Matthew McConaughey to teach new University of Texas class on commercials in 2023

Actor Matthew McConaughey will be co-teaching a new class at the University of Texas next semester called Script to Screen: Commercials.

McConaughey, known for his work in films such as "Dazed and Confused" and "Dallas Buyers Club," has co-taught a class at UT called Script to Screen since 2015. As part of that class, UT students have studied the script drafts, shot lists, storyboards and additional footage from the Oscar award-winning actor’s movies, including “The Gentlemen” and “Mud.”

While his original class is not being offered during the upcoming spring semester, the new version will take students “behind the scenes” of McConaughey' latest commercial work, including his advertisements for the software company Salesforce and the car brand Lincoln.

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In the class, students will get “experiential learning opportunities” and study campaign briefs, scripts and storyboards to learn about making major advertising campaigns, according to the course description. It will only be offered to UT students majoring in advertising and radio-television-film.

“Students will explore the production of commercials as well as the development and distribution of advertising campaigns from the ad agency perspective. Script to Screen: Commercials is an essential 'how-to' for students who are serious about advertising, marketing, producing or directing,” the course description said.

The class will be co-taught with Scott Rice, an associate professor of practice in the radio-television-film department, and Laura Bright, an associate professor in the Stan Richards School of Advertising & Public Relations. McConaughey, who graduated from UT with a radio-television-film degree in 1993, has been a professor of practice at UT since 2019.

Rice said it was McConaughey’s idea to develop a class focused on his commercial work and cross-list it with the School of Advertising. He said he hopes to continue to offer the class focused on commercials in future spring semesters while also continuing the initial version of the class focused on movies.

“I think (the class is) particularly helpful for film students, because we don't typically teach commercials,” Rice said. “We talk about movies. We talk about television, but students are kind of in the dark about how our commercial production is created, so I think that the class is particularly exciting for film students who normally wouldn't get that perspective.”

Rice said McConaughey will provide access to advertising agencies, creative directors and agency producers behind certain commercials who will talk to students in the class about the development process. He also will talk with students about his own experiences.

“The fact that someone of Matthew McConaughey’s stature wants to sit down with young people and help guide their careers is very inspiring to students,” Rice said. “It's empowering when an Oscar-winning actor ... is willing to sit down individually and answer questions. That's really cool, and that's extremely valuable to the students.”

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Bright said the class is going to include an equal number of students studying advertising and radio-television-film who will be able to blend their knowledge in developing a creative message and film production and to learn from one another.

She said the class assignments will include critiques of McConaughey’s previous advertising campaigns and development of original commercial concepts for a brand of the student’s choice.

“I'm excited for all of us to learn from each other,” Bright said. “That's going to be extremely fun, and I think it's going to be great for students to be able to analyze the different content, and then have access to the person that created it to get even more in-depth information about that creative process that Matthew goes through.”

Bright and Rice both said they hope to have a Script to Screen class in fall 2023 that focuses on production, where students can bring to life the concepts and principles they developed in the Script to Screen class focused on commercials or film.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Matthew McConaughey to teach new UT class on commercials in 2023