Scripting the Environment

Oil, Democracy and the Sands of Time and Space

verfasst von: Geo Takach

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : Palgrave Studies in Media and Environmental Communication

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

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Über dieses Buch

This volume explores how to engage audiences both beyond and within the academy more deeply in environmental research through arts-based forms. It builds on a multi-pronged case study of scripts for documentary film, audio-visual and stage formats, focusing on how the identity of a place is constructed and contested in the face of environmental concerns around fossil-fuel extraction in a globalized, visual society--and specifically on the rising, international public-relations war over Alberta’s stewardship of the tar sands. Each script is followed by discussion of the author’s choices of initiating idea, research sources, format, voices, world of the story, structure and visual style, and other notes on the convergence of synthesis, analysis and (re)presentation in the script. Included are lively analysis and commentary on screenwriting and playwriting theory, the creation and dissemination of the scripts, and reflections to ground a proposed framework for writing eco-themed scripts for screen, audio-visual and stage formats.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. Environment, Communication and Arts-Based Research

Abstract

This chapter sets out the mission of this project: to study why and how environmental research can and should be represented through arts-based forms in addition to traditional and emerging quantitative and qualitative methods. It situates the nexus between environment and art, while positioning arts-based research as a newer paradigm for scholarly inquiry, based on the possibility of individual or cultural transformation via intellectual, emotional and aesthetic engagement. It outlines advantages, challenges and approaches to arts-based research in environmental studies, and lays the foundation for the book’s concluding, proposed framework for engaging broader publics in environmental scholarship through arts-based forms.

Geo Takach

Chapter 2. A Line in the Bit-Sands

Abstract

This chapter introduces the book’s multipronged, arts-based case study, focusing on how the identity of a place is constructed and contested in the face of environmental concerns around fossil-fuel extraction in a globalized, visual society. It examines the rising, international public-relations war over Alberta’s environmental stewardship of the world’s third-largest source of oil and its largest source of synthetic oil, the bituminous (‘tar’/‘oil’) sands. As a symbolic epicentre of the rising clash between the economic-development imperatives of extractive capitalism and its unsustainable costs, the project epitomizes what the Canadian theorist, Harold Innis, described as a struggle for balance between societies whose values are based on opposing axes of time and space. The chapter concludes with notes on the theory and research methods grounding this work.

Geo Takach

Chapter 3. Tarred and Feathered

A Script for a Documentary Film for Television

Abstract

This first of three chapters featuring examples of arts-based approaches to environmental communication drawing on the book’s case study presents a script for a one-hour documentary film, framed as a television talk-show, featuring an imagined summit of participants in the public-relations war over Alberta’s environmental stewardship of the bituminous sands. The script is followed by discussion of the author’s choices of initiating idea, research sources, format, voices, the world of the story, its structure and visual style, and other notes on the meeting of synthesis, analysis and (re)presentation in the script. Included are analysis and commentary on screenwriting theory, the creation and dissemination of the script, and reflections to help ground an initial framework for engaging broader publics through arts-based research in environmental scholarship.

Geo Takach

Chapter 4. Voices from the Visual Volley

An Audio-Visual Script for a Cameraless Documentary Film

Abstract

This second of three chapters featuring examples of arts-based approaches to environmental communication drawing on the book’s case study presents an audio-visual documentary script in which diverse documentary filmmakers, government communicators, hired public-relations specialists and others dialogue on the stewardship of Alberta’s bituminous sands as an issue of public health. The script is followed by discussion of the author’s choices of initiating idea, research sources, format, voices, the world of the story, its structure and visual style, and other notes on the meeting of synthesis, analysis and (re)presentation in the script. Included are analysis and commentary on scriptwriting theory, the creation and dissemination of the script, and reflections to help ground an initial framework for engaging broader publics through arts-based research in environmental scholarship.

Geo Takach

Chapter 5. War of the Wild Roses

Synopsis of a Script for a Musical Eco-Comedy Stage Play, with Sample Lyrics

Abstract

This last of three chapters featuring examples of arts-based approaches to environmental communication drawing on the book’s case study presents an extended synopsis of a script for a new genre—the musical eco-comedy stage play—in which historical and fictionalized characters compete to halt, or further, the accelerated extraction of unconventional fossil fuel in Alberta. The synopsis is followed by discussion of authorial choices of initiating idea, research sources, format, voices, the world of the story, its structure and visual style, and other notes on the meeting of synthesis, analysis and (re)presentation in the script. Included are commentary on playwriting theory, the script’s creation and dissemination, and reflections to help ground an initial framework for engaging broader publics through arts-based research in environmental scholarship.

Geo Takach

Chapter 6. Scripting Environmental Research

Abstract

This chapter consolidates lessons learned from the preceding trio of chapters, which offer examples of arts-based approaches to environmental communication in the forms of a documentary screenplay, an audio-visual documentary script and a play script, all drawing on the book’s case study of contestations of Alberta’s identity around concerns over the province’s environmental stewardship of the bituminous sands. The chapter consolidates the author’s eight-step approach to writing screenplays and stage plays, then synthesizes the emerging literature on evaluating arts-based research. It proposes an initial framework for engaging the public in environmental research through writing scripts for the screen and stage. That framework comprises the book’s Appendix.

Geo Takach

Backmatter

Titel: Scripting the Environment
verfasst von: Geo Takach
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-40433-2
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-40432-5
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40433-2