CS 3/2019 - Writing for Cinema, Writing for Television

Quaderns del CAC , 2003

The translation of The Writer's Journey, by Christopher Vogler, and the practically simultaneous publication of Story, by Robert McKee, revived the debate about books on film and TV scripts, in which guides, descriptive studies and academic analyses are mixed together in a field where often the borders between different particular issues are crossed. This intersection of theoretical writings discloses a great deal of agreement between academic conclusions and the ones screenwriters reach in their day-to-day practice, which can produce the question: in what ways do screenwriting manuals and analytical studies complement each other and how do they exchange contributions?

First, there was the question of good training in scriptwriting. Europe has been lagging behind the US for almost half a century. In his Story, Robert McKee (1997:16-17) writes about the story problem and the loss of craft. He notes that:

New Writing, 2016

In the last decade screenwriting as a profession has changed significantly, with the writing of a screen idea no longer a singular individual pursuit (Macdonald, 2004). Screenwriting has become a truly collaborative practice, and even though the screenplay is considered by some as being 'authorless' (Conor 2014) or a 'signpost not a destination' (Harper 2015), it is also an activity that inherently recognizes writers as the creators of novel and original content. This re-examination of screenwriting situates the practice inside the academy as a place where future practitioners can understand the industry they aspire to work in, and the contexts within which it operates. To this end, the screenwriter steeped in the traditions of creative writing can become more creatively responsive to the industrial and economic factors driving the processes of screen production. By reconceptualizing the screenwriter as a creative and conditioned agent who plays a specific part in the realities of the contemporary screen industry, we can better prepare students for professional practice scenarios that will enable them to make creative contributions that shape and change the industry.

Submitted Thesis This thesis is a practice-led inquiry into the practice of screenwriting with the intention of comparing and contrasting the actual process of screenwriting with the methods and rules espoused by both commercial screenwriting manuals and the approach adopted within the Academy. After establishing the theoretical framework for the approach towards the practice-led research and its relationship to the form and content of the exegesis, I will review the conventions and ideas that inform and govern the approach towards the teaching and training of screenwriters. This will be followed by an analysis of the process of conceiving and writing an original screenplay, through the interrogation of a detailed development journal that was maintained throughout the development of the screenplay, including those moments where as writer I followed directions and ideas that ultimately had to be discarded. Throughout this section I will identify and share the variety of influences that informed me as a writer, with the intent of providing an exploration of the writer at work, revealing the self as writer, and the writer as researcher. I will also explore specific aspects of the manualist approach towards screenwriting with particular reference to the ‘hero’s’ journey and to genre. An essential element of the inquiry is an exploration of the status of the screenplay itself, and the status of the screenwriter within the industry and within film theory. Finally, I will consider firstly how my own practice as a screenwriting tutor has altered as a response to the practice-led inquiry, and in consequence how this might inform the development of a different approach towards the education of screenwriters, particularly within the Academy.

Journal of Screenwriting, 2010

This article aims to contribute to contemporary debates about screenwriting as a process of developing the screen idea; about the ways in which formatting conventions from an earlier era of cinema may restrict innovation in screenwriting; and about shifting practices of screenwriting in a digital era in which images and sound play a potentially more significant role. Additionally, it questions the use of terms such as 'blueprint' to describe the relationship between the screenplay and the proposed film that it represents. The article draws on the author's body of practice-led research as a writer and director of feature films and documentaries, as well as histories of screenwriting, film production, comics and the graphic arts.

Screenwriting in the academy is an emerging research area. To date, it has been difficult to study screenwriting activity in higher education settings, not least because few academic journals publish screenplays. This is largely because scripts written in the academy have not been seen as research or as fully-fledged creative works worthy of publication. There has been a persistent idea that scripts are not stand-alone works but merely “blueprints” for the films or television programs based on them. This situation is now changing, with a number of academic journals publishing screenplays as creative research and treating scripts as texts in themselves, irrespective of production. This article explores the reasons behind the marginal position of screenwriting in the academy, which includes discipline bias, and argues for the repositioning of screenwriting as a valid and valuable creative and research practice. The article argues that the outcomes of this creative research, the screenplays themselves, should be treated as creative research texts in their own right that are deserving of publication irrespective of any staging or production. The article also discusses future directions of Screenwriting Studies as a scholarly discipline.

2009

2018

Here the authors discuss the role of fiction in screenwriting practice research. The screenplays included in the 'Screenplays as Research Artefacts' special issue of TEXT present a range of stories, worlds, characters, visual scenarios and dialogue exchanges that function as vessels for theories and ideas. These eleven screenplays all use creative practice approaches to research across a wide variety of discourses. All of the works embrace fiction as an important method to convey their respective critical concerns, which, the authors argue, evidences an emerging hallmark of screenwriting (as) research when compared with associated forms in the creative writing and screen production disciplines: fiction as a staple of its storytelling, creative practice and research methodology. The authors suggest that the use of fiction to perform research and present findings illuminates the ways that knowledge can be affective, not merely textual or verbal, something that is exemplified in the selected screenplays.

This thesis is a practice-led inquiry into the practice of screenwriting with the intention of comparing and contrasting the actual process of screenwriting with the methods and rules espoused by both commercial screenwriting manuals and the approach adopted within the Academy. After establishing the theoretical framework for the approach towards the practice-led research and its relationship to the form and content of the exegesis, I will review the conventions and ideas that inform and govern the approach towards the teaching and training of screenwriters. This will be followed by an analysis of the process of conceiving and writing an original screenplay, through the interrogation of a detailed development journal that was maintained throughout the development of the screenplay, including those moments where as writer I followed directions and ideas that ultimately had to be discarded. Throughout this section I will identify and share the variety of influences that informed me as a writer, with the intent of providing an exploration of the writer at work, revealing the self as writer, and the writer as researcher. I will also explore specific aspects of the manualist approach towards screenwriting with particular reference to the ‘hero’s’ journey and to genre. An essential element of the inquiry is an exploration of the status of the screenplay itself, and the status of the screenwriter within the industry and within film theory. Finally, I will consider firstly how my own practice as a screenwriting tutor has altered as a response to the practice-led inquiry, and in consequence how this might inform the development of a different approach towards the education of screenwriters, particularly within the Academy.

Globalizing Screenwriting. 14th SRN Conference, 2022

Looking for the origins of narrative ideas is a difficult yet stimulating challenge that has always put to the test the studies of cultural processes. Understanding how narrative concepts take root in an imagery concerns also Screenwriting Studies and different Histories of Film around the world. Parent-Altier (1997) described screenwriters as artists indifferent to the origin of their ideas and as authors of a “creative magma”, which only following analysts will be able to make out. In some Italian writers’ opinion, dramatic insight comes mysteriously to the artists, since it naturally and unconsciously emerges from the richness of their knowledge and the variety of their experiences. There are exceptions, though, and we can explore some screenwriters’ creative universe thanks to their memoirs (for the Italian context see Incrocci:1990; Pirro: 2011), useful in Screenwriting Studies thanks to the “discourse frame paradigm” (Maras: 2009). The screenwriter’s inspiration sources can be verified because they are generally rooted in a series of universal parameters set at the heart of the human experience and placed in the cultural traditions. As well as the studies and sources able to testify to some resisting narrative trends inside the history of Italian cinema (Eugeni: 2008), the paper means to stimulate a reflection about the Italian cinema imagery, its ideas and its creative industries in connection with the possibility this imagery has to become global (Aresu: 2020; Peluffo: 2020). It also means to answer some questions about Italian cinema as seen in the light of “high concept” (Thompson: 1999) and find traces of this notion within the screenwriting practice of Italian movies. So, it intends to highlight broader themes of reflection between film history and screenwriting studies and, above all between theory and practice.

In my research about the collaborations between Peter Handke and Wim Wenders I found a script that has never been filmed, which would explain why it has never been analyzed in academic bibliographies related to their partnership. Wim Wenders wrote a script entitled Langsame Heimkehr (Slow homecoming) in 1982 as an adaptation of the homonymous tetralogy by Peter Handke. This 'find,' along with the absence of interpretations for it, led me to ask more specific questions about the role of the script in narratives that make up a certain history of cinema. Furthermore, I gradually discovered the meaning and value of a script, whether historical or narrative, for a nonexistent film.

This essay explores the inner workings and power dynamics involved in story development in the history of Czech cinema. It focuses on the political history of screenplay development practices and formats, especially on the “Literary Screenplay”. This Soviet-inspired screenplay type was introduced to Eastern Europe in the late-Stalinist era to attract literary authors to write for the screen, to elevate the cultural status of the screenplay, and to facilitate pre-censorship. The primary means by which communist ideologues sought to reform screenwriting was the dramaturgy, organized in a complex hierarchy of dramaturgical institutions with the state or central dramaturgy at the top and “units” at the bottom. In the state-controlled system of production, the dramaturg or unit head supervising four dramaturgs was a close equivalent to a producer albeit without the usual financial, green-lighting, and marketing responsibilities, which were held by the state or by the Party and its representatives. The units oversaw story development, the selection of casts and crews, and, in some historical periods, shooting and post-production, and occasionally even distribution. This essay shows how uncovering the logics of institutionalized practices of collaborative creative work that took place under the influence of political forces can help us to make sense of the vast screenplay collections housed at Prague archives. The essay combines production studies and political history of the production system to reveal the differences between the production modes and the screenwriting practices of Hollywood and Europe, and between the Western and the Eastern halves of this continent. It is based on an analysis of 100 Czech screenplays from the 1920s to the1980s, and of records of their development, as well as on oral history and institutional history.