BA, MA, MFA
Instructor, Motion Picture Arts Program
School of Motion Picture Arts
School of Motion Picture Arts - Motion Picture Arts Program
604.986.1911 ext. 3513
Bosa Building, room BC244
jordanhall3@capilanou.ca
Education
MFA (Creative Writing), University of British Columbia, 2015.
MA (Critical and Historical Studies in Film and Video), York University, 2005.
BA (Theatre and Multimedia), McMaster University, 2002.
"No one can teach inspiration. But we can hone our craft while we wait for inspiration to arrive."
Bio
Jordan Hall (MFA, University of British Columbia, 2015) is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter whose work focuses on the exploration of genre, socio-political inequality, ecological crisis, and the creation of deeply-compelling female protagonists. Her work has been dubbed "fresh and funny" by The Daily Mail, "sharp and witty" by Broadway World, and "a zesty treat" by The Telegraph.
Her first full-length play, Kayak, won Samuel French's Canadian Playwrights Competition, and has been produced to critical acclaim across North America. Subsequent plays include How to Survive an Apocalypse (Flying Start 2016, Samuel French 2018), A Brief History of Human Extinction (with Mind of a Snail Puppet Theatre). She has been an Associate at Playwright's Theatre Centre, and her work has been supported by Pi Theatre, Up in the Air Theatre and by grants from the British Columbia Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. She is currently a commissioned artist with The Only Animal's Artist Brigade.
As a screenwriter, Hall is best known for creating the cult-hit web series Carmilla (Winner: CSA, Digital Fiction, with over 70 million views on YouTube). She was Carmilla's lead writer for three seasons and the subsequent movie. She has been a winner of the Crazy8s Short Film Competition, a recipient of a Corus Writer's Apprentice Fellowship at Banff, and is an alumnus of the Pacific Screenwriting Program's Scripted Series Lab. Recent credits include story editor and writer on Family Law, and the supernatural drama Chaos Theory, on option with Seven24. She is represented by the Jennifer Hollyer Agency.
As a writer, I love stories. I am always in awe of their power to surprise, delight, horrify – to teach. Well-crafted stories engage both our mind and our emotions, and in that alchemy they persuade more powerfully than any study or essay or experiment.
Storytelling, at its core, is the art of empathy and self-knowledge. We create a protagonist, throw them into trouble, and ask our audience to care about that trouble and whether or not they can get themselves out of it. Students who want to tell stories are looking to change the world by expanding the boundaries of our empathy.
My work is to help them develop the craft skills they'll need to create those stories. To show us the face of the emerging world.