academic – Page 21 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

From The Journal Of Screenwriting V3 Issue 1: Storyworld: the Bigger Picture, investigating the world of multi-platform/transmedia production…by Anna Zaluczkowska

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

Storyworld: the Bigger Picture, investigating the world of multi-platform/transmedia production and its affect on storytelling processes by Anna Zaluczkowska

My investigations into transmedia and multi-platform production practices reveal that writers for film and TV could soon need to become content creators (directors or producers or craftspeople in addition to being writers), blurring the distinctions between concept, creation, production and post-production. This article explores this phenomenon of multi-platform/transmedia production, mostly in the United Kingdom, and in particular its storytelling processes through a study of a small but successful company, Bellyfeel, based in Manchester, United Kingdom. Bellyfeel have given me complete access to their work and established an online environment where I can study their practice/writing. I will contextualize the creative practice of the company with the work of Henry Jenkins, and suggest that, in the contemporary marketplace, it may be necessary for the writer to be focused on the production process and the technological aspects of this process in order to understand how product is created and functions in this new environment.

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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39 My Own Favorite International TV Shows from Why Researching Screenwriters Has Always Mattered [Video] (1 minute 31 seconds)

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In my own Television viewing experience, I’ve had the chance to see all of these programs which I never would have seen. Commisaroio Montalbano is the most famous detective show in Italy. Again, that helps me feel more connected to my cousins and what they’re watching and to my grandparents and the world they grew up in. I can see footage from Italy. I was amazed to find that Doctor Who eventually traveled around the whole world. I’m told the doesn’t play here necessarily but probably geeky people have found it somewhere. Trapped was a miniseries made in Iceland. You can see the Icelandic translation on the bottom and it aired on Netflix and I was amazed to watch eight hours of something that was filmed in Iceland and told me about a culture I could possibly never imagine and might never have the chance to see but because of Netflix. I’ve now experienced this program — and then Call My Agent I find very funny. It’s a French show. You can see the proper title –the French title– on top and it’s about a talent agency. — just as Roger was explaining this morning — in France and how they work with actors and all the problems that happen. It’s a one-hour comedy and what’s cute about it is the characters — the actors who played actors on the show are actually famous French actors pretending to be bad people and causing troubles for their agents. So you’ve recognized actors you’ve seen in movies coming in and talking to the fake agents that they are with. So it’s a charming way to learn more about French films, right, in just one program. So I’ve been so impressed with what I’ve been able to see.

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A Note About This Presentation

A clip from my keynote speech at the 10th Screenwriters´(hi)Stories Seminar for the interdisciplinary Graduation Program in “Education, Art, and History of Culture”, in Mackenzie Presbyterian University, at São Paulo, SP, Brazil, focused on the topic “Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered.” I was especially pleased with the passion these young scholars have toward screenwriting and it’s importance in transmitting culture across the man-made borders of our world.

To understand the world we have to understand its stories and to understand the world’s stories we must understand the world’s storytellers. A century ago and longer those people would have been the novelists of any particular country but since the invention of film, the storytellers who reach the most people with their ideas and their lessons have been the screenwriters. My teaching philosophy is that: Words matter, Writers matter, and Women writers matte, r so women writers are my focus because they have been the far less researched and yet they are over half the population. We cannot tell the stories of the people until we know what stories the mothers have passed down to their children. Those are the stories that last. Now is the time to research screenwriters of all cultures and the stories they tell because people are finally recognizing the work of writers and appreciating how their favorite stories took shape on the page long before they were cast, or filmed, or edited. But also because streaming services make the stories of many cultures now available to a much wider world than ever before.

Many thanks to Glaucia Davino for the invitation.

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V3 Issue 1: Television and film screenwriters: How to reach a global audience by Philippe Perebinossoff

Television and film screenwriters: How to reach a global audience by Philippe Perebinossoff

The focus of this article will be on an examination of American television and film projects and their inceptions and/or receptions in various marketplaces. In addition, the article will explore some of the specific cultural differences around the world that may be of importance to screenwriters.

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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

38 More On International TV Shows and the US from Why Researching Screenwriters Has Always Mattered [Video] (1 minute 18 seconds)

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Transcript:

They had to have the United States version, so they remade the TV show. They called it the Red Band Society and they didn’t understand the culture of Italy. The show In Italy is all about hope and has a little magical realism to it because one of the children is in a coma but he narrates the story because he watches his friends become friends and grow and have hope that they will be cured someday and in the United States we didn’t get that which is very sad. The show was actually canceled after six episodes because they focused on the grown-ups who were the doctors and the nurses. They thought the story had to be “we’re gonna find that cure because that’s what we do we save the world.” That wasn’t the story at all. They did. They ruined the story right and because we don’t — we think nice people are boring, the nurse is the meanest woman I have ever met and these children are dying of terminal diseases and she’s being mean to them and they thought that that was very edgy. That’s the big word I hate in the United States right now — edgy, We need edgy programming. How many people can we kill in the next five minutes? So we ruined this lovely program right but at least, through Netflix, I can watch the Italian version with subtitles.

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A Note About This Presentation

Many thanks to Glaucia Davino for the invitation.

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V3 Issue 1: Irish cinema 1994–2009: The trajectory of script development policy at the Irish Film Board by Díóg O’Connell

Irish cinema 1994–2009: The trajectory of script development policy at the Irish Film Board by Díóg O’Connell

This article explores the changing nature of public policy in Ireland, 1994–2009, as it relates to film and scriptwriting practice. The dominant discourse in Irish cinema studies has centred around ideas of identity, national identity in particular with more recent studies branching off in the direction of genre studies, political economy and narrative studies. This article is framed, broadly speaking, within a political economy discourse, by way of exploring how Irish Film Board policy changed over a specific period as a result of internal and external factors, shaping a structure that would determine how Irish scriptwriters related to the wider field of film production. Through a survey of Irish Film Board policies, newspaper articles and annual reports, this article presents a general historical overview of an evolving film policy as it related directly to scriptwriting and script development. Against this backdrop, other questions surface about Irish cinema and scriptwriting practice, particularly questions centred on local/global issues.

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37 International TV Shows and the US from Why Researching Screenwriters Has Always Mattered [Video] (41 seconds)

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Transcript:

This is a film — excuse me — a tv show that started in Europe. I learned about it through an Italian screenwriting colleague — Braccialetti Rossi and it’s about a group of young children in a hospital and they wear red bands because they have terminal illnesses and it’s about them banding together and being friends, One of the things that’s good or maybe bad about what’s going on with international television is that I believe we could air the original version in the United States and that enough people would watch it but the networks still believe they need to have an American version — a United States version. I had to learn to stop saying that this week right because I’m in America right now.

Watch this entire presentation

A Note About This Presentation

Many thanks to Glaucia Davino for the invitation.

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V3 Issue 1: The constructive use of film genre for the screenwriter: The relevant knowledge component of the mental space of film genre by Jule Selbo

The constructive use of film genre for the screenwriter: The relevant knowledge component of the mental space of film genre by Jule Selbo

This exploration is a continuation of my work on the ‘mental space of film genre’, a term I have coined to introduce a terminology to investigate the use of film genre for the screenwriter as he or she constructs a screenplay. Understanding this use of film genre may add to the screenwriter’s other technical skills such as knowledge of story structure and character construction. I have previously delineated the first two elements of the mental space of film genre in the second issue of the Journal of Screenwriting – schematic knowledge (the use of film genre as a framing device) and specific knowledge (the understanding of film genre the audience brings to the viewing of filmic narratives). This work will then focus on what I believe to be the important third element of the mental space of film genre – relevant knowledge.

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36 Streaming Companies and World Culture from Why Researching Screenwriters Has Always Mattered [Video] (1 minute 19 seconds)

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That’s why these services are so important to what we’re going to be able to do in the future because so many films are now co-productions with Netflix and they know they want to keep this worldwide audience because soon we’ll have the Disney streaming channel and we’re going to have an NBC streaming channel. There will be too many of those to pick from. The one thing Netflix has going for it is it’s done co-productions with so many countries. So people can have an interest in seeing their stories more than repetitive Disney stories, as much as I like Disney after a while I don’t need to see Aladdin filmed by 47 different actors again and again and again. So I think it’s really important and so even when I was preparing and thinking about doing this I watched some Brazilian television. I was able on my own television to simply dial up these programs and see what they were all about and because of that, I can then share them with my students who are very interested in finding out because my students come from many, many different backgrounds — many many different heritages and they don’t always see themselves represented on film. So the idea of seeing television shows and movies from their families home culture is a beautiful way for them to keep that culture even in a world where assimilation is the thing that more people are respecting, and they feel they lose their culture.

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A Note About This Presentation

Many thanks to Glaucia Davino for the invitation.

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V3 Issue 1: Poetic dramaturgy in Andrey Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood (1962): Conflict and contrast, two types of narrative principles by M.-R. Koivumäki

Poetic dramaturgy in Andrey Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood (1962): Conflict and contrast, two types of narrative principles by M.-R. Koivumäki

This article aims to define certain characteristics of so-called poetic dramaturgy by analysing sequences from Andrey Tarkovsky’s first feature film Ivan’s Childhood (1962). The essential elements of classical dramaturgy as proposed by Aristotle are problem (conflict), cause and effect, turning points and a closed ending, and writerscontinue to use such elements in their writing. I am interested in whether or not it is possible to define the features of poetic dramaturgy in a similar way so that they too are incorporated into the writer’s craft. In this article, I will focus on one frequently occurring expressive cinematic element in Ivan’s Childhood – upward–downward movement. Through dramaturgical analysis, my aim is to reveal the dramaturgical system associated with this movement. The deviations from classical dramaturgy are of interest to me, and I will consider them as evidence of poetic dramaturgy. My contention is that there is an immanent system in Tarkovsky’s film that clearly differs from classical dramaturgy and which we can define as poetic. In addition, this article aims to analyse the nexus between word and image in the screenplay and film, with the intention of understanding whether the poetic dramaturgy has been defined in (written into) this particular screenplay or whether it is something that the director has introduced into the film.

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35 Subtitles Are No Longer Scary from Why Researching Screenwriters Has Always Mattered [Video] (1 minute 5 seconds)

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Previously in the United States, the only way we could see a movie from Brazil would be if it won an Oscar or if it was nominated for an Oscar right and these are the only films that had wide release in the United States before Netflix because you would have to go to a theater. You would have to be the kind of person who liked to see international films, who were willing to read subtitles. I noticed — my son is 21 — and I notice in his generation there is more of a comfort with reading subtitles. He watches, because of Netflix, a lot of Japanese anime — a lot of movies from around the world — he doesn’t mind. About 10 years ago, before Netflix. if I assigned an international movie — and I would often assign some Italian films to my film students — they would complain because reading the screen was boring. Now it’s become more acceptable so that we have this opportunity. So until Netflix, this was the only way that in the United States we would have been exposed to any of these films except Kiss of the Spider Woman because that was a co-production between Brazil and the United States so it won some Oscars and we knew about it.

Watch this entire presentation

A Note About This Presentation

Many thanks to Glaucia Davino for the invitation.

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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