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2013 | Buch

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Screenwriting Poetics and the Screen Idea

verfasst von: Ian W. Macdonald

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Buchreihe : Palgrave Studies in Screenwriting

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" , Springer Professional "Technik"

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Über dieses Buch

A new, original investigation into how screenwriting works; the practices, creative 'poetics' and texts that serve the screen idea. Using a range of film, media and creative theories, it includes new case studies on the successful ITV soap Emmerdale, Hitchcock's first major screenwriter and David Lean's unfinished film, Nostromo.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. Introduction

Abstract

This book proposes a new way of understanding the process of screenwriting, suggesting answers to the questions of what should be studied and how, without relying on ‘how-to’ books and manuals. It refers to the process of screenwriting for film and television drama, but the principles discussed apply to all forms of moving image screen narrative.

Ian W. Macdonald

2. Theoretical Approaches

Abstract

In this chapter, I look first at the reasons for researching and studying screenwriting, and the difficulties facing researchers in defining the focus of study. Then I focus on four research perspectives that seem particularly helpful in addressing this, for different reasons: those of Roland Barthes; of Pierre Bourdieu, together with creativity theorists; of the neo-formalists (particularly Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson); and of researchers in media production studies (including Caldwell and Lotz).

Ian W. Macdonald

3. The Orthodox Poetics of Screenwriting

Abstract

Julia Donaldson’s popular children’s book Room on the Broom (2001) is a charming poem, illustrated by Axel Scheffler, about a witch who keeps losing things and offering space for a ride on her broom to the animals who find them. Towards the end, they are threatened by a dragon. In 2012, it was adapted as a short animated film, with the plot structure staying very close to the book, with one exception: the dragon was introduced briefly twice, earlier in the plot, before he actually arrived and threatened them. The film thus introduces tension and a dramatic build to a climax. In the book, the dragon appears unexpectedly (surprise); in the film we know what the witch doesn’t, that she is heading for trouble (suspense). The book follows the children’s storybook tradition where the heroine simply meets one character or event after another, in picaresque style; the film conforms to the current orthodoxy of screenwriting, which suggests that simple screen storytelling requires a build of tension, a climax somewhere near the end, and a coda.¹ This example shows, neatly, that those who produce screen narrative have certain assumptions about what that narrative should look like, irrespective of content.

Ian W. Macdonald

4. The Real World, and Screenwriting as Work

Abstract

In sheer numbers, in the real world of film production, Hollywood does not rule. In the five years prior to 2009, India produced an average 1,178 films per year; Nigeria produced 1,075 per year.¹ The US, in third place, produced — at most — an average 747 titles per year (UIS 2012, 8),² and was the only one of the top five whose output appears to be decreasing.

Ian W. Macdonald

5. The Screen Idea Work Group: Emmerdale

Abstract

The initial reason for choosing to study the open-ended TV serial (soap) is its ‘industrial’ nature. The very size and complexity of production requires more overt — and therefore more observable — practices. As a genre, soap is also one of the most detailed, constraining types of screenwriting framework. Narrative interest must always be sustained, without end; and the usually large volume of production will require a large work group behind it. The genre is very familiar; as viewers, we all know the approximate conventions of soap. How, then, do the members of a soap Screen Idea Work Group define success? What are their beliefs and how do they collaborate (or compete) to achieve the right outcome? This is not an enquiry into social representation, but about what provokes and forms this particular screen fiction narrative; what is likely to ‘fit’ this production, and why? It is also about how writers — often portrayed as isolated individuals — work together in a clearly defined Screen Idea Work Group.

Ian W. Macdonald

6. The Individual, Their Creativity and the Poetics

Abstract

The story of Leonardo’s Spoons is about the engagement of the individual with the prevailing conventions. The new artist learns the mechanics, the experienced artist has achieved an instinctive sense of the desired harmony. Da Vinci is above the basics; he uses his understanding of them to transcend them, to create the sublime. The individual can transcend the mechanical conventions when he or she no longer needs to refer to them consciously, though now they form his or her dispositions, and therefore the very basis for the judgements of that individual. My interpretation here is based on creativity theory, which relies on an understanding of the interaction of field, domain and individual to explain the generation of new and novel work.

Ian W. Macdonald

7. Hitchcock’s Forgotten Screenwriter: Eliot Stannard

Abstract

This is the case of one writer, working in a field less familiar to us. The paradigm of practice was different in the British film of the 1920s, and it was changing, which presented problems for a screenwriter who had opinions about good screenwriting. Intellectual debate over film principles led to strong views, but tensions in practice had particular consequences.

Ian W. Macdonald

8. God Is in the Details: The Text Object

Abstract

Alfred Hitchcock always made the film on paper, says the myth, before he shot a foot of film. But Bill Krohn, in his Hitchcock at Work (2000), refines the myth, noting that while Hitchcock certainly used storyboards and his own sketches, he was not beholden to them — they are suggestions. As Krohn points out, storyboards may have been used to ‘sell’ set design or camera angle — a tool as much for the producer as the director or designer — but they are not literally blueprints (2000, 12). Hitchcock improvised with actors on set, he was more experimental than he was credited for, and he left his editor and production designer room to make choices. Topaz (1969) started shooting without a script. In many of the films Krohn discusses, re-writes went on during production, and some scenes shot were never actually written down. Not everything was in the script anyway, with Hitch bemoaning the omission of camera movement in the conventional Hollywood writer’s draft (a different convention from his early British work with Stannard and others); though Hitch claimed to have about 90% worked out in his mind. It was ‘not just guessed at’, but on the other hand his plans might not have been on paper at all (Krohn 2000, 11–16).

Ian W. Macdonald

9. The Poetics of the Screen Idea: Nostromo

Abstract

Nostromo (1904) is widely regarded as Joseph Conrad’s finest novel. ‘It brilliantly captures the tragic and brutal essence of Latin American politics, and, by extension, the spiritual emptiness of modern politics and politicians’ (Crawford 2002, v). Between 1986 and 1991, the British film director David Lean worked on an adaptation, but he died in April 1991, just a few weeks away from principal photography.

Ian W. Macdonald

10. Screenwriting Studies

Abstract

This chapter considers first how our understanding of screenwriting studies can be unified under a single definition, and then concludes by offering some thoughts that might help us in forming academic and pedagogic responses to the challenges of this rather unusual field.

Ian W. Macdonald

Backmatter

Titel: Screenwriting Poetics and the Screen Idea
verfasst von: Ian W. Macdonald
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Electronic ISBN: 978-0-230-39229-8
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-35191-6
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230392298