At the beginning of the pandemic, discussions in the Screenwriting Research Network questioned the validity of educating students for limited career opportunities as future screenwriters. Research into graduate pathways suggests employment opportunities for creative practitioners are far more complex with many creative practitioners embedded in diverse industries such as marketing, information technology and, primarily, the education sector. The rapid growth of online education presents a key opportunity for screenwriters to apply their craft skills and knowledge to an alternative disciplinary context. Storytelling, as a means of engaging learners or an audience, is a major area of overlap for screenwriters and designers of instructional resources. Stories that emotionally engage an audience have greater impact on the learner and assist in memory retention. A key tool for emotional engagement is the use of humour which has also been shown to facilitate learning. Writers of narrative comedy possess skills in creating humorous situations that can present challenging or serious topics through a comic perspective. This article argues that the growth in online education presents screenwriting graduates with unique opportunities to apply their skills to an alternative discipline that can streamline their transition to a career in writing for screens beyond traditional film and television.
{"title":"Writing for instructional screens: Expanding the scope for screenwriting practitioners","authors":"Susan Cake","doi":"10.1386/josc_00096_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/josc_00096_1","url":null,"abstract":"At the beginning of the pandemic, discussions in the Screenwriting Research Network questioned the validity of educating students for limited career opportunities as future screenwriters. Research into graduate pathways suggests employment opportunities for creative practitioners are far more complex with many creative practitioners embedded in diverse industries such as marketing, information technology and, primarily, the education sector. The rapid growth of online education presents a key opportunity for screenwriters to apply their craft skills and knowledge to an alternative disciplinary context. Storytelling, as a means of engaging learners or an audience, is a major area of overlap for screenwriters and designers of instructional resources. Stories that emotionally engage an audience have greater impact on the learner and assist in memory retention. A key tool for emotional engagement is the use of humour which has also been shown to facilitate learning. Writers of narrative comedy possess skills in creating humorous situations that can present challenging or serious topics through a comic perspective. This article argues that the growth in online education presents screenwriting graduates with unique opportunities to apply their skills to an alternative discipline that can streamline their transition to a career in writing for screens beyond traditional film and television.","PeriodicalId":41719,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Screenwriting","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43878810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The use of the deus ex machina in modern films is examined in this article. The deus ex machina is a device which is sometimes brought into play in a story as a last-resort effort to save the protagonist by an unexpected external force. Although the use of the device in ancient Greek drama has been rehabilitated, the same cannot be said about its modern use. Because the deus ex machina undermines the audience’s expectations for a story’s resolution, thus decreasing their emotional involvement, in screenwriting manuals, this device is often considered a cheap plot trick or a sign of bad writing. In this article, the functions that the device serves in ancient Greek drama are compared to some of its more successful uses in film narratives, demonstrating that it is a valuable tool which can effectively convey (among other things) a message of unity and hope.
{"title":"In defence of deus ex machina","authors":"Veiko Vaatmann","doi":"10.1386/josc_00091_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/josc_00091_1","url":null,"abstract":"The use of the deus ex machina in modern films is examined in this article. The deus ex machina is a device which is sometimes brought into play in a story as a last-resort effort to save the protagonist by an unexpected external force. Although the use of the device in ancient Greek drama has been rehabilitated, the same cannot be said about its modern use. Because the deus ex machina undermines the audience’s expectations for a story’s resolution, thus decreasing their emotional involvement, in screenwriting manuals, this device is often considered a cheap plot trick or a sign of bad writing. In this article, the functions that the device serves in ancient Greek drama are compared to some of its more successful uses in film narratives, demonstrating that it is a valuable tool which can effectively convey (among other things) a message of unity and hope.","PeriodicalId":41719,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Screenwriting","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44566353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jenő Janovics was Transylvania’s pioneer in film and one of the first screenwriter–producers in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He discovered talents like Michael Curtiz and Sir Alexander Korda. He wrote 31 film scripts, of which only one has survived: A tolonc (The Exile) and the silent film made from it, is the only remaining testimony of Curtiz’s and Janovics’s collaboration. In 2022, we commemorate the 60-year anniversary of the death of the former and 150 years from the birth of the latter. While all the known articles so far focus on Janovics’s legacy as a producer or a director, this article attempts to draw a portrait of Janovics the screenwriter, demonstrating his screenwriting qualities and his joint creative process with Curtiz in the case of A tolonc.
{"title":"Jenő Janovics: Michel Curtiz’s first screenwriter","authors":"B. Zágoni","doi":"10.1386/josc_00095_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/josc_00095_1","url":null,"abstract":"Jenő Janovics was Transylvania’s pioneer in film and one of the first screenwriter–producers in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He discovered talents like Michael Curtiz and Sir Alexander Korda. He wrote 31 film scripts, of which only one has survived: A tolonc (The Exile) and the silent film made from it, is the only remaining testimony of Curtiz’s and Janovics’s collaboration. In 2022, we commemorate the 60-year anniversary of the death of the former and 150 years from the birth of the latter. While all the known articles so far focus on Janovics’s legacy as a producer or a director, this article attempts to draw a portrait of Janovics the screenwriter, demonstrating his screenwriting qualities and his joint creative process with Curtiz in the case of A tolonc.","PeriodicalId":41719,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Screenwriting","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45007074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Parts 1 and 2 of the Arab Jordanian series Rās Ghlaiṣ (‘The head of Ghlaiṣ’) (2006–08), written by Jordanian screenwriter Muṣṭafā Ṣāliḥ and directed by Aḥmad D‘aibis and Sha‘lān al-Dabbās, share three ‘common denominators’, in Haun Saussy’s terminology, with Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great, Parts 1 and 2 (1587): (1) the shepherd character as a monstrous despot, (2) pastoral love of the shepherds and (3) the mobilization of nations/tribes to take revenge against Tamburlaine/Ghlaiṣ. Ṣāliḥ’s delineation of the nomadic hero Ghlaiṣ is similar to the Marlovian model of Tamburlaine in a time of war and love. Ghlaiṣ, as an Arab Jordanian Tamburlaine, seeks in a Machiavellian manner an ultimate rule and control over all nomadic tribes in the Jordanian desert and behaves as a monstrous lover. This article takes two pieces of literature from two different cultures as an example of the adaptability of screen narrative to the scope of comparative literature and appropriation studies, showing simultaneously the experience of Jordanian screenwriters as one example of what Craig Batty calls the ‘screenwriting turn’ (2014: 1). Both Marlowe and Ṣāliḥ dramatize the shepherd despots to warn against the threat of colonial and imperial ambitions and models.
{"title":"The dramatization of the shepherd warrior in Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine and the Jordanian drama Bedouin series Rās Ghlaiṣ (‘The head of Ghlaiṣ’)","authors":"Hussein A. Alhawamdeh, Feras M. Alwaraydat","doi":"10.1386/josc_00092_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/josc_00092_1","url":null,"abstract":"Parts 1 and 2 of the Arab Jordanian series Rās Ghlaiṣ (‘The head of Ghlaiṣ’) (2006–08), written by Jordanian screenwriter Muṣṭafā Ṣāliḥ and directed by Aḥmad D‘aibis and Sha‘lān al-Dabbās, share three ‘common denominators’, in Haun Saussy’s terminology, with Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great, Parts 1 and 2 (1587): (1) the shepherd character as a monstrous despot, (2) pastoral love of the shepherds and (3) the mobilization of nations/tribes to take revenge against Tamburlaine/Ghlaiṣ. Ṣāliḥ’s delineation of the nomadic hero Ghlaiṣ is similar to the Marlovian model of Tamburlaine in a time of war and love. Ghlaiṣ, as an Arab Jordanian Tamburlaine, seeks in a Machiavellian manner an ultimate rule and control over all nomadic tribes in the Jordanian desert and behaves as a monstrous lover. This article takes two pieces of literature from two different cultures as an example of the adaptability of screen narrative to the scope of comparative literature and appropriation studies, showing simultaneously the experience of Jordanian screenwriters as one example of what Craig Batty calls the ‘screenwriting turn’ (2014: 1). Both Marlowe and Ṣāliḥ dramatize the shepherd despots to warn against the threat of colonial and imperial ambitions and models.","PeriodicalId":41719,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Screenwriting","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41963207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Can the writing of a screenplay or the making of a narrative fiction film be considered a form of academic research? This will be a familiar question for those professional filmmakers entering the academy. To answer this question, scholars of screenwriting and screen production face the difficulty of articulating their creative practice as research within the broader institutional research cultures of the academy. This article seeks to overcome this difficulty by reflecting on the methods employed in the process of screenwriting a biopic about British boxer Randolph Turpin. To demonstrate how screenwriting and screen production practice generates and disseminates new knowledge, I offer a working definition of narrative fiction filmmaking as methodology, where mise en scène is shown to operate as a core reflective strategy.
{"title":"The biopic screenplay as a research output: Towards a working definition of narrative fiction filmmaking methodology","authors":"Michael Bentham","doi":"10.1386/josc_00093_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/josc_00093_1","url":null,"abstract":"Can the writing of a screenplay or the making of a narrative fiction film be considered a form of academic research? This will be a familiar question for those professional filmmakers entering the academy. To answer this question, scholars of screenwriting and screen production face the difficulty of articulating their creative practice as research within the broader institutional research cultures of the academy. This article seeks to overcome this difficulty by reflecting on the methods employed in the process of screenwriting a biopic about British boxer Randolph Turpin. To demonstrate how screenwriting and screen production practice generates and disseminates new knowledge, I offer a working definition of narrative fiction filmmaking as methodology, where mise en scène is shown to operate as a core reflective strategy.","PeriodicalId":41719,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Screenwriting","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47341499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In 2018, a group of ten academics and industry professionals created ‘The Secret Story Network’. This practice-research initiative produced ten 60–90-minute role-playing games conducted on the social media platform WhatsApp. In the process, we worked to identify and refine design strategies that incentivize engagement with the type of narrative collaboration that media scholars commonly call ‘collective storytelling’. Via the participatory action research methodology, this study evolved through cycles of prototyping, testing, feedback, reflection and modification. This article analyses our study in relation to the ‘Threefold Word Model’ for RPGs proposed by Kim. Based on the affordances of the WhatsApp interface, we suggest a modification of this conceptual frame, in line with scholars such as Edwards, Bøckman and Bowman that extends investigations into four theoretical lenses that we use to examine the stories in our study. These modes are (1) drama, (2) game, (3) simulation and (4) immersion. The observations made also suggest new avenues for ‘writing’ and creating interactive digital narratives.
{"title":"How we role: The collaborative role-playing poetics of the Secret Story Network","authors":"Brad Gyori, A. Zaluczkowska","doi":"10.1386/josc_00094_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/josc_00094_1","url":null,"abstract":"In 2018, a group of ten academics and industry professionals created ‘The Secret Story Network’. This practice-research initiative produced ten 60–90-minute role-playing games conducted on the social media platform WhatsApp. In the process, we worked to identify and refine design strategies that incentivize engagement with the type of narrative collaboration that media scholars commonly call ‘collective storytelling’. Via the participatory action research methodology, this study evolved through cycles of prototyping, testing, feedback, reflection and modification. This article analyses our study in relation to the ‘Threefold Word Model’ for RPGs proposed by Kim. Based on the affordances of the WhatsApp interface, we suggest a modification of this conceptual frame, in line with scholars such as Edwards, Bøckman and Bowman that extends investigations into four theoretical lenses that we use to examine the stories in our study. These modes are (1) drama, (2) game, (3) simulation and (4) immersion. The observations made also suggest new avenues for ‘writing’ and creating interactive digital narratives.","PeriodicalId":41719,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Screenwriting","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49593342","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Review of: Creative Practice Research in the Age of Neoliberal Hopelessness, Agnieszka Piotrowska (ed.) (2020) Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 326 pp., ISBN 978-1-47446-356-0, h/bk, £85.00
{"title":"Creative Practice Research in the Age of Neoliberal Hopelessness, Agnieszka Piotrowska (ed.) (2020)","authors":"James Shelton","doi":"10.1386/josc_00099_5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/josc_00099_5","url":null,"abstract":"Review of: Creative Practice Research in the Age of Neoliberal Hopelessness, Agnieszka Piotrowska (ed.) (2020)\u0000Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 326 pp.,\u0000ISBN 978-1-47446-356-0, h/bk, £85.00","PeriodicalId":41719,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Screenwriting","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44386701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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