screenwriting research network – Page 12 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

From The Journal Of Screenwriting V5 Issue 1: Writing with images: The Film-Photo-Essay, the Left Bank Group and the pensive moment by Andrew Taylor

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

Writing with images: The Film-Photo-Essay, the Left Bank Group and the pensive moment by Andrew Taylor

This article is focused on the film-photo-essay form. The first part of the article is a narrative account of my experiments ‘writing with images’ in the early and mid-2000s, using (the then) new digital tools to make film-photo-essays. My account reflects on how the change from analogue to digital affected my approach to photography, film-making and writing with images. I then look at the case study of Siberia (2009), an illustrated script that was written following my experimentation with the film-photo-essay form. The second part of this article is a more general enquiry into the film-photo-essay form and work that combines cinema and photography. I discuss the contemporary interest in work that falls on a spectrum between photography and cinema; often referred to as ‘still/moving’. I then focus on the ‘Left Bank Group’, whose work often combined cinema, photography and the literary and philosophical essay. Examples from the ‘cine-writing’ of Alain Resnais, Agnes Varda and Chris Marker highlight how Raymond Bellour’s idea of the ‘pensive moment’ is apt in relation to their work. I argue that still/moving forms allow more space for audience interaction and emotional response than conventional narrative cinema; and in a world saturated with information and cluttered with images, there is an important place for new pensive hybrid art forms.

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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The Civil War On Film – 34 in a series – “…purports to be a history of the gangs of New York…”

Judging the truth of the history portrayed on screen begins by judging the truth of the history portrayed in the original source material. While Asbury’s book is shelved with non-fiction and purports to be a history of the gangs of New York, the subtitle admits it is “An Informal History of the Underworld.” On top of that, unlike other films adapted from books, which work hard to remain loyal to the text, when Scorsese thought about making Gangs he admitted being more interested in being loyal to the town than its residents.

Movies profiled in this book:

From The Journal Of Screenwriting V5 Issue 1: Screenwriting and emotional rhythm by Ian David

Screenwriting and emotional rhythm by Ian David

Recent advances in neuroscience have begun to unravel the part played by emotion in decision-making and creativity. All storytellers rely on emotion, but the screenwriter, conveying the essential narrative and technical information required to make a film, carries a unique burden. Screenplays must act as a bridge from the author to the audience, describing the narrative’s capacity to evoke emotion through action and image. In discussing a screenplay, the narrative is usually assessed in terms of its characters, plot, subplots, theme, dialogue, tone, style, etc. Yet, emotion, the quality that determines the screenplay’s (and ultimately the film’s) overall effect, is often poorly understood. This paper proposes Emotional Rhythm – that subliminal sequence of emotions underpinning all the dramatic components – as a means of evaluating the screenplay’s potency as it relates to the construction of the narrative.

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The Civil War On Film – 33 in a series – “…the conflict that arose in Kansas in the seven years before the Civil War known as “Bleeding Kansas.”

The roots of the Kansas-Missouri border war can be found in the conflict that arose in Kansas in the seven years before the Civil War known as “Bleeding Kansas.” In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act created the two territories and solved the “slavery problem” with the addition of a popular sovereignty clause. While the notion that Kansas settlers would vote on whether they wanted slavery or not sounded like a sensible solution to the nation’s increasingly anxious conversation about slavery, it inadvertently caused a kind of war between anti-slavery and pro-slavery settlers.

Movies profiled in this book:

13 Something’s missing in writer’s rooms from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

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When the folks hosting the conference announced their theme as “Screen Narratives: Chaos and Order” the word ‘chaos’ immediately brought to mind writers rooms. I offered a quick history of writers rooms (the presentations are only 20 minutes long) and then quoted several current showrunners on how they compose their rooms and how they run them.

Transcript

Something’s missing in these early writer’s rooms. What’s — who’s not in that picture? Audience: Women. Uh-hum. it’s kind of obvious, you know, so we had these shows that we admire greatly but they didn’t have a female perspective. Hello? They were missing and their opinion is missing and I think that’s a problem. But then along came Buffy and Buffy had a staff that included many female writers — some of whom are now credited with giving it the feminist bent that it had. Joss Whedon may have started the show but now we also know that — like Woody Allen — there are things we don’t like about him. So it seems it was the women on the staff who maintained that feminist idea right up to the point where they credited the first lesbian couple on television, Tara and Willow — and that was a big step in American television. So, Buffy’s a big step. Now, here we have a room for Orange is the New Black, which has many females, but it’s missing something different. Audience: People of color. A person of color, exactly, and yet the show itself was filled with women of color as characters. So, again, we have to address that issue. We’re not getting all the perspectives we can.

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From The Journal Of Screenwriting V5 Issue 1: Where are you from? Place as a form of scripting in independent cinema by J. J. Murphy

Where are you from? Place as a form of scripting in independent cinema by J. J. Murphy

Large-budget Hollywood studio productions generally prefer a high level of fabrication in creating a film’s setting, either through the building of sets or through special effects, because it gives the production team greater control. Yet that’s often been less true of indie films historically. For a variety of reasons, the setting or location of independent films often becomes a central part of the scripting of a film. It is obviously cheaper to use what already exists in reality rather than to attempt to create a location through set design or art direction. Beyond issues of budget, however, my interest here is in exploring how ‘place’ can actually function as a key element in the scripting process, especially one that is rooted in visual storytelling, by taking into account the myriad ways that a film’s setting can contribute to and enhance the narrative beyond the use of generic, decorative or touristic locations. Using examples drawn from independent cinema, the article argues that place can have an intrinsic, integrative, stylistic, structural, conceptual and thematic function.

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The Civil War On Film – 32 in a series – “…because it was insufficiently sympathetic to the Confederate point of view.”

Predictably, some Civil War movie fans didn’t like Andersonville because it was insufficiently sympathetic to the Confederate point of view. Neo-Confederate viewers, who surely expected a different film from Georgian Ted Turner, pointed out Confederate soldiers in Union prison camps suffered as greatly as Union soldiers in Andersonville. On the whole though, Andersonville fairs well with Civil War movie fans who enjoy (or at least tolerate) a Northern point of view.

Movies profiled in this book:

12 Kenny Johnson from How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television [Video]

With the full recording of “How The Chaos Of Collaboration in the Writers Room Created Golden Age Television”

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Transcript

Kenny Johnson brought science fiction more seriousness, right? So he started The Bionic Woman. He moved on to The Incredible Hulk, then V, and then Alien Nation. A beautiful show about an alien nation and assimilation into new cultures all done through science fiction. So he brought social justice to science fiction and that was a very distinct way that his voice worked. I got to be his assistant for a while.

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The Civil War On Film – 31 in a series – …the heroism slathered on the men who survived Gettysburg…”

Much of the heroism slathered on the men who survived Gettysburg on both sides, but mostly regarding the Confederates, came from the literary work of their wives and widows published for years after the war. For example, in 1913 La Salle Corbell Pickett published The Heart of a Soldier As revealed in the Intimate Letters of Genl. George E. Pickett C.S.A. Due to his wife’s efforts, his reckless and ill-conceived charge became synonymous with heroism – and with her husband and her husband alone – despite the fact that two Confederate divisions charged up Cemetery Ridge that day.

Movies profiled in this book:

From The Journal Of Screenwriting V5 Issue 1: Where do cinematic ideas come from? by Adrian Martin

Where do cinematic ideas come from? by Adrian Martin

This essay explores the concept of a cinematic idea. How does it originate, and how can it shape, on every level, the construction of a film? Making special reference to filmmakers’ documents (as an instance of genetic criticism), the essay offers a case study of Leos Carax’s Holy Motors.

Get your copy and subscription to the Journal of Screenwriting Today!

* 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!