abstract – Page 8 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

From The Journal Of Screenwriting V4 Issue 2: Screenwriter Rafael Azcona, writing of his times by Julia Sabina Gutiérrez

Highlighting the articles in the past editions of the Journal of Screenwriting, of which I am the Book Reviews Editor. Hopefully these abstracts will entice you to did a little deeper into the history and future of screenwriting. — Rosanne

Screenwriter Rafael Azcona, writing of his times by Julia Sabina Gutiérrez

The aim of this article is to introduce the screenwriter Rafael Azcona, a key figure in the development of Spanish cinema, to an international audience. And rather than analyse his screenwriting work as simply a writer, I wish to look on his work as a spatial screenwriter, a creator of unforgettable images, situations and places in which his stories play out and his characters become unique. The concept of ‘space’ in his work is in reference to the relationship between the character and what André Gardies has referred to as ‘the cinematic narrative in relation to space’ or ‘narrative space’.

The Journal of Screenwriting is an international double-blind peer-reviewed journal that is published three times a year. The journal highlights current academic and professional thinking about the screenplay and intends to promote, stimulate and bring together current research and contemporary debates around the screenplay whilst encouraging groundbreaking research in an international arena. The journal is discursive, critical, rigorous and engages with issues in a dynamic and developing field, linking academic theory to screenwriting practice.

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Dr. Rosanne Welch and Intellect Editor James Campbell Talk Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting, The Journal of Screenwriting, and Other Work [Video] (1 hour)

One of the benefits of attending conferences is that you can meet the editors from the companies that have published some of your books face to face. That happened at the recent SCMS conference where I met Intellect editor James Campbell and he invited me to be a guest on his InstagramLive show.

We chatted about my work with the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting, and then my work with co-editor Rose Ferrell on the Journal of Screenwriting’s special issue on Women in Screenwriting (Volume 11, Number 3) that came out recently and which featured articles about an international set of female screenwriters from Syria, Argentina, China and Canada (to name a few).

We even had time to nerd out on our own favorite classic films across the eras which brought up fun memories of Angels with Dirty Faces, Back to the Future, Bonnie and Clyde, and of course, all things Star Wars from the original 3 to The Mandalorian. It’s always so fun to talk to fellow cinephiles.

With Intellect Books Editor James Campbell (@IntellectBooks)

Speaking with Dr. Rosanne Welch, Author, teacher, and television screenwriter. Today we cover everything from women in screenwriting to our favorite Jimmy Cagney movies and Friends.

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V4 Issue 2: The screenwork as palimpsest by Rosamund Davies

Don’t Look Now: The screenwork as palimpsest by Rosamund Davies

The development of the screen idea is a dynamic, interactive process, involving a range of documents and collaborators. This article will consider the extra layer that adaptation from prose fiction to script adds to this process. Taking as my example the short story by Daphne du Maurier, Don’t Look Now, adapted for the screen by Allan Scott and Chris Bryant and subsequently directed by Nicolas Roeg (1973), I will focus in particular on the adaptation of narrative voice, from short story to screen: examining narration strategies in the short story, screenplay drafts and film, and the relationship between them. My discussion will explore the relevance of Ferrer and Groden’s notion of the creative process as an ‘always virtually present’ background process, of which each element of text and avant-texte constitutes but one manifestation. It will also introduce the figure of the palimpsest, considering how it might illuminate an understanding of the screenwork as constructed through the various layers that have contributed to its genesis, producing a multiple rather than a singular entity.

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Dr. Rosanne Welch and Intellect Editor James Campbell Talk The Journal of Screenwriting and Others – Instagram Live – Wed, March 24, 2021, 10am PDT

JOIN US!

Instagram Live – Wed, March 24, 2021, 10am PDT

on the Intellect Instagram Account

I’ll be joining Intellect editor James Campbell this Wednesday the 24th for his Instagram Live segment.

We’ll be discussing the Special Issue of the Journal of Screenwriting that I co-edited with Rose Ferrell which covered international Women in Screenwriting.

We’ll also be talking about how and why to write for journals and how to use them in your courses.

From The Journal Of Screenwriting V4 Issue 2: Unknown spaces and uncertainty in film development by Margot Nash

Unknown spaces and uncertainty in film development by Margot Nash

This article examines a discovery-driven process to script development as opposed to a formula-driven one. It is an investigation into the uncertain nature of the creative process in general, and the all-pervasive quest for certainty in film development in particular. Development strategies that value a discovery-driven process are few and far between, as are strategies to explore the gaps, or elisions, within a screenplay where subtext thrives, yet these are transformative spaces that invite an active and creative response. In this article I engage in practice-based research as a writer/director and as a teacher, and investigate two particular areas of film development. The first is early-stage script development where ideas are still struggling to find form; the second is latter-stage script development where a screenplay is refined in order to create spaces where others might respond imaginatively. I advocate risk taking, and the use of unconventional models, in order to create new spaces for students to explore their creativity, and I examine the ‘unknown’ and the ‘uncertain’ as active spaces, both for a screenwriter developing new work and for those who engage creatively with a screenplay as it transforms into a film. I argue that gaps or spaces within a screenplay offer opportunities for directors, actors, key creative crew and eventually an audience to actively participate, and that a development process that values the unknown offers the screenwriter a gateway to adventure and innovation. Screenwriting textbooks rarely enter the unknown and uncertain spaces of creativity yet, as many artists (albeit working in less-expensive mediums) seem to know instinctively, it is within the interplay of the known and the unknown, of passion and reason, and of logic and intuition – that creativity lies.

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V4 Issue 2: Tracing the voice of the auteur: Persona and the Ingmar Bergman Archive by Anna Sofia Rossholm

Tracing the voice of the auteur: Persona and the Ingmar Bergman Archive by Anna Sofia Rossholm

This article discusses the Ingmar Bergman Archive, a donation by Bergman himself, mainly consisting of notebooks, manuscripts, production documents and letters, as well as the screenwriting process behind the film Persona (1966). The study approaches the digital manuscript archive as an interface that lends itself to an understanding of the artwork as continuous movement of transformation across media, an understanding that also links to aesthetical ideas on the relations between words and images expressed in Bergman’s cinematographic work. The study opens with a discussion of these issues and continues with a reading of the self-reflexive film Persona in order to examine how the explicit reflections on the mediation are negotiated across notebook drafts and scripts. The different phases in the process of creation – from notes and drafts to script versions and film – reflect on the transitory nature of the text as well as drawing on the specificities of each form of expression.

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V4 Issue 2: Writing With Light: The screenplay and photography by Kathryn Millard

Writing With Light: The screenplay and photography by Kathryn Millard

This article considers alternative processes for recording the screen idea, specifically, processes that draw on photography and images in the writing process. It discusses screen works inspired by the photographs of Samuel Bollendorff (Journey to the End of Coal, 2009), Arthur Felig Weegee (The Naked City, 2002) and August Sanders (Do Right and Fear No-one, 1975), and proposes that ‘writing with light’ is an appropriate metaphor for screenplays that are inherently unstable and always in transition.

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V4 Issue 1: The unseen collaborator: Breaking down art to create modern narratives by Marie Regan

The unseen collaborator: Breaking down art to create modern narratives by Marie Regan

This article proposes a new way of looking at the screenwriting process and at the pedagogical instruction of screenwriting. It proposes an alternative to the industrial model of screenwriting – one that allows for the possibility of creating film scripts that might lie on the borders of narrative. Starting with a research process, this method uses the deconstruction of an art source to develop the writer’s point of view in hopes of creating modern works of unusual complexity and resonance. Citing examples from Bach, Munch and Melville, and films by Francois Girard, Peter Watkins and Claire Denis, the article suggests a method for screenwriters using the limit of an original artwork’s form to generate a unique narrative structure, and building on that structure by bringing the writer’s own contemporary perspective to the content concerns. It contends that this process works to renew the writer’s connection to form and, by working with an artwork the writer admires, pushes the writer into deeper engagement with her own point of view.

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V4 Issue 1: expensive words, cheap images: ‘Scripting’ the adapted screenplay by Alex Munt

expensive words, cheap images: ‘Scripting’ the adapted screenplay by Alex Munt

This article explores ‘scripting’ the adapted screenplay for budget film models, including microbudget features, DIY film-making and creative practice-led research. It highlights the lack of attention given to the adapted screenplay in the field of adaptation studies, and works with notions of intermediality, and transmediality, to privilege the screenplay as the primary site for creative interaction in the adaptation process. In the context of small-scale, budget film-making practices the focus is towards modes of scripting that rely on working with images, both as part of the screenplay form/format and more directly, in ‘writing’ with moving images, with the screenplay situated within production. This article argues that in consideration of the adapted screenplay, for budget film-making, the relationship between words and images is realigned. The impact of digital media culture together with the advance of digital film-making will accelerate this. Two case studies are presented. The first is Mala No he (1985), the debut feature film of Gus Van Sant, based on the novella by Walt Curtis. The second is LBF (2011), the author’s own debut feature film, based on the novel Living Between Fucks (2006) by Cry Bloxsome. This article aims to engage screenwriting researchers, independent/budget film-makers and creative arts practitioners.

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V4 Issue 1: Communication and the various voices of the screenplay text by Ann Igelström

Communication and the various voices of the screenplay text by Ann Igelström

The aim of this article is to examine how the writer, through the means of the screenplay text, communicates the potential film to the reader. The article argues that the screenplay text’s reason for existing is to communicate the potential film, and that analysing a screenplay text through a communicational approach therefore is suitable. The author will ask what type of information is communicated, who it is that communicates and how the communication appears in the text. The article will propose a model that displays the different narrating voices that can be found in screenplay texts, and a set terminology for the narrating voices that clearly position them in relation to the text and the information they provide will be proposed. The examination of extracts from published screenplays further enables the author to identify how the use of the different narrating voices situates the reader at a certain distance from the story.

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