Script Culture and the American Screenplay

Script Culture and the American Screenplay PDF

Author: Kevin Alexander Boon

Publisher: Wayne State University Press

Published: 2008-01-10

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0814335713

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Though the history of the screenplay is as long and rich as the history of film itself, critics and scholars have neglected it as a topic of serious research. Script Culture and the American Screenplay treats the screenplay as a literary work in its own right, presenting analyses of screenplays from a variety of frameworks, including feminism, Marxism, structuralism, philosophy, and psychology. In distancing the text of screenplays from the on-screen performance typically associated with them, Kevin Alexander Boon expands the scope of film studies into exciting new territory with this volume. Script Culture and the American Screenplay is divided into two parts. Part 1 provides a general background for screenplay studies, tracing the evolution of the screenplay from the early shot lists and continuities of George Méliès and Thomas Harper Ince to the more detailed narratives of contemporary works. Part 2 offers specific, primarily thematic, critical examinations of screenplays, along with discussions of the original screenplay and the screenplay adaptation. In all, Boon explains that screenplay criticism distinguishes itself from traditional film studies in three major ways. The primary focus of screenplay criticism is on the screenplay rather than the film, the focus of screenplay studies is on the screenwriter rather than the director, and screenplay criticism, like literary criticism, is written to illuminate a reader’s understanding of the text. Boon demonstrates that whether we are concerned with aesthetics and identifying rules for distinguishing the literary from the non-literary, or whether we align ourselves with more contemporary theories, which recognize texts as distinguishable in their inter-relationships and marked difference, screenplays constitute a rich cache of works worthy of critical examination. Film scholars as well as students of film, creative writing, and literary studies will appreciate this singular volume.

Four Screenplays

Four Screenplays PDF

Author: Syd Field

Publisher: Delta

Published: 2009-09-30

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0307569527

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Yes, you can write a great screenplay. Let Syd Field show you how. “I based Like Water for Chocolate on what I learned in Syd's books. Before, I always felt structure imprisoned me, but what I learned was structure really freed me to focus on the story.”—Laura Esquivel Technology is transforming the art and craft of screenwriting. How does the writer find new ways to tell a story with pictures, to create a truly outstanding film? Syd Field shows what works, why, and how in four extraordinary films: Thelma & Louise, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, The Silence of the Lambs, and Dances with Wolves. Learn how: Callie Khouri, in her first movie script, Thelma & Louise, rewrote the rules for good road movies and played against type to create a new American classic. James Cameron, writer/director of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, created a sequel integrating spectacular special effects and a story line that transformed the Terminator, the quintessential killing machine, into a sympathetic character. This is how an action film is written. Ted Tally adapted Thomas Harris's chilling 350-page novel, The Silence of the Lambs, into a riveting 120-page script—a lesson in the art and craft of adapting novels into film. Michael Blake, author of Dances with Wolves, achieved every writer's dream as he translated his novel into an uncompromising film. Learn how he used transformation as a spiritual dynamic in this work of mythic sweep. Informative and utterly engrossing, Four Screenplays belongs in every writer's library, next to Syn Field's highly acclaimed companion volumes, Screenplay, The Screenwriter's Workbook, and Selling a Screenplay. “If I were writing screenplays . . . I would carry Syd Field around in my back pocket wherever I went.”—Steven Bochco, writer/producer/director, L.A. Law, Hill Street Blues

The Screenplay

The Screenplay PDF

Author: Steven Price

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Published: 2010-01-12

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780230223622

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After decades of neglect, the screenplay is finally being recognized as a form that deserves serious critical analysis. This book for the first time combines detailed study of the theory and practice of screenwriting with new approaches to criticism and original studies of individual texts.

Off the Page

Off the Page PDF

Author: Daniel Bernardi

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2017-09-12

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0520285654

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Introduction: screenwriting off the page -- Millennial manic: crisis and change in the business of screenwriting -- Atop the tentpole: hollywood screenwriting today -- Running the room: screenwriting in expanded television -- New markets and microbudgets: "independent" storytellers -- Screenwriter 2.0: the legitimation of writing for video games -- Conclusion: scripting boundaries

Screenwriting

Screenwriting PDF

Author: Andrew Horton

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2014-08-23

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 0813563429

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Screenwriters often joke that “no one ever paid a dollar at a movie theater to watch a screenplay.” Yet the screenplay is where a movie begins, determining whether a production gets the “green light” from its financial backers and wins approval from its audience. This innovative volume gives readers a comprehensive portrait of the art and business of screenwriting, while showing how the role of the screenwriter has evolved over the years. Reaching back to the early days of Hollywood, when moonlighting novelists, playwrights, and journalists were first hired to write scenarios and photoplays, Screenwriting illuminates the profound ways that screenwriters have contributed to the films we love. This book explores the social, political, and economic implications of the changing craft of American screenwriting from the silent screen through the classical Hollywood years, the rise of independent cinema, and on to the contemporary global multi-media marketplace. From The Birth of a Nation (1915), Gone With the Wind (1939), and Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) to Chinatown (1974), American Beauty (1999), and Lost in Translation (2003), each project began as writers with pen and ink, typewriters, or computers captured the hopes and dreams, the nightmares and concerns of the periods in which they were writing. As the contributors take us behind the silver screen to chronicle the history of screenwriting, they spotlight a range of key screenplays that changed the game in Hollywood and beyond. With original essays from both distinguished film scholars and accomplished screenwriters, Screenwriting is sure to fascinate anyone with an interest in Hollywood, from movie buffs to industry professionals.

Screenplay

Screenplay PDF

Author: Syd Field

Publisher: M J F Books

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781567312393

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Providing examples from well-known movies, Field explains the structural and stylistic elements as well as writing techniques basic to the creation of a successful film script.

Screenwriting

Screenwriting PDF

Author: Andrew Horton

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2014-08-23

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 0813574358

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Screenwriters often joke that “no one ever paid a dollar at a movie theater to watch a screenplay.” Yet the screenplay is where a movie begins, determining whether a production gets the “green light” from its financial backers and wins approval from its audience. This innovative volume gives readers a comprehensive portrait of the art and business of screenwriting, while showing how the role of the screenwriter has evolved over the years. Reaching back to the early days of Hollywood, when moonlighting novelists, playwrights, and journalists were first hired to write scenarios and photoplays, Screenwriting illuminates the profound ways that screenwriters have contributed to the films we love. This book explores the social, political, and economic implications of the changing craft of American screenwriting from the silent screen through the classical Hollywood years, the rise of independent cinema, and on to the contemporary global multi-media marketplace. From The Birth of a Nation (1915), Gone With the Wind (1939), and Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) to Chinatown (1974), American Beauty (1999), and Lost in Translation (2003), each project began as writers with pen and ink, typewriters, or computers captured the hopes and dreams, the nightmares and concerns of the periods in which they were writing. As the contributors take us behind the silver screen to chronicle the history of screenwriting, they spotlight a range of key screenplays that changed the game in Hollywood and beyond. With original essays from both distinguished film scholars and accomplished screenwriters, Screenwriting is sure to fascinate anyone with an interest in Hollywood, from movie buffs to industry professionals.

William Faulkner at Twentieth Century-Fox

William Faulkner at Twentieth Century-Fox PDF

Author: Sarah Gleeson-White

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-02-15

Total Pages: 600

ISBN-13: 0190657286

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William Faulkner at Twentieth Century-Fox: The Annotated Screenplays presents for the first time and in one volume the five screenplays Faulkner wrote while under contract to Twentieth Century-Fox in the mid 1930s and a sixth he wrote in 1952. An informative introduction describes Faulkner's screenwriting practices, such as adaptation and collaboration, and contextualizes these within a broader genealogy of Hollywood screenwriting and within one of the most important moments in the history of American cinema. Each of the six screenplays appears in full with scholarly annotations, and brief prefatory essays elucidate their evolution over various drafts and with various co-writers. The edition makes available for the first time and in one volume Faulkner's Fox screen writings, and, with its scholarly apparatus, thus makes a valuable contribution to recent scholarship across a number of fields: Faulkner and film; literature and film/adaptation studies; cinematic modernism; and screenplay studies. It also foregrounds Faulkner's many significant collaborators, such as Zanuck and Howard Hawks, and therefore makes an important contribution to the history of Twentieth Century-Fox under Zanuck.

Women Screenwriters

Women Screenwriters PDF

Author: Jill Nelmes

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-09-29

Total Pages: 913

ISBN-13: 1137312378

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Women Screenwriters is a study of more than 300 female writers from 60 nations, from the first film scenarios produced in 1986 to the present day. Divided into six sections by continent, the entries give an overview of the history of women screenwriters in each country, as well as individual biographies of its most influential.

The Palgrave Handbook of Screenwriting Studies

The Palgrave Handbook of Screenwriting Studies PDF

Author: Rosamund Davies

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-07-27

Total Pages: 832

ISBN-13: 3031207696

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This book provides an overview of the growing field of screenwriting research and is essential reading for both those new to the field and established screenwriting scholars. It covers topics and concepts central to the study of screenwriting and the screenplay in relation to film, television, web series, animation, games and other interactive media, and includes a range of approaches, from theoretical perspectives to in-depth case studies. 44 scholars from around the globe demonstrate the range and depths of this new and expanding area of study. As the chapters of this Handbook demonstrate, shifting the focus from the finished film to the process of screenwriting and the text of the screenplay facilitates valuable new insights. This Handbook is the first of its kind, an indispensable compendium for both academics and practitioners.