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Can you handle the truth? Aaron Sorkin teaching online screenwriting course

By Adam Poltrack June 27, 2016

Getting advice from the top professionals in any field is typically a very expensive proposition, but MasterClass is looking to make such guidance accessible to all. For a flat enrollment fee of $90, the site gives you lifetime access to a course from one of a handful of luminaries, and ScreenCrush reports that the site has added a screenwriting tutorial from the one and only Aaron Sorkin to the mix.

Sorkin, of course, is one of the top screenwriters on the planet. He has scripted classics like A Few Good Men (“You can’t handle the truth!”), The West Wing, Moneyball, and The Social Network, for which he won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. In other words: When he talks, you listen.

You can watch the trailer for the course above. It starts out by establishing that “no one, ever in life, starts a sentence with ‘dammit.’” Among the other nuggets shared, is that “the worst crime you can commit is telling the audience something they already know.”

From what we can tell, this seems like a pull-no-punches, no nonsense crash course, and Aaron Sorkin does not strike us as the sort to waste anyone’s time — least of all his own.

The course is comprised of 25 separate video tutorials, and even includes online office hours, during which Professor Sorkin will discuss select projects in greater detail.

MasterClass is “an immersive online experience that offers access to genius by allowing anyone to take online classes with the world’s best.” The service also includes acting lessons from Kevin Spacey, singing tips from Christina Aguilera, directing pointers from Werner Herzog, and writing advice from James Patterson.

Aaron Sorkin’s course is not yet live, but will be available on the site sometime this summer.

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