Timetable
Lesson 1 (L1) Tuesday 10. 11. L 5-Thursday 12. 11
14:00- 15:50 16:00-17:50
L2-Tuesday 10. 11. L6 - Thursday 12. 11
16:00- 17:50 18:00-19:50
L3 - Wednesday 11. 11.
10:00-11:50
L4 - Wednesday 11. 11.
12:00-13:50
PD Mag. Dr. Claus Tieber
Contents
• Screenwriting Studies:
Definition, History,
Theory and Methods
• Screenplay: Formats and
History
• Modes of Production and
Development
Working Conditions and
Unionization
The Case of Hollywood:
Studio System, Blacklisting
etc
Film historiography
A new field in film and media studies
AimS h^M New approaches
History and presence
• Archival material
YOUR
EXPECTATIO
NS
Literary value
Ontology
of the
Screenplay
Intermedial status
blueprint
• —
• —
• —
• _
document
SCREENPLA
Y:
DEFINITIONS
SCREENPLA
Y:
DEFINITIONS
„The screenplay,
which is sometimes
known, also, as the
scenario or film
script, resembles
the blueprint of the
architect. It is the
verbal design of the
finished film."
SCREENPLA
Y:
DEFINITIONS
The basic art of the
motion picture is
the screenplay; it is
fundamental;
without it there is
nothing.
Raymond
Chandler
a factory friendly
document
David Thomson
SCREENPLA
Y:
DEFINITIONS
Screenwritin
g Studies Narratology
Production Culture
Film History, Authorship
Practice Based Research
Text - Reception
Barthes:
- Readerly
audience can easily uncover the
text's pre-determined meaning
- Writerly
requiring interpretive effort
Fiske:
- Producerly
popular and easy to read
different readers can easily read
them in different ways
o Screen Idea
Screen Idea
Screen Idea Working Group
Screen Idea • A flexibly constructed group
\A/nrk ("Vm i n organized around the
development and production
(ol W o ) of a screen idea
• All those who have some
direct connection with the
development of the screen
idea
Ian Macdonald
PD Mag. Dr. Claus Tieber
Screenwritin
g Studies
Screenplay as
text
modular text (Price)
Literature „in flux"
(Sternberg)
' „Object Problem"1
(Maras)
AuteUf- Stephen Crofts:
Theorv ^•"Author a s
expressive
* individual"
2. Author as constructed from film or films"
• 2.1. as thematic or stylistic properties
impressionistically and unproblematically read off
from film to film
• 2.2. a set of structures identifiable within a body of
films by the same author
• 2.3. as a subject position within the film
3. Author as social and sexual subject
4. Author as author-name, as function of the
circulation of the film or films
History of Screenwriting Studies
Claudia Sternberg:
Written to be Read:
the Screenplay as
Text
Janet Staiger:
Blueprints for
Feature Films:
Hollywood's
Continuity Scripts
Pauline Kael:
Citizen Kane
Book
Richard
Corliss: Talking
Pictures
History
• Tom Stempel: Framework
CI Screenwriting Research
Network
SRN Journal of Screenwriting
Palgrave Studies in
Screenwriting
1910s
Manuals 0 1970s until now
Universality of narrative
structures?
o Screen Idea
Screenwritin
g as process
Production Culture
Nobody knows anything?
Doxa Knowledge, believe,
paradigms and conventions
Discourses about
screenwriting
SCREENPLAY:
ELEMENTS
AND
FORMATS,
Master
Scene
Script
• You just write: ,master
scene,', ,cut to,' or
,close shot' - which is
very easy, just mix it up.
The master shots and
the individual shots
were all shot the same
way."
• Julius Epstein
PD Mag. H Tieber
Scene Headings/Slug-Iines
Indicate setting and time, whether a scene is to be shot on an
interior (INT.) or exterior (EXT.) set, the specific scripted location in
all CAPS, and whether it takes place during the DAY or NIGHT
(e.g. INT. ROOM - DAY).
Action
Generally reports on character actions but also contains scene
descriptions, technical comments, and other relevant story details.
Transitions
Include each passage from one scene to another, always typed in
CAPS (e.g. CUT TO:, DISSOLVE TO:, FADE OUT). Because "cut
to" is the default transition, it is generally omitted in contemporary
screenplays.
Dialogue
• Character Headings - Typed in CAPS and indicate the speaker
of a line.
• Parenthetical Directions - Used primarily to modify the delivery
of dialogue.
• Dialogue - All the spoken lines in the script.
Literary Comment
illustrates the non-filmable imagery or emotional truth of a scene or
character (e.g. "A tall scarecrow-of-a-man walks his long-haired
dog down a dark street, the way a guard might walk his prisoner
down the green mile." Literary Comment in italics.)
Technical Comment
offers instructions for the film crew and is usually capitalized (e.g.
"CRANE UP to reveal a tall scarecrow-of-a-man walking his longhaired
dog down a dark street. CLOSE on the dog. Somewhere a
train blows its WHISTLE." Technical Comment in italics.)
Speech
consists of dialogue cues within the scene text (e.g. "A man walks
his dog. Somewhere a train blows its WHISTLE, startling the
animal, and the man tells his dog to heel." Speech in italics.)
The Apartment
INT. NINETEENTH FLOOR
Acres of gray steel desks, gray steel filing cabinets, and steel-gray faces under
indirect light. One wall is lined with glass-enclosed cubicles for the supervisory
personnel. It is all very neat, antiseptic, impersonal. The only human touch is
supplied by a bank of IBM machines, clacking away cheerfully in the background.