other statements) and I've begun to brainstorm about my "Statement of Purpose". Like college application essays, the task seems to be asking for a cheesy self-promotion essay and I was thinking of taking a more "creative" approach.

Is anyone else working on this? (Or has worked on this?) Any thoughts on creative vs straight essay approaches?

yea I'm working on that too, for the producers program. Does it say anywhere how long it's supposed to be?

I'm not sure what you mean by this question.

is there a page max or minimum for the statement of purpose? I don't see one so I am thinking no.

Mine was a page and a half. UCLA's not too big on maximums.

I actually meant the original question...

wow I am super self involved . Thanks for letting me know though.

I meant that one approach to a Statement of Purpose is to write a formal, straight forward essay about your reasons for going to grad school. Another approach could be to write something more creative, using dialog or literary devices. I was just wondering what others thought of this for UCLA since their application is much more standard than say USC's.

More to the point: Would UCLA frown upon being creative with the format of a Statement of Purpose?

My statement was about me, how I came to discover I was meant to be a screenwriter, and what I hoped to accomplish through the program and beyond. It opened with an anecdote that conveyed the recurring theme of the statement, and was revisited in the end.

It was more of a story than anything else, but I didn't used script dialogue or format, I wrote it "straight," as you say.

I don't know what they'd think of you doing it the way that you suggest. My opinion? If you're writing in a non-traditional style to get noticed or stand out, then don't bother. If it's just the way you write, then go for it.

For the record, I was accepted to UCLA's screenwriting program last year with my Statement. I also used it with minor tweaks for USC and AFI, where I was bumped off both waitlists.

I don't say this to boast, but rather to demonstrate that the "straight" statement worked for at least one person.

I hope this was helpful and wish you the best of luck!

By way of counterpoint, let me offer that I wrote something very weird indeed for UCLA.

See, I somehow managed to put off writing the stupid statement until the day of the deadline (shut up, I'm an artist). So when the Big Day arrived, I tried vomiting forth various approaches in a heated state of panic, with the predictably miserable results. Something--delirium, coffee, desperation--convinced me that this very *act,* or the malleability of purpose it exhibited, was of the deepest profundity. Whatever.

Anyway, I ended up taking the various scraps I'd written out of the garbage, typed them up, arranged them in reverse chronological order, wrote a little introduction about the anthropology of waste, and sent it in. I ended with an unedited transcription of the brainstorming notes I had made:

"why do you really want to do this? make a difference chance to focus, COMMUNITY, a huge debt to the movies stop being a goddam dilettante, california california california"

They let me in.

--IA

You, Icarus, are amazing.

I also did my app the night before! And for USC I threw out EVERYTHING I wrote for EMO and the CCs, and scribbled out new ones in less than a day.

What's funny, though, is that we prepare and prepare and prepare, then hate everything we do and toss it out, actually procrastinating after pledging we wouldn't.

And it seems to be the norm.

Well, considering I've already gone through about three outlines and one semi-draft, I expect I'll be changing mine at the last minute. At least I'll be participating in a fine tradition!

Thanks for the thoughts, guys!

I think you can stick to your particular writing style, but at the same time adjust to the format. Mine was creative and slightly idiosyncratic, but also had a structure that nailed down systematically the points I wanted to project.

I probably wrote the gist of it in about a day and then spent a month and a half going back and editing, cutting, editing, cutting - but that's my workflow.

It did use literary devices eg. metaphor, imagery, analogy, however I stayed away from dialogue and hubris.

I wouldn't recommend going absolutely straight and formal. I think you need to give at least some of your personality to stand out. But this can be done in so many ways. I have to say, by the end , even though I edited it god knows how many times, it felt very natural to read. Who knows. Take a chance.

Best of luck,
Daniel

We're all so neurotic. I started working on apps in February, only to toss it all at the zero hour.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one...