SCREENPLAYOLOGY (ONLINE CENTER FOR SCREENPLAY STUDIES) 1.

screenplay style & use The screenplay: a tiny pitless and pitiful acorn from which, oftentimes, nothing grows. A thin, slippery creature, three holes, two brads, impossible to read in the tub. Nathaniel Kohn1 Overview. For those whove never read a screenplay before (particularly a real shooting script), picking one up for the first time can be a daunting, awkward, or confusing experience. Whats with the binding? Why are THESE words in caps but not those words? Why do some pages only have a few lines on them (in a shooting script)? And oh, that ugly font! At Screenplayology, we hope to explore some of the fundamental issues encountered by firsttime screenplay readers as they navigate through the pages of their first script. In order to understand the formatting conventions of screenwriting, we will need to appreciate how those conventions arose within the context of a particular history and in service of specific artistic and industrial activities, so we will begin by clarifying those areas for our readers. First, we will look at how the screenplay evolved, both as a practice and a concept. Second, we will seek to examine the various functions of the screenplay text at different stages of reading. Third, we will investigate in greater depth the interaction that takes place between the screenplay and the feature film by exploring the process of script analysis many directors utilize in constructing shots and performances. Footnotes. 1. Kohn, Nathaniel. Disappearing Authors: A Postmodern Perspective on the Practice of Writing for the Screen. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. 44.3. Summer 1999. Pg. 443. 1.1. history of scripting and the screenplay Originally the screenplay was called a scenario, or continuity script, and consisted of a list of scenes that described the silent action and camera angles. These first screenplays evolved from the economic necessity to pre-plan rather than rely on costly extemporaneous scene development on the set. Later, when sound on film was invented, words, sound effects and music were added [. . .] During the years of the studio system [. . .] screenplays included very explicit production instructions and were often rubber-stamped, Shoot as written. Margaret Mehring1

1.1.1. Overview. If only the history of the screenplay were as easy as Mehring claims! In his Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice, Steven Maras dispels several of the popular myths perpetrated in the above quote, for instance, (1) the myth of a direct evolutionary relationship between the screenplay, the continuity, and the scenario and the interchangeability of those descriptors, (2) the myth that the terms scenario and continuity were themselves easily defined in the era in which they were used, and lastly, (3) the sensational myth of the Shoot as written rubber stamp.2 Mehring even gets it wrong when she suggests that spoken words appear in the text only after the introduction of synchronized sound into film production, contradicting Janet Staigers testimony that the early scenarios contained a scene-by-scene account of the action including intertitles and inserts.3 Kevin Alexander Boon concurs with Staiger, when he writes that dialogue was present in the continuity prior to sound, in the form of titles.4 We cannot scold Mehring too harshly for her errors. The history of the screenplay is notoriously difficult to trace, due both to a problem of language (the word screenplay itself does not come into common usage until the 1940s) and to the fact that its earliest antecedents are private industrial documents, many of which have been lost to time. We will not attempt a comprehensive history of scripting the process of writing for the screen on this page. We mean only to outline a brief survey of that processs development into the stable form recognizable to us today as the screenplay. Page Topics:

1.1.1. Overview. 1.1.2. Antecedents 1.1.3. Alternative Forms 1.1.4. Sound and the Script 1.1.5. Standardization 1.1.6. Terminology 1.1.7. Discussion Topics 1.1.8. Footnotes

1.1.2. Antecedents. [Back to Page Topics] If we cannot trace a direct lineage for the screenplay, we can survey a history of scripting practices. Motion pictures began as novelty, not narrative, but even some of the earliest filmmakers found scripting practices useful in the conception of their products. These early scripts were little more than brief synopses. From 1896 to 1901, writes Isabelle Raynauld, scenarios were written in synopsis form and rarely were longer than one paragraph. Many, in fact, were even shorter: they included a title and a one-line description of the action to be seen.5 She goes on to note how these early protoscripts also served a marketing function:

For example, it was a common practice to print the screenplays in full (long mistakenly considered to be merely summaries) in company catalogues. In fact, early scripts were not only used as publicity material but also helped exhibitors explain the story to new, inexperienced spectators. For the first ten years or so, exhibitors would often hire a lecturer or bonimenteur to comment on and clarify the story during the projection of the film. 5 Excerpts from the Edison Studios catalog offer examples of such synopses, such as 1897s Pillow Fight (Four young ladies, in their nightgowns, are having a romp. One of the pillows gets torn, and the feathers fly all over the room.)7 and the decidedly more racist A Morning Bath (Mammy is washing her little pickaninny. She thrusts him, kicking and struggling, into a tub full of foaming suds.)8, the original text of which is censored in the Library of Congresss online archive.9 After 1901, as films grew in length and narrative concerns grew more prominent, the importance of scripting as a conceptual tool increased. Out of this need for narrative coherence, the scenario proper was born. The film script was born, observes Bla Balzs, when the film had already developed into an independent new art and it was no longer possible to improvise its new subtle visual effects in front of the camera; these had to be planned carefully in advance.10 In his Script Culture and the American Screenplay, Kevin Alexander Boon draws from several early scenario examples, including Georges Meliess A Trip to the Moon and Edwin S. Porters The Great Train Robbery, to demonstrate the rapid development of scripting practices at the turn of the century. Early predecessors of the screenplay did little more than frame the narrative context for a scene, writes Boon. One of the first major infusions of story into filmmaking was Georges Meliess A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la lune, 1902), which [. . .] involved a great deal of preparation from Melies. One part of this preparation was the writing of a sparse scenario *. . .+11 The complete text of the Melies scenario follows:12 1. The Scientific Congress at the Astronomic Club. 2. Planning the Trip. Appointing the Explorers and Servants. Farewell. 3. The Workshops. Constructing the Projectile. 4. The Foundries. The Chimney-stack. The Casting of the Monster Gun/Cannon. 5. The Astronomers-Scientists Enter the Shell. 6. Loading the Gun. 7. The Monster Gun. March Past the Gunners. Fire!!! Saluting the Flag. 8. The Flight Through Space. Approaching the Moon. 9. Landing Right in the Moons Eye!!! 10. Flight of the Rocket Shell into the Moon. Appearance of the Earth From the Moon. 11. The Plain of Craters. Volcanic Eruption. 12. The Dream of Stars (the Bolies, the Great Bear, Phoebus, the Twin Stars, Saturn). 13. The Snowstorm.

14. 40 Degrees Below Zero. Descent Into a Lunar Crater. 15. In the Interior of the Moon. The Giant Mushroom Grotto. 16. Encounter and Fight with the Selenites. 17. Taken Prisoners!! 18. The Kingdom of the Moon. The Selenite Army. 19. The Flight or Escape. 20. Wild Pursuit. 21. The Astronomers Find the Shell Again. Departure from the Moon in the Rocket. 22. The Rockets Vertical Drop into Space. 23. Splashing into the Open Sea. 24. Submerged At the Bottom of the Ocean. 25. The Rescue. Return to Port and Land. 26. Great Fetes and Celebrations. 27. Crowning and Decorating the Heroes of the Trip. 28. Procession of Marines and Fire Brigade. Triumphal March Past. 29. Erection of the Commemorative Statue by the Mayor and Council. 30. Public Rejoicings. The first scripts were in fact mere technical aids, writes Balzs, nothing but lists of the scenes and shots for the convenience of the director. They merely indicated what was to be in the picture, and in what order, but said nothing about how it was to be presented. 13 Melies primitive list fits this description, bearing little resemblance to the contemporary screenplay form, but it succeeds in clearly ordering the narrative discourse of the motion picture. By 1903, Scott Marbles scenario for Edwin S. Porters The Great Train Robbery already exhibits elements of what will come to be known as the Master Scene Format, only without dialogue. 14 Here is Marbles scenario reprinted in its entirety: 1 INTERIOR OF RAILROAD TELEGRAPH OFFICE. Two masked robbers enter and compel the operator to get the "signal block" to stop the approaching train, and make him write a fictitious order to the engineer to take water at this station, instead of "Red Lodge," the regular watering stop. The train comes to a standstill (seen through window of office); the conductor comes to the window, and the frightened operator delivers the order while the bandits crouch out of sight, at the same time keeping him covered with their revolvers. As soon as the conductor leaves, they fall upon the operator, bind and gag him, and hastily depart to catch the moving train. 2 RAILROAD WATER TOWER.

The bandits are hiding behind the tank as the train, under the false order, stops to take water. Just before she pulls out they stealthily board the train between the express car and the tender. 3 INTERIOR OF EXPRESS CAR. Messenger is busily engaged. An unusual sound alarms him. He goes to the door, peeps through the keyhole and discovers two men trying to break in. He starts back bewildered, but, quickly recovering, he hastily locks the strong box containing the valuables and throws the key through the open side door. Drawing his revolver, he crouches behind a desk. In the meantime, the two robbers have succeeded in breaking in the door and enter cautiously. The messenger opens fire, and a desperate pistol duel takes place in which the messenger is killed. One of the robbers stands watch while the other tries to open the treasure box. Finding it locked, he vainly searches the messenger for the key, and blows the safe open with dynamite. Securing the valuables and mail bags they leave the car. 4 THE TENDER AND INTERIOR OF THE LOCOMOTIVE CAB This thrilling scene shows THE TENDER AND INTERIOR OF THE LOCOMOTIVE CAB, while the the train is running forty miles an hour. While two of the bandits have been robbing the mail car, two others climb over the tender. One of them holds up the engineer while the other covers the fireman, who seizes a coal shovel and climbs up on the tender, where a desperate fight takes place. They struggle fiercely all over the tank and narrowly escape being hurled over the side of the tender. Finally they fall, with the robber on top. He seizes a lump of coal, and strikes the fireman on the head until he becomes senseless. He then hurls the body from the swiftly moving train. The bandits then compel the engineer to bring the train to a stop. 5 SHOWS THE TRAIN COMING TO A STOP Shows THE TRAIN coming to a stop. The engineer leaves the locomotive, uncouples it from the train, and pulls ahead about 100 feet while the robbers hold their pistols to his face.

6 EXTERIOR SCENE SHOWING TRAIN. The bandits compel the passengers to leave the coaches, "hands up," and line up along the tracks. One of the robbers covers them with a revolver in each hand, while the others relieve the passengers of their valuables. A passenger attempts to escape, and is instantly shot down. Securing everything of value, the band terrorize the passengers by firing their revolvers in the air, while they make their escape to the locomotive. 7 LOCOMOTIVE. The desperadoes board the locomotive with this booty, compel the engineer to start, and disappear in the distance. 8 THE ROBBERS Bring the engine to a stop several miles from the scene of the "hold up," and take to the mountains. 9 VALLEY A beautiful scene in A VALLEY. The bandits come down the side of a hill, across a narrow stream, mounting their horses, and make for the wilderness. 10 INTERIOR OF TELEGRAPH OFFICE. The operator lies bound and gagged on the floor. After struggling to his feet, he leans on the table, and telegraphs for assistance by manipulating the key with his chin, and then faints from exhaustion. His little daughter enters with his dinner pail. She cuts the rope, throws a glass of water in his face, restores him to consciousness, and, recalling his thrilling experience, he rushes out to give the alarm. 11 INTERIOR OF A TYPICAL WESTERN DANCE HALL. Shows a number of men and women in a lively quadrille. A "tenderfoot" is quickly spotted and pushed to the center of the hall, and compelled to do a jig, while bystanders amuse themselves by shooting dangerously close to his feet. Suddenly

the door opens and the half-dead telegraph operator staggers in. The dance breaks up in confusion. The men secure their rifles and hastily leave the room. 12 RUGGED HILL Shows the mounted robbers dashing down A RUGGED HILL at a terrific pace, followed closely by a large posse, both parties firing as they ride. One of the desperadoes is shot and plunges headlong from his horse. Staggering to his feet, he fires at the nearest pursuer, only to be shot dead a moment later. 13 THE THREE REMAINING BANDITS Thinking they have eluded the pursuers, have dismounted from their horses, and after carefully surveying their surroundings, they start to examine the contents of the mail pouches. They are so grossly engaged in their work that they do not realize the approaching danger until too late. The pursuers, having left their horses, steal noiselessly down upon them until they are completely surrounded. A desperate battle then takes place, and after a brave stand all the robbers and some of the posse bite the dust. 14 BARNES A life-size [close-up] picture of Barnes, leader of the outlaw band, taking aim and firing point-blank at the audience. The resulting excitement is great. This scene can be used to begin or end the picture. Here scene headings begin to emerge, along with detailed scene text that explicates the action. As with contemporary screenplays, Marbles scenario is divided into master scenes, not individual shots. This itself should not be viewed as a formatting decision, however, as motion pictures had yet to innovate the language of cutting within the scene to multiple shots. Indeed, scene 14 in The Great Train Robbery the closeup of Barnes was a sensational experiment in its time. It would be years before filmmakers began to routinely cut within a scene to closeups and other angles. While the scenario format proved adequate in scripting for narrative coherence, the development of a new film grammar of cutting to multiple shots within a single scene provoked the need for a different scripting practice that addressed a more complex problem: visual coherence. A major identifying difference between the scenario script and the continuity

script, observes Maras, is that in the former, scenes are listed as scenes, whereas in the latter a scene consists of a number of shots, each of which are listed in the script.15 Industrial changes also preceded the shift between scripting practices. In the first 18 years of film production, directors and cameramen were given varying degrees of independence to shoot their pictures in the manner they preferred. As demand for multiple reel pictures increased, however, production companies grew in size and the cost of production became more expensive. With increased capital investment came the need for a new Central Producer System of production management that shifted authority away from directors to powerful studio executives. Janet Staiger outlines how the incorporation of Frederick Winslow Taylors scientific management theories led to a detailed division of labor and the need for a Central Producer to approve all scripts. It was cheaper, writes Staiger, to pay a few workers to prepare scripts and solve continuity problems at that stage than it was to let a whole crew of laborers work it out on the set or by retakes later. Because the scripts provided the means to ensure the conventions of continuous action, they soon became known as continuities. 16 These documents made it possible for the Central Producer to predict and approve a detailed budget for each production. According to Staiger, the continuity had become more or less standard practice by 1914, and according to Marc Norman, this standard evolved from multiple sources but mostly from Thomas Ince.17 Boon also credits Ince: The history of the screenplay begins [. . .] in the 1910s, around the time Thomas Harper Ince began making films. *. . .+ Under Inces guidance, writing for film became truly efficient for the first time . . . and developed into the indispensable core (82) of the f ilmmaking system. The written text that guided a films production became a literary form. The text rendered the shots that the director later realized.18 Ince, according to Norman, invented the movie studio.19 Establishing his Inceville studio on an 18,000 acre ranch in California, Ince applied classical management theory and assembly-line techniques, perfected by manufacturing giants like Henry Ford to the making of motion pictures. In this context, the conventions of writing for the screen solidified. In fact, Norman observes, the key to Inces method was the screenplay itself, under him no longer simply a one-page precis of the films narrative but the blueprint for the entire production. What follows is a continuity excerpt from Satan McAllisters Heir, written by C. Gardner Sullivan and Thomas H. Ince in 1914:20 25. CLOSE UP ON SATAN, BOB AND HATTIE AT SCHOONER Satan is coldly telling them they will have to get out -they look at him and at each other apprehensively -- he speaks -- INSERT TITLE --

"I AIN'T WHAT YOU MIGHT CALL A SOCIABLE CUSS AND I AIN'T ENCOURAGIN' NEIGHBORS." BACK TO ACTION -- Satan continues to gaze at Bob with a deadly contempt -- the latter looks at him but says nothing -26. CLOSE UP ON DOLLY AT CREEK BANK She has filled her canteen and is leaning over drinking from the creek -- Rags is fussing about her and she cups her hands and fills them with water that he may drink -- see if he won't drink -- make a cute scene of it -27. CLOSE UP ON SATAN, BOB AND HATTIE AT SCHOONER Cut back to Satan ordering them to leave -- Bob starts to speak but Satan interrupts him and says -- INSERT TITLE -"WHEN THEY DON'T TAKE THE HINT AND MOVE ON, I ANNOY THEM PLUM SCANDALOUS" BACK TO ACTION -- he drops his hands suggestively on the handles of his pistols and holds the pose for the moral effect on them -- they stare at him and show they are frightened and discouraged by his attitude -Norman repeats the myth that Ince stamped his scripts, Produce exactly as written, 21 something Maras argues has not been supported by the evidence.22 Nevertheless, the shotby-shot detail of Inces continuity, along with specific instructions for the filmmaker such as, make a cute scene of it, do suggest a blueprint role for the text, with production reduced to its execution. Staiger notes that Inces continuities were not merely scripts but , in fact, complex packages comprised of multiple production documents: Each script has a number assigned to it which provides a method of tracing the film even though its title might shift. A cover page indicates who wrote the scenario, who directed the shooting, when shooting began and ended, when the film was shipped to the distributors, and when the film was released. The entire history on paper records the production process for efficiency and waste control.

The next part is a list of all intertitles and an indication as to where they are to be inserted in the final print. The location page follows that. It lists all exterior and interior sites along with their scene numbers, providing efficiency and preventing waste in time and labor. [...] The cast of characters follows. The typed portions list the roles for the story and penciled in are the names of the people assigned to play each part. A one-page synopsis follows and then the script itself. Each scene is numbered consecutively and its location is given. Intertitles are typed in, often in red ink, where they are to be inserted in the final version. The description of mise-en-scene and action is detailed. [...] Occasionally there is the typed injunction: It is earnestly requested by Mr. Ince that no c hange of any nature be made in the scenario either by elimination of any scenes or the addition of any scenes or changing any of the action as described, or titles, without first consulting him. *...+ Finally, and very significantly, attached to the continuity is the entire cost of the film, which is analyzed in a standard accounting format.23 Clearly, Ince was interested in separating conception from execution. It is worth mentioning that while Ince was elevating the importance of the script, D. W. Griffith was shooting The Birth of a Nation without one. The Hollywood industrial system had embraced the written text as an important guiding force in the production of entertainment properties, but one of early cinemas most important and innovative artists saw no need for one. The process of scripting for the screen did not so much emerge naturally from other literary forms such as the play script, the novel, or poetry nor to meet the artistic needs of filmmakers but developed primarily to address the manufacturing needs of industrial production. 1.1.3. Alternative Forms. [Back to Page Topics] Scripting processes developed outside of the U.S. as well, but we know little about them. One famous Austrian-born screenwriter, however, had his work produced in America, providing an exceptional counter-example to Inces continuity format. Carl Mayer co-wrote the flagship film of the German Expressionist movement, 1920s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but he is best known for his work in Kammerspielfilm with director F. W. Murnau, most notably 1924s The Last Laugh, which earned the director his ticket to Hollywood. In 1927, when William Fox called Murnau to Hollywood, Carl Mayer was assigned to adapt Hermann Sudermanns The Excursion to Tilsit, which was to become the motion picture Sunrise. When he was invited to come to America, Mayer flatly declined, maintaining that he could work only in his own environment. Nothing would induce him to accept. Possibly Mayer was the only European who ever refused such a lucative Hollywood offer. It took him many months to write

the screen play. Murnau, meanwhile, making preparations in the Fox studios and at Lake Arrowhead, was forced to postpone production; Mayer would not deliver his scenario until he was absolutely sure it was perfect. 24 The script for Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans survives to this day, and it is unlike any script ever written in Hollywood. It follows a two-column format, with transitions, slug-lines, and titles on the left, and scene text on the right. Here is the opening scene : Title: Summer - Vacation time: Quick fade in: INT. RAILROAD STATION (1) Vacation trains. Just leave. Overcrowded with perspiring, traveling public. Waving through windows. Then: The trains have left. One sees through tall, glass arches. The City Plaza in front of Railroad station. With highest houses. Shops, automobiles, street cars. Auto busses, Elevated structure, people. In hot Asphalt vapor.
25

Mayers prose has more in common with a William Carlos Williams poem than an Ince continuity. As Jean-Pierre Geuens has noted, What is radical about Mayers approach is that he somehow found a form that reads like poetry while simultaneously suggesting specific actions. In his hands, the screenplay truly became a magnificent instrument.26 It is perhaps unfortunate that Mayer never made it to Hollywood. It is impossible to imagine what impact his approach to screenwriting might have had on the history of the screenplay had it become widely accepted. 1.1.4. Sound and the Script.[Back to Page Topics] Contrary to Mehrings observation about the changes brought about by synchronized sound, we see in Inces continuity a clear forerunner of scripted dialogue in the formatting of intertitles. Comparing the Satan McAllister passage with a selection from the 1933 shooting script of King Kong, for instance, is as striking for the similarities brought to light as for the differences:27 WALL AND GREAT GATE

The gate is being opened by natives. Procession passes through, taking Ann to the altar. People crowding to top of wall. CUT TO exterior of wall, projection of altar on left. Ann being tied to altar. People crowding top of wall with torches. Two men begin beating big gong, those on wall yelling and beating drums. CUT TO Great Gate, natives closing and bracing it. Top of wall. Chief invoking Kong: CHIEF Kara Ta ni, Kong. O Taro Vey, Rama Kong. (We call thee, Kong. O Mighty One, Great Kong.) Wa saba ani mako, O Taro Vey, Rama Kong. (The bride is here, O Mighty One, Great Kong.) CUT TO altar and jungle opening set, split shot. Noise suddenly stops. KONG steps from jungle opening, looks at people on wall, beats his chest. Sees Ann, starts toward her. CUT TO exterior of wall, projection of altar on left. Kong walks way from camera till he blocks altar from view. People on wall watch in silence. CUT TO close altar set, Ann and altar against projection background, cutting to double projection when Kong passes foreground. Kong in close up stands behind girl, looking at her. He looks up at wall and beats his chest. He walks round altar, then starts to unfasten her. CUT TO straight shot of people on wall, breaking out in wild demonstration as Kong takes Ann.

CUT TO village street, Council House set, ship's party racing through and into court. CUT TO exterior wall set, Kong turns from Altar with Ann in his hand and walks toward camera. Crowd on wall in uproar gong, drums, yelling, waving torches. CUT TO Driscoll and party reaching Gate, he hears Ann scream, looks through window. CUT TO what he sees. Edge of Jungle set, miniature. KONG walks away from camera and into jungle, turning to look back, so Ann is seen in his hand. CUT TO Great Gate. Driscoll wildly gesturing to sailors to open it. Noise continues. Sailors struggle with pole. They get it down and start tugging at gate. DRISCOLL He's got Ann! Who's coming with me? In this passage from Kong, direct instructions to the crew about projections and miniatures are more sophisticated than Inces instruction to make a cute scene of it, but in substance, they are the same: a writer guiding execution from the page. The script exists as a technical document, not an artistic one. Nevertheless, scripting became more important in the sound era. With the birth of the talkie the script automatically came to be of paramount importance. It needed dialogue, as a play did, but it needed very much more than that. For a play is only dialogue and nothing else; it is dialogue spoken, as it were, in a vacuum. [...] But in the film visible and audible things are projected on to the same plane as the human characters and in that pictorial composition common to them all they are all equivalent participants in the action.28 Geuens observes that in the early days of the talkie, an over-reliance on dialogue resulted in new scripting problems. Dialogue specialists were often imported from the New York theater world, and the dialogue began to crowd out scene text on the page. Complicating matters were the limiting technical requirements of synchronized sound recording: actors should remain at a constant distance from a hidden microphone, they should speak one at a time, they should never turn away from the microphone, etc. Confronted with such limitations, directors clearly

had their hands full, but the writers were now entirely out of the loop. Should spoken scenes still be broken down into shots or left to run all the way?26 Cinematic language took a backward step as stories were once again told in master shots, and the screenplay form followed suit. This situation is famously lampooned in 1952s Singin in the Rain. Nevertheless, as filmmakers adapted to the sound era, both the scripting and recording of talkies became more nuanced. Before long, screenwriters learned to thread their dialogue through the more detailed shot-by-shot format Ince had perfected in the continuity, a format that would continue virtually unchanged for the next thirty years. Even Casablanca, often heralded as the best screenplay ever written, is formatted in the continuity style, suggesting that the form had reached its final incarnation. 1.1.5. Standardization. [Back to Page Topics] Something curious happens in the period between the collapse of the studio system and the 1970s. The continuity script becomes the shooting script, in which shot-by-shot scene writing is reserved for the director after a script has been greenlit for production, while the master scene format emerges as the new standard for writers drafts. The Apartment,co-written by the films director Billy Wilder with I.A.L. Diamond in 1959 and released in 1960, exhibits the master scene format: EXT. BROWNSTONE HOUSE - EVENING Bud is pacing back and forth, throwing an occasional glance at the lit windows of his apartment. A middle-aged woman with a dog on a leash approaches along the sidewalk. She is MRS. LIEBERMAN, the dog is a Scottie, and they are both wearing raincoats. Seeing them, Bud leans casually against the stoop. MRS. LIEBERMAN Good evening, Mr. Baxter. BUD Good evening, Mrs. Lieberman. MRS. LIEBERMAN Some weather we're having. Must be from all the meshugass at Cape Canaveral. (she is half-way up the steps) You locked out of your apartment? BUD No, no. Just waiting for a friend. Good night, Mrs. Lieberman. MRS. LIEBERMAN

Good night, Mr. Baxter. She and the Scottie disappear into the house. Bud resumes pacing, his eyes on the apartment windows. Suddenly he stops -the lights have gone out. INT. SECOND FLOOR LANDING - EVENING Kirkeby, in coat and hat, stands in the open doorway of the darkened apartment. KIRKEBY Come on -- come on, Sylvia! Sylvia comes cha cha-ing out, wearing an imitation Persian lamb coat, her hat askew on her head, bag, gloves, and an umbrella in her hand. SYLVIA Some setup you got here. A real, honest-to-goodness love nest. KIRKEBY Sssssh. He locks the door, slips the key under the doormat. SYLVIA (still cha cha-ing) You're one button off, Mr. Kirkeby. She points to his exposed vest. Kirkeby looks down, sees that the buttons are out of line. He starts to rebutton them as they move down the narrow, dimly-lit stairs. SYLVIA You got to watch those things. Wives are getting smarter all the time. Take Mr. Bernheim -- in the Claims Department -- came home one night with lipstick on his shirt -- told his wife he had a shrimp cocktail for lunch -- so she took it out to the lab and had it analyzed -- so now she has the house in Great Neck and the children and the new Jaguar -KIRKEBY Don't you ever stop talking? No one seems to have established exactly when the shift toward the master scene format took place or why. As early as 1952, Lewis Herman makes reference in his Practical Manual of Screen Playwriting for Theater and Television Films to the master-scene script, but his description makes clear that it is not the standard form, writing: Quite often, however, the writer may not

even be permitted to write a shooting script. Hey may be assigned to do a master -scene script.30 Defining this strange form, he writes, No camera angles have been indicated. Only a scene description, character action, and the accompanying dialogue have been attended to. 31 Herman goes on to explain how the director turns the writers draft into a shooting script: With the master-scene script as a blueprint, the director will then lay out his camera angles and shots, and correct the action directions to suit whatever exigencies may have come up, usually those brought about by changed set plans or through differences between the writers set conception and the finished set as designed by the art department, developed by the drafting department, and executed by the construction department.32 If the master scene format existed in 1952, it was not the predominant screenwriting style. At some point it became standard, but when? In comparing 1963s Charade to 1973s Chinatown to demonstrate the shift from continuity style to master scene format, Boon posits that over time fewer technical terms were needed because the screenplay became increasingly more literary and more able to shape visual imagery for readers.33 Boons simplistic explanation ignores two radical shifts in film practice and discourse that occur between 1950 and 1970. The first is the collapse of the studio system following the 1948 Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Paramount Pictures, and the second is the rise of auteur theory and influence of the French New Wave on American filmmakers. According to Staiger, the collapse of the studio system decentralized production management in Hollywood. The screenplay as the source of a central producers authority ceased to exist. By 1955, Hollywood had adopted a package-unit system, in which independent producers sought studio financing for their pictures but produced them outside of the micromanaging grip of the old-style moguls.34 Whereas the continuity script had evolved to ensure visual continuity and fidelity to a pre-approved budget the primary concerns of a central producer the master scene script evolves to ensure readability, serving the needs of the independent producer who must shop his or her script as a property to be financed. Concurrent with this industrial shift, the rise of auteur theory contributed to the screenplays diminished authority over the execution of production. As first proposed, auteur theory was a direct reaction against production as the mere execution of a scripted blueprint, a notion sustained by the continuity style script. Taking camera directions and specific shot-by-shot cutting instructions away from the writer and preserving them for the director in the shooting script sends a powerful message that the director, not the screenwriter, is the originator of cinematic language and thus the author of the film. It is hard not to see the master scene format as a case of putting the writer in his place.If the stature of the screenwriter has suffered, however, the quality of the screenplay has not. If anything, the master scene format has liberated screenwriting from its jargon-laden, technical prison. If the directors shooting script has supplanted the writers draft as blueprint, the writers draft has become something other something more literary. Boon is right when he observes in the shift from continuity style to

master scene format, the establishment of the screenplay as a more autonomous literary form.35 This wasnt the cause of the transition, however. It was the effect. 1.1.6. Terminology. [Back to Page Topics] We have yet to address the problem of terminology in screenwriting discourse. The history of the screenplay, after all, is not only the history of a kind of document but also the history of its name. According to Maras, the first known use of the one-word designation, screenplay, dates to the 1940 Academy Awards.36 Using the term screenplay to refer to writing practices that were not understood as screenplays by practitioners of the day such as the scenario or continuity, Maras warns, can obscure important historical and discursive changes. 37 As early as 1916, the two-word designation screen play was used by the New York Times to denote not a written text but the exhibited motion picture itself (i.e. a play performed on a screen instead of a stage).38 This reference raises not only the uncertainty of early critical terminology with regard to the new art of film but also a failure to distinguish between its conception and execution. Early screen writers (more often called photoplaywright, photoplay writer, photoplay dramatist or screen-playwright39) were seen by many as authoring the exhibited film itself. This also raises issues of credit, but in the early era of film, credits were handled differently by individual companies with no industry-wide standard before 1932.40 Another linguistic aspect of the terms screenplay and screenwriting (as opposed to scenario and scenario writing) that Maras examines is an implication of a specialized kind of writing. Where a scenario is a written story that will be filmed, a screenplay is a play written in the language of the screen. To make this point, Maras quotes from a 1942 essay by screenwriter Dudley Nichols, in which he links screen-writing (in the hyphenated form) to the perfect screenplay.41 Nichols views the screenplay as the complete description of a motion picture and how to accomplish the thing described, and the development of a language for this kind of writing marks the emergence of the screenplay as a unique art form. 1.1.7. Discussion Topics. [Back to Page Topics] The following are suggested key terms and topics of discussion for college courses studying this material. Key Terms:

Scripting Synopsis Scenario Continuity Central Producer System Thomas Ince

Inceville Shoot as written Carl Mayer Master Scene Format Package-Unit System Auteur Theory Screen Play vs. Screenplay

Questions:

Is screenwriting an art form or an industrial practice? How do the scenario and continuity differ from each other, and why is it important to distinguish between each of these and a screenplay? Why is Thomas Ince significant in the evolution of script form? What is unique about Carl Mayers screenwriting? How did the introduction of sound change the screenplay, and in what ways did the silent script form anticipate the introduction of sound? What factors account for the shift between continuity-style screenwriting and the master scene format? How did the function of the script change between the Central Producer and PackageUnit systems of production management? How has the master scene format changed the literary quality of the script? Why is the emergence of the term screenplay relevant to our understanding of the functions of the document? How does the history of scripting and the screenplay inform our understanding of the form as it exists today and its function in motion picture production?

1.1.8. Footnotes. [Back to Page Topics] 1. Mehring, Margaret. The Screenplay: A Blend of Film Form and Content. Boston: Focal Press, 1990. Pg. 232. 2. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pgs. 40, 89-92. 3. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pg. 90. Emphasis mine. 4. Boon, Kevin Alexander. Script Culture and the American Screenplay. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008. Pg. 15. 5. Raynauld, Isabelle. Screenwriting in The Encyclopedia of Early Cinema. Edited by Abel, Richard. NY: Routledge, 2005. Pgs. 834-838. 6. Raynauld, Isabelle. Screenwriting in The Encyclopedia of Early Cinema. Edited by Abel, Richard. NY: Routledge, 2005. Pgs. 834-838. 7. Library of Congress Online: http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/query/h?ammem/papr:@field%28NUMBER+@band%28edmp+4055%29%29 8. IMDb entry: http://72.21.211.33/title/tt0203700/

9. Library of Congress Online: http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/query/r?ammem/papr:@filreq%28@field%28NUMBER+@band%28edmp+4045%29 %29+@field%28COLLID+edison%29%29 10. Balzs, Bla. Theory of the Film: Character and Growth of a New Art. NY: Dover, 1970. Pg. 247. 11. Boon, Kevin Alexander. Script Culture and the American Screenplay. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008. Pg. 4. 12. Multiple sources. Boon reprints his from Jacobs, Lewis. The Rise of the American Film. NY: Harcourt Brace, 1939. Pgs. 27-28. Ours is reprinted from Tim Dirks filmsite review of the film, accessed on 7 January 2011: http://www.filmsite.org/voya.html. Dirk s version differs only in minor detail from Jacobs. 13. Balzs, Bla. Theory of the Film: Character and Growth of a New Art. NY: Dover, 1970. Pg. 248. 14. Boon, Kevin Alexander. Script Culture and the American Screenplay. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008. Pgs.5-6. 15. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pg. 90. 16. Bordwell, David, Staiger, Janet, and Thompson, Kristin. The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960. NY: Columbia UP, 1985. Pg. 138. 17. Norman, Marc. What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting. NY: Three Rivers, 2007. Pg. 42. 18. Boon, Kevin Alexander. Script Culture and the American Screenplay. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008. Pg. 3. 19. Norman, Marc. What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting. NY: Three Rivers, 2007. Pg. 44. 20. Accessed on 9 January 2011 at http://web.archive.org/web/20070820051629/www.geocities.com/kingrr/satan.html 21. Norman, Marc. What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting. NY: Three Rivers, 2007. Pg. 44. 22. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pgs. 40. 23. Staiger, Janet. Cinema Journal. Vol. 18, No. 2, Economic and Technological History (Spring, 1979), 16-25. 24. Luft, Herbert G. Notes on the World and Work of Carl Mayer. The Quarterly of Film Radio and Television, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Summer, 1954), pp. 375-392 25. Mayer, Carl. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. Photoplay. Twentieth Century Fox. Pg. 1. 26. Geuens, Jean-Pierre. Film Production Theory. Albany, NY: Suny, 2000. Pg.84. 27. Rose, Ruth, and Creelman, James Ashmore. King Kong.Copyright 1933, RKO Pictures Inc. Accessed from American Film Scripts Online on 9 January 2011. 28. Balzs, Bla. Theory of the Film: Character and Growth of a New Art. NY: Dover, 1970. Pg. 248-49. 29. Geuens, Jean-Pierre. Film Production Theory. Albany, NY: Suny, 2000. Pg.84.

30. Herman, Lewis. A Practical Manual of Screen Playwriting for Theater and Television Films. Cleveland: World, 1952. Pg. 169. 31. Herman, Lewis. A Practical Manual of Screen Playwriting for Theater and Television Films. Cleveland: World, 1952. Pg. 171. 32. Herman, Lewis. A Practical Manual of Screen Playwriting for Theater and Television Films. Cleveland: World, 1952. Pg. 171. 33. Boon, Kevin Alexander. Script Culture and the American Screenplay. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008. Pgs. 3, 20-24. 34. Bordwell, David, Staiger, Janet, and Thompson, Kristin. The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960. NY: Columbia UP, 1985. Pgs. 330-337. 35. Boon, Kevin Alexander. Script Culture and the American Screenplay. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008. Pg. 24. 36. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pg. 86. 37. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pg. 80. 38. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pg. 82. 39. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pg. 82. 40. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pg. 85. 41. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pg. 87.

1.2. screenplay function and readability Different types of readers are associated with the three functional text stages: property, blueprint and reading material. Claudia Sternberg1 1.2.1. Overview. As we discussed in the previous section, the rise of the Package-Unity System of production management brought about the division of the screenplay into two functional iterations, the master scene script and the shooting script, which are closely related to Sternbergs Property and Blueprint stages. During the Property Stage, the script is evaluated for its marketability, while during the Blueprint Stage it serves as guide in the production of a feature film. At the Reading Material Stage, non-professionals and scholars interact with the script for study and enjoyment. The screenplay form itself is a negotiation between the needs of the property and blueprint readers, with enough technical convention to guide the making of a motion picture but not so much that a property reader cant evaluate it for its potential as a marketable story. Virtually no consideration is given in the writing of a screenplay to the reading material stage. If a screenplay becomes reading material at all, it is virtually by accident. The screenplay will also read differently at each of these stages. The master scene script read at the Property Stage will lack many of the features of the shooting script read at the Blueprint Stage. Likewise, a published screenplay read at the Reading Material Stage may shed many of the formatting conventions from the previous two stages. Such are the changes from stage to stage, one might wonder whether the various versions are in fact the same document. That the screenplay is written for a very specific insider readership is partly to blame for its lack of acceptance as legitimate literature (and one of the reasons that changes are common in publication). For this reason, it is worthwhile to explore these stages individually, which we will do here. Page Topics:

1.2.1. Overview 1.2.2. The Master Scene Script at the Property Stage

1.2.3. Stylistic Variations within the Master Scene Format 1.2.4. The Shooting Script at the Blueprint Stage 1.2.5. Publication and Piracy at the Reading Material Stage 1.2.6. Discussion Topics 1.2.7. Footnotes

1.2.2. The Master Scene Script at the Property Stage. [Back to Page Topics] When a screenplay is written on spec that is, when an original screenplay is written independently to be sold on the open market it will usually adhere to the conventions of master scene format, in which each scene is more or less written from the perspective of a single master shot that covers all of the action in the scene. For the most part, master scene format eschews additional technical details, particularly specific instructions for the camera. Some writers bend these rules, and when technical comments are made, theyre generally typed in all CAPS to help them stand out on the page for those who need to find them (e.g. the camera or sound crew). Master scene scripts are printed in 12-point (10-pitch) Courier typeface, a monospaced slabserif font. This preserves a general correlation between script length and film duration, namely that each page of type equals one minute of screen time. A change in font can alter this outcome. Scripts are printed on three-hole punched paper and loosely bound by two brass brads, in the top and bottom holes. Scripts are frequently updated throughout the property and blueprint stages, and this loose binding allows the owner of the script to replace specific pages without needing to toss the whole script every time revisions are released. Master scene screenplays consist of two kinds of text, Scene Text and Dialogue Text, each with three distinct categories. Each category, in turn, has its own tab setting, standardized by Hillis R. Cole and Judith Haag in 1983. However, with the advent of contemporary screenwriting software, standard tab settings have become more variable, and as a result, the Cole & Haag guidelines have lost some relevance. For this reason, well refer here to the default settings in the Final Draft software as more or less the standard. The Scene Text categories are:

Scene Headings (called Slug-lines) Tab 1.5: 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 Tab 1.5: Generally reports on character actions but also contains scene descriptions, technical comments, and other relevant story details. Transitions Tab 5.5: 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.

The Dialogue Text categories are:

Character Headings Tab 3.5: Typed in CAPS and indicate the speaker of a line. Parenthetical Directions Tab 3: Used primarily to modify the delivery of dialogue. Dialogue Tab 2.5: All the spoken lines in the script.

A spec script (written on speculation, not commission) is usually an original work, since writers working on speculation rarely have the means to option an existing property, but this is not universally the case. When a screenplay is complete, the screenwriter(s) will usually register their copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office and list the script with the WGA to establish a proper chain of title, demonstrating to potential buyers that the writers in question are the authors of the work being considered and have the right to sell it to a third party. In order to sell a script, the screenwriter(s) will need to submit it to a production company through an agent or lawyer. Sometimes, but not always, a writer will have the opportunity to pitch the screenplay to company executives before it is read. This is more common for established writers who may be pitching an unwritten concept or a treatment. In these cases, the pitch creates an opportunity for the company to sign on to the project before the screenplay is complete, offering more security to the writer. A screenplay cannot be produced until it is sold. The first readers of the script are therefore primarily concerned with the texts immediate appeal, its qualities as a property or commodity and its saleability.2 These first readers are sometimes known as story analysts or story editors, 3 often an entry level position for a recent film school graduate. The analyst reads many scripts for the producer or executive, writing coverage and giving each script a recommend, consider, or pass. Coverage entails a brief but detailed synopsis, economic evaluation, and a critical review of the material. Recommended screenplays progress through the hierarchy of the production company along with their coverage. Scripts with a recommendation by the early readers will be read by more people than those that receive a pass early in the process. The early property readers must plow through piles of scripts each day and do not have the time to give each script multiple, thorough readings. These reads are quick and dirty, and most scripts will receive a pass. Problems such as formatting mistakes, poor grammar, typos, or lack of proper punctuation may disqualify a script that would have otherwise received a more sympathetic reading. Readers read down the page, meaning they focus on dialogue and will mostly skim (and may entirely skip over large chunks of) scene text. For this reason, master scene screenplays are written vertically, meaning that long paragraphs or chunks of text are usually avoided.4 Shorter, punchier paragraphs appear less dense and are more likely to be read in full. Perhaps unfortunately, early property readers will typically look for adherence to traditional structure rules, like Syd Fields paradigm or a Heros Journey, placing more innovative scripts at a disadvantage in the marketplace. More than anything, an analyst will ask such questions as, How do we market this? Does the script have a clearly definable genre? Is it too similar to an existing film? Is it too original?

If a script is deemed a worthy investment, a production company may buy it outright, but more likely, the company will purchase an option of a year or two. With an option, the company reserves the right to purchase the screenplay by paying a reduced fee up front, giving the company time to study the feasibility of the script by commissioning a budget and analyzing the market. During this time, an agent may wield tremendous power. If the writers agency also represents star talent and established directors, they may be able to help the production company put together a package that increases the economic viability of the project. 1.2.3. Stylistic Variations within the Master Scene Format. [Back to Page Topics] Screenplays tend to be known for their terse, flowerless language, but this reputation belies the great stylistic variation to be found in the works of thousands of unique authors. Claudia Sternberg has identified within the Scene Text, five Modes of Presentation Report, Description, Literary Comment, Technical Comment, and Speech the mutable balance of which accounts for much of the stylistic variance to be found from different writers. 5 Report constitutes the active mode of the screenplay, what is happening on the screen (e.g. A man walks his dog. Report in italics.) Description illustrates the filmable appearance of a scene or character (e.g. A tall man walks his long-haired dog down a dark street. Description in italics.) 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 long-haired 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.) Screenwriters may choose to write extensively in one mode and avoid another, and to a large degree, these decisions determine the style of the Scene Text. Consider the following examples from notable screenplays: 1. The Apartment by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond. 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. In this passage from The Apartment, the writers offer almost no report and instead rely on description and literary comment (the play on words and ironic description of the IBM machines) to set the tone for the movie. 2. sex, lies and videotape by Steven Soderbergh. EXT. JOHN AND ANNE MILLANEY'S HOUSE DAY Graham has parked in the Millaney's driveway. He opens the trunk, revealing a Sony 8mm Video rig and a single black duffel bag. He grabs the duffel bag and shuts the trunk. Graham knocks on the door. He is stubbing out a cigarette with his beaten tennis shoe when Ann answers the door. She is unable to hide her surprise at his appearance. In sex, lies and videotape, Soderbergh does the opposite, reporting the basic actions with minimal description and no comment, in an almost documentary fashion that mirrors the plot of the script. 3. Little Children by Todd Field & Tom Perrotta. FADE IN: SIGHTS & SOUNDS OF WINDING MOVEMENTS ON VARIOUS TIMEPIECES. Tick Tock, the rhythm overwhelming: Ansonia shelf, wall, mantel, long-case, table, and bracket. Each movement open escapement. THE HARD SCREAMING OF A RAIL ENGINE HOUSE AFTER HOUSE TOWN AFTER TOWN AS SEEN FROM A TRAIN. The strains of a NEWSCAST. An ANCHOR WOMAN front and center, super-imposed images behind her. The screenwriters of Little Children introduce technical comments in order to evoke the visceral aural and visual experience of montage that will eventually construct the cinematic discourse. 4. Fargo by Ethan and Joel Coen.

FLARE TO WHITE FADE IN FROM WHITE Slowly the white becomes a barely perceptible image: white particles wave over a white background. A snowfall. A car bursts through the curtain of snow. The car is equipped with a hitch and is towing another car, a brand-new light brown Cutlass Ciera with the pink sales sticker showing in its rear window. As the car roars past, leaving snow swirling in their drift, the title of the film fades in. Finally, the Coen brothers begin from the smallest technical comment (FLARE TO WHITE) and blend poetic description with evocative report to launch their screenplay with a simple but gripping image that creates expectation and curiosity. The subtle curtain metaphor constitutes literary comment and evokes a theatrical quality, like the rising curtain at the opening of a play. Each of these examples bears a distinctive style that distinguishes it from the others, and these stylistic differences depend largely upon the distribution of the scene text modes. Clearly, the modes of presentation in the scene text must be understood and mastered if screenwriters hope to make the most of their medium, and they also offer readers a wealth of material to analyze in their studies of the screenplay text. 1.2.4. The Shooting Script at the Blueprint Stage. [Back to Page Topics] This is the most important stage of screenplay readership, indeed, the stage for which the screenplay is explicitly written. It is important, however, to note that the blueprint is a metaphor for the screenplay, not a direct analogy. Steven Maras points out several dangers regarding a strict view of the screenplay as blueprint, including the suggestion of a fixed, single moment of control over the filmmaking process, that, Contrary to what the blueprint idea might suggest, a script can be less useful when over precise or overwritten, and an overidentification of the writer with the script to the exclusion of other key collaborators, such as the director, cast, producer, or studio.6 Accepting these caveats, the metaphor is quite useful. The entire format of the shooting script in particular is dictated by the needs of the production. The script is always typed in Courier to regulate page length, while each line of dialogue text is given 35 characters and spaces versus the 55 given to lines of action scene text. Setting the dialogue apart from the scene text in this way (which distinguishes it from the stage play) serves three purposes. First, and most importantly, it helps to reinforce the page-per-minute rule. Second, it allows the actors to focus

on lines while the crew focuses on creating the scene. Third, it creates a lot of empty space on the page, where both cast and crew can jot their own notes. At the blueprint stage, scene numbers accompany every slug-line, which act as scene dividers and one-line scene descriptors that allow for easy production scheduling since scenes will be grouped in the schedule by location, by interior or exterior, and by time of day. When the screenplay is greenlit as a shooting script, scene numbers and page numbers are locked and subsequent revisions are marked with an asterisk (*). New scenes or pages added to the script will be marked with letters, and all new or revised pages will be printed on colorcoded sheets of paper. A typical color progression is white, blue, pink, yellow, green, gold, salmon, and cherry. When a rainbow script runs out of new colors, the original sequence will cycle through a second time. Each revised page (and the script cover) will also be stamped with the date of revision. When breaking down a script for scheduling and budgeting, the production manager divides and counts each scene in units of 1/8th page, approximately equal to 7.5 seconds. Each scene receives a minimum 1/8th page count. Since more than eight slug-lines can fit on a single page, it is possible for a page to contain more than 8/8ths in the breakdown. The production manager then goes through the script and highlights in marker or underlines in colored pencil all the elements (i.e. characters, props, wardrobe, set decoration, vehicles, etc.) in the screenplay, though this process is increasingly being done digitally using software. This is done both to schedule each element and to estimate its cost in the budget. Once production begins, the screenplay is often supplanted for most crew members by other production documents, such as the call sheets, the production board, and the Day Out of Days. In addition, some productions will distribute sides or half-size script pages of the days scenes, organized in shooting order to the cast and crew each day, saving them from having to keep a complete script on hand. That said, it is not all that uncommon for a majority of the crew to never read the script a second time and to never read revised pages or sides. Most crew members get their instructions from their department heads and do not need to know the intricacies of the script. For a select few, however, the screenplay remains vitally important, but each person interacts with it in a different way. For instance, a prop master will read specifically for haptic cues, since any object touched by a character must be purchased, cataloged, and maintained by the property department. Consider this anecdote from the Anonymous Production Assistant: The sound guy tells me he actually reads every draft, but skips over the dialogue. That surprised the hell out of me. Dont you mean you only read the dialogue?

Hell, no, I dont care what theyre saying. Are they walking? They need pads on their shoes. Are they driving? Are they going to be on a process stage, or actually riding down the road in a tow car? If so, are the windows open? All of that stuff that effects how we record is in the description. The words dont matter.7 Clearly, the production sound mixer reads the script for different information than the prop master. The person who spends the most time with the script on set (besides, perhaps, the director and the cast) is the script supervisor. One of the most intellectually demanding jobs on set, the script supervisor tracks continuity from take to take and shot to shot, is the official clock on set, makes sure that all shots are slated and numbered correctly, and transcribes the directors evaluative notes along with feedback from the camera and sound departments. A script supervisor is always taking notes: the number of the scene, the number of a take, whether an actor changes a line slightly. [Steve Gehrke, a script supervisor for more than 22 years+ documents everything, similar to a court reporter, he says. And then my notes go to the editor each night.8 Perhaps the script supervisors most important task is to make sure that every scripted action and line is covered on camera. To accomplish this last part, the script supervisor sits with the script in his or her lap and draws lines down the page to indicate what is covered in each shot. A straight line indicates that the action or dialogue appears on camera, while a squiggly line indicates that an action or line of dialogue takes place off camera. The script supervisor also makes other notations on the script, such as when a line of dialogue is changed on the fly or if the director eliminates an action. The script is obviously most important to the director and the cast during the blueprint stage, but their interactions will be explored more in depth in the next section of this site. 1.2.5. Publication and Piracy at the Reading Material Stage. [Back to Page Topics] Stage plays may be read with much reward, argues writer/producer John Croyston, but film and television scripts can only be read with some success by professionals with an heightened capacity to lift the script off the page.9 To this, Sternberg responds, The objections against the screenplay as reading material are vague and reflect once again the historical parallel to drama. The appreciation of dramatic texts as readable literature only occurred with the Romantic period [. . .] For the screenplay it is quite likely that [. . .] the above impressions are simply due to a lack of a reading tradition and a dearth of readers and of constructive tools for analysis.10 Screenplays are in fact finding new life as reading material, both as published works and as bootlegs on the internet. The readership, however, remains small and composed primarily of insiders or would-be insiders (aspiring screenwriters and students). As of this writing, even

within the niche market of screenplay-related materials available on Amazon.com, the thirty top selling books are pedagogical manuals for aspiring screenwriters, not published screenplays. It is important to remember, however, that Whether or not a screenplay is popular as reading matter is irrelevant to its value as a written work. Employing that criterion to judge the value of written works would result in the decanonization of many masterpieces (Finnegans Wake, for example).11 Indeed, James Joyces Finnegans Wake ranks well behind many screenplays in Amazon sales, at #210,898.12 Why do more people read stage plays than screenplays? It could be that people read a play because a staged performance isnt available, a problem rarely mirrored with screenplays and motion pictures. Relatively few great films are out of circulation on DVD, and of those, the screenplays are no easier to come by. An automatic preference for the film would seem to lend some credence to French actor/screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrieres assertion that, Once the film exists, the screenplay is no more *. . .+13 Screenplays are a literature in flux, meaning that because they exist as an intermediate art form, it is often difficult to identify an authoritative text for a given screenplay. Whether a reader should seek an early writers draft or a particular version of the shooting script may depend very much upon the readers purpose and interest. For instance, is the reader more interested in the writers first vision or in the script that most reflects the final motion picture? Different versions of the screenplay will address each of these interests. This aside, the primary obstacle facing those interested in reading screenplays is the availability of legitimate texts. While both Newmarket Press and Faber & Faber publish impressive screenplay collections, their drafts are typically undated and may be release scripts, altered after a films release to reflect the changes made during production and in post -production. In our experience, Newmarket Press at least retains the standard format of their screenplays, but Faber & Faber often makes drastic formatting and even textual changes to make their screenplays read more like conventional literature. While ideally, one would like to see authors compensated for the enjoyment of their works, the lack of draft information and risk of textual alteration means published screenplays are often not the best option for those wishing to engage in serious screenplay study. Shooting scripts are usually the easiest legitimate texts to identify. Because the conventional practices of production mandate that revisions to an approved shooting script be precisely tracked, these drafts can be recognized by such formatting features as dated/color-coded cover sheets, locked scene numbers, asterisks marking scene revisions, OMITTED markings, revised page numbers and scene numbers that include alphabetical notation, and revised pages that are only partially filled with text. Original hard-copies of shooting scripts are also often stamped with tracking numbers. Because such drafts are so easily identified, reading a shooting script is often the safest way to know youre reading a legitimate screenplay used in the conception of a motion picture, not a release script or transcript created afterward. One can purchase shooting scripts photo-copied

from original production drafts from any of the six online stores listed in the resources page, but one should keep in mind that these are essentially bootlegs for which the writer will receive no compensation. For most readers, the best way to find the screenplay of their favorite movie will be to check one of the many digital script repositories available online. Only the curated, subscriber-based American Film Scripts Online offers authorized texts. While the rest offer bootlegs, at least they offer them freely, not profiting off the work of others. It is perhaps just another sign of the screenplays diminished role in our literate culture that such websites are even allowed to exist. After all, no website would last very long openly linking to free PDFs of the latest New York Times bestsellers, but many screenwriters do not seem to mind that their works are often shared online with no chance of profit for themselves. Good thing, too, since many screenplays are not available anywhere else (still many others are not available in either published form or as online downloads). These websites are a treasure trove of screenplays, but mixed in with the trustworthy drafts are plenty of transcripts, screenplays created by fans who have watched a movie and carefully crafted a document from it in standard script format. Readers should avoid html files wherever possible, as they are easily corrupted and may not represent a legitimate text. For this reason, scanned PDFs of shooting scripts remain the most trustworthy option for the majority of screenplays. myPDFscripts is the only site that offers only PDF scripts, most of them scanned from production documents. Because writers draft are inherently more difficult to track, those primarily interested in the writers vision will always face more difficulty. At the very least, readers will want to try and find a draft with a date. Undated drafts are most susceptible to corruption. Perhaps as screenplays gain in stature, well see wider access to legitimate script drafts from the studios that own them. Until that time, those of us who enjoy reading screenplays must play detective and do the best we can with what is available. 1.2.6. Discussion Topics. [Back to Page Topics] The following are suggested key terms and topics of discussion for college courses studying this material. Key Terms:

Property Stage Chain of Title Pitch Coverage Story Analyst Option Package

Blueprint Stage Rainbow Script 1/8th Pages Production Manager Script Supervisor Reading Material Stage Vertical Writing Reading Down the Page Scene Text Slug-lines Action Transitions Dialogue Text Character Headings Parenthetical Directions Dialogue Modes of Presentation Report Description Literary Comment Technical Comment Speech

Questions:

How is the screenplay form a negotiation between the needs of the property reader and blueprint reader? How do property readers and blueprint readers differ from one another? What are the identifying features of the master scene format? What are the identifying features of a shooting script? What accounts for the stylistic variation found between various screenplays? What process do most screenplays go through before they can become a motion picture? How do different crew members interact with the screenplay? Do screenplays make good reading material for non-specialized readers? What challenges do readers face in terms of identifying authoritative screenplay texts?

1.2.7. Footnotes. [Back to Page Topics] 1. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 48. 2. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 48.

3. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 48. 4. Deemer, Charles. Screenwriting Craft: Making Screenplays Vertical. http://www.screenwritersutopia.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid =2698 5. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pgs. 71-79. 6. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pg. 123-124. 7. Hearing, But Not Listening. The Anonymous Production Assistants Blog: A View of Hollywood from the Bottom. http://anonymousassistant.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/hearing-but-not-listening/ 8. Stamberg, Susan. When Continuity Counts, Call a Script Girl Er, Guy. Morning Edition. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19201451 9. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 57. 10. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 58. 11. Boon, Kevin Alexander. Script Culture and the American Screenplay. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008. Pg. 44. 12. Accessed 9 August 2011. http://www.amazon.com/Finnegans-Wake-Penguin-ModernClassics/dp/014118311X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294872901&sr=8-1 13. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pg. 48.

1.3. the director and the screenplay The main questions a director must answer are: where do I put the camera? and what do I tell the actors? David Mamet1 1.3.1. Overview.

Screenplays have many readers, but one persons reading matters more than any other: the directors. In script analysis, the triangular relationship between the director, the cast and crew, and the script becomes analogous to the relationship between a priest, a community of believers, and their holy text. Sure, each reader may draw his or her own conclusions, but ultimately, it will be the director who determines the orthodoxy of their reading. Script analysis is no passive reading activity. Through her analysis work, the dedicated director will re-write the screenplay in shots and performances, which is why a director is generally considered the author of a motion picture. The screenplay, like many holy texts, can be considered a living, breathing document. In one sense, it is incomplete until its tenets are incorporated into the lives of its adherents (the cast and crew). However, it is also a written text limited as all written texts are in its ability to address the real problems that arise when one attempts to put it into practice. For this reason, a director cannot blindly attempt a literal translation of the writers work any more than he can toss the screenplay aside entirely. The director even if he is the writer of the screenplay lives in a constant state of struggle with the screenplay text, a process of give and take, that if executed successfully, can result in breathtaking works of cinematic art. The complex relationship between the director and the screenwriter is examined theoretically elsewhere on this site in terms of auteur theory. Here, instead, I will take a practical approach, exploring methods of script analysis that directors might successfully employ in their craft. Because script analysis is an intimate, creative process, what follows includes personal reflections that will stand in contrast to the objective, academic tone found elsewhere on this site. Approaches to script analysis can appropriately be described as ways of reading, and the versatile director will be careful to avoid falling back on one favorite approach. By encountering the text of the screenplay from numerous perspectives, the director is sure to exhaust its creative potential. I will focus primarily on scene analysis here, but scene analysis should always be done in the context of whole-screenplay analysis. For this exercise, I will use as an example a scene from The Empire Strikes Back. Page Topics:

1.3.1. Overview 1.3.2. The Beginners Mind 1.3.3. Subtext and Dramatic Beats 1.3.4. The McKee Beat Breakdown 1.3.5. Questioning Scene Directions 1.3.6. Questioning Dialogue 1.3.7. Synthesis 1.3.8. Discussion Topics 1.3.9. Footnotes

1.3.2. The Beginners Mind. [Back to Page Topics] In The Film Directors Intuition, Judith Weston discusses a beginners mind approach to script analysis. Before we can tear a scripted scene apart, we need to sit back and let the script speak to us. Reading and recording our thoughts at the beginners mind stage allows us to capture our initial intuitions before our analytical brain completely takes over the reading process. Here we identify all our natural proclivities, making ourselves more broad-minded and open to the suggestions of our collaborators. The beginners mind stage also gives us permission to fail, by entertaining even our wildest ideas before censoring ourselves through logic or practicality. Permission to fail, writes Weston, is exactly the same as permission to learn. There is no creativity, no originality, no success, no progress without risk.2 Some of the questions we might ask at the beginners mind stage are:

What preliminary ideas pop out? How do you feel about the scene and the characters? What do you like? What irks you? What personal connections do you feel? What are your assumptions and prejudices? What are the basic facts in evidence? The easy answers? What questions do you have?

Lets read the scene that follows, and Ill respond with my own beginners mind: INT. MILLENNIUM FALCON - MAIN HOLD AREA [. . . scene abridged . . .] Leia finishes welding the valves she has been working on and attempts to reengage the system by pulling a lever attached to the valve. It doesn't budge. Han notices her struggle, and moves to help her. She rebuffs him. HAN Hey, Your Worship, I'm only trying to help. LEIA (still struggling) Would you please stop calling me that? Han hears a new tone in her voice. He watches her pull on the lever. HAN Sure, Leia.

LEIA Oh, you make it so difficult sometimes. HAN I do, I really do. You could be a little nicer, though. (he watches her reaction) Come on, admit it. Sometimes you think I'm all right. She lets go of the lever and rubs her sore hand. LEIA Occasionally... (a little smile, haltingly) ... when you aren't acting like a scoundrel. HAN (laughs) Scoundrel? Scoundrel? I like the sound of that. With that, Han takes her hand and starts to massage it. LEIA Stop that. HAN Stop what? Leia is flushed, confused. LEIA Stop that! My hands are dirty. HAN My hands are dirty, too. What are you afraid of? LEIA (looking right into his eyes) Afraid? Han looks at her with a piercing look. He's never looked more handsome, more dashing, more confident. He reaches out slowly

and takes Leia's hand again from where it is resting on a console. He draws it toward him. HAN You're trembling. LEIA I'm not trembling. Then with an irresistible combination of physical strength and emotional power, the space pirate begins to draw Leia toward him ... very slowly. HAN You like me because I'm a scoundrel. There aren't enough scoundrels in your life. Leia is now very close to Han and as she speaks, her voice becomes an excited whisper, a tone completely in opposition to her words. LEIA I happen to like nice men. HAN I'm a nice man. LEIA No, you're not. You're ... He kisses her now, with slow, hot lips. He takes his time, as though he had forever, bending her body backward. She has never been kissed like this before, and it almost makes her faint. When he stops, she regains her breath and tries to work up some indignation, but finds it hard to talk. Suddenly, Threepio appears in the doorway, speaking excitedly. THREEPIO Sir, sir! I've isolated the reverse power flux coupling. Han turns slowly, icily, from their embrace. HAN Thank you. Thank you very much.

THREEPIO Oh, you're perfectly welcome, sir. The moment spoiled, Han marches out after Threepio. My first response to this scene is one of nostalgia, because of course Im familiar with the acting from the movie. I want to get beyond that, however, to respond to the scen e as if Ive never seen it performed before. The interactions between Han and Leia remind me of a kind of dance, as they wrestle back and forth for control. The idea of a dance is interesting, because the setting is tight, claustrophobic even, forcing a closeness between the two characters that Leia resists. I like the scene for its playful energy and dialectical back-and-forth. On the other hand, its also a little cheesy. Both the dialogue and the scene descriptions (slow, hot lips) are pretty cornball, so as a director, I may worry if this scene is going to come off as camp. In terms of the characters, I have mixed feelings. Han has a likable coolness here, but theres also a thread of sexism that makes me uncomfortable. Han forces himself on Leia even after she says stop (it may seem silly to draw-out sexual violence undertones in a scene from Star Wars, but again, this is our beginners mind, where we want to let our thoughts flow). Leia is a powerful leader, but here she is reduced to a quaking, helpless object of desire. Im worried about what that means for her character and the kind of message it may send to young girls, like my daughter. In terms of personal connections, Im reminded of my teenage years, when I first met the woman who would eventually marry me. We did not hit it off right away. In fact, our dynamic was not all that dissimilar to Han and Leias starting point. Even after we warmed to one another, I pursued her long before she showed even the slightest hint of interest in me. In that sense, Hans persistence reminds me of myself at the age of 16, and Leias facade of indifference reminds me of my wife at the same age. Given the teenage connection, I see a childishness in the scene. These are two grownups acting like kids, refusing to be honest and open with one another, playing emotional games instead. My early assumption in this scene is that Leia wants Han and has always wanted him. At the same time, my early prejudice is that Han behaves inappropriately here, that hes crossed a li ne in not respecting Leias boundaries. When we talk of facts in evidence, were asking what we know to be factual for this scene, both from the scene itself and from the context of the whole script. In this case, having read the entire screenplay, we know that Han and Leia are on the run from the Empire, that theyre hiding in an asteroid, and that the Millennium Falcons hyperdrive has been damaged. This is truly life or death for the characters. They also have no way of knowing the fate of the other Rebel fighters, including their good friend Luke Skywalker, whether any of them have escaped the Empires grasp. Acknowledging this context, it is clear that these people must be brimming

with emotional confusion and stress. This is what Weston might call the big, fat fact, the fact so obvious that directors (and actors) often overlook it.3 Finally, I will list my questions about this scene. How tight is the space? What are the sounds that surround them? Whats the lighting? What do they smell like (when was the last time they bathed)? Are they hungry? How tired are they? How long exactly have they been inside this asteroid? Whens the last time either of these characters got laid? Is this just about sexual desire, or do these characters really love each other? Is this the first time theyve gotten this close, or have there been other romantic near misses? Your list of questions at this stage should be exhaustive. Ask anything that might be asked. Dont censor yourself. Now that weve worked through the beginners mind, were ready to take a more analytical approach to this scene. 1.3.3. Subtext and Scene Beats. [Back to Page Topics] Major turning points in a script seldom happen suddenly without warning. More often, these shifts are built from a slow erosion of power from one character to another, in exchanges of behavior we call beats. While we will discuss visual beats in section 3.6 of this site, these are distinct from the dramatic or emotional scene beats were discussing here. Just as individual shots are combined in editing to create a cohesive whole, writers build scenes out of smaller moments of change that happen between characters. Different authors approach these scene beats in different ways. According to Judith Weston, The beat changes are simple changes of subject in an exchange of active dialogue. 4 According to Nicholas T. Proferes, An acting beat (also referred to as a performance beat) is a unit of action committed by a character. [...] Every time the action of a character changes, a new acting beat begins. Each acting beat can be described by an action verb. That verb is always in the present tense.5 Robert McKee puts it more succinctly, A beat is an exchange of action/reaction in character behavior.6 Building on both Proferess and McKees definitions, a beat may be viewed as an emotional transaction to be understood in the terms of economics. One party tries to influence the behavior of another and will offer varying incentives to this end. In our scene from Empire, Han wants Leia to admit her affection for him, and he tries several tactics to elicit the desired response. When one strategy fails, he shifts and offers a new incentive. Each time Hans strategy or Leias response changes, a new beat occurs. It is important to understand this last point. Two characters may go back and forth on a single action/reaction for some time, and in these cases, only one beat is present. One character must change for a new beat to occur. For example, consider the following abstract exchange:

Action A/Reaction X, Action A/Reaction X, Action A/Reaction X, Action A/Reaction X, Action B/Reaction X, Action C/Reaction Y.

How many beats take place, and where do they occur? A new beat takes place wherever a character changes his or her behavior.

||BEAT 1 Action A/Reaction X, Action A/Reaction X, Action A/Reaction X, Action A/Reaction X ||BEAT 2 Action B/Reaction X || BEAT 3 Action C/Reaction Y.||

In the first beat, the two characters stubbornly repeat the same exchange over and over again. Finally, one character tries a new approach (creating a second beat), but still the second character doesnt budge. Only when the first character tries a third strategy does the other character react in a new way (marking the third beat). Now that we understand the definition of a scene beat, we are ready to do our first beat analysis. 1.3.4. The McKee Beat Breakdown. [Back to Page Topics] Robert McKee, in his chapter on scene analysis, offers a very useful five-step method of breaking a scene into beats and locating the scenes turning point.7 We will offer a shorthand version here, but readers are encouraged to read McKees original, which obviously goes into more depth. The five steps of McKees process are as follows:

Step 1: Define the Conflict. Who drives the scene, and what does he or she want?Who or what stands in opposition? Why? Step 2: Note the Opening Value. What is this scene about thematically? What value is at stake? What is the charge of that value? Does it stand at the positive or the negative? Step 3: Break the Scene into Beats. Define every exchange in action/reaction. Remember that each shift in behavior marks a new beat. Step 4: Note the Closing Value & Compare to the Opening Value. Has the charge of the value changed? Step 5: Survey the Beats and Locate the Turning Point. Where is the greatest gap between expectation and result?

Lets apply this method to our scene from Empire. Step 1: Define the Conflict. Han Solo initiates and drives this scene. His desire is to have Leia acknowledge her romantic feelings for him. Hans source of antagonism is Leia. As a leader of the Rebel Alliance and a woman, Leia needs to maintain control over her emotions for Han. Therefore, her desire is to withhold and hide those feelings. Their individual desires stand in direct opposition to one another, creating the scenes dramatic conflict. Step 2: Note the Opening Value. While the development of Han and Leias romantic relationship is the subject of this scene, the specific value at stake is Control. Leias control is Hans obstacle.

Since Han is the protagonist in this scene, the value charge stands at a negative because he must gain control from Leia in order to get what he wants. Step 3: Break the Scene into Beats. Lets do this directly on the text of the scene: INT. MILLENNIUM FALCON - MAIN HOLD AREA [. . . scene abridged . . .] BEAT #1 Leia finishes welding the valves she has been working on and attempts to reengage the system by pulling a lever attached to the valve. It doesn't budge. Han notices her struggle, and moves to help her. [Hans action: OFFERING TO HELP; EXERTING HIS MASCULINE POWER.] She rebuffs him. [Leias reaction: REJECTING HIS HELP; EXERTING HER OWN FEMININE POWER.] ========================================== BEAT #2 HAN Hey, Your Worship, I'm only trying to help. [Hans action: BELITTLING HER POWER.] LEIA (still struggling) Would you please stop calling me that? [Leias reaction: DEMANDING HIS RESPECT.] ========================================== BEAT #3 Han hears a new tone in her voice. He watches her pull on the lever. HAN Sure, Leia. [Hans action: RESPECTING HER.] LEIA Oh, you make it so difficult sometimes. [Leias reaction: BLOWING HIM OFF.] ========================================== BEAT #4 HAN I do, I really do. You could be a little

nicer, though. (he watches her reaction) Come on, admit it. Sometimes you think I'm all right. [Hans action: LETTING HIS GUARD DOWN; PLEADING FOR A LITTLE REASSURANCE.] She lets go of the lever and rubs her sore hand. LEIA Occasionally... (a little smile, haltingly) ... when you aren't acting like a scoundrel. [Leias reaction: THROWING HIM A BONE, BUT NOT LETTING DOWN HER GUARD . . . YET.] ========================================== BEAT #5 HAN (laughs) Scoundrel? Scoundrel? I like the sound of that. With that, Han takes her hand and starts to massage it. [Hans action: POURING ON THE CHARM; SEIZING AN OPENING.] LEIA Stop that. [Leias reaction: RESISTING HIS CHARM; TRYING TO CLOSE THE DOOR.] ========================================== BEAT #6 HAN Stop what? [Hans action: FORCING HIS WAY IN; EXERTING HIS MASCULINE POWER AGAIN.] Leia is flushed, confused. LEIA Stop that! My hands are dirty. [Leias reaction: LOSING CONTROL; MAKING EXCUSES.] HAN My hands are dirty, too. What are you afraid of? [Hans action: REJECTING HER EXCUSES; MOVING IN FOR THE KILL.] LEIA

(looking right into his eyes) Afraid? [Leias reaction: LOSING CONTROL; STALLING.] Han looks at her with a piercing look. He's never looked more handsome, more dashing, more confident. He reaches out slowly and takes Leia's hand again from where it is resting on a console. He draws it toward him. HAN You're trembling. [Hans action: REJECTING HER STALL; SEIZING CONTROL.] LEIA I'm not trembling. [Leias reaction: PRETENDING HE HASNT.] Then with an irresistible combination of physical strength and emotional power, the space pirate begins to draw Leia toward him ... very slowly. HAN You like me because I'm a scoundrel. There aren't enough scoundrels in your life. [Hans action: LETTING HER KNOW HES IN CONTROL NOW.] Leia is now very close to Han and as she speaks, her voice becomes an excited whisper, a tone completely in opposition to her words. LEIA I happen to like nice men. [Leias reaction: DENYING IT.] ========================================== BEAT #7 HAN I'm a nice man. [Hans action: PERMITTING HER TO GIVE UP.] LEIA No, you're not. You're ... He kisses her now, with slow, hot lips. He takes his time, as though he had forever, bending her body backward. She has never been kissed like this before, and it almost makes

her faint. [Leias reaction: GIVING UP.] When he stops, she regains her breath and tries to work up some indignation, but finds it hard to talk. Suddenly, Threepio appears in the doorway, speaking excitedly. ========================================== BEAT #8 THREEPIO Sir, sir! I've isolated the reverse power flux coupling. [Threepios action: INTERUPTING.] Han turns slowly, icily, from their embrace. HAN Thank you. Thank you very much. THREEPIO Oh, you're perfectly welcome, sir. The moment spoiled, Han marches out after Threepio. [Hans reaction: POSTPONING THE FINISH.] Notice how a new beat only occurs with a new behavior from one of the characters. Beat six is very long for this reason, as we can boil Hans action and Leias reaction down to Gaining Control/Fighting It. Eight lines are exchanged, but they all constitute a single action/reaction, thus a single beat. Step 4: Note the Closing Value & Compare to the Opening Value. By the end of this scene, Han has clearly achieved his goal and fulfilled his desire, placing the Control in his hands. As a result, the value charge has shifted to the positive. However, Threepios interruption at the end of the scene places Hans control in a precarious position, leaving it open to an easy turn back to the negative. Step 5: Survey the Beats and Locate the Turning Point. Here we can list each beat and look for the gap between expectation and result. The beats are as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Offering Help & Exerting Male Power/Rejecting Help & Exerting Female Power Belittling Her/Demanding His Respect Giving Her The Respect/Blowing Off His Gesture Letting His Guard Down & Pleading/Keeping Her Guard Up But Answering His Plea Seizing An Opening/Trying To Close It Gaining Control/Fighting It

7. Letting Her Quit Gracefully/Giving In To Him 8. Interrupting/Postponing The Finish In this sequence of beats, two potential gaps reveal themselves as possible turning points in the scene. In most of the beats, Hans action results in an opposite reaction from Leia, disappointing him at every turn. In two of the beats, however, this is not the case. In the fourth beat, Leia responds if somewhat guardedly to Hans plea for some positive reassurance. Likewise, in the seventh beat, Han offers her an opportunity to give in and she takes it. Choosing between these two gaps to determine the turning point poses a challenge. On the one hand, the most forceful shift takes place in the seventh beat, in which Han officially wins his desire. On the other hand, this turn could not happen without the small opening Leia offers in the fourth beat. Indeed, beats five and six represent a slow erosion of Leias control as a result of her tactical error in the fourth beat, culminating in Hans seventh beat success. For this reason, a strong case can be made for the fourth beat as the ultimate turning point in the scene. Why break a scene into beats? As a director, you may walk into this scene thinking, This scene is about Han and Leias romantic relationship, but that tells you little of how to direct your actors or infuse the scene with subtext. By breaking the scene into beats, you know the scene is really about seven exchanges of behavior. Seven simple changes that result in a complete paradigm shift between the characters. 1.3.5. Questioning Scene Directions. [Back to Page Topics] Judith Weston encourages actors and directors to question the scene text. Taking out the stage directions is like looking at a picture without the caption. Its provocative. It makes you think.8 Actors often ignore stage directions entirely, since theyll have to adhere to the directors blocking when the scene is shot, and the directors blocking may confl ict with their own reading of the script. Directors shouldnt ignore the scene text altogether, but they should learn to play with it. Lets read the Empire scene without any scene text or parenthetical direction, and see how we feel about it. LEIA Oh, you make it so difficult sometimes. HAN I do, I really do. You could be a little nicer, though. Come on, admit it. Sometimes you think I'm all right. LEIA

Occasionally ... when you aren't acting like a scoundrel. HAN Scoundrel? Scoundrel? I like the sound of that. LEIA Stop that. HAN Stop what? LEIA Stop that! My hands are dirty. HAN My hands are dirty, too. What are you afraid of? LEIA Afraid? HAN You're trembling. LEIA I'm not trembling. HAN You like me because I'm a scoundrel. There aren't enough scoundrels in your life. LEIA I happen to like nice men. HAN I'm a nice man. LEIA No, you're not. You're ... THREEPIO Sir, sir! I've isolated the reverse power flux coupling. HAN

Thank you. Thank you very much. THREEPIO Oh, you're perfectly welcome, sir. Contrary to Westons description, taking out the scene text is more like reading the captions without seeing the picture or like listening to a radio show. It is, however, provocative. Many questions are raised here, but three in particular: 1) what is Han doing that Leia would like him to stop, and 2) when does Threepio enter? Without the scene directions, Han could be doing anything to Leias hands. It also looks as if Threepio interrupts Leia mid-sentence. We get no impression of a kiss whatsoever. And what is Hans tone when he says, Thank you. Thank you very much? In this reading, without scene directions, we could just as easily imagine Han smirking, as if the scene was about him getting Leia riled up with Threepio offering him an exit strategy. The third and most important question is this: 3) what happened to our turning point? Read without the parenthetical direction (a little smile, haltingly), Leias line in beat four sounds like a complete blow-off. No door is opened for Han to work his way in through. Clearly, some scene directions are urgent to structure of the scene. We dont have to reject scene directions entirely to play with them, however. On e can selectively question scene directions by removing the descriptive mode of presentation, leaving only pure report. Lets read just the scene text without any qualifying language: Leia finishes welding the valves she has been working on and attempts to reengage the system by pulling a lever attached to the valve. It doesn't budge. Han notices her struggle, and moves to help her. She rebuffs him. Han hears a new tone in her voice. He watches her pull on the lever. She lets go of the lever and rubs her sore hand. With that, Han takes her hand and starts to massage it. Leia is flushed, confused. Han looks at her with a piercing look. He's never looked more handsome, more dashing, more confident. He reaches out slowly and takes Leia's hand again from where it is resting on a console. He draws it toward him. Then with an irresistible combination of physical strength

and emotional power, the space pirate begins to draw Leia toward him ... very slowly. Leia is now very close to Han and as she speaks, her voice becomes an excited whisper, a tone completely in opposition to her words. He kisses her now, with slow, hot lips. He takes his time, as though he had forever, bending her body backward. She has never been kissed like this before, and it almost makes her faint. When he stops, she regains her breath and tries to work up some indignation, but finds it hard to talk. Suddenly, Threepio appears in the doorway, speaking excitedly. Han turns slowly, icily, from their embrace. The moment spoiled, Han marches out after Threepio. By selectively scratching out scene text, we create questions for the director to answer. If, for instance, we cross out sore in the sentence She lets go of the lever and rubs her sore hand, we create a question: why is she rubbing her hand? We take away the context (soreness) and create the possibility of subtext (pretending her hand is sore in order to non-verbally invite Han to touch her). The answer to why is she rubbing her hand is not the obvious she hurt it but the subtextual she longs for Han to hold her. Questioning scene text can also mean adding what isnt there. Returning to my original concern that Leia is left powerless in the scene as written, Im particularly bothered by the scenes ending. After Threepio interrupts them, Han simply walks away leaving Leia in the lurch. We can address this by altering the scene text: He kisses her now, with slow, hot lips. He takes his time, as though he had forever, bending her body backward. She has never been kissed like this before, and it almost makes her faint. When he stops, she regains her breath and tries to work up some indignation, but finds it hard to talk. Suddenly, Threepio appears in the doorway, speaking excitedly. THREEPIO Sir, sir! I've isolated the reverse power flux coupling. As Threepio speaks, Leia slips from Han's embrace and escapes through the doorway. Han turns slowly, icily, from their embrace. toward Threepio.

HAN Thank you. Thank you very much. THREEPIO Oh, you're perfectly welcome, sir. The moment spoiled, Han marches out after Threepio. With just a subtle change of scene text, weve transformed a Leia who as originally written is completely passive after the kiss to a woman who leaves Han dangling on a thread. 1.3.6. Questioning Dialogue. [Back to Page Topics] Questioning dialogue is trickier than questioning scene text. Screenwriters long for their dialogue to appear on the screen unchanged, and many directors prefer their actors not to improvise. Often times, however, directors find that the dialogue just doesnt work. It may be by no fault of the writers. Perhaps the actor just cant nail the right delivery, or some other minor change to the scene has rendered the line meaningless in the present context. At one point or another, however, most directors will need to consider alternatives to the written dialogue. Breaking a scene into beats is the first step to questioning dialogue. If you know whats at stake in a given beat, you can replace lines without losing important information, or if you want to change the beat, you can do so purposefully. Sometimes a director wont want to change the line itself, just the delivery. One way for actors and directors to leave themselves open to new line deliveries is for them to memorize the script without punctuation, with each block of dialogue text committed to memory as a run-on sentence. Consider just this core exchange in beat four: HAN I do I really do you could be a little nicer though come on admit it sometimes you think I'm all right LEIA occasionally when you aren't acting like a scoundrel By taking out the grammatical rhythm of the lines as written, weve allowed ourselves the option of a very different line delivery.

In analyzing the dialogue, looking for triggers and operatives can also help the director and actors understand the shape of the scene. Triggers are words or phrases that provoke a response. Operatives are the words or phrases that directly respond to a trigger. Each actor will look for the triggers in the other persons lines that prompts his or her responses. Lets view this exchange from Hans perspective, with triggers in bold and operatives in italics. LEIA Oh, you make it so difficult sometimes. HAN I do, I really do. You could be a little nicer, though. Come on, admit it. Sometimes you think I'm all right. LEIA Occasionally ... when you aren't acting like a scoundrel. HAN Scoundrel? Scoundrel? I like the sound of that. In identifying the triggers and operatives, we clarify whats truly at stake in each exchange of active dialogue we clarify the subtext. Lets look at them in detail:

Leias Trigger: you make it so difficult (subtext: you complicate my emotional life) Hans Operative: you think Im all right (subtext: because you want me) Leias Trigger: when you arent acting like a scoundrel (subtext: I cant handle you) Hans Operative: I like the sound of that (subtext: because you really want me)

Not only does this process clarify the shape of a scene, it also creates opportunities for improvisation. As long as the actors both understand the triggers and operatives and include them, they can riff away from the rest of the scripted dialogue if the director permits this. Sometimes we question a line because it is mysterious to us. It doesnt seem to fit in. Maybe it strikes us as bad writing. Often times, Judith Weston suggests, these mysterious lines are in fact the key lines to unlocking a scenes meaning.9 If in reading through a scene you find a bothersome line, concentrate on that line. Maybe you dont understand it because you dont understand the scene. 3.1.7. Synthesis. [Back to Page Topics] Judith Weston suggests three solutions to every scene analysis problem.10 The point is to have not only one plan but multiple backups. Directors may have a clear vision of how a scene should play out only to discover on set that the actors either dont understand the directors vision or have a completely different understanding of the scene. In these situations, it is important for

the director and actors to work through the problem together and find a mutually agreeable solution. If the director is set in one understanding of the scene, she may be unable to compromise. If she has already considered three different solutions, she has already opened her mind up to multiple scene interpretations. The work above is for the director or actor to brainstorm privately, and they may draw from these notes on set. The key to success, however, is flexibility. A director does not want to read an entire beat breakdown to her actors. However, if it is clear an important beat isnt connecting, shell be glad shes done the work above to help address the problem with the cast. Scene analysis helps the director avoid result-oriented direction, which looks no further into characterization than describing what the dialogue sounds like.11 If I were to tell the actress playing Leia, sound angry in this scene, Im sure to get some very bad acting. The process of analysis gives us better choices. Hide your feelings from him. Blow him off. Make him feel insecure. These are playable directions, but you dont have these options if you have not done an analysis of the scene. 1.3.8. Discussion Topics. [Back to Page Topics] The following are suggested key terms and topics of discussion for college courses studying this material. Key Terms:

Beginners Mind Big, Fat Fact Beat McKee Beat Breakdown Trigger Operative Mysterious Lines Result-Oriented Direction

Questions:

Why is the beginners mind stage important? How do beats shape a scene? Why is it useful to question scene text and dialogue? Why should directors avoid result-oriented direction?

1.3.9. Footnotes. [Back to Page Topics] 1. Mamet, David. On Directing Film. NY: Penguin, 1992. Pg. 1.

2. Weston, Judith. The Film Directors Intuition: Script Analysis and Rehearsal Techniques. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2003. Pg. 7. Emphasis original. 3. Weston, Judith. The Film Directors Intuition: Script Analysis and Rehearsal Techniques. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2003. Pg.143. 4. Weston, Judith. The Film Directors Intuition: Script Analysis and Rehearsal Techniques. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2003. Pg. 14. 5. Proferes, Nicholas T. Film Directing Fundamentals: From Script to Screen. Woburn, MA: Focal, 2001. Pg. 15. 6. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 258. 7. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg.257-287. 8. Weston, Judith. The Film Directors Intuition: Script Analysis and Rehearsal Techniques. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2003. Pg.155. 9. Weston, Judith. The Film Directors Intuition: Script Analysis and Rehearsal Techniques. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2003. Pg.153. 10. Weston, Judith. The Film Directors Intuition: Script Analysis and Rehearsal Techniques. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2003. Pg.80. 11. Weston, Judith. The Film Directors Intuition: Script Analysis and Rehearsal Techniques. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2003. Pg.76.

2. paths & problems in screenplay studies Many people scoff at the idea of defending the screenplay as a form of literature. James F. Boyle1 Overview. Numerous factors have contributed to the marginalization of the screenplay as an object of academic study. Those factors will be explored and challenged here. Instead of viewing these as impediments to research, we will examine each of these areas as a potential path forward. Footnotes: 1. Boyle, James F. Forward. The Complete Guide to Standard Script Formats, Part I: The Screenplay. By Hillis R. Cole Jr. and Judith H. Haag. North Hollywood: CMC, 2000. Pg. i. 2.1. issues of authorship . . . it is language which speaks, not the author . . . Roland Barthes 1 I remember the moment I was first told about the existence of the auteur theory. I listened and listened as the explanation went on, and all I could think was this: Whats the punch line? William Goldman2 2.1.1. Overview. It is common for students of literature to take a course in Shakespeare or Hemingway. Likewise, film students are familiar with courses that focus on the works of a single director, such as Hitchcock or Kubrick. Such curricular offerings seem to suggest that, despite postmodern

challenges to its legitimacy, authorship is still a treasured concept in academia. Consider this: a lost Hemingway manuscript rediscovered, even if decidedly lacking in artistic merit, would surely draw more attention and study than a better novel from a new, unknown author. Conversely, we might wonder how long The Sun Also Rises would remain in the literary canon should we discover it to be the collaborative work of nine different authors, none of them Hemingway. Academics sometimes admire authors more than art, and indeed, often confuse the two. It is generally acknowledged that established literary genres have a single, known author, writes Claudia Sternberg. This is not the case with the screenplay, however. As a result, the screenplay as text and particularly as artistic text has not been given due consideration. 3 A second authorship problem in acknowledging the screenplay as literature is this: such acknowledgment threatens the privileged position of the director as author of the film. If the script is a work of art in its own right, the vaulted position of the director would seem to be diminished. Together, these two positions that art must have a singular, attributable author, and that authorship in film studies has already been assigned to the director have posed a serious roadblock for those who wish to advance the discipline of screenplay studies. Here we will seek to poke holes in these positions and frame the problem of authorship as an opportunity for future research into the screenplay text. Page Topics:

2.1.1. Overview 2.1.2. Who Wrote This Screenplay? 2.1.3. Auteur Theory 2.1.4. A Path Forward 2.1.5. Discussion Topics 2.1.6. Footnotes

2.1.2. Who Wrote This Screenplay? [Back to Page Topics] In 2010, when the Critics Choice Award for Best Adapted Screenplay went to Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner for Up in the Air, They both came to the stage but, in what could only be described as an awkward moment for Turner who trailed Reitman by about five seconds in coming to the podium only Reitman spoke, thanking several people but failing to acknowledge the credited writer standing next to him. Turner looked like he wanted to speak, but Reitman finished and began walking off the stage, the exit music began playing and Turner again trailed behind Reitman, not having said anything.4 What, one might ask, would prompt Reitman to treat his co-writer so poorly? The answer boils down to one word: credit. Reitman and Turner were not collaborators, but subsequent writers.

Turner wrote an earlier draft of the script, which Reitman later rewrote, but when it came time to allot credit, Reitman maintained that the substantive work on the movie was his and that he shouldnt share credit with Turner. The two went to arbitration in front of the Writers Guild, which ruled in favor of Turner and handed him a credit. 5 This story illustrates the trouble with assigning authorship to a screenplay. Often (perhaps even in most cases) multiple writers will work on a single script. The writers themselves do not determine whether they will receive credit for their work. That decision lies with the Writers Guild of America (WGA). If there is no source material (novel, play, article, etc.) and the same writers receive credit for both the story and screenplay, the credit is written by. The story by credit is used when the basic narrative structure was originally written with intent to be used for a movie (as opposed to some other literary medium) and the actual screenplay had different authors. A shared story by credit is the minimum credit awarded to the author of an original screenplay. If there was previously existing source material but the writer creates a substantially new and different story from the source, then the screen story by credit is used. The screenplay by credit is used to denote authorship if the story credit has been separated as noted above. Collaborators are credited with ampersand (&) between their names, while successive writers are credited with and.6 There is a limit to the number of writers who may receive credit. An original writer must contribute at least one-third to receive credit, while an assigned writer, director, or production executive must rewrite one-half of the script to receive credit. When disputes arise, they are handled by the WGA in arbitration. This system is far from perfect but an improvement over the studio era practices. As Marc Norman is quick to point out: During the 1930s the granting of those credits was corrupt and arbitrary, utterly up to the studio. At times they correctly went to those whod written the picture, sometimes to writers who hadnt worked on it at all (W.R. Burnett got several of those), sometimes to the producer who fancied himself a creative sort, sometimes, as an inducement, to a writer the studio was hoping to hire, and at various times to someones wife or brother. 7 The current system still leaves many writers unsatisfied. In 2007, George Clooney famously resigned his full membership in the WGA when they refused to credit his work in rewriting Leatherheads.8 Aaron Sorkin has even questioned the necessity of a screenwriters union in the present environment, arguing that a union makes sense when people have more power as a group than they do as individuals. I have considerably more power as an individual than I do as a member of that group.9 Sorkin also blames the Guilds credit system for weakening the screenwriters claim to authorship, Which ultimately gives the impression that the director was the author of the movie, because *movie audiences+ see one name at the end. The Guilds rules also make it difficult for scholars to determine who wrote what. For example, the 8/28/88 shooting script of Harry, This is Sally (later renamed When Harry Met Sally) credits screenwriter Nora Ephron, director Rob Reiner, and producer Andrew Scheinman as the authors, but only Nora Ephron receives screen credit for her efforts since WGA rules require a

director or producer to write one-half of the script to receive mention in the credits. In an opposite situation, Charlie Kaufman shares screen credit for Adaptation with Donald Kaufman, even though Donald Kaufman does not actually exist. The sense that the screenplay is art by committee lessens its value in the eyes of some, but this view seems absurd when the screenplay is compared to the feature film, a far more collaborative art form. 2.1.3. Auteur Theory. [Back to Page Topics] In short form, auteur theory states that the director is the author of a film. In critique of this suggestion, William Goldman offers an example from Steven Spielbergs Jaws: Peter Benchley reads an article in a newspaper about a fisherman who captures a forty-fivehundred-pound shark off the coast of Long Island and he thinks, What if the shark became territorial, what if it wouldnt go away? And eventually he writes a novel on that notion and Zanuck-Brown buy the movie rights, and Benchley and Carl Gottlieb write a screenplay, and Bill Butler is hired to shoot the movie, and Joseph Alves, Jr., designs it, and Verna Fields is brought in to edit, and, maybe most importantly of all, Bob Mattey is brought out of retirement to make the monster. And John Williams composes perhaps his most memorable score. How in the world is Steven Spielberg the author of that?10 Motion pictures result from the collaborative contributions of dozens, often hundreds of artists, artisans, and technicians, and the directors role in the process varies from picture to picture. Some directors are writer/directors. Some, like Steven Soderbergh are cinematographer/directors, choosing to operate the camera themselves. Some powerful directors wield a strong hand in every aspect of production, micro-managing nearly every detail of production, while others prefer to delegate responsibility (or are forced to due to their limited experience and stature in Hollywood). Some directors are very hands-on with their actors, while others prefer to stand back and make adjustments only when they are unhappy with the performance. While some directors edit their own films, most work with editors who do the heavy lifting of constructing the film in post. To truly author a feature film, a director would have to be a veritable dictator with skills in lighting, construction, interior design, camera work, music composition, etc. Most directors fall short of this description. None of this is to deny the importance of good directing. A great director guides the vision of a feature film by incorporating the contributions of numerous individual minds into a cohesive design. They deserve much of the credit for a great motion picture (and much of the blame for a bad one), but their status as author is no more clear than for the writer on any given screenplay. Why, then, have they been handed this status, and in turn, why has this status resulted in the reduction of the screenwriters contribution to authorship? To explore this we need to backtrack a bit and trace the origins of auteur theory. First proposed by Francios Truffaut in his 1954 essay for Cahiers du cinma, A Certain Tendency in the French

Cinema, la politique des auteurs should be understood in its proper context.11 In Cahiers, Traffaut writes in defense of the director as part of a larger debate with the predominant French critics of the time, for whom the director was merely metteur en scene (stage manager). For these critics, the film was all but complete when the screenplay was written. All that was left for the director was to supervise the production, to shoot as written. 12 Truffaut is reacting against a point-of-view that robs the director of all authorial expression. In the approach Truffaut criticises, writes Steven Maras, execution (the work of directing, shooting, editing) is reduced to a mere illustration of the script.13 In its origin, then, la politique des auteurs was not intended as a critique of the importance of screenwriters in the conception of the motion pictures but a defense of film language as a kind of writing, a writing in images, bodies, and light. The director, as auteur, creates meaning through a grammar that is distinct from the meaning created by the screenwriter, and this cinematic expression establishes him as an artist in his own right. This position does not seem all that threatening to screenwriters, but this is also not the auteur theory as it has come to be known in America. For that formulation, we have mostly American critic Andrew Sarris to thank. Writing in 1962, Sarris endorses Ian Camerons view that, the director is the author of a film, the person who gives it any distinctive quality.14 He then outlines the three premises of auteur theory as follows: (1) the technical competence of the director as a criterion of value, (2) the distinguishable personality of the director as a criterion of value, and (3) the director as the source of interior meaning.15 Sarris further states that these premises may be visualized as three concentric circles: the outer circle as technique; the middle circle, personal style; and the inner circle, interior meaning. The corresponding roles of the director may be designated as those of a technician, a stylist, and an auteur.16 Not all directors, then, are auteurs, but all auteurs are solely responsible for the distinctive quality of their films. Between Truffaut and Sarris, we have experienced a theoretical leap, from director as legitimate artist to director as sole author. Indeed, fellow critic John Hess calls Sarris to task for this: It is common knowledge today that [Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, and Francois Truffaut's] main insight and assertion was that great film directors were great artists or auteurs (a word which, for them, was synonymous with artist) in the same way that great novelists, poets, painters, and composers were artists. While it is true that they thought this, the narrow minded acceptance of this idea as the most important and unqualified tenet of French auteur criticism (see Andrew Sarris, THE AMERICAN CINEMA, New York, 1968) has led to incredible distortions and abject silliness on the part of many contemporary U.S. critics. 17 Even Sarris admits that Truffaut has recently gone to great pains to emphasize that the auteur theory was merely a polemical weapon for a given time and a given place,18 but he doesnt seem to care. Hes found a critical methodology that fits for him, and hes sticking with it. The question for us, however, is given the obvious critical limits of auteur theory, why does it

continue to hold such prominence and reduce the screenplay to, in Claudia Sternbergs words, nothing more than malleable raw material that is to be handed over to the director, who gives it a concrete form?19 Three factors may contribute to this problem: 1. The screenplay form itself. The script isnt reader-ready. Its intended for an audience of insiders, not outsiders. 2. The screenplay points beyond itself to another form: the feature film. 3. The screenwriter is the author of a script that needs a director to fully realize its potential. These three factors will be explored in the Privilege of Permanence section of this site. For now, let us turn to a constructive path forward in considering the authorship issues of the motion picture screenplay. 2.1.4. A Path Forward. [Back to Page Topics] Scholars in other disciplines must look on with some amusement at the debates within film studies about the problem of determining authorship. Literary criticism grew up in a sense when it moved beyond this question with Roland Barthes seminal essay, The Death of the Author. To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing. Such a conception suits criticism very well, the latter then allotting itself the important task of discovering the Author (or its hypostases: society, history, psyche, liberty) beneath the work: when the Author has been found, the text is explainedvictory to the critic.20 In other words, Barthes argues that authorial intention, while irrelevant to the purpose of literature, justifies the existence of criticism. This perhaps explains why film studies has yet to kill one of its pet theories auteurism in favor of developing of comprehensive theory of audience perception. As Barthes observes, a texts unity lies not in its origin but in its destination.21 If this demonstrates a weakness in film theory, it also outlines an opportunity for the emergent discipline of screenplay theory, one that Nathaniel Kohn has pin-pointed in his essay, Disappearing Authors: A Postmodern Perspective on the Practice of Writing for the Screen. 22 For Kohn, screenplays are other (and more) than *unfinished works+; they are unique and uniquely (post)modern works, in part because authorship is neither privileged nor commonly shared and is often uncredited. Because of their collaborative and often uncredited development, screenplays have become models for a new way of writing that somehow just happens, always mutating works that are created in myriad ways that are beyond prediction. Each screenwriter works with the understanding that almost anyone the director, the cast,

other writers, a studio heads niece may come along and alter what has been written. In this way they willingly disappear into their texts, abdicating the throne of authorship along with their copyright (which is owned by the studio). Through their disappearances, Hollywood screenwriters are making texts in ways that no longer afford useful strategies of resistance. Rather, they are participating in processes that somehow move beyond strategy and resistance, participating in ways of working that exemplify new ways of writing that make meaning through polyphony, juxtaposition, and dialogic interaction. 23 One might even argue that the screenplay is the original antecedent of the wiki, an inherently collaborative, anonymous system of text construction. The site of meaning shifts from the author to the reader. As Kohn cites Pier Paulo Pasolini observing, reading a screenplay requires a particular collaboration: namely, that of lending to the text a `visual completeness which it does not have, but at which it hints. The reader is an accomplice immediately. 24 Pasolinis thinking echoes Barthes, that a text is made of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, contestation, but there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the author.25 However far one runs with Kohns thesis, it at least suggests some interesting questions for screenplay studies. Clear authorship neednt be a criterion of value. Indeed, a script with murky authorial lineage may instill a greater sense of freedom in the critic. Likewise, the artistic standing of the director neednt come at the expense of the writer. Ultimately, it is not authors we intend to study but works of art. The interactivity of writing and reading that defines the screenplay marks it as a uniquely post-modern art form worthy of its own field of study. 2.1.5. Discussion Topics. [Back to Page Topics] The following are suggested key terms and topics of discussion for college courses studying this material. Key Terms:

WGA Story By Screen Story By Screenplay By Written By and Credits & Credits Auteur Theory Death of the Author

Questions:

How has the difficulty of establishing authorship for the screenplay often contributed to its marginalization? Why is it sometimes difficult to identify the author of a particular screenplay text? How has auteur theory reduced the importance of the writer in film studies, and was that the original purpose of the theory? Why is authorship itself a problematic concept? Why does the disappearance of the screenwriter present an opportunity for screenplay studies?

2.1.6. Footnotes. [Back to Page Topics] 1. http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/barthes06.htm 2. Goldman, William. Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting. NY: Warner Books, 1983. Pg. 100. 3. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 7. 4. Zeitchik, Steven. Screenwriting Credits, Floating Up in the Air. 24 Frames. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2010/01/james-cameron-jason-reitmananthony-minghella-avatar.html 5. Zeitchik, Steven. Screenwriting Credits, Floating Up in the Air. 24 Frames. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2010/01/james-cameron-jason-reitmananthony-minghella-avatar.html 6. http://www.wga.org/subpage_writersresources.aspx?id=171 7. Norman, Marc. What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting. New York: Three Rivers, 2007. Pg. 141. 8. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117983462 9. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/blogs/risky-business/todd-phillips-aaron-sorkinslam-43369 10. Goldman, William. Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting. NY: Warner Books, 1983. Pg. 101. 11. Truffaut, Francios. A Certain Tendency in the French Cinema. Reprinted in Auteurs and Authorship: a Film Reader. Edited by Barry Keith Grant. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008. Pgs. 9-17. 12. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pg. 106. 13. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pg. 106. 14. Sarris, Andrew. Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962. Reprinted in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Edited by Leo Braudy & Marshall Cohen. NY: Oxford UP, 1999. Pg. 515. 15. Sarris, Andrew. Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962. Reprinted in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Edited by Leo Braudy & Marshall Cohen. NY: Oxford UP, 1999. Pg. 516.

16. Sarris, Andrew. Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962. Reprinted in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Edited by Leo Braudy & Marshall Cohen. NY: Oxford UP, 1999. Pg. 517. 17. Hess, John. La politique des auteurs. Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media. No. 1, 1974, Pgs. 19-22. Reprinted online at http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC01folder/auturism1.html 18. Sarris, Andrew. Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962. Reprinted in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Edited by Leo Braudy & Marshall Cohen. NY: Oxford UP, 1999. Pg. 515. 19. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pgs. 15-16. 20. Barthes, Roland. The Death of the Author. http://evansexperientialism.freewebspace.com/barthes06.htm 21. Barthes, Roland. The Death of the Author. http://evansexperientialism.freewebspace.com/barthes06.htm 22. Kohn, Nathaniel. Disappearing Authors: A Postmodern Perspective on the Practice of Writing for the Screen. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. 43.3 (Summer 1999): Pg. 443. 23. Kohn, Nathaniel. Disappearing Authors: A Postmodern Perspective on the Practice of Writing for the Screen. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. 43.3 (Summer 1999): Pg. 443. 24. Kohn, Nathaniel. Disappearing Authors: A Postmodern Perspective on the Practice of Writing for the Screen. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. 43.3 (Summer 1999): Pg. 443. 25. Barthes, Roland. The Death of the Author. http://evansexperientialism.freewebspace.com/barthes06.htm

2.2. privilege of permanence . . . the screenplay represents a literature in flux. Claudia Sternberg1 2.2.1. Overview. William Goldman introduces his script for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, noting that, There are so many versions of a screenplay, its difficult to know which one might be most beneficial for reprinting.2 The fact that finality eludes us that it is nearly impossible to identify a most authoritative text is one of the great frustrations of screenplay studies. Scholarship tends to privilege permanence. This goes some way to explaining why playscripts are studied as literature while screenplays are not. While both the playscript and screenplay point away from themselves to a performed rendering, the playscript is more permanent than

the performance, which is ephemeral and unrepeatable. The performed rendering of a screenplay, however, is a motion picture, and in theory the film is both final and permanent. The privileging of permanence has been one of the most successful weapons used in the case against the screenplay as a literary text. Here we will explore several facets of this problem to see whether the screenplay can overcome it. Page Topics:

2.2.1. Overview 2.2.2. Literature in Flux 2.2.3. Intermediate Art Form 2.2.4. The Myth of the Permanent Film 2.2.5. A Path Forward 2.2.6. Discussion Topics 2.2.7. Footnotes

2.2.2. Literature in Flux. [Back to Page Topics] Several factors make the screenplay a difficult object for literary study, writes Kevin Alexander Boon. For one, screenplays usually pass through many hands and many revisions before reaching the screen. This results in a boggling number of versions, often by a number of different writers, some credited and some not.3 James F. Boyle concurs: There are various versions or rewriting patchworks done to a script after it leaves the hands of a writer. This sounds shocking to a playwright who has respect given to his language in the play script. In contrast, the screenwriter usually sells control of his script, giving the producer or studio legal permission to change it.4 Boyle goes on to posit six model versions of the screenplay: (1) the Authors Version, representing the work of the writer(s) before the script is sold (a spec script); (2) the Director or Producers Version, in which creatives changes are made to reflect a new vision for the feature film, often including more technical comment (a shooting script); (3) the Studio Version, in which further changes are made to appease the studio, finance the film, or attract a key player; (4) the Set Version, which takes into account changes to the shooting script that are improvised on set, such as a change in dialogue; (5) the Legal Version, in which the script is altered after post-production is complete to more closely resemble the final motion picture (a release script); and finally, (6) the Published Version, which often undergoes tremendous format changes in an attempt to make the script more readable.5 Goldman reflects back on several of these versions in his introduction to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid:

In the case of Butch, there were two early drafts, a third draft, which went to Hollywood and aroused a quick no-interest, and a further rewrite, which wasnt all that different but which, thank God, almost everybody wanted. That was the version I began working on with George Roy Hill, the director. Which was different from what we went into rehearsal with. And rehearsal always brings further alterations. Then there were the changes mandated by being able to get this location or unable to secure that one. Finally, when the movie was shot, there was the version worked on by the editor and composer.6 All of these observations set up Boons question, Which is the authoritative text? Which should we study?7 This fraught search for a final authoritative text is closely linked to academias obsession with the canon. If we cannot establish an authoritative text, how can that text be canonized made immortal in our culture? If it cannot be canonized, some might argue, it cannot be literature. Sternberg refutes this when she proposes a theory of versions for screenplay scholarship. The legitimization and investigation of each version of a text appears more help ful in the analysis of screenplays than of prose or drama because it does the text-type (which is by nature multi-versioned) particular justice.8 In other words, a theory of versions approach to screenplay studies values this inherent fluctuation as a trait distinctive to the art of screenwriting. This method, Sternberg argues, underscores the democratic nature of the text. Boon likewise concurs with Sternberg that the status of the screenplay as a literature in flux neednt impede critical investigation. The numerous incarnations and transformations of a screenplay make the process of textual construction more obvious, but they do not roadblock analysis [. . .] Which version of a screenplay we examine depends on which version seems most suited to our examination.9 2.2.3. Intermediate Art Form. [Back to Page Topics] A more incisive weapon against the screenplay as literature is its intermediate nature. As some have argued, the film scenario is entirely burnt up in the production process, 10 a process in which the screenplay dies that a film might live. The script is a structure that wants to be another structure, as Pasolini has said.11 Those that hold this view argue that screenplays arent meant to be read by outsiders. Theyre but a rough draft; the final product is the motion picture. One neednt deny the intermediate nature of the script to respond to the criticism above. Admitting that a screenplay is an intermediate form of art, writes James F. Boyle, it may be compared to a sketch that a sculptor makes while designing a bronze statue. [. . .] Both the charcoal sketch *. . .+ and the typists ink *. . .+ are stop-gaps. But consider that the sculptor might be Picasso or DaVinci or Michelangelo.12 Today museums and university archives regularly clamor for early drafts of literary masterpieces. Perhaps as a product of the post-modern turn, the authoritative text has lost

its sheen. Even if it is true that A screenplay is an imperfect reflection of the film, reading the thing sheds invaluable light on the process of motion picture conception. 13 In that respect, the intermediate nature of the script may be viewed as a strength the trait that defines it as valuable. Having said that, no lesser film theorist than Bla Balzs has rejected the argument that the screenplays artfulness is merely intermediate: The present-day script is not an unfinished sketch, not a ground-plan, not a mere outline of a work of art, but a complete work of art in itself. The script can present reality, give an independent, intelligible picture of reality like any other form of art. True, the script puts on paper scene and dialogues which later are to be turned into a film; but so does the drama put on paper the stage performance. And yet the latter is regarded as a literary form superior to the former.14 Indeed, writer/director Jason Reitman has put lie to the notion that the screenplay is burnt up in production by staging a series of critically acclaimed live readings of notable screenplays. In 2011, Reitman recast such iconic scripts as John Hughes The Breakfast Club, The Apartment by Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond, and William Goldmans The Princess Bride for his sold-out script series.15 Clearly, screenplays can have artistic life beyond the big screen. 2.2.4. The Myth of the Permanent Film. [Back to Page Topics] While literary text substrata in theater and film serve the same function, they differ in the finality granted to the dramatic text and film projection and not to the screenplay text and the dramatic performance.16 This finality granted to the motion picture begs the question: are motion pictures permanent? We can immediately think of many situations where the answer is less than clear. First, we must consider what we define as the film. A painting hanging in a gallery is not the same thing as a reprint of the same painting in a book. If one sees a picture of the Mona Lisa, he or she does not claim to have seen the painting itself. The identity of the painting is tied to the specific object. A novel, on the other hand, may be reprinted many times, and its identity is shared across all copies, as long as they resemble the original. What about motion pictures? If a film is intended to be screened in a theatrical experience, is it the same work if viewed at home on a television, on a laptop computer, or a cellular phone? Director David Lynch would argue not: Now, if youre playing the movie on a telephone you will never in a trillion years experience the film. Youll think youll have experienced it, but youll be cheated. Its such a sadness that you think youve seen a film on your fucking telephone. Get real!17 Theres a fair argument to be made that for most motion pictures, only a theatrical viewing of the film is equal to seeing the Mona Lisa in person. Home video and online streaming views offer only reproductions, akin to seeing a picture of the Mona Lisa in a book. Taking this view, the true experience of the film is nearly as elusive as a live performance of most plays.

On a less philosophical level, we can list a number of common instances in which the permanence of a given film has been destabilized: 1. Instances in which an original cut has been lost and current versions are reconstructions (e.g. Fritz Langs Metropolis). 2. Instances in which black and white films were later colorized. 3. Instances in which films have been edited for television (either to censor content or to make room for commercials). 4. Instances in which films have had their formats altered for television (e.g. a wide screen film converted to pan-and-scan). 5. Instances in which an initial studio cut is contradicted by the later release of a revised directors cut (or multiple directors cuts, as with Blade Runner). 6. Instances in which deleted scenes are included as special features on a DVD (in this case, the film itself is not altered, but the inclusion of paratextual material potentially alters the viewers perception of the primary narrative). 7. Instances in which a special edition is released to update antiquated effects sequences (e.g. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and the original Star Wars trilogy). 8. Instances in which a director has endlessly tinkered with and made subsequent revisionist claims about the intentions of his final cut (notably, Han shoots first in the revised fourth draft of Star Wars, dated March 14, 1976). 9. Special cases, such as the re-release of The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II, recut in chronological order, as the television miniseries The Godfather Saga. In each of these cases, the concept of an authoritative text is called into question, and in some cases (such as instances of #1), the screenplay may prove an invaluable resource for comparison. George Lucas has dramatically altered his Star Wars trilogy and maintains that the most recent editions are the final, correct versions, but many fans refute this and prefer the originals. In this situation, no particular cut of Star Wars appears to enjoy any greater permanence than the screenplay. (Indeed, fans need only turn to page 51 of the shooting script to prove that, yes, Han shot first.18) There is a point at which no one continues to alter a screenplay, but this does not appear to be the case with motion pictures. The potential for alteration never seems to die. 2.2.5. A Path Forward. [Back to Page Topics] The privileging of permanence is arbitrary and often fanciful. Authoritative texts make a scholars work easier, but they do not necessarily reflect truth or improve scholarship. The multi-versioned, intermediate screenplay offers rich ground for critical study. In some cases, one particular draft will best serve a scholars purpose. In other cases, a comparison between versions may be more fruitful. In cases in which a motion picture has gone through significant revisions, a comparison against the screenplay may offer clarity. Whatever methodology is chosen, this unique aspect of the screenplay text should be viewed as an invitation, not a road block.

2.2.6. Discussion Topics. [Back to Page Topics] The following are suggested key terms and topics of discussion for college courses studying this material. Key Terms:

Privilege of Permanence Literature in Flux Authors Version Spec Script Director or Producers Version Shooting Script Studio Version Legal Version Release Script Published Version Authoritative Text Canon Theory of Versions Intermediate Art Form

Questions:

Why do many scholars privilege permanence and seek authoritative texts? Why does the privilege of permanence pose problems for the study of screenplays? Why might screenplays be considered a literature in flux? Why is the concept of permanence itself problematic, particularly where motion pictures are concerned? What does a theory of versions entail? Do you consider the screenplay to be intermediate, and if so, does its intermediate nature reduce its value as art? Why is the stageplay more valued than the screenplay?

2.2.7. Footnotes. [Back to Page Topics] 1. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 28. 2. Goldman, William. Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting. NY: Warner Books, 1983. Pg. 292. 3. Boon, Kevin Alexander. Script Culture and the American Screenplay. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008. Pg. 40. 4. Cole Jr., Hillis R. and Haag, Judith H. The Complete Guide to Standard Script Formats. North Hollywood: CMC Publishing, 2000. Pg. ix.

5. Cole Jr., Hillis R. and Haag, Judith H. The Complete Guide to Standard Script Formats. North Hollywood: CMC Publishing, 2000. Pgs. ix-x. 6. Goldman, William. Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting. NY: Warner Books, 1983. Pg. 292. 7. Boon, Kevin Alexander. Script Culture and the American Screenplay. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008. Pg. 41. 8. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 39. 9. Boon, Kevin Alexander. Script Culture and the American Screenplay. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008. Pg. 41. 10. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pg. 58. 11. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pg. 50. 12. Cole Jr., Hillis R. and Haag, Judith H. The Complete Guide to Standard Script Formats. North Hollywood: CMC Publishing, 2000. Pgs. i. 13. Goldman, William. Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting. NY: Warner Books, 1983. Pg. 292. 14. Balzs, Bla. Theory of the Film: Character and Growth of a New Art. NY: Dover, 1970. Pg. 248. 15. http://www.movieline.com/2011/11/18/notes-from-the-jason-reitman-directed-livescript-read-of-the-apartment/ 16. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 26. 17. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKiIroiCvZ0 18. Lucas, George. Star Wars: The Screenplay. Monterey Park, CA: O.S.P., 1994. Pg. 51.

2.3. narratology Narratology is the theory of narratives, narrative texts, images, spectacles, events; cultural artifacts that tell a story. Mieke Bal1 2.3.1. Overview. Narratology approaches narrative as a system of working parts that can be broken apart, analyzed, and described. Its primary focus is the relationship between story and discourse (plot, narration, and focalization). As a kind of narrative text, the screenplay has several unique properties to offer a narratological study, in particular its relationship to another kind of narrative text, the feature film. Before we can apply narratological principles directly to the screenplay, however, we must understand some key concepts in narrative theory. Page Topics:

2.3.1. Overview 2.3.2. Story vs. Plot 2.3.3. Narration vs. Focalization 2.3.4. Story and Discourse in the Screenplay 2.3.5. Filmic Narration and Focalization in the Screenplay 2.3.6. Discussion Topics 2.3.7. Footnotes

2.3.2. Story vs. Plot. The words story and plot are sometimes used synonymously, but narratologists see an important distinction between the two. A story may be understood as any chronological sequence of events experienced or observed by a character. It is essentially a collection of facts true to the storyworld, synonymous to what the Russian Formalists termed the fabula. In contrast, the plot may be understood as a manipulated presentation of these facts in an organized structure. Plot gives structure to the raw materials of story. This relationship creates a kind of chicken/egg paradox, for as soon as a story is told, plot has entered the picture. To understand this better, let us consider an example from history. The story of Mahatma Ghandi would include every event that took place between the time of his birth and his death. To tell that story would take 78 years or the duration of Ghandis life. In a larger sense, even Ghandis birth is not the true beginning of his story, just as his death is not its true end. Nearly everything that has ever happened has had some impact on Ghandis story, from the formation of our sun to the birth of Ghandis great, great grandmother. Likewise, Ghandi continues to impact people every day today. How can one possibly tell his story?

The answer is plot. Whether one is writing a biography to be published, editing a PBS documentary series, or shooting a feature film about the life of Ghandi, the authors involved will have to make decisions of plot: what to leave out and what to put in; interpretations of cause and effect; a determination of the order in which the chosen events should be presented. Stories cannot be told without the manipulations of plot, and plot is the central structural skill screenwriters spend their careers trying to master. 2.3.3. Narration vs. Focalization. If a story is told, narration is involved. Narration is the method and manner of a storys transmission to an audience. The narrator is the transmitter. In a novel, for instance, the narrator is the speaker who delivers the language through which the reader receives the narrative. Narrators may be homogeneous (storyworld participants) or heterogeneous (nonparticipants). For instance, the character Holden Caulfield in the novel The Catcher in the Rye narrates his own story in which he is an active participant, therefore his is an example of homogeneous narration. On the other hand, the narrator of A Tale of Two Cities is not a participant in the narrative and is therefore an example of heterogeneous narration. Focalization refers to the relationship between perspective and perception, where a readers (or viewers) perceptions are limited to the perspective of a particular focalizing agent or reflector. A narrative may have fixed or dynamic focalization, internal or external. Fixed focalization entails a single reflector throughout an entire narrative, while dynamic focalization entails variable or multiple reflectors throughout the course of a narrative. In internal focalization (sometimes called character-bound focalization), narrative information is limited to the perceptions of story-internal reflectors (including homodiegetic narrators). Internal focalization may grant the reader access to a reflectors online perceptions (what is presently observed through the senses) or offline perceptions (dreams, memories, and hallucinations), while in external focalization, narrative information is limited to a heterodiegetic narrators perception and excludes internal observations or states of mind . The difference between narration and focalization is often described as the difference between who speaks and who sees. Consider the following examples: Category Homodiegetic Narrator, Fixed Internal Focalization Reflector Sample Text Narrator I lost my breath every time she Heterodiegetic Narrator, Fixed External Focalization Narrator She walked into the room, and he Heterodiegetic Narrator, Heterodiegetic Narrator,

Fixed Internal Dynamic Internal Focalization Focalization Single, Non-Narrating Multiple, NonCharacter Narrating Characters He watched as she As she entered the entered the room, room, she wondered

walked into the room. The very sight of her made me feel new again. I had to say something to her, but I didnt know how to begin. After sometime standing there like a frightened child, I finally excused myself from the gathering and went to tell her how I felt.

watched her. He handed her coat to stood within a small the doorman, and circle of men, all was greeted by the lawyers from the hostess. Her beauty firm, but his eyes left him breathless were across the room and made him feel with her as she new again. He knew handed her coat to he had to speak to the doorman, greeted her, but what would the hostess, and took he say? It didnt a glass of wine from a matter. He was tired wandering waiter. of feeling like a After some time, he frightened child, so finally left his circle he politely excused and began to cross himself and made his the room. way across the crowded room.

if hed noticed her. Shed worn this dress for him, but at that moment she felt invisible. How could she have known that across the room he pined for her? Like a frightened child he searched his mind for some excuse to speak with her. How could she have known that she took his breath away and made him feel new again? At last, she saw him making his away across the room toward her, and her heart skipped a beat.

Each of the examples above exhibits both a distinct voice and a unique perspective working together to shape the discourse of the story in question. In the first column, a homodiegetic narrator (story participant) directly conveys his perceptions to the reader, including his thoughts and feelings (fixed internal focalization). In the second column, a neutral heterodiegetic narrator (non-participant) conveys only those objective perceptions available to an outside observer without comment on the thoughts or feelings of the characters (fixed external focalization). In the third column, a neutral heterodiegetic narrator (non-participant) nevertheless permits the reader access to one of the characters internal perceptions, including thoughts and feelings (fixed internal focalization). Finally, in the fourth column, a neutral heterodiegetic narrator (non-participant) conveys the internal perceptions of multiple characters (dynamic internal focalization). 2.3.4. Story and Discourse in the Screenplay. A screenplay differs from a novel in the levels of discourse at play in the text. A novel is principally concerned with transmitting its story. While this is one goal of the screenplay, it has two others: 1) it indicates a hypothetical movie based on the story transmitted by the

screenplay, and 2) it contains the necessary instructions for turning the scripted story into a screened story. To put this another way, screenplay discourse functions at three levels: as a Fictional Storyworld, as a kind of Imaginary Motion Picture Projector, and as an Instruction Manual for the willing film crew. The function of enjoying the screenplay as a Fictional Storyworld is the way most people enjoy all narrative media, whether a book, television show, movie, or a screenplay: as pure content delivery. This is usually the level of interaction of which we speak when we say weve been lost in a book. At the Fictional Storyworld level, the reader enters into an almost mystical relationship with the text and is transported to another place and time, where the characters are alive, events are real, and the world has no beginning or end. It is helpful to understand this function of the screenplay indeed, of all narrative texts in order to understand why so many uninitiated readers have a hard time enjoying screenplays. Most people are familiar with the conventions of cinema, television, and the novel, and therefore have no problem forgetting the formal qualities of those texts in order to passively enjoy the content they contain. The screenplay, however, constantly calls attention to itself as a textual construct, in large part as a result of its format conventions. Trained readers eventually learn to read past these conventions, but theres no denying the impediment they pose for new readers. The screenplay also functions as a kind of Imaginary Motion Picture Projector. A scr eenplay, of course, wants to become a lm,2 and by the nature and purpose of its very creation, it is a form that points to and stands in for another form the completed feature film. As a result, the reader of the screenplay is invited to imagine herself sitting in a theater, watching a projection of the final product on a screen. It is important to understand the inherent distinction between this function and the Fictional Storyworld or the way someone might say, While reading this novel, I saw a little movie in my head. The Fictional Storyworld is a boundless imagined reality, while by way of its Imaginary Motion Picture Projector function, the screenplay specifically invites you to participate in the creation of a finite imagined work of art. Because the screenplay points to another form, the reader must imagine the fulfillment of that form to fully appreciate the authors intent. Finally, the screenplay functions as an Instruction Manual for the artists and technicians who will eventually work together to create the feature film imagined at the Imaginary Motion Picture Projector level. The distinction here is that, while the reader imagines a completed feature film at the Imaginary Motion Picture Projector level of interaction, he or she seeks specific instructions for how to create that film when reading at the Instruction Manual level. This function explains many of the screenplays more instrumentalist format conventions, but thankfully, such technical instructions are rarely explicit and are usually sublimated in creative language. These three levels of discourse coexist and blend together in the screenplay to the point that they are often indistinguishable from one another. Likewise, it is important to know that until a

feature film is delivered to the marketplace, screenplay discourse is never fixed but exists in a state of flux, subject to alterations at any point. In theory, the plot of a particular screenplay and the motion picture produced from it should be identical, but often this is not the case. In the process of making a feature film, lines of dialogue or whole scenes are often changed, omitted, or re-arranged, such that the plot of the script is quite distinct from the final product. These differences highlight the narrative distinctness of the screenplay and liberate it from its subservience to motion picture narration. To see a film is not necessarily to know its screenplay, particularly where plot is concerned. 2.3.5. Filmic Narration and Focalization in the Screenplay. Filmic narration has been a subject of much debate among narratologists, with some arguing that motion pictures have no equivalent to the literary narrator. Others, however, raise the obvious point that if a narrative is presented, something must be presenting it. Manfred Jahn calls this cinematic narrating agent the Filmic Composition Device (FCD).3 A motion pictures narrator is the entire cinematic apparatus or FCD: the camera, the editing, the production design, the sound recording, the music, etc., all narrate the story. It is important that we distinguish here between the FCD and second-level movie narrators. Onscreen narrators (such as Ferris in Ferris Buellers Day Off) and off-screen narrators (such as Henrys voice-over in Goodfellas) deliver a narration within a narration, a discourse within a discourse. When Ferris speaks directly into the camera, we know that he is not the one presenting us an image of Ferris speaking. In other words, the FCD narrates Ferris narrating. Screenwriters face the challenge of emulating FCD narration (images and sounds) in the literary narration of the screenplay text, and certain conventions have arisen in service of this goal. The narrator of the screenplay is always heterodiegetic, meaning that the narrating voice of the screenplay is never a story participant. This is true even of screenplays adapted from homodiegetic novels, where the narrator is a story participant. Heterodiegetic narration generally best approximates the objective narrating voice of the FCD. Interestingly, the convention of heterodiegetic narration is maintained in the screenplay text even when the FCD becomes homodiegetic. For instance, the film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly includes lengthy passages in which the FCD takes on a homodiegetic role: the audience sees and hears directly through the eyes and ears of the films protagonist. Even for these sequences, however, where homodiegetic narration would make sense stylistically, screenwriter Ronald Harwood obeys convention and uses heterodiegetic narration: Like a flickering eyelid a picture begins to take shape: a small, bare hospital room, the faces of the NURSES either side of a bed, both looking down expectantly, directly into CAMERA. THE CAMERA IS JEAN-DOMINIQUE BAUBY, KNOWN AS JEAN-DO.

As his eyes open he sees first the foot of his bed, then curled, paralysed hands on the yellow sheets, the IV pole hanging over him, and THE TWO NURSES, smiling, leaning towards him. In another case, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman writes himself into Adaptation, but the scene text maintains its heterodiegetic relationship to the narrative events and refers to Kaufman in the third person. Of course, screenplays make use of the same secondary on-screen and off-screen homodiegetic narrators that appear in motion pictures, but these always deliver narrative information directly to the reader through dialogue cues and do not narrate the screenplay text itself. The majority of screenplays are narrated in the third-person, but many adopt a first-person plural voice. In these cases, the construction, we see is used in place of explicit camera instruction. Another rule of screenplay narration is that it must take place in the present tense. This convention developed naturally out of the early scenario form, in which the script text amounted to little more than an itemized list of shots to be captured. As a production blueprint, the instructions found within the screenplay simply make more sense in the present tense. Nevertheless, striking exceptions do occur. The Limey by Lem Dobbs begins as follows: Wilson's first impression of Los Angeles was blue. He was in the sky at the time, so it was a curious reversal, looking down rather than up at the color he had always felt was nature's finest. Three more past-tense paragraphs follow before the screenplay shifts to the standard present tense where it remains for the duration of the script. Dobbs uses the literary past tense for poetic and stylistic reasons that have no negative affect on the production of the picture. This is a rare exception, however, and in most cases, a screenplay written in the past tense will strike a property reader as unprofessional. Screenplay texts conventionally adhere to external focalization, in that they limit reader perceptions to those available to an outside observer, namely the FCD, except where the explicit perceptions of a given character will be accessed through the FCD (such as in the example from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly cited above). Generally accepted methods of internal focalization include POV shots, voice-over narration, dream sequences, and subjective analepsis (memory). This convention is often expressed with the axiom, only write what the camera can shoot. The camera generally cannot shoot the thoughts or feelings of the story participants, so screenwriters avoid expressing them in the scene text. This rule is not as hard and fast as the formatting rules for narration, however, and many writers have occasionally dabbled with internal focalization, elucidating the thoughts or feelings of a character within the scene text.

One might also argue that many screenplays in fact employ a kind of limited internal focalization. While it is relatively uncommon for screenplays to directly access the online and offline perceptions of a scripted character, it is not at all uncommon for the FCDs perceptions to be limited to that which a central protagonist has also observed. In other words, audiences are often tied to the hip of a movies protagonist, seeing only what she is able to see, if not specifically through her eyes. In such a case, the role of the reflector seems to be shared to some degree between the FCD and the character in question. 2.3.6. Discussion Topics. The following are suggested key terms and topics of discussion for college courses studying this material. Key Terms:

Narratology Narrative Story Plot Narration Homodiegetic Narrator Heterodiegetic Narrator On-Screen Narrator Off-Screen Narrator Filmic Composition Device (FCD) Focalization Reflector Online Perception Offline Perception Internal Focalization External Focalization Fixed Focalization Dynamic Focalization Imaginary Motion Picture Projector Instruction Manual

Questions:

What is the difference between story and plot? What is the difference between the Fictional Storyworld, the Imaginary Motion Picture Projector, and the Instruction Manual levels of discourse? How do the plots of screenplays differ from the movies made from them? What is the difference between the FCD and the screenplays narrator?

What is the difference between an on-screen or off-screen narrator and the screenplays narrator? How and why is focalization limited in the screenplay compared to other literary forms?

2.3.7. Footnotes. 1. Bal, Mieke. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1997. Pg. 3. 2. Rodman, Howard. What a Screenplay Isnt. Cinema Journal. 45.2. Winter 2006. Pg. 87. 3. Jahn, Manfred. 2003. A Guide to Narratological Film Analysis. Poems, Plays, and Prose: A Guide to the Theory of Literary Genres. English Department, University of Cologne. http://www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/pppf.htm

2.4. genre studies In short, to talk about the Western (arbitrary definitions apart) is to appeal to a common set of meanings in our culture. From a very early age most of us have built up a picture of a Western. We feel that we know a Western when we see one, though the edges may be rather blurred. Thus in calling a film a Western the critic is implying more than the simple statement, This film is a member of a class of films (Westerns) having in common x, y, z. He is also suggesting that such a film would be universally recognized as such in our culture. Andrew Tudor1 2.4.1. Overview. A Genre is a loose set of formal, tonal, or thematic conventions used for categorizing narrative works of art, including screenplays. Genres are particularly relevant at the Property Stage of screenplay readership, as they hold implications for the marketplace potential of a particular feature film. Some genres are more popular with audiences than others, so it follows that screenwriters working in the most popular genres are more likely to see their scripts produced. This creates a kind of politics of genre, where screenplays that adhere to certain genre principles are privileged over those that embrace a genre of the lower caste or those that buck conventions altogether. In this section, we will explore the concept of genre and its implications for the marketplace. Page Topics:

2.4.1. Overview. 2.4.2. The Purpose of Genre for Writers & Critics 2.4.3. Genre as Classification 2.4.4. The Politics of Genre in Valuating and Evaluating Screenplays 2.4.5. Genre & Interpretation: A Case Study of Western Genre Ideals in Unforgiven and Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid 2.4.6. Discussion Topics 2.4.7. Footnotes

2.4.2. The Purpose of Genre for Writers & Critics. [Back to Page Topics] Heta Pyrhnen outlines the four-pronged purpose of genre as follows: First, genre describes in order to classify; Second, it directs interpretation; Third, genre prescribes a normative path for writers to follow; Fourth, genre offers a rubric of evaluation for critics.2 In short, genres help us to classify, interpret, prescribe, and evaluate. Robert McKee dedicates a whole chapter of his Story to the prescriptive importance of genre conventions in the craft of screenwriting, framing genre as a set of creative limitations that must be simultaneously obeyed and overcome by the writer.3 The genre sophistication of filmgoers presents the writer with this critical challenge: He must not only fulfill audience anticipations, or risk their confusion and disappointment, but he must lead their expectations to fresh, unexpected moments, or risk boring them. 4 These functions of genre as (1) a model, which becomes a formula of production; (2) a structure, which exists as a textual system [. . .]; (3) an etiquette, [. . .] used by distributors and exhibitors; and (4) a contract, which is an agreement with spectators on how to read a film5 make clear the pressures screenwriters face as they navigate genre conventions. As for classification, interpretation, and evaluation, we can take these on separately. 2.4.3. Genre as Classification. [Back to Page Topics] The essence of genre is to classify. The very term stems from the Latin genus, meaning to sort. But if a genre is meant to classify a set of texts, a method of classification must be determined, and the problem of methodology is not without its own controversies. Janet Staiger, paraphrasing from the earlier work of Andrew Tudor, has outlined four potential methodologies for determining the genre of a given text, each with its own problems: (1) find a film and judge other films against the pattern and conventions in that film (the idealist method); (2) determine from empirical observation the necessary and sufficient characteristics to include a film in the category (the empiricist method); (3) make an a priori declaration of the characteristics of the group (the a priori method); and (4) use cultural expectations to categorize the text (the social convention method).6 These methods all suffer from relativism or circular reasoning. While they effectively describe the real ways people work with genre every day, they also succeed in highlighting the inherent problems of genre as a concept. As Tudor notes, Until we have a clear, if speculative, notion of the connotations of a genre class, it is difficult to see how the critic, already besieged by

imponderables, could usefully use the term, certainly not as a special term at the root of his analysis.7 Tudor also observes how genre classifications have been ascribed based either on attributes or intentions,8 where Westerns are deemed as such based on certain attributes they possess, while Horror films or Thrillers are deemed as such based on their intention to horrify or thrill (what narratologists have called the form of interest, or the form that the readers interest takes in reaction to the text).9 Both attributes and intentions, however, pertain to issues of structure, and to be sure, structure has dictated genre formulations ever since Aristotle first described the kinds of tragic plot. More recently, Norman Friedman offers a detailed account of plot-types as genre, working within R.S. Cranes Plots of Fortune, Plots of Character, and Plots of Thought categories as follows:10 Plots of Fortune in which there is a classic, Aristotelian Reversal of the Situation.

The Action Plot A narrative that, in the vein of the Heros Journey, centers around a protagonist who must solve a problem or obtain a prize through action. Examples include Die Hard, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Star Wars. The Pathetic Plot A narrative in which an attractive, albeit weak, protagonist fails. A classic example would be Glengarry Glenn Ross. A variant of this structure is more often found in comedy, particularly on television (think Chandler and Ross on Friends, who often end an episode in humiliation). The Tragic Plot A narrative in which an attractive, strong protagonist nevertheless meets a harsh fate as a result of a miscalculation. Examples include 12 Monkeys and No Country for Old Men. The Punitive Plot A narrative in which the audience identifies with an evil protagonist who meets a just end. Examples include Scarface (both the 1932 and 1983 versions) and Bonnie and Clyde. The Sentimental Plot A weak character succeeds, often by accident. Examples include Being There and Forrest Gump. The Admiration Plot Where an attractive, responsible protagonist succeeds based on his or her integrity and moral goodness. Disneys The Princess and the Frog is a particularly blatant recent example of this type, with its frequent invocations of the importance of Tianas work ethic.

Plots of Character in which the narratives protagonist undergoes a change of moral character.

The Maturing Plot The classic coming-of-age tale in which the protagonist passes into adulthood, either literally or on some figurative level. Examples include Sixteen Candles, Stand by Me, and Almost Famous.

The Reform Plot A narrative in which an attractive protagonist chooses the wrong path but learns his or her lesson before it is too late. If viewed as a whole, the entire Star Wars saga is an example with Darth Vaders fall to the dark side and ultimate redemption. Goodfellas is another example. The Testing Plot A narrative in which a good protagonists will power is tested to the limits. Examples include Cool Hand Luke, Carlitos Way, and The Last Temptation of Christ. The Degeneration Plot A narrative in which a good protagonist degenerates into evil. The classic example is obviously Michael Corleones fall in The Godfather.

Plots of Thought in which the protagonist gains new knowledge or changes his or her mind or feelings about something.

The Education Plot A narrative in which the protagonist holds unattractive ideas or possesses and unlikable emotional disposition but evolves his or her thinking/feeling over time. Examples include Rushmore, Gross Pointe Blank, and Gran Torino. The Revelation Plot A narrative in which an initially ignorant protagonist acquires new knowledge and must cope with what has been kept secret from them. Examples include The Village, L.A. Confidential, The Firm, and Unfaithful. The Affective Plot A narrative in which the protagonists feelings are changed, usually with regard to a romantic suitor. Examples include Pride & Prejudice, 10 Things I Hate About You, and When Harry Met Sally. The Disillusionment Plot A narrative in which an idealist protagonist becomes a cynic, or in which the adherent to one worldview rejects it and embraces its opposite. Examples include Casualties of War, Wall Street, and Avatar.

While Friedmans system of genre classification by plot may offer more objective criteria than our traditional conceptions, it is unlikely that our culture will abandon such descriptors as the Western, or Horror anytime soon, however ambiguous their boundaries. 2.4.4. The Politics of Genre in Valuating and Evaluating Screenplays. [Back to Page Topics] A cursory review of market share and award-season accolades as distributed between the various mainstream genres reveals a clear politics of genre in America. According to TheNumbers.com, the top grossing genres from 1995-2010 are as follows:11 Genres 1 Comedy 2 Adventure 3 Drama 4 Action 5 Thriller/Suspense 6 Romantic Comedy Movies 1,573 441 2,720 499 449 347 Total Gross Average Gross Market Share $40,069,839,128 $25,473,515 24.21% $32,265,018,818 $73,163,308 19.49% $30,508,610,558 $11,216,401 18.43% $28,379,499,345 $56,872,744 17.14% $11,272,302,758 $25,105,351 6.81% $9,879,163,740 $28,470,213 5.97%

7 Horror 8 Documentary 9 Musical 10 Black Comedy

280 842 100 68

$7,883,063,400 $1,839,861,653 $1,616,923,463 $707,665,935

$28,153,798 $2,185,109 $16,169,235 $10,406,852

4.76% 1.11% 0.98% 0.43%

This table demonstrates a tremendous gap in popularity between the top four grossing genres and all other comers. Clearly, there is an economic incentive for producers to green-light mainstream Comedy, Adventure, Drama, and Action scripts before considering Musicals and riskier Black Comedies. This financial reality puts numerous screenwriters and screenplays at an immediate disadvantage in the marketplace. On the other hand, critical acclaim does not necessarily align with box office popularity, as the following table of Best Picture Oscar Nominated/Winning Movies from 1927 to 2001 by Tim Dirks illustrates 12: Genre 1. Drama 2. Comedy 3. Historical/Epic 4. Musical 5. ActionAdventure 6. War 7. Suspense 8. Western 358 Nominees 49% 18% 10% 8% 6% 5% 3% 2% 74 Winners 39% 14% 16% 11% 5% 8% 3% 4% Total: 432 films 47% 17% 11% 8% 6% 5% 3% 2%

It must of course be acknowledged that the two tables are not directly comparable, since the time periods covered are not identical. Nevertheless, it is interesting to observe that here Musicals rank fourth, both in terms of Academy Award nominations and wins, hinting that while the profit incentive of producing a Musical may be minimal, such productions may carry with them a certain amount of prestige. More telling, however, is the position of the Western genre on the second table. Westerns did not make the top ten of our first table, though they would have been listed in the 11th position if it had been included, with a market share of only .29%.13 Given the low probability of a Western meeting with either financial or award-season success, one wonders why any producer would ever green-light a Western script, and indeed, Westerns are rarely made any more. (In early 2011, the Coen brothers True Grit became the first Western since the Oscar-winning Unforgiven in 1992 to break the $100,000,000 box office mark, but experts doubt this outlier will revive the Western genre.)14

It is hard to understand why a film genre so central to the American identity and mythology as the Western became so marginalized. Somewhere along the way, tastes changed, and as a result, screenwriters working in the Western genre are at a distinct disadvantage in getting their works produced. Fortunately, great Western scripts still get produced occasionally (Craig Storpers Open Range and Andrew Dominiks The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford being two relatively recent standouts), but they are few and far between. This is a loss for both the craft and the culture at large. 2.4.5. Genre & Interpretation: A Case Study of Western Genre Ideals in Unforgiven and Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. [Back to Page Topics] What is a quintessential Western, anyway? We can certainly infer some basic traits commonly associated with the genre. For instance, Westerns are typically set geographically in the American frontier lands west of the Mississippi River and temporally between the close of the Civil War and the end of the 19th century. In terms of plot matter, they typically tend to center on violent men and loner anti-heroes, in dead serious plots that focus on revenge and feature confrontations between good and evil and wicked men meeting their bloody end. We can list off a long series of film titles that meet these qualifying characteristics, so it seems a good place to start. To be sure, one of the most successful and acclaimed Westerns in recent memory, Unforgiven (written by David Webb Peoples and directed by Clint Eastwood), easily meets all of these criteria. If we wanted to take Staigers idealist method of genre definition, wed be hard pressed to find a more ideal Western screenplay than Peoples Unforgiven. Theres just one problem with this approach: using Unforgiven as the ideal by which we judge all other Westerns would likely cause us to exclude the most successful and popular Western in film history Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, written by William Goldman. Goldmans script bucks most of the conventions weve just described: while the action begins in the American frontier, a good portion of the plot takes place in Bolivia; the story begins in the early 20th century; the protagonists are not loners but buddies attached at the hip, and theyre not violent; the plot is actually quite comical with romance and musical interludes included. The protagonists do meet a bloody end, but their deaths are not framed as a consequence of evil (their bank-robbing villainy) but of time (their inability to adapt to the new order of the industrial age). Even before being adjusted for inflation, Butch was slightly more successful than Unforgiven at the box office, and when adjusted for inflation, it out-performed the latter film by a factor of three. While Unforgiven received more Academy Award nominations than Butch, both films won four Oscars, and only Goldmans script won for best writing. Which, then, is the quintessential Western screenplay and can a single genre possibly succeed in encapsulating both? Given these disparities, is the concept of genre even a useful tool in interpreting screenplay texts?

One approach to answering this problem is to ask why each screenwriter chose to situate his script within the genre tradition of Westerns in the first place. It may be that each screenwriter has done so with different aims in mind. With Unforgiven, Peoples uses a genre as a way to study human nature, writes Roger Ebert. After he is fatally wounded, Little Bill says, I dont deserve this. To die like this. I was building a house. And Munny says, Deserves got nothin to do with it. Actually, deserve has everything to do with it, and although Ned Logan and Delilah do not get what they deserve, William Munny sees that the others do. That implacable moral balance, in which good eventually silences evil, is at the heart of the Western . . .15 If that implacable moral balance is at the heart of the Western, what has it to do with two lovable thieves like Butch and Sundance? The Western credentials of Goldmans screenplay have never been widely questioned, but how does its relationship to genre shape its meaning? One could argue that if Peoples uses genre to study human nature, Goldman uses it to study human events. Goldman confounds genre expectations because his thesis is that history has no room for tradition. The Mythical Old West in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is merely the stage for the last act of a play thats outlived its welcome. Butch and Sundance are criminals who belong in a traditional Western but find themselves drifting into the 20th century, into a new era with new rules. Meet the future, Butch tells Etta optimistically upon introducing her to his shiny new bicycle early on in the script. One super-posse chase later, however, and Butch is shoving the bicycle into the dirt and yelling, The futures all yours, ya lousy bicycles!16 Unlike Munny, who is haunted by the wickedness of his past, Butch and Sundance are plagued by a future that has rejected them as relics, as evolutionary leftovers. Unforgiven works because it fulfills the form of the Western, while Butch Cassidy succeeds because it deconstructs the form of the Western. Both, however, need the form of the Western as a reference point in order to create their meaning. 2.4.6. Discussion Topics. [Back to Page Topics] The following are suggested key terms and topics of discussion for college courses studying this material. Key Terms:

Genre Classify Interpret Prescribe Evaluate Idealist Method Empiricist Method

A Priori Method Social Conventions Method Attributes Intentions Form of Interest Plots of Fortune Plots of Character Plots of Thought Politics of Genre

Questions:

Why are genres important or useful? Why are genres problematic? How should screenplays be classified, by attributes, intentions, or plot structures? By what criteria do we classify a screenplay within a particular genre? How do the politics of genre affect a screenplays commercial success? Do all screenwriters use genre for the same purpose?

2.4.7. Footnotes. [Back to Page Topics] 1. Tudor, Andrew. Genre and Critical Methodology. Movies and Methods. Edited by Bill Nichols. Berkley: U of California P, 1976. Pgs. 121-122. 2. Pyrhnen, Heta. Genre. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Edited by David Herman. NY: Cambridge UP, 2009. Pg. 109-110. 3. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 79-99. 4. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 80. 5. Staiger, Janet. Hybrid or Inbred: The Purity Hypothesis and Hollywood Genre History. Film Genre Reader III. Edited by Barry Keith Grant. Austin: U of Texas P, 2003. Pg. 188. 6. Staiger, Janet. Hybrid or Inbred: The Purity Hypothesis and Hollywood Genre History. Film Genre Reader III. Edited by Barry Keith Grant. Austin: U of Texas P, 2003. Pg. 187. 7. Tudor, Andrew. Genre and Critical Methodology. Movies and Methods. Edited by Bill Nichols. Berkley: U of California P, 1976. Pgs. 122. 8. Tudor, Andrew. Genre and Critical Methodology. Movies and Methods. Edited by Bill Nichols. Berkley: U of California P, 1976. Pgs. 120. 9. Pyrhnen, Heta. Genre. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Edited by David Herman. NY: Cambridge UP, 2009. Pg. 120. 10. http://changingminds.org/disciplines/storytelling/plots/friedman_plots/friedman_plots. htm 11. http://www.the-numbers.com/market/Genres/ Accessed 08 August 2010. 1997-2010 Nash Information Services, LLC. All rights reserved.

12. http://www.filmsite.org/bestpics2.html Accessed 08 August 2010. Copyright 2010 American Movie Classics Company LLC. All rights reserved. 13. http://www.the-numbers.com/market/Genres/ Accessed 08 August 2010. Copyright 1997-2010 Nash Information Services, LLC. All rights reserved. 14. Accessed on 13 January 2011 http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/01/12/success-true-grit-unlikely-usherwesterns-experts-say/ 15. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020721/REVIEWS08/207 210301/1023 Accessed 10 October 2010. Copyright 2010 rogerebert.com 16. Goldman, William. Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting. NY: Warner Books, 1983. Pgs. 336 & 392.

2.5. theme & ideology . . . the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. William Faulkner1

2.5.1. Overview. Why do screenwriters write what they write? This question is at the heart of the problem of theme and ideology. A theme is any value statement that motivates and/or shapes a narrative. An ideology, on the other hand, is a broader system of values, from which a theme may be derived. Capitalism is an ideology that might give rise to such themes as hard work will overcome poverty. The American screenplay and the status of the screenwriter in the Hollywood industry, by the way, have both been heavily shaped by capitalist economics, an issue worth further exploration at a future date on this site. For now, however, we want to focus on the role that ideological concerns play in shaping screenwriting practice. Some writers may express overt ideologies, while others may be unaware of the ideological systems promoted in their work. Nevertheless, screenwriting discourse is well-known for encouraging authors to actively embrace and write-from specific thematic statements. Here we will explore the ways that screenwriters and those that teach them discuss thematic concerns. Page Topics:

2.5.1. Overview 2.5.2. The Thematic Script 2.5.3. Broad vs. Specific Themes 2.5.4. Formulating the Premise Equation 2.5.5. Analysis and Interpretation 2.5.6. Discussion Topics 2.5.7. Footnotes

2.5.2. The Thematic Script. As early as 1924, Sergei Eisenstein critiqued the script on the basis of its ideological weakness: Thus we are gradually coming to the most critical problem of the day: the script. The first thing to remember is that there is, or rather should be, no cinema other than agit-cinema. [...] As far as the question of the necessity or otherwise of a script or of free montage of arbitrarily filmed material is concerned, we have to remember that a script, whether plot-based or not, is [...] in our view, a prescription (or a list) of montage sequences and combinations by means of which the author intends to subject the audience to a definite series of shocks, a prescription that summarises the general projected emotional effect on the audience and the pressure that will inevitably be exerted on the audiences psyche. More often than not, given our scriptwriters utterly feeble approach to the construction of the script, this task falls in its entirety to the director. The transposition of the theme into a chain of attractions with a previous determined end effect is the definition we have given of a directors work. The presence or absence of a written script is by no means all that important.2

The script is irrelevant to Eisenstein because screenwriters fail in their efforts to express theme. It is difficult not to wonder whether Eisensteins stinging critique has had at least some impact on screenwriting instruction today. Most of the major screenwriting gurus urge aspiring authors to use theme as a central organizing principle, though they vary at times in their approach. When the theme is used as the central organizing principle, it means that all decisions of structure and character have been arranged to serve the theme. 2.5.3. Broad vs. Specific Themes. [Back to Page Topics] Casual film audiences tend to discuss their favorite movies in terms of broad themes. Examples of broad themes might be Love hurts, or Every rose has its thorn, or Money changes everything. The major screenwriting gurus and their influential manuals, however, tend to encourage writers to push past these broad slogans to something more specific. Robert McKee, for instance, is careful to distinguish between themes and universal values.3 Love, for instance, is not a theme. Neither is Truth, nor Greed. These so-called, one-word themes are in fact universal values. We can define a universal value as an issue central to human existence, encapsulated in one abstract word. Universal values play an important role in the construction of specific (as opposed to broad) themes for screenwriters. Every story is ultimately a record of value-changes, from positive to negative, from negative to positive, from positive to negative and back again, or vice versa. In building a strong, specific theme, the writer must begin with a value of some kind. Lajos Egri, in his book The Art of Dramatic Writing, argues for a structured relationship between value and a predictive form of theme he calls the premise. A premise, in Egris formation, is a statement of belief about what will result from a particular universal value placed into conflict. In writing with a premise, the screenwriter seeks to prove something about the value chosen. According to Egri, every good premise is composed of three parts, each of which is essential to a good *story+. Let us examine Frugality leads to waste. The first part of this premise suggests character a frugal character. The second part, leads to,; suggests conflict, and the third part, waste, suggests the end of the *story+.4 In other words, the premise places a universal value in conflict and predicts the result. If a writer wants to tell a story about love, she must first decide what she wishes to argue. Love will conquer all? Here we have a premise, if one that is a little weak. Egri argues that it is best if the writer qualifies her universal value by asking, What kind of love? The answer, of course, is great love. Great love conquers all is a better premise than Love conquers all, but it is still a little flaccid. Egri is here to help again, as he advises writers to be as specific as possible about the results of our conflict. Conquers all is awfully vague, but a love that conquers even death is a great love indeed. A strong premise, then, according to Egris view, may be Great love conquers even death.

McKee offers even more thematic precision by introducing the concept of what he calls the controlling idea: A CONTROLLING IDEA may be expressed in a single sentence describing how and why life undergoes change from one condition of existence at the beginning to another at the end. 5 In other words, McKees controlling idea conditionalizes Egris premise, linking the outcome of a conflict to a specific action on the part of the character. The controlling idea takes the premise and adds an if, when, or because at the end of it. For instance, Great love conquers even death WHEN lovers sacrifice their own self-interest, is a controlling idea, as is Great love conquers even death IF one lover shares openly with the other. Love hurts, Love conquers all, and Great love conquers even death when lovers are selfless, all fit within the idea of theme, since each is a value statement that could potentially shape a narrative. Screenwriters, however, have generally been encouraged to reach for very specific thematic expressions. 2.5.4. Formulating the Premise Equation. [Back to Page Topics] Reading through Egris premise examples can be confusing for first-time readers trying to understand the concept, partly because his examples differ greatly in form. It doesnt take a linguist to recognize the disparity in grammatical construction between foolish generosity leads to poverty and honesty defeats duplicity (both examples from Egri). It helps when you recognize that Egris examples of premise fall into two types. The first type of premise formula is what we might call the Cause & Effect Premise. It begins with a value tied to character (e.g. foolish generosity), followed by a connecting verb and preposition (e.g. leads to, results in, etc.), and ends in an outcome or resulting state of being (e.g. poverty). As an equation, the Cause & Effect Premise foolish generosity leads to poverty can be expressed as Foolish Generosity = Poverty, because the result of foolish generosity is poverty. The second type of premise formula is what we might call the Opposing Values in Conflict Premise. It also begins with a value tied to character (e.g. honesty), followed by a connecting verb that describes the outcome or result (e.g. defeats), and ends in an opposing value tied to antagonizing forces (e.g. duplicity). As an equation, the Opposing Values Placed in Conflict Premise honesty defeats duplicity can be expressed as Honesty>Duplicity, because honesty is said to be greater than duplicity. When one recognizes that all of Egris illustrations of premise fall into one of these two formulations, the concept of the premise becomes much more manageable.

2.5.5. Analysis and Interpretation. [Back to Page Topics] When thematic statements become the central organizing principle of a screenplay, they can serve as an analytical tool for reading and evaluating for coherence and unity. In analysis, our primary concern is not identifying the theme (though that is obviously an important first step) but determining how the theme shapes and is shaped by the text. In interpretation, however, theme becomes the guiding force. Understanding theme analysis helps us interpret a screenplays ideological underpinnings its meaning. 2.5.6. Discussion Topics. [Back to Page Topics] The following are suggested key terms and topics of discussion for college courses studying this material. Key Terms:

Theme Ideology Universal Value Premise Controlling Idea Cause & Effect Premise Opposing Values Placed in Conflict Premise Central Organizing Principle

Questions:

Why are specific themes more useful than broad themes in analyzing a screenplay text? How can a discussion of theme be helpful in the analysis of a screenplay? Of the two kinds of premise formulation Egri suggests, which is more informative?

2.5.7. Footnotes. [Back to Page Topics] 1. Faulkner, William. Banquet Speech. 10 December 1950. NobelPrize.org. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-speech.html 2. Eisenstein, Sergei. The Montage of Film Attractions in The Eisenstein Reader. Ed. Richard Taylor. Trans. Richard Taylor and William Powell. London: BFI, 1998. Pgs. 40-41. 3. 3. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 114-115. 4. Egri, Lajos. The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1960. Pg. 8. 5. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg.115.

3. elements of screenplay form The filmic elements of a screenplay are derived from the nature of the motion picture art form. They are the result of the mediums ability to move, its ability to create both a time and a space that do not exist in reality, and its ability to present imagery and sound as abstractions of reality. Film content is what the screenwriter wants to say and the structure within which it is said. Its the story to be told, the characters to be met, the places to go, and the theme to be communicated. Margaret Mehring, bold type taken from the original1 Overview. In her book, The Screenplay: A Blend of Film Form and Content, Margaret Mehring investigates the screenplay in terms of its formal attributes what she calls the filmic elements of Filmic Time, Filmic Space, Motion, Imagery, and Sound along with the characteristics of its content, of which she lists Theme, Structure, Character, and Mise-en-Scene.2 In fact, content is form, as we will examine in this section. Footnotes: 1. Mehring, Margaret. The Screenplay: A Blend of Film Form and Content. Boston: Focal Press, 1990. Pg. 3. 2. Mehring, Margaret. The Screenplay: A Blend of Film Form and Content. Boston: Focal Press, 1990. Pgs. 3-4.

3.1. classical screenplay structure SCREENPLAYS ARE STRUCTURE. William Goldman1 . . . the teaching of structure has in many venues supplanted the teaching of writing. Howard Rodman2 3.1.1. Overview. Goldmans assertion that screenplays are structure is actually rather modest. In fact, all narrative texts are structure, their content inseparable from their formal qualities. Facets of structure include but are not limited to such far-ranging issues as focalization, sequencing, rhythm, pacing, duration, and dramatic conflict. However, when Rodman refers to the teaching of structure, it is primarily plotting that is at question. In this sense, structure is the craft of plotting raw storyworld events into a narrative text, where plotting primarily involves decisions of sequencing and organization.

The history of American screenwriting is marked by certain conventions of classical Hollywood structure. Three major works have held an undeniable influence over Hollywood script structure. They are, in order of publication, Aristotles Poetics, Joseph Campbells The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Syd Fields aptly titled Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. While many other books have been written on the subject of screenplay structure, the bulk of their lessons have been cribbed from these three primary sources. Page Topics:

3.1.1. Overview 3.1.2. Major Influences: Poetics 3.1.3. Major Influences: Monomyth 3.1.4. Major Influences: Three-Act Paradigm 3.1.5. Archplot Principles 3.1.6. The Super-Objective and the Spine 3.1.7. Discussion Topics 3.1.8. Footnotes

3.1.2. Major Influences: Poetics. [Back to Page Topics] Borrowing from Aristotle, screenwriters have built upon the best practices of writing for th e stage. Through him they inherited a tradition that elevates plot and action over character and interior emotional states, that values both unity and economy of plot, and one that prefers closed stories centered on single protagonists who cause their own dramatic fate. Of all these inherited traits, Aristotles preference for causality and unity of action have possibly had the greatest impact on classical Hollywood script design, and the absence of these traits has become the defining characteristic of art film and the avant-garde. Individual scenes, characters, or lines of dialogue are often evaluated by property readers, not on the aesthetic pleasure they produce, but on their necessity to the plot. If the plot can be understood without the item in question, it is viewed as not part of the unity and may be discarded. Interestingly, one sacred law of script structuring often sourced to Aristotle for which he deserves absolutely no credit whatsoever is the classic, restorative three-act structure model. Aristotle, in fact, never proposes or advocates for acts of any kind or number. While he does analyze in detail the concepts of beginning, middle, and end, these should not be translated as acts, as indeed the beginning and end are, by Aristotles very definit ion, to be understood as finite points, not segments or sequences. Perhaps the closest he comes to describing an act structure is in his explication of desis and lysis, sometimes translated as the complication and resolution but more literally read as knotting and unraveling. By complication I mean everything from the beginning up to and including the section which immediately precedes the change to good fortune or bad fortune; by resolution I mean everything from the beginning of the change of fortune to the end.3 Here,

if anything, Aristotle seems to argue for a two-act structure model, rather than three, a point we will return to in the section of this site dedicated to alternative screenwriting structures. 3.1.3. Major Influences: Monomyth. [Back to Page Topics] The next major influence on screenplay structure comes from Joseph Campbells The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Writing in 1949, Campbell set out to identify and describe the common storytelling patterns he saw present in the mythologies of every human culture. He called the overall pattern the monomyth, which he breaks down into three stages (the Departure, the Initiation, and the Return) made up of 17 total story movements. Campbell succinctly describes the general pattern of the monomyth as follows: A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons to his fellow man.4 Unfortunately, this succinct description fails to fully express the beauty of Campbells achievement. In the 17 motifs outlined in the monomyth cycle, Campbell describes the significant Dramatic, Psychological, and Spiritual functions of mythology. The following table briefly summarizes those functions: Dramatic Psychological The Hero receives a The infantile self is challenge, prediction, or awakened to the Call to Adventure warning from a Herald that inevitability of sexual demands from him a course maturity and of action. adulthood. The infantile self The Hero refuses his charge, recognizes that with preferring the safety of his sexual awakening Refusal of the Call comfortable surroundings, comes acceptance of either as an act of mortality and prefers selfishness or cowardice. to revert back to an unaware state. The Hero seeks guidance and gadgetry from an expert in the field of his journey. The self turns to society for instruction and guidance in the proper path to adulthood. Spiritual The human condition is recognized as deficient and in need of spiritual rebirth. The cost of spiritual rebirth is discovered to be a death to the realm of the present, and the human condition rebels against this cost.

The seeker turns to shamans and priests for insight into the eternal Supernatural Aid realm and rituals that will open the door to enlightenment. The Hero encounters his Neurotic fears of self- The seeker takes the Crossing of the First first obstacle in the annihilation are first tentative steps Threshold Threshold Guardian, whom embraced and away from the familiar

subdued, as the distractions of the inevitability of present and accepts the mortality is accepted cost of discipleship. and childhood is left behind. The self is absorbed by The disciple is swallowed Having passed through the the rush of adult whole by an encounter gates of a new land, the desires and anxieties with the spiritual realm, Belly of the Whale Hero must submerge into that comes with the ushered away from the the depths of the unknown absolute death of world of the present at a to complete his quest. childhood. point of no return. The self must dig The walk of faith is filled deeper into the The Hero encounters a with tribulations of subconscious wounds chain of obstacles that test every kind. The new and anxieties left over Road of Trials his strength and intellect in believer is most tested, from childhood in preparation for his final but his faith is order to enter into battle with the Shadow. strengthened in these fully-functioning trials. adulthood. Mentally exhausted from the work so far, Many believers never the self seeks the reach beyond this level The Hero is rewarded for maternal comforts of a of discipleship, but are his accomplishments with second womb.(Think content with their Meeting with the rest and comfort, but he of a man who, instead dogma to rest in the Goddess must not rest for too long, of seeking an equal in comfortable bosom of lest he risk a second refusal a mate, seeks a their religious of the call. woman who will community. However, coddle and care for the call to deeper him the way his understanding remains. mother did.) The self must The believer runs from acknowledge its own the flesh, wishing to The Hero must master his sexual repression. escape the life of the Woman as the own desires, subduing them Desire cannot be body. The body, Temptress in service of the task at buried but must be however, is life, and hand. admitted and cannot be repressed, mastered. Only then only mastered. can adulthood begin. The Hero must become one A response to the The believer must face Atonement with the with the figure of the Oedipal complex. The the wrath of the Father Father. This can take many self must deal with the vengeful sectarian God forms, whether it is seeking icon of the Father as a in order to reach beyond

he must incorporate through will and wits rather than conquer through feats of strength.

forgiveness or offering it to the ogre father. The Father may be an internal figure, the Shadow within. The Hero transcends his limitations, defeating the Shadow and creating unity in the world. He is exalted above all, but ultimately, he must deny this elevated position among the gods, in order to share his recognition with the world.

Apotheosis

The Hero receives the ultimate reward, a prize or elixir capable of healing the schism of the world. He The Ultimate Boon may have to steal this from the gods, or it may be offered willingly to their newly divine son.

The Hero decides that he does not want to complete the task. Perhaps he wants Refusal of the Return to keep the boon for himself, or maybe he just enjoys his elevated position among the gods.

The Magic Flight

Having stolen the boon from the gods, the Hero is pursued to the ends of the earth, or having had the

reflection of the future this human expression self and move beyond of distorted divinity into the need for divine love. competition. The self makes a The believer sees the breakthrough past the face of the gods, and in old divisions and so doing, becomes one dichotomies of with the divine. While childhood and finally offered eternal rest in sees the unity that this state of exists between all enlightenment, his aspects of the self and journey is not over. This between the self and divinity must be shared the rest of the culture. with all of humanity. Transcendence reaches the ultimate level, as the enlightened one finally reaches beyond mere The secret of totems of immortality adulthood is into the source of understood and must eternal being itself. It is be shared with others. now his task to restore the flow of this substance to all of humanity. Having finally unlocked the secret of completeness, the self may become selfish The enlightened one again and deny its knows that the return is obligation to human a denial of divinity and society. Those with refuses to restore the knowledge must flow of Imperishable teach, but the one Being to all of with the secret may humankind. embrace a cynical hatred for the other who lacks understanding. Once responsibility for The demons of dogma the other is and orthodoxy will recognized, the self usually pursue the may project enemies enlightened one and

at every turn, or on attempt to prevent the the other hand, the restoration of divine self may feel so driven power, for the true flow by the importance of of eternal being will rob the mission that a kind them of their control of divine protection is over the masses. felt. The enlightened ones Sometimes the key disciples must usher him The Hero is incapable of knowledge must be across the threshold, crossing the return drawn out by others, either to hide him from Rescue from Without threshold on his own power eager students who discovery or because and must be drawn out must beg the newly hes too weak from his with the help of friends. minted mentor to encounter with the share his wisdom. Imperishable Being. The self finally opens up and empties itself out to the The flow of eternal life is The Hero brings the boon brotherhood of restored and may be into the ordinary world. humankind. Where accessed by all of The Crossing of the This is another point of no apotheosis represents humanity. The old Return Threshold return in that, once the the death of the temple priests no longer boon is delivered, it cannot human self before the have their power and be taken back by the gods. divine, the return are banished. represents the death of the divine self before the human. Having abolished the last threads of The enlightened one is Having completed the selfishness, what now both human and entire journey, the Hero is remains of the self divine and may pass rewarded with the ability to now possesses the freely between mortal Master of the Two pass back and forth ability to pass and eternal realms. The Worlds between ordinary and effortlessly between community turns to him special realms. He is now contemplation and as the new prophet, a the mentor for future action, between quiet vessel of eternal generations. understanding and the knowledge, a shaman of act of teaching that divine communication. knowledge to others. The beginning of a new The new unified self All of humanity is now cycle. The Hero begins his possesses the freedom free to live and reach Freedom to Live reign among men and the to go forth and live. the full potential of our rebirth of society begins in This journey is species, no longer held

boon willingly bestowed upon him by the gods, the Hero is ushered home under their guardianship.

the wake of the boons complete, but life if back by our old dogmas delivery. It is the end of this full of many journeys. and prejudices, by the chapter, but not the end of divisions of tribe, race, the story. and nation. We are unified in the eternal Campbells book was truly a classic of 20th century scholarship and was transformative in its attempt to unify humanity across cultures through story. However, his efforts were descriptive, not prescriptive, intended to demonstrate the universal mythological underpinnings of human storytelling, not to act as a paint-by-numbers outline for would-be storytellers. The monomyth is a pattern, but it is not a pattern that flows in one direction. Those who have set out to turn his work into a writing formula have unfortunately left the richness of Campbells nuance behind. George Lucas may not have been Campbells first student, but hes certainly the most important in terms of bringing Campbells influence to bear on modern cinema. Lucas hoped to build in Star Wars a modern mythology, and understandably, he found in Campbells work a valuable road map. With the explosive commercial success of Star Wars, it was not long before other filmmakers began to identify in Campbell a potential formula for success, and by 1985, this gain in influence culminated in a memo from Disney studio executive Chistopher Vogler that essentially made a version (and some would say distortion) of Campbells monomyth the bible by which all in-coming screenplays were to be judged. Voglers version of the Heros Journey reduced the cycle to 12 stages from 17 and obliterated the psychological and spiritual nuance in favor of literalistic narrative formula. Volger has since expanded his memo into the very influential screenwriting book, The Writers Journey. The trouble with mimicking Campbells monomyth in screenwriting is that it favors a certain kind of plot to the exclusion of other valid (and often successful) plot structures. Vogler himself warned in his original memo, Following the guidelines of myth too rigidly can lead to a stiff, unnatural structure, and there is the danger of being too obvious.5 Unfortunately, almost no attention in screenwriting instruction has been paid to successful strategies for veering away from the rigid path. Instead, Vogler and the other screenwriting gurus have built entire careers urging aspiring screenwriters to follow the monomyth as a formula for guaranteed success. 3.1.4. Major Influences: Three-Act Paradigm. [Back to Page Topics] Syd Fields Screenplay is the final member of the Hollywood structure holy trinity. Writing in 1979, Field was hardly the first person to deliver a guide to screenwriting, but his structural Paradigm codified the rules of storytelling for the screen at a whole new level of detail. Field preached the three-act structure at 1/4 1/2 1/4 proportions, built around page-numberspecific turning points.6 Act I is the Setup; it lasts approximately 30 pages and contains the first major Plot Point at around page 25. Act II is the Confrontation; it lasts approximately 60 pages and contains the second major Plot Point at around page 85; it also contains a pivotal scene

roughly halfway through (page 60) called the Mid-Point on which the rest of the story turns. Act III is the Resolution and lasts approximately 30 pages. Dozens of screenwriting guides have followed in the wake of Fields description of the Paradigm, but most have basically tweaked his original form. For instance, Robert McKee describes an Act I of 30 pages, an Act II of 70 pages, and an Act III of 18 pages with a 2 page Resolution epilogue at the end.7 While McKee shifts a few pages here and there, the shape of his model is basically the Paradigm 2.0. 3.1.5. Archplot Principles. [Back to Page Topics] Robert McKee refers to the classical Hollywood structure as the Archplot, and his description of its defining qualities is quite useful for understanding convential screenplays. 8 According to McKee, the Archplot is built around a Single Active Protagonist, Closed Endings, External Conflict, Linear Ordering, Causality, and Consistent Reality. Taken individually:

Single Active Protagonist as opposed to multiple or passive protagonists. Closed Endings as opposed to open endings that leave plot threads unresolved. External Conflict as opposed to internal conflict, emotionally isolated to the protagonist. Linear Ordering events sequenced in a chronological and logical order, as opposed to alternative structures that defy chronology or logic. Causality traditional laws of cause and effect apply. Consistent Reality the storyworld of the script adheres to consistent governing laws and logic.

The scripts of big budget Hollywood blockbusters almost always fall within these parameters, and their plotting usually adheres to the limitations of Fields three -act Paradigm, with major plot points occurring within the prescribed page ranges. This likely has more to do with the commercial considerations of managing audience attention spans than it does making great art. Archplot narratives recall the simple structures of fairytales (Voglers influence) and picture books were exposed to as children, and since film is a mass medium intended for a large audience (many of whom have never been exposed to the more complex narrative structures of novels), it only makes sense that studios prefer the kinds of plots that will appeal to the widest demographic. That is not to say that the Archplot is a lesser form, but it is unfortunate that movie studios and screenwriting gurus alike have shied away from encouraging innovation. 3.1.6. The Super-Objective and the Spine. [Back to Page Topics]

Aristotle makes clear that the plot is made unified not by character but by action. An indeterminately large number of things happen to any one person, not all of which constitute a unity; likewise a single individual performs many actions, and they do not make up a single action.9 A unified action is one comprised of a series of events occurring sequentially in accordance with probability or necessity.10 In other words, the key to unity of action is causality. A unified plot is one in which each scene begets the next as a matter of necessity and probability. The question remains, however, how do screenwriters submit themselves to this guiding principle when structuring their plots? Constantin Stanislavski may have been the first to offer an effective tool to that end. His introduction of the Super-Objective and the Through-Line (or Spine) into the craft of performance has had powerful implications for writing as well. The Super-Objective is a characters primary desire. A character may have many desires and some of these may change from scene to scene, but all other wants, needs, and goals must be governed by the SuperObjective. This creates a unity of desire that drives the characters actions. Similarly, the Spine is the unified thread of actions taken on the part of the character in pursuit of his or her SuperObjective. Together, the Super-Objective and Spine offer the screenwriter a path of adherence to Aristotles prescription of plot unity. Playwright Kenn Adams has described the story spine in the framework of a fill-in-the-blank fairytale to help the writer preserve the unity of action.11 THE PLATFORM Once Upon a Time And everyday THE CATALYST But one day THE CONSEQUENCES And because of that THE CLIMAX Until finally THE RESOLUTION And ever since then By completing the sentence fragments with the basic plot points from a Hollywood feature, we can see how the Adams story spine preserves unity of action. In this case, we will use Back to the Future as an example:

Once Upon a Time there lived an average American teenager named Marty. And everyday, in spite of his familys history of failure, he pursued his dreams, believing that history was going to change. But one day Marty accidentally traveled back in time and prevented his parents from falling in love.

And because of that Marty had to both get his parents back together and find a way to return to the future. Until finally he succeeded on both counts, but not before altering history a little for the better in the process. And ever since then Martys family and future were better off than before his trip through time.

Here again we see how classical approaches to screenwriting structure seek to simplify plot development to the level of an easily digestible formula that reduces narrative options for the screenwriter. If screenwriting is structure, classical screenwriting is an art of strict limits. 3.1.7. Discussion Topics. [Back to Page Topics] The following are suggested key terms and topics of discussion for college courses studying this material. Key Terms:

Story Plot Fabula Sjuzhet Aristotles Poetics Complication (desis) Resolution (lysis) Joseph Campbells The Hero with a Thousand Faces Monomyth or Heros Journey Syd Fields Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting The Paradigm Three-Act Structure Plot Points and Mid-Point Archplot Unity Causality Super-Objective Spine (Through-Line)

Questions:

What is screenplay structure? Why is it important to distinguish between a screenplays story and plot? How have Aristotle, Joseph Campbell, and Syd Field shaped the way we think of screenplay structure?

Why are Archplot screenplays considered more commercially viable than Alternative Plot scripts? How does identifying the Super-Objective and the Spine aid in the analysis of a screenplays structure?

3.1.8. Footnotes. [Back to Page Topics] 1. Goldman, William. Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting. NY: Warner Books, 1983. Pg. 459. 2. Rodman, Howard. What a Screenplay Isnt. Cinema Journal. Vol. 45, No. 2. Winter 2006. Pg. 87. 3. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by Heath, Malcolm. London: Penguin, 1996. Pg. 29. 4. Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: U of Princeton P, 1973. Pg. 30. 5. Vogler, Christopher. A Practical Guide to Joseph Campbells The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 1985. http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero%27s_journey.htm#Practical 6. Field, Syd. Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. NY: Delta, 2005. 7. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pgs. 208-232. 8. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pgs. 31-66. 9. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by Heath, Malcolm. London: Penguin, 1996. Pg. 15. 10. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by Heath, Malcolm. London: Penguin, 1996. Pg. 14. 11. Ohler, Jason. Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning, and Creativity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2008. Pgs. 120-122.

3.2. alternative screenplay structure Nothing is more central to the manuals than their structural approach to screenplays, in particular, the importance of the three-act paradigm. J.J. Murphy1 Outside of the world of film, many possible contributory factors might have helped shape this surging trend in unconventional narration: the fragmenting postmodern condition and its revolt against master narratives; the ubiquity of shorter narrative media forms such as music videos; video games, which stress multiple kinds of interactive narrativity, require various sorts of player strategies including role playing and team building, and repeatedly take players back to the same situations; the branched experience of surfing the net; and hypertext linking that allows users to create a personalized sequence of disparate types of artifacts that might include

text, image, video, and sound. In the U.S., the rise of independent film and the need for product differentiation are surely important factors. But whatever the causes, even a cursory survey of films from the last decade and a half reveals that many tell their stories in some non-classical way. Charles Ramirez Berg2 3.2.1. Overview. In the previous section, we explored classical structure rules for Hollywood screenwriting. Here we will critique certain classical views and examine alternative views of script structure. Page Topics:

3.2.1. Overview 3.2.2. Criticism of the Three-Act Model 3.2.3. Alternative Plot Structures 3.2.4. Discussion Topics 3.2.5. Footnotes

3.2.2. Criticism of the Three-Act Model. [Back to Page Topics] Unlike teleplays, which do contain explicit act breaks, feature-length screenplays exhibit no obvious act structure. A two hour feature film shown in a movie theatre is a continuous action, argues James Bonnet. There are no intermissions. Its one continuous act-less event which revolves around a problem.3 For this reason, the a priori notion that all screenplays must contain three-acts has recently come into question by some, including Rachid Nougmanov, as missing some crucial, vitally important points.4 Perhaps most notably, Kristin Thompsons Storytelling in the New Hollywood attacks Syd Fields three-act Paradigm as arbitrary and not reflective of the way scripts are really structured. In particular, Thompson critiques the Paradigms out-of-proportion second act, which many writers find protracted and difficult to write.5 While Robert McKee endorses the three-act structure model, he proves more flexible than Field in acknowledging certain second act difficulties. How then does the writer solve the problem of the long second act? he asks. By creating more acts. The three-act design is the minimum. McKee goes on to describe examples of four, five, and eight-act structure.6 Thompson argues that most mainstream Hollywood screenplays break perspicuously into four large-scale parts, usually followed by a short epilogue, with major turning points usually providing the transitions.7 Thompson calls her four parts the Set-Up, the Complicating Action, the Development, and the Climax, and to illustrate her inductive approach to screenplay structure, Thompson offers a persuasive case study of 10 major Hollywood pictures.

Nougmanov describes a five-act paradigm with a ten page Setup that culminates in a Plot Question, twenty pages of Intrigue, thirty pages of Learning, another thirty pages of Trouble, and finally thirty pages of Confrontation. Even Robert McKee, who elsewhere embraces the three-act structure, argues that a story is a design in five parts comprised of the Inciting Incident, Progressive Complication, Crisis, Climax, and a short Resolution.8 This is nearly identical to Thompsons model (the brief epilogue she describes correlates with the short Resolution described by McKee), and both conceptions along with Nougmanovs recall the five-act structure of Freytags Pyramid (Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Denouement), which predates Fields Paradigm by almost a century.9 Ken Dancyger and Jeff Rush have critiqued the ideology of restorative three-act structure as dishonest and non-reflective of real life experience. Recognition comes in time to stave off tragedy; this is the key to the feel of restorative three-act stories there is a second chance, personal redemption and restoration are more significant than events, and actions are less important than motives.10 Fields Paradigm, they suggest, is an insufficient structure for storytellers who wish to write with greater realism and nuance. In another departure from the paradigm, Melanie Anne Phillips and Chris Huntleys Dramatica describes a four-act structure of Learning, Understanding, Doing, and Obtaining. In order to reconcile their own model with the three-act tradition, they refer to each of their own acts as sign-posts (A, B, C, and D) connected by three journeys. When Aristotle saw a beginning, middle and end, he was seeing Signpost A, all three journeys lumped together, and Signpost D. When successive generations of writers evolved a three act structure, it became very difficult to determine, What happens in Act 2? as all three journeys and two of the signposts were simply blended into the middle.11 Indeed, contrary to claims of an Aristotelian origin for restorative three-act design, Aristotle actively critiques plots in which heroes succeed and villains are vanquished, attributing the popularity of such narratives to the weakness of the audience. The tragic plot strongly favored by Aristotle is a movement in two parts: a desis, in which tensions are built through the knotting of complications, and a lysis in which everything unravels, leaving the protagonists world in tatters. Others have suggested act divisions of any kind are meaningless to the structuring of screenplays. The three act structure is not a story structure. You cant find it in myths and legends or other great stories of the past and you cant find it in nature, argues James Bonnet, another writing guru and former member of the WGAs Board of Directors.3 Bonnet goes on to suggest that it makes much more sense when youre creating a story to be thinking in terms of the natural structure of the problem which has two main parts: the action that created it and the action that will resolve it.

3.2.3. Alternative Plot Structures. [Back to Page Topics] Robert McKee places the Archplot at the top of what he calls the story triangle.13 At the triangles other two points are what he terms the Miniplot (minimalist plots featuring o pen endings, internal conflict, and multiple or passive protagonists) and Antiplot (anti-structure plots featuring loose causality, non-linear narration, and inconsistent realities). That McKee is happy to lump all non-Archplot films into one of two structure categories may hint at his Archplot prejudices. As J. J. Murphy has observed, McKee clearly sees miniplot and antiplot as lesser structures that are subserviently dependent on the archplot. 14 Are Miniplot and Antiplot really adequate descriptors for the plurality of films that have bucked classical structure rules, and are non-classical plots truly subservient? Charles Ramirez Bergs expansive survey of contemporary plot structures, A Taxonomy of Alternative Plots in Recent Films,2 seems to suggest that McKee has grossly oversimplified the potential for variety in cinematic storytelling. In his essay, Berg counts no less than a dozen plot varieties, which he classifies in three groups: plots that diverge from the Archplot in terms of the number of protagonists; plots that diverge from the Archplot in terms of the ordering of story events; and plots that diverge from the Archplot in terms of breaking classical rules of subjectivity, causality, and self-reference. The plots that diverge from the Archplot in terms of the number of protagonists are:

The Ensemble (Polyphonic) Plot: Any story structured around the experiences of numerous protagonists centered in a unified place and time. Often used as a device to explore cross-sections of society. E.G. Most of Robert Altmans films, Magnolia, Crash. The Parallel Plot: Similar to the Ensemble Plot, but in this case multiple protagonists are separated by time and/or space. Limited to four protagonists. E.G. Traffic, Syriana, Babel. The Branching (Multiple Personality) Plot: A single protagonist branches into two, either via technology, magic, multiple personalities, or simply as a plot device. E.G. Back To The Future Part II, Sliding Doors, Fight Club. The Daisy Chain Plot: The story jumps from one protagonist to the next, never to revisit a previous protagonist. Sometimes tied to a prop, sometimes random. E.G. Slacker.

The plots that diverge from the Archplot in terms of the ordering of story events are:

The Backwards Plot: A story told backwards. E.G. Memento. The Repeated Action Plot: A protagonist is stuck in a repeated loop. E.G. Groundhog Day, Run, Lola, Run. The Repeated Event/Multiple Perspective Plot: A single event or series of events is replayed or retold from multiple perspectives. E.G. Rashomon, Elephant. The Hub-and-Spokes Plot: Numerous protagonists and storylines converge on one event. Different in that the hub in question is the dramatic fulcrum of the story. E.G. Amores Perros, Go, 21 Grams.

The Jumbled Plot: Stories that present a scrambled sequence of events motivated artistically, by filmmakers prerogative. E.G. The majority of Tarantinos films, Out of Sight, Following.

The plots that diverge from the Archplot in terms of breaking classical rules of subjectivity, causality, and self-reference are:

The Subjective Plot: Stories told from the protagonists internal, filtered perspective. E.G. 8 1/2, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Donnie Darko. The Existential Plot: Stories with minimal goals, causality, and exposition. E.G. The works of Terence Malick and Sofia Coppola. The Meta-Narrative Plot: Narration about the problem of movie narration. E.G. Adaptation, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story.

Of these many categories, the Subjective and Jumbled Plots comes closest to McKees Antiplot and the Existential Plot to his Miniplot. The rest demonstrate the rich tapestry of structural approaches McKee fails to fully appreciate in his own taxonomy. Others have compiled similar taxonomies to Bergs. Murphys study on independent (non-classical) screenwriting looks to Problematic Protagonists (Stranger Than Paradise, Safe, and Fargo), Multiple Plots (Trust, Gas Food Lodging, and Me and You and Everyone We Know), Temporal Structures (Reservoir Dogs, Elephant, and Memento), and Noncausal Structures (Mulholland Dr., Gummo, and Slacker), and Ken Dancyger has studied counter-structures and anti-narratives in multiple writings. We neednt settle on one set of alternative structures to appreciate that alternative structure exists. What is interesting of Bergs survey is that, despite its focus on recent films, it also proves that few of these structural approaches are recent innovations. In fact, filmmakers and screenwriters have always experimented with structure. Though the Archplot may be utilized more often than any other individual approach, it is as likely that a majority of films exhibit one or more of the alternative plot types to one degree or another. 3.2.4. Discussion Topics. Key Terms:

Kristin Thompsons Large-Scale Parts Structure Freytags Pyramid Miniplot Antiplot Ensemble (Polyphonic) Plot Parallel Plot Branching (Multiple Personality) Plot Daisy Chain Plot Backwards Plot Repeated Action Plot

Repeated Event/Multiple Perspective Plot Hub-and-Spokes Plot Jumbled Plot Subjective Plot Existential Plot Meta-Narrative Plot

Questions:

Why are Archplot screenplays considered more commercially viable than Alternative Plot scripts? Does the Three-Act Structure model make sense and accurately describe the way a screenplays plot is patterned? If there are no actual act breaks in feature screenplays, what is the usefulness of discussing acts at all? Does Bergs taxonomy of Alternative Plots account for all varieties? Is his list exhaustive, or can it be expanded further?

3.2.5. Footnotes. 1. Murphy, J.J. Me and You and Memento and Fargo: How Independent Screenplays Work. NY: Continuum Intl, 2007. Pg. 16. 2. Berg, Charles Ramirez. A Taxonomy of Alternative Plots in Recent Films: Classifying the Tarantino Effect. Film Criticism. Vol. 31, Issue 2. 22 September 2006. Pg. 5. 3. Bonnet, James. Whats Wrong with the Three-Act Structure. The Writers Story eZine. http://www.writersstore.com/whats-wrong-with-the-3-act-structure 4. Nougmanov, Rachid in Screenwriting for a Global Market: Selling Your Scripts from Hollywood to Hong Kong. Edited by Andrew Horton. Berkeley: U of California P, 2004. Pg. 143. 5. Thompson, Kristin. Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001. Pg. 24. 6. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 220-221. 7. Thompson, Kristin. Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001. Pg. 27. 8. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 181. 9. Freytag, Gustav. Technique of the Drama. Translated by Elias J. MacEwan. Chicago: S.C. Riggs & Co., 1896. Pgs. 114-140. 10. Dancyger, Ken and Rush, Jeff. Alternative Screenwriting: Writing Beyond the Rules. Boston: Focal, 1995. Pg. 25.

11. Phillips, Melanie Anne, and Huntley, Chris. Dramtica: A New Theory of Story. 4th Edition. Burbank, CA: Screenplay Systems, 2001. Pg. 134. 12. Bonnet, James. Whats Wrong with the Three-Act Structure. The Writers Story eZine. http://www.writersstore.com/whats-wrong-with-the-3-act-structure 13. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 45. 14. Murphy, J.J. Me and You and Memento and Fargo. NY: Continuum, 2007. Pg. 14. 15. Berg, Charles Ramirez. A Taxonomy of Alternative Plots in Recent Films: Classifying the Tarantino Effect. Film Criticism. Vol. 31, Issue 2. 22 September 2006. Pg. 5.

3.3. methods of screenplay exposition

The script and the film are always establishing something. Now, dont you go establishing things. David Mamet 1 With todays stress on fast-moving action, some practitioners seem to have decided that exposition is innately bad and should be minimized. Kristin Thompson 2 3.3.1. Overview. Only Kristin Thompson knows if she had David Mamet on her mind when she wrote the sentence above, but Mamets stance on exposition is clear. The very purpose of exposition, after all, is to establish the present situation of the narrative and its characters. Mamet would have writers avoid this, but his philosophy is not necessarily dominant. Syd Field, in praising the effectiveness of The Matrixs action-packed opening, nevertheless writes, At this point, we dont know what the story is about or who its about. We need some exposition here, defined as the information needed to move the story forward, and thats exactly what we get next.3 Robert McKee seems to echo Field: Exposition means facts the information about setting, biography, and characterization that the audience needs to know to follow and comprehend the events of the story.4 William Goldman acknowledges Mamets concern about the potential for clunky exposition, But since that requisite information is what enables us to get on with the story, problems arise. Whats a mother to do? 5 In this section well look at some of the strategies screenwriters have used in tackling the problem of exposition. Page Topics:

3.3.1. Overview 3.3.2. Exposition Through Dialogue 3.3.3. Exposition Through Film Form 3.3.4. Page-Only Exposition 3.3.5. Discussion Topics 3.3.6. Footnotes

3.3.2. Exposition Through Dialogue. [Back to Page Topics] According to McKees view, exposition is notinnately bad, but it must be handled carefully: The famous axiom Show, dont tell is the key. Never force words into a characters mouth to tell the audience about the world, history, or person. Rather, show us honest, natural scenes in which human beings talk and behave in honest natural ways . . . yet at the same time indirectly pass along the necessary facts. In other words, dramatize exposition. In fact, dramatizing exposition is exactly what Mamet has done in his own Glengarry Glen Ross. The character of Blake (played in the film by Alec Baldwin) does not appear in the original stage

play but was created especially for the film and serves as little more than an expository prop to motivate the actions of the other characters. Blake establishes both the scripts MacGuffin (the Glengarry leads) and the plots disequilibrium (the threat of being fired) through what essentially amounts to a lengthy, powerhouse monologue from a character who never returns to the plot. When we talk about dramatizing exposition, were talking about effective use of exposition through dialogue. McKee and others are warning against the clich of the information dump, in which some character is assigned the task of explaining to the other characters (but really the readers of the screenplay) the information they need to know to understand what comes next. Skill in exposition means making it invisible, McKee writes, which means unspooling the necessary information subtly through natural, motivated conversation.6 Blakes blistering monologue in Glengarry Glen Ross rises above information dumping because it is motivated (the character has been charged with the task of lighting a fire under the sales force) and the key information is woven effortlessly into the fabric of a larger exchange, so the reader of the script learns the necessary information without even realizing its expository importance. 3.3.3. Exposition Through Film Form. [Back to Page Topics] Kristin Thompson argues that dramatized exposition (through dialogue) is not the only effective option open to screenwriters. The film form itself is another tool. McKee seems to disagree with this: Show, dont tell, by the way, doesnt mean that its all r ight to pan the camera down a mantelpiece on a series of photographs that offer expository information. Thats telling, not showing. Asking the camera to do it turns a feature film into a home movie. 7 McKees significant success as a screenwriting guru not withstanding, his opinion here seems to fly in the face of more than a hundred years worth of cinematic discourse. As if to directly contradict McKees argument, Thompson offers a substantial case study of Back to the Futures opening title sequence, in which the camera moves about the room, revealing details of the mise-en-scene, to prove that exposition can be artfully handled through the use of film form camera movement, sound, editing, and set decoration.8 Below is the sequence in question: INT. BROWN'S GARAGE (1985) - DAY CLOSE ON A TICKING CLOCK, showing 2 minutes to 8. CAMERA MOVES, exploring, revealing MORE CLOCKS, of all varieties -- cuckoo clocks, digital clocks, a grandfather clock, Felix the Cat with moving eyes...and all of them are ticking away in DEAD SYNC.

We continue exploring the garage, noting (in no particular order) a jet engine, a stack of unpaid bills addressed to "Dr. E. Brown" marked "OVERDUE," automotive tools, electronics parts, discarded Burger King wrappers, a video camera, an unmade army cot. We go past a CLOCK RADIO -- it lights up and comes on. RADIO ANNOUNCER (V.O.) ... weather for Hill Valley and vicinity for today, Friday, October 25: partly cloudy with a chance of drizzles... Now we come to a COFFEE MAKER with a built in clock timer. It too turns on -- only there is no coffee pot! Boiling coffee drips onto an already wet hot plate. Another timer triggers a TV set -- an A.M. NEWSCAST is in progress, and the ANCHORWOMAN talks against a slide: "Plutonium Theft?" with the yellow and purple radiation symbol. ANCHORWOMAN (ON TV) ... Officials at the Pacific Nuclear Research Facility have denied the rumor that a case of missing plutonium was in fact stolen from their storehouse two weeks ago. A Libyan Terrorist group had claimed responsibility for the alleged theft. Officials now attribute the discrepancy to a simple clerical error. The FBI, which is still investigating the matter, had no comment ... We pass a TOASTER attached to a timer. Two pieces of black toast sit on it, and as the timer clicks on, the ashen toast drops into the toaster...again. Clearly, we are seeing a morning routine for someone who hasn't been home for awhile. On the floor, a timer clicks on an electric can opener with

an empty can of dog food. The empty can goes around. Below it, in a dog dish labeled "Einstein" is dog food that's been sitting for awhile. Now we hear a key turning in the service door. A pair of feet in Nike tennis shoes enters. MARTY (O.S.) Doc? Doctor Brown? Hello? Anybody home? A skateboard is dropped onto the floor and rolls...under the army cot, coming to rest against a yellow case with purple radioactivity symbols, stamped "PLUTONIUM. Property of Pacific Nuclear Research Facility." The screenwriters here have resourcefully used camera movement, the audio track, and miseen-scene to deliver exposition about the theme of the screenplay (time), about the main characters (Dr. Brown is broke, forgetful, an inventor and dog owner, and apparently in possession of stolen plutonium; Nike sneakers and skateboard tell us Marty is likely an average American teenager, and the key to Docs garage tells us hes in a familiar relationship with Doc), and even the time, place, and weather of the scripts initial setting, all in 1 and 1/8ths of a page. It is hard to imagine a home movie as effective and economical at transmitting important information to the audience, and it does it without having to resort to an information dump. Good exposition, hard as it may be to write, Thompson argues, is not boring.9 Interestingly, a comparison between the 1984 and 1985 drafts of the Back to the Future shooting script reveal that the sequence above was a cleverly designed rewrite meant to economically introduce the storys theme and characters after the main protagonist was recast mid-way through production. Since much of the script had to be reshot, the screenwriters used this subtle exposition to minimize those costs. Exposition through film form may make use of any number of tools, including voice-over narration, titles (on-screen text), diegetic sound, set design, and editing. 3.3.4. Page-Only Exposition. [Back to Page Topics] Generally speaking, screenwriters do their best to make sure that their exposition is filmable, that the reader does not know information an audience member in the theater would not, but there are small exceptions to this rule. For starters, as soon as a character speaks on the page, he or she must be named, so readers often learn a characters name long before the audience will. Likewise, screenwriters are given some expository leeway when it comes to introducing their characters on the page. Consider this passage from E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial:

CLOSE ON ELLIOTT: A boy of nine or ten: shaggy brown hair and deep, dark eyes. ELLIOTT is a middle-child, fatherless and friendless. Elliotts appearance is filmable, but his birthing order, fatherlessness, and friendlessness are not. Typically, if a screenwriter introduces information in the text that the audien ce cant possibly know from looking at the same image on the screen, he or she will need to find a way to introduce the same information elsewhere through filmable exposition. 3.3.5. Discussion Topics. [Back to Page Topics] The following are suggested key terms and topics of discussion for college courses studying this material. Key Terms:

Exposition Dramatized Exposition Information Dump Exposition Through Film Form Page-Only Exposition

Questions:

Why is exposition often criticized? Why is exposition usually necessary? What are the dangers of an information dump? What are some of the various strategies screenwriters have used to effectively include exposition in their scripts? In what situations might a screenwriter use page-only exposition?

3.3.6. Footnotes. [Back to Page Topics] 1. Mamet, David. On Directing Film. NY: Penguin, 1992. Pg.13 2. Thompson, Kristin. Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001. Pg.99 3. Field, Syd. Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. NY: Delta, 2005. Pg. 152. 4. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 334. 5. Goldman, William. Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting. NY: Warner Books, 1983. Pg. 132. 6. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 334.

7. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 334. 8. Thompson, Kristin. Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001. Pg. 78. 9. Thompson, Kristin. Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001. Pg. 102.

3.4. screenplay time & space The screenwriter creates filmic time on paper. The production people break it apart and produce filmic time in bits and pieces on film. Margaret Mehring1 Although production and set designer together with director and cinematographer are ultimately in charge of the settings realization, a script will already indicate whether the films requirements are elaborate or not. Claudia Sternberg2 3.4.1. Overview. As the two quotes above indicate, the temporal and spatial properties of the screenplay are intrinsic to its relationship with the production process. Time and space in the shooting script affect budget in ways that few other elements do, and this dynamic has resulted in some very peculiar formatting conventions where time and space are concerned. Beyond production concerns, cinema itself is a temporally fixed medium, so screenwriters are constricted in ways that authors of literary prose are not when it comes to describing the spaces contained in their narratives. Here we will look at some of the most important aspects of cinematic time and space to the art of screenwriting. Page Topics:

3.4.1. Overview 3.4.2. Conventions of Cinematic Time in Screenwriting 3.4.3. Time & Order in the Screenplay 3.4.4. Time & Duration in the Screenplay 3.4.5. Time & Frequency in the Screenplay 3.4.6. Conventions of Cinematic Space in Screenwriting 3.4.7. The Mise-en-scene and Setting 3.4.8. The Mise-en-scene and Character Blocking 3.4.9. Time, Space, and Production Management 3.4.10. Discussion Topics 3.4.11. Footnotes

3.4.2. Conventions of Cinematic Time in Screenwriting. [Back to Page Topics] Like any narrative text, screenplays may be viewed in terms of story time and discourse time.3 A screenplays story time is the duration of the storyworld events narrated in the text, and it is always linear, moving forward in one direction.4 Discourse time may or may not break linearity, and while the discourse time of a novel is the time it takes to read the novel, the discourse time of the screenplay is more complex since the screenplay points to a feature film. While it may take no more than 25 seconds to read a page of screenplay text, convention states that one page of text equals one minute of screen time.5 Since the page number/screen time relationship is essential to the screenplays role in film production, we will prefer the view that discourse time in minutes for a screenplay is roughly equal to the scripts number of pages.6 While motion pictures are shot with running timecode, no additional duration-tracking conventions are employed in the craft of screenwriting beyond the page-per-minute rule, thus some temporal variability on the page is to be expected, where one inch of text may equal 6 seconds of screen time while the next inch may equal 30. Story time is primarily tracked in the slug-line as either DAY or NIGHT, but some scripts may use subtitles to indicate specific clock times on the screen. Screenplays that cover long durations of time may also include dates in the slug-line, and flashbacks will also be indicated in the scene heading. Discourse time in the screenplay may be distinct from story time in three key areas order, duration, and frequency and we will now examine each separately. 3.4.3. Time & Order in the Screenplay. [Back to Page Topics] As Sternberg has observed, The script neither follows the chronology of events nor indicates in which sequence the scenes are to be filmed during production. As has been pointed out earlier, film, like prose, is not bound to a time continuum. In screenwriting practice this means a freedom in the use of time structures.7 Linear ordering may be disrupted in any number of ways. Methods of anachronology include: (1) Prolepsis8 a flashforward, in which a future storyworld event is inserted between two

events of the narrative present; (2) Analepsis9 a flashback, in which a past storyworld event is inserted between two events of the narrative present; and (3) Jumbled Sequencing 10 a randomized presentation of storyworld events, lacking a primary narrative present and dictated only by the artistic concerns of the author. Screenplays that begin at the start of the story timeline are said to begin Ab Ovo (from the egg), while ones that begin in the middle of the story timeline are said to begin In Media Res (into the middle), and those that begin at the end of the story timeline are said to begin In Ultimas Res (into the end).11 3.4.4. Time & Duration in the Screenplay. [Back to Page Topics] Screenplay text duration, as has already been pointed out, has a very specific effect on motion picture duration. The relationship between story time and discourse time as exhibited in the text and on the screen may be viewed in five distinct categories. 1. Descriptive Pause in text involves maximum textual space in zero story time. This is common in literary prose, where an author may linger for pages describing some setting, but by virtue of the page-per-minute rule, it is virtually forbidden in screenwriting. The screenwriter may only spend as much time on a description as the camera will spend looking at it. The cinematic equivalent is the freeze frame. 2. A Slow-Down or Stretch in text involves greater textual space than story time. This is possible in screenwriting but rare. The cinematic equivalent is a slow-motion shot. 3. A Scene in text involves equal textual space and story time. This is the same for motion pictures as for text, a span of time in which discourse and story time are equal. 4. Summary in text involves less textual space than story time. This manipulation is quite common in screenwriting for practical reasons and can potentially wreak havoc with the page-per-minute rule. Cinematic equivalents include a series of shots or montage sequence. A time-lapse shot is another cinematic example of Summary. 5. Ellipsis in text involves zero textual space and variable story time. In both screenwriting and filmmaking, this involves omitting story time from the discourse by cutting from one scene to another scene while skipping an intervening event. The default presentation of most screenplays involves a series of scenes connected by ellipses. Some actions that will have to play out on screen will either appear too dull in text or will be too involved to be written in real time, in which case a screenwriter will opt for summary. One example of this can be found in William Goldmans Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: BUTCH AND SUNDANCE. CLOSE UP. This SHOT takes a long long time, as they wait, hardly breathing, listening for the least conceivable sound. This shot may last minutes, but there ar e only so many ways for a screenwriter to fill pages while the characters do nothing but wait. Summary is clearly the best option, even if it distorts the page-per-minute rule. Perhaps the most famous example of summary in the history of screenwriting is t he line Atlanta burns, in Gone with the Wind.

Because the master scene format is standard and screenwriters are discouraged from technical comment, pauses and stretches are very rare in screenplays, even if they are used in the final motion picture. There are, of course, exceptions, especially when the script is the work of a writer/director. Paul Thomas Andersons Boogie Nights includes an example of a stretch in the first few pages: A bus boy cleaning a table, EDDIE ADAMS, aged 17. CAMERA moves into a CU blending to SLOW MOTION (40fps) for a moment. Again, this kind of explicit technical comment is generally discouraged, so manipulations of duration of this sort are harder to come by. 3.4.5. Time & Frequency in the Screenplay. [Back to Page Topics] The question of frequency concerns the number of times an event or series of events is narrated in a given text. In a Singularity, an event that happens once in story time is delivered only once in discourse time. This is the default presentation of frequency in screenwriting. In a Repetition, however, an event that occurs only once in story time is delivered multiple times in discourse time, usually from different perspectives with new information conveyed each time. This has become so prevalent in contemporary screenwriting, that Charles Ramirez Berg has coined a term for plots that rely heavily on this device: Repeated Event/Multiple Perspective Plots. In an Iteration, an event that occurs multiple times in story time is delivered only once in the discourse, with the one example standing in for the pattern. This is also common in screenwriting. For instance, readers do not need to see a character at her job over and over again to understand that going to work is part of her routine behavior. One scene at her job may suffice in establishing that going to work is something she does every day. The single occurrence in discourse time represents an on-going behavior in story time. 3.4.6. Conventions of Cinematic Space in Screenwriting. [Back to Page Topics] One of the major factors distinguishing cinema from theatre is the cinematic treatment of space. A person sitting in the audience of a staged drama has only one perspective, one angle of view, and will have trouble observing the minute details of the staging. Not so with cinema, where every member of the audience enjoys a nearly identical view, with access (through the Close-Up and Extreme Close-Up) to the most intricate details of an actors face, the textures of the wardrobe, and the finest details of the set dressing. Through the power of the Close-Up, The face becomes another kind of object in space, a terrain on which may be enacted dramas broad as battles, and sometimes more intense.12 Motion pictures free the spectator from spatial bondage and give him the power of teleportation. The only limit of this spatial flexibility is the tolerance of the audience, which of course is a real consideration. Audience members will feel disoriented and dizzy if a filmmaker too frequently shifts their spatial bearings.

Naturally, the needs of the audience shape the way screenwriters handle space in the scene text of the script. In addition to naming each location in the slug-line, at least some scenic description will usually be necessary to orient the reader. Due to the unique demands of the page-per-minute rule, however, screenwriters generally do not have the luxury of describing space in vast detail. Indeed, they are only permitted to linger on the physical details of a scripted space for as long as the camera will eventually linger on the same staged space. While most screenplays do not make explicit reference to shot size, close-ups and extreme close-ups can be implied by referencing the fine details of the staging, such as a characters expression or a small prop. Again, to avoid the disorientation of the audience, the screenwriter must write with an awareness of how such spatial shifts will affect viewers. Unnecessary fine details should be omitted from the scene text to exclude superfluous jumps in perspective. Space also marks an additional boundary of scene. While a continuous stretch of action in which story time is equal to discourse time is generally considered a single scene, a change of location midway through the action will divide it into two scenes, each with its own slug-line identifying the setting. One aspect of cinematic space worthy of special consideration is the mise-en-scene. Here we will restrict our definition to those traits common to both legitimate theatre and film the staging of the set and actors, decoration, wardrobe, lighting, etc. though there are many who would argue against this restriction. For our purposes, we want to examine the ways in which screenwriters evoke mise-en-scene in the screenplay text. In other words, how do screenwriters use mise-en-scene in their descriptions of setting and in their placement of character actions within those settings? 3.4.7. The Mise-en-scene and Setting. [Back to Page Topics] Film theorists have used mise-en-scene as one tool to distinguish the work of the director from the work of the screenwriter, which would seem to make sense. After all, directors work in real spaces and writers work in words. This distinction, however, would seem to ignore the role of the screenplay as a central document in the design of a motion pictures setting. After all, directors do not build sets and decorate them: art departments do. Directors do not dress the actors or light the set. Costumers and gaffers do. For each of these technicians, the screenplay offers the first impression of the setting. No matter the influence of the director, he or she will always fight the first impression garnered from the script. Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson uses the script to control this first impression in Boogie Nights, with numerous detailed descriptions of the mise-en-scene: 10 INT. DIRK'S ROOM - NIGHT - THAT MOMENT Dirk enters his room and begins to remove his clothes. He turns the volume low on his stereo. He stands in front of

his mirror, does a few flexes, some dance moves, some karate moves, etc. CAMERA DOES A SLOW 360 PAN AROUND THE ROOM. Posters on the walls of Travolta, Pacino, a 1976 Corvette, Bruce Lee, Hawaii, a Penthouse centerfold, Luke Skywalker, etc. CAMERA LANDS BACK ON DIRK. 18 INT. SHERYL LYNN'S BEDROOM - DAY - LATER Dirk is in bed with a young neighborhood girl, SHERYL LYNN PARTRIDGE. Her room is decorated in pastels with equestrian things all around. Horse models, trophies from riding, blue ribbons, etc. These contrasting descriptions of gender-specific teenage bedrooms in the 1970s underline the characters immaturity and innocence. The script may be about the porn industry, and Dirk and Sheryl may have just finished having sex in scene 18. Regardless, the environment reveals character, demonstrating that while Dirk and Sheryl may be sexually alive, theyre still just kids, completely unprepared for the grown-up world that awaits them. Sophia Coppola uses mise-en-scene to evoke character even more effectively in The Virgin Suicides, where a teenage girls bathroom is treated as a kind of holy space by a visiting boy: Inside the bathroom, he looks around. Opening the medicine cabinet he finds hidden stashes of cosmetics, tweezers, a brush filled with hair (he touches the blonde hairs) ... there are boxes of depilatory wax, deoderants, skin exfoliators, ... there are enough toiletries for an army of girls. He opens another cupboard to find twelve boxes of Tampax -and quickly shuts it. He sees a lipstick on the sink counter and opens it, examining the bright pink color and smelling it. Where Andersons descriptions evoke childish naivete, Coppolas evoke mystery and wonder. In both cases, however, were viewing the work of writer/directors. How have non -directing writers used mise-en-scene effectively? One striking example can be observed in Paul Schraders Taxi Driver: It is 3:30 IN THE MORNING in a bacon-shaped all night WEST SIDE RESTAURANT. The thick smell hangs in the air - fried grease, smoke, sweat, regurgitated wine. Whatever doesn't flush away in New York at night turns up in places like this. A burly grease-stained COOK stands over the grill. A JUNKIE shuffles from one side of the door to

another. Slouched over the small four-person formica tables are several WELL-DRESSED BLACKS (too well-dressed for this time and place), a cluster of STREET PEOPLE and a lost OLD COOT who hangs onto his cup of coffee as if it were his last possession. The restaurant, brightly lit, perfectly conveys the image of urban plasticity - without the slightest hint of an accompanying cleanliness. Generally considered one of Americas finest screenplays, Taxi Driver nevertheless exhibits an unusual, novel-like specificity in its mise-en-scene, particularly with its references to smell, an inactive sense in cinema. Compare Schraders description of the diner to the introduction of one of cinemas most celebrated settings, Ricks Caf Americain in Casablanca: Rick's is an expensive and chic nightclub which definitely possesses an air of sophistication and intrigue. SAM, a middle-aged Negro, sits on a stool before a small, salmon-colored piano on wheels, playing and singing while accompanied by a small orchestra. All about him there is the HUM of voices, CHATTER and LAUGHTER. The occupants of the room are varied. There are Europeans in their dinner jackets, their women beautifully begowned and bejeweled. There are Moroccans in silk robes. Turks wearing fezzes. Levantines. Naval officers. Members of the Foreign Legion, distinguished by their kepis. By comparison, the introduction of Ricks is rather bland, if effective. The only unusual detail, particularly for a script to be shot in black and white, is the description of Sams piano as salmon-colored, a distinction that has no narrative significance but does lend the setting a certain exotic quality. Where the writers of Casablanca leave it to the imagination to paint a setting that definitely possesses an air of sophistication and intrigue, nothing is left to the imagination in Taxi Driver. The grime of the diner is visceral and palpable, made explicit in Schraders use of mise-en-scene. 3.4.8. The Mise-en-scene and Character Blocking. [Back to Page Topics] Mise-en-scene also refers to the placement and movement of the actors on set. Often times, even writer/directors refrain from including detailed blocking instructions in their screenplays, perhaps not wanting to over-direct the actors. However, as this extended scene from The

Apartment demonstrates, some inclusion of blocking can elevate the drama of a particular exchange of dialogue (emphasis mine): INT. BUD'S APARTMENT - EVENING The living room is dark, except for a shaft of light from the kitchen, and the glow of the colored bulbs on a small Christmas tree in front of the phony fireplace. Hunched up in one corner of the couch is Fran, still in her coat and gloves, crying softly. Pacing up and down is Sheldrake. His coat and hat are on a chair, as are several Christmas packages. On the coffee table are an unopened bottle of Scotch, a couple of untouched glasses, and a bowl of melting ice. SHELDRAKE (stops and faces Fran) Come on, Fran -- don't be like that. You just going to sit there and keep bawling? (no answer) You won't talk to me, you won't tell me what's wrong -(a new approach) Look, I know you think I'm stalling you. But when you've been married to a woman for twelve years, you don't just sit down at the breakfast table and say "Pass the sugar -and I want a divorce." It's not that easy. (he resumes pacing; Fran continues crying) Anyway, this is the wrong time. The kids are home from school -- my inlaws are visiting for the holidays -- I can't bring it up now. (stops in front of her) This isn't like you, Fran -- you were always such a good sport -such fun to be with -FRAN (through tears)

Yeah -- that's me. The Happy Idiot -- a million laughs. SHELDRAKE Well, that's more like it. At least you're speaking to me. FRAN Funny thing happened to me at the office party today -- I ran into your secretary -- Miss Olsen. You know -- ring-a-ding-ding? I laughed so much I like to died. SHELDRAKE Is that what's been bothering you -- Miss Olsen? That's ancient history. FRAN I was never very good at history. Let me see -- there was Miss Olsen, and then there was Miss Rossi -no, she came before -- it was Miss Koch who came after Miss Olsen -SHELDRAKE Now, Fran -FRAN And just think -- right now there's some lucky girl in the building who's going to come after me -SHELDRAKE Okay, okay, Fran. I deserve that. But just ask yourself -- why does a man run around with a lot of girls? Because he's unhappy at home -because he's lonely, that's why -all that was before you, Fran -I've stopped running. Fran has taken a handkerchief out of her bag and is dabbing her eyes.

FRAN How could I be so stupid? You'd think I would have learned by now -- when you're in love with a married man, you shouldn't wear mascara. SHELDRAKE It's Christmas Eve, Fran -- let's not fight. FRAN Merry Christmas. She hands him a flat, wrapped package. SHELDRAKE What is it? He strips away the wrapping to reveal a long-playing record. The cover reads: RICKSHAW BOY - Jimmy Lee Kiang with Orchestra. SHELDRAKE Oh. Our friend from the Chinese restaurant. Thanks, Fran. We better keep it here. FRAN Yeah, we better. SHELDRAKE I have a present for you. I didn't quite know what to get you -anyway it's a little awkward for me, shopping -(he has taken out a money clip, detaches a bill) -- so here's a hundred dollars -go out and buy yourself something. He holds the money out, but she doesn't move. Sheldrake slips the bill into her open bag.

SHELDRAKE They have some nice alligator bags at Bergdorf's -Fran gets up slowly and starts peeling off her gloves. Sheldrake looks at her, then glances nervously at his wrist watch. SHELDRAKE Fran, it's a quarter to seven -and I mustn't miss the train -- if we hadn't wasted all that time -- I have to get home and trim the tree -Fran has started to remove her coat. FRAN Okay. (shrugs the coat back on) I just thought as long as it was paid for -SHELDRAKE (an angry step toward her) Don't ever talk like that, Fran! Don't make yourself out to be cheap. FRAN A hundred dollars? I wouldn't call that cheap. And you must be paying somebody something for the use of the apartment -SHELDRAKE (grabbing her arms) Stop that, Fran. FRAN (quietly) You'll miss your train, Jeff. Sheldrake hurriedly puts on his hat and coat, gathers up his packages. SHELDRAKE

Coming? FRAN You run along -- I want to fix my face. SHELDRAKE (heading for the door) Don't forget to kill the lights. See you Monday. FRAN Sure. Monday and Thursday -- and Monday again -- and Thursday again -SHELDRAKE (that stops him in the half-open door) It won't always be like this. (coming back) I love you, Fran. Holding the packages to one side, he tries to kiss her on the mouth. FRAN (turning her head) Careful -- lipstick. He kisses her on the cheek, hurries out of the apartment, closing the door. Fran stands there for a while, blinking back tears, then takes the long-playing record out of its envelope, crosses to the phonograph. She puts the record on, starts the machine -- the music is JEALOUS LOVER. As it plays, Fran wanders aimlessly around the darkened room, her body wracked by sobs. Finally she regains control of herself, and picking up her handbag, starts through the bedroom toward the bathroom. While the scene above is driven by its marvelous dialogue, it is fully brought to life by the intricate staging of its characters. Without the precise scene directions that track the movement of bodies in space, the scene would fall flat on the page, waiting to be realized by actors. As written, however, the performances are practically in the text. This is an unusually well-crafted passage of mise-en-scene, but it demonstrates what is possible when screenwriters are completely in command of their craft. 3.4.9. Time, Space, and Production Management. [Back to Page Topics]

The screenplay is the central database of information for the scheduling and budgeting of a motion picture, with time and space the most important factors. Slug-lines, which divide the screenplay into a series of time-space scene units, direct the production manager in this process. The page-per-minute rule and counting scenes in 1/8th page units ensures the proper distribution of scenes-to-be-shot across the schedule and aids the estimation of raw stock (or digital hard drive space) to be purchased. The number and exotic quality of locations has a huge impact on budget, since every setting must either be rented, permitted, or built from scratch (either physically or digitally). The number of day scenes versus night scenes affects everything from the equipment to be rented, to the shooting order, to the call times for crew, and of course, films set in any other time period than present day, whether the past or the future, will add considerable cost to the budget. All of these factors means that screenwriters do not work in a vacuum. While the screenplay form has few limits in terms of scripting time and space to creative ends, the impact these choices has on the feasibility of producing such features forces limits on screenwriter creativity. The unfortunate reality is that feature scripts with mass audience appeal can afford more numerous locations and greater flexibility of story time, while niche screenplays will need to narrow in on more feasible uses of time and space. 3.4.10. Discussion Topics. [Back to Page Topics] The following are suggested key terms and topics of discussion for college courses studying this material. Key Terms:

Story Time Discourse Time Page-Per-Minute Rule Order Prolepsis Analepsis Jumbled Sequencing Ab Ovo In Media Res In Ultimas Res Duration Descriptive Pause Slow-Down or Stretch Scene Summary Ellipsis Frequency Singularity

Repetition Iteration Cinematic Space 1/8th Page

Questions:

How do story time and discourse time differ? How is this relevant to the study of screenplays? How does the page-per-minute rule shape both time and space in the screenplay? How do screenwriters manipulate order? How do screenwriters manipulate duration, and why is this intrinsically connected to motion picture storytelling? How do screenwriters manipulate frequency? What are some of the limitations on screenwriters in terms of manipulating space? Why are scripted space and time so important to the production management of a feature film?

3.4.11. Footnotes. [Back to Page Topics] 1. Pg. 85. 2. Pgs. 171-172. 3. Sternberg. Pg. 197. 4. Bridgeman. Pgs. 53-54. 5. Cole. Pg. v. 6. Sternberg. Pgs. 197-198. 7. Pg. 197. 8. Herman. 281. 9. Herman. 275. 10. Berg. 11. http://www2.anglistik.uni-freiburg.de/intranet/englishbasics/DramaTime03.htm 12. Bluestone. 27.

3.5. character, action, and dialogue . . . there is no such thing *as character+. It doesnt exist. The character is just habitual action. Character is exactly what the person literally does in pursuit of the superobjective. David Mamet1 3.5.1. Overview. If we take Mamet at his word, I guess we can stop here. Theres no such thing as character. End transmission. Of course, we cant and wont end the conversation there. Mamet is nothing if not a provocateur, and his declaration on the death of character as a concept cannot be taken too seriously. The question of character and its role in dramatic narrative, however, has provoked raging debate ever since Aristotle declared it subsidiary to plot more than 2,300 years ago. The question is three-fold: what is a character, how do characters function, and how (in the case of the screenplay) do readers perceive their functioning? None of these questions are easy to engage, but they are essential to understanding the workings of a screenplay. Before proceeding further, we must acknowledge the different methods analysts have taken in their studies of character. While these methods differ, they are not mutually exclusive, and readers may utilize multiple methods in their analyses. According to narratologist Uri Margolin, characters may be viewed as either (1) literary artifice, (2) non-actual individuals, or (3) textbased mental constructs.2 The first view approaches character as merely one aesthetic quality of a text and nothing more. The study of character, therefore, is merely a study of the words on the page. The second view approaches character through a game of make-believe that supposes that characters exist in some imaginary realm. This is the most common approach and the way most readers interact with characters. The third and final view is somewhat of a hybrid. It treats characters not as mere words on a page nor as imaginary existents but as complex, textually-dependent psychological constructs in the mind of the reader. In other words, readers participate in character creation when they read the words in the text and give those characters life. As we continue, we will see how each of these approaches has subliminally shaped our thinking about character. Page Topics:

3.5.1. Overview 3.5.2. Founding Principles 3.5.3. Praxis as the Function of Character: Micro and Macro Behavior 3.5.4. Non-Verbal Behavior as Praxis

3.5.5. Verbal Behavior as Praxis 3.5.6. Habitual Action 3.5.7. Character as Praxis vs. Characterization & Environment 3.5.8. Character and Premise 3.5.9. Discussion Topics 3.5.10. Footnotes

3.5.2. Founding Principles. [Back to Page Topics] Influential thinkers and artists, such as Mamet above, have long drawn from Aristotle in their disparagement of character. Perhaps the key passages of Poetics are these: (1) Tragedy is not an imitation of persons, but of action and of life, (2) Furthermore, there could not be a tragedy without action, but there could be one without character, and (3) So the plot is the source and (as it were) the soul of tragedy; character is second.3 Taken together, these passages seem to make clear that the characters of a given dramatic narrative are nowhere near as important as its plot. The question remains, however, whether these three arguments should be taken together at all. At question is what Aristotle means by character (again, our key question: what is a character?). Most people, if asked, would define characters as persons, so they may see no distinction between Aristotles first statement about persons and the other two statements about character. This is a problem of translation. The Greek word here translated as persons is (anthropos, i.e. man) while the word translated as character is (ethos, i.e. moral disposition). Given this, we realize Aristotle is making several completely different arguments. His first point is that tragedy is not intended to imitate men but action, that is, tragedy is not about biography but about drama. The second point is about how drama is produced. Drama is not produced through depictions of moral dispositions but through depictions of change. Change cannot, in fact, exist without action, but can exist without morality. His third point follows from the first two: plot as an organization of active, changing events is therefore the primary source of meaning in tragedy. Morality is secondary and plays a supporting role. Character as it is used in Poetics is not synonymous with characters and does not answer our question of what is a character? Narratologist Uri Margolin defines a character as a storyworld participant or narrative agent.4 These narrative agents cause and/or experience the events that define a narrative, and their experiences orient a readers attention and understanding. This definition of character as narrative agent is a useful starting point upon which we can build as we go forward. Before we address the ways in which characters function, it may be easier to address how audiences perceive their functioning. Here Aristotle is quite helpful and his hierarchy of action over ethos begins to make sense. Aristotle writes, It is on the basis of peoples character and reasoning that we say that their actions are of a certain kind, and in respect of their actions that

people enjoy success or failure.5 An alternative translation may be clearer: thought and character are the two natural causes from which actions spring.6 The key Greek here is (praxis, i.e. the deeds of men), (ethos, i.e. the moral dispositions of men), and (dianoia, i.e. the logical reasoning of men). Aristotle is arguing that while we know the nature of a character by his or her actions, those actions spring directly from the characters morality and ability to reason. A morally good person with flawed thinking may produce bad deeds. A bad person with good logic may succeed in his or her evil deeds without being caught, while a bad person with flawed logic may create his or her own downfall. Praxis, ethos, and dianoia form the three-pronged center of every narrative agent, but in the dramatic mediums of theatre and film, audiences only know a characters morality and reasoning by the actions he or she takes. Literary works such as novels can bypass praxis to delve much more deeply into ethos and dianoia in a way that theatre and film cannot. Screenplays, in so far as they are literary works intended to evoke the dramatic visual medium of film, tend not to reveal a characters ethos or dianoia independent of his or her praxis. With the basics out of the way, we can now take a detailed look at the functioning of character in screenplays. 3.5.3. Praxis as the Function of Character: Micro and Macro Action. [Back to Page Topics] At the beginning of Adaptation, Charlie Kaufman (the character) discusses the movie potential of Susan Orleans non-fiction best-seller, The Orchid Thief, with a Hollywood executive named Valerie. Kaufman tells her, I dont want to cram in sex or guns or car chases. You know? Or characters learning profound life lessons. Or growing, or coming to like each other, or overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end.7 Kaufmans desire to exclude praxis from his screenplay forms the spine of Adaptation, a path that ultimately leads him into the hands of real-life screenwriting guru Robert McKee. Sir, what if a writer is attempting to create a story where nothing much happens? Kaufman asks. Where people dont change, they dont have any epiphanies. They struggle and are frustrated, and nothing is resolved. More a reflection of the real world.8 McKee is incredulous: . . . nothing happens in the world? Are you out of your fucking mind? People are murdered every day. Theres genocide, war, corruption. Every fucking day somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save somebody else. Every fucking day someone somewhere makes a conscious decision to destroy someone else! People find love! People lose it! For Christs sake, a child watches a mother beaten to death on the steps of a church! Someone goes hungry! Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman! If you cant find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, dont know crap about life!9

In the end, Kaufman (the screenwriter) adds to Adaptation all the elements he hoped to exclude: sex, guns, car chases, etc. In their search for a mode of screenwriting discourse absent of praxis, both Kaufmans the real and imagined are failures. Kaufmans ultimate solution to the problem of Adaptation mirrors many screenwriters attitudes toward the demand for action in the screenplay. Action, many assume, means external action praxis on a macro scale. Many screenwriters, however, including Kaufman have proven themselves to be masters of micro action. Action, after all, is nothing more than behavior, and dramatic behavior encompasses everything from car chases to a stolen glance. The demand for action is nothing more than a demand that characters act they must exhibit behavior, through which their ethos and dianoia may be revealed. Macro actions (the decision to sacrifice ones life for another, the decision to cheat on ones spouse) are self-evidently the product of conscious choices. Micro actions, however, may be intentional or unwitting and often produce the most interesting subtext in a script. Screenwriter William Goldman, in discussing subtext, references an example from Raymond Chandler: A man and his wife are riding silently upward in an elevator. They are silent, the woman carries her purse, the man has his hat on. The elevator stops at an intermediate floor. A pretty girl gets on. The man takes his hat off.10 While such a subtle gesture is not what is normally conjured up when we think of action in the Aristotelian sense, it nevertheless speaks volumes about the character who performs the behavior and destabilizes the equilibrium of the storyworld both tell-tale signs of praxis at work. This is action on the micro scale, almost imperceptible, and it can often be as powerful a storytelling tool as the more obvious examples of macro action that we see in many mainstream Hollywood heros journey-styled narratives. 3.5.4. Non-Verbal Behavior as Praxis. [Back to Page Topics] Claudia Sternberg explores such micro actions (as the removal of the hat discussed above) in detail when she discusses the modes of non-verbal behavior in the screenplay, of which she identifies three: They include kinesics (body movements such as gestures and actions, facial expression, glance and eye contact, automatic physiological reactions), haptics (touch behavior), and proxemics (spatial relationships).11 According to Barbara Korte, the screenwriters use of these micro behavioral cues: . . . makes it possible [for the reader] to draw conclusions about the feelings, thoughts, personality structures and attitudes of the persons interacting with one another. It informs us of the social status of the characters and the social roles they play when they come in contact with each other, and allows us to see the power relationships between them; it communicates even the finest nuances of interpersonal attraction or repulsion and serves to steer the interaction in a ritualized way.12

Effective use of non-verbal behavior in screenwriting is also a key tool writers have at their disposal in aid of creating life-like characters. According to one 1971 UCLA study conducted by psychologist Albert Mehrabian, up to 55% of any conversations meaning is transmitted not by words or vocal inflection but by the body language of those speaking. 13 Sternberg explains that any non-verbal behavior may be categorized as either an emotional display (spontaneous physical expression for momentary psychological moods) or an externalizer (information about stable dispositions, opinions, attitudes, features and interpersonal relationships beyond their temporary state).14 In screenwriting, these behaviors may also be divided between naturalistic (striving for realism) and formalized (striving for dramatic convention) behavioral cues.15 Viewers of televisions now-canceled Lie to Me are already familiar with the science of kinesics. The Micro Expressions that the fictional Lightman Group use each episode to detect deception are a real, documented, physiological phenomenon observed by Paul Ekman.16 These Micro Expressions, however, are only a small piece of the kinesic puzzle. While Ekmans work proves that some kinesic responses are universal and automatic, other kinesic behaviors are culturally conditioned. Eye contact, in particular, carries differing connotations depending on culture.17 Gestures (particularly obscene ones) are also sometimes culturally contingent.18 Haptic or touch behavior can also reveal character in interesting ways. Haptic researchers have divided touch behavior into five categories based on the relationship between the parties and the situation in which the touching takes place.19 These categories include: (1) Functional/Professional, covering the haptics exchanged between co-workers, employers and employees, providers and clients, etc.; (2) Social/Polite, covering the haptics exchanged between strangers or acquaintances in the public sphere; (3) Friendship/Warmth, covering the haptics exchanged between good friends and family members in a comfortable setting; (4) Love/Intimacy, covering the haptics exchanged in public displays of affection between romantically linked partners; and (5) Sexual/Arousal, covering the haptics exchanged in private between sexual partners. Others have grouped haptic behaviors by the meaning they communicate: (1) Positive Effect touches that convey support, appreciation, inclusion, sexual interest, or affection; (2) Playful touches that convey either playful affection or playful aggression; (3) Control touches that convey compliance, attention-getting, or announcing a response; (4) Ritualistic touches such as those that convey greetings and departures; (5) Task-Related touches that convey references to appearance or intrinsic to a task; and (6) Accidental touches.20 Finally, we have proxemics, or the study of spatial relationships. Proxemic studies have identified four key spatial zones: (1) Intimate space for kisses, whispers, and embraces; (2) Personal space for interactions with family and close friends; (3) Social space for polite interaction with acquaintances; and (4) Public space for our interactions with everyone else. 21 As characters move in and out of each others proxemic zones, they reveal something of the relationships they share with one another.

Perhaps the most famous use of proxemics in cinema is the breakfast table sequence in Citizen Kane. Though the scene does not appear in the versions of the screenplay available online and may have been improvised by director Orson Welles on set, it nevertheless exposes the vast potential of proxemics for communicating meaning to an audience. Through a short sequence of cuts and little more than physical distance, Welles tells the story of an entire marriage, as husband and wife gradually sit farther and farther apart at the breakfast table. A fourth important aspect of non-verbal communication not discussed by Sternberg is paralanguage, which includes intonation, emphasis, word and syllable stress, and so on. 22 Screenwriters are often discouraged from including specific paralanguage cues in their writing, as the result often has the effect of a line-reading for an actor, something few actors appreciate and most will ignore. When used sparingly and appropriately, however, paralanguage can be a useful tool. Consider this passage from When Harry Met Sally: INT. METROPOLITAN MUSEUM DUSK Harry and Sally are walking through the Egyptian temple exhibit. HARRY (in a funny voice) Ive decided for the rest of the day were going to talk like this. SALLY (trying to imitate him) Like this. HARRY (funny voice) Repeat after me. SALLY (trying to imitate him) Repeat after me. HARRY (funny voice) May I have some pepper. SALLY (trying to imitate him) May I have some pepper. HARRY

(funny voice) Pepper. SALLY (trying to imitate) Pepper. HARRY (funny voice) Pepper. SALLY (laughing, still trying) Pepper. HARRY (funny voice) May I have some pepper on my paprikash. SALLY (trying to imitate) May I have some pepper on my paprikash. HARRY (funny voice) I think Ill have some tomato juice. SALLY (imitating) I think Ill have some tomato juice. HARRY (funny voice) Do you want to go to a movie tonight? SALLY (imitating) Do you want to go to a movie tonight? HARRY (funny voice) No. Answer the question. Do you want to go to a movie tonight?

SALLY (in her regular voice) Id love to Harry, but I cant. HARRY (still in funny voice) What do you have, a hot date? SALLY As a matter of fact, I do. HARRY (in his regular voice) Really? The meaning of this scene Harrys reaction to the news that Sally is dating again is not fully conveyed by the dialogue alone. It is Harrys sudden drop of the silly voice that communicates the impact of the unexpected news of Sallys date. Let us now examine how all four aspects of non-verbal behavior weve discussed may be implemented in screenwriting. At the Mid-Point of The Empire Strikes Back,23 a high-stakes power-grab emerges between Leia and Han, a conflict on which the entire narrative turns. In a script full of shootouts and battles, this central turning point forgoes extravagant macro action to focus on the tte--tte of a man and woman vying for emotional control. Leia, a leader in the Rebellion, cannot afford to relinquish control of her emotions to Han, the man who desires her romantic acknowledgment. Each characters arc is at stake, and the scene frames the conflict in the dialogue exchanged between the two characters and especially in their nonverbal behavior. INT. MILLENNIUM FALCON - MAIN HOLD AREA [. . . scene abridged . . .] Leia finishes welding the valves she has been working on and attempts to reengage the system by pulling a lever attached to the valve. It doesn't budge. Han notices her struggle, and moves to help her. She rebuffs him. HAN Hey, Your Worship, I'm only trying to help. LEIA (still struggling) Would you please stop calling me that?

Han hears a new tone in her voice. He watches her pull on the lever. HAN Sure, Leia. LEIA Oh, you make it so difficult sometimes. HAN I do, I really do. You could be a little nicer, though. (he watches her reaction) Come on, admit it. Sometimes you think I'm all right. She lets go of the lever and rubs her sore hand. LEIA Occasionally... (a little smile, haltingly) ... when you aren't acting like a scoundrel. HAN (laughs) Scoundrel? Scoundrel? I like the sound of that. With that, Han takes her hand and starts to massage it. LEIA Stop that. HAN Stop what? Leia is flushed, confused. LEIA Stop that! My hands are dirty. HAN My hands are dirty, too. What are you afraid of? LEIA

(looking right into his eyes) Afraid? Han looks at her with a piercing look. He's never looked more handsome, more dashing, more confident. He reaches out slowly and takes Leia's hand again from where it is resting on a console. He draws it toward him. HAN You're trembling. LEIA I'm not trembling. Then with an irresistible combination of physical strength and emotional power, the space pirate begins to draw Leia toward him ... very slowly. HAN You like me because I'm a scoundrel. There aren't enough scoundrels in your life. Leia is now very close to Han and as she speaks, her voice becomes an excited whisper, a tone completely in opposition to her words. LEIA I happen to like nice men. HAN I'm a nice man. LEIA No, you're not. You're... He kisses her now, with slow, hot lips. He takes his time, as though he had forever, bending her body backward. She has never been kissed like this before, and it almost makes her faint. When he stops, she regains her breath and tries to work up some indignation, but finds it hard to talk. Suddenly, Threepio appears in the doorway, speaking excitedly. THREEPIO Sir, sir! I've isolated the reverse power flux coupling.

Han turns slowly, icily, from their embrace. HAN Thank you. Thank you very much. THREEPIO Oh, you're perfectly welcome, sir. The moment spoiled, Han marches out after Threepio. This scene derives much of its subtextual power from the non-verbal behavior contained in its plentiful stage directions. It incorporates all three modes described by Sternberg as well as examples of paralanguage (Han hears a new tone in her voice.), making no fewer than five references to gaze, three to facial expressions, and numerous others to touch, gesture, and proximity. The scene begins as Leia finishes welding the valves she has been working on and attempts to reengage the system by pulling a lever attached to the valve. It doesnt budge. The text notes Hans gaze as he watches Leia (Han notices her struggle,) and his proxemic response (and moves to help her). Why does Han move to help Leia before asking if his help is desired? If Hans motivation is to help, he should offer his help verbally before stepping in to undermine Leia. As we noted above, however, Leias control is at stake, and if Han wants to seize it from Leia, hell take it without asking. His choice must be understood as an exertion of his power and a threat to Leias. Her reaction (She rebuffs him.) shows that she understands his tactic. The scenes turning point comes in the form of a parenthetical dialogue cue. You could be a little nicer, though. Come on, admit it. Sometimes you think Im all right, he says, to which she replies, Occasionally . . . when you arent acting like a scoundrel. This plain reading of the dialogue omits three stage directions that, when injected, clarify the exchange of behaviors. The first, he watches her reaction is an expression of gaze or kinesic behavior. That Han watches Leias reaction as he delivers his line reveals a moment of vulnerability. He drops his guard and pleads for some positive reassurance from Leia. The second, She lets go of the lever and rubs her sore hand encompasses both touch and gesture or haptic and kinesic behavior. It acts as a pause in dialogue, demonstrating Leias del ayed response to Han as she searches for an answer. The third, a little smile reports and describes Leias facial expression or kinesic behavior. Leia, who has up to this point blocked each of Hans advancements, makes a huge tactical error with this smile. Her line Occasionally . . . when you arent acting like a scoundrel is a blow-off, but her expression a little smile is an opening. She hasnt entirely dropped her guard, but she has answered Hans request for reassurance.

In the exchanges of behavior that follow, Leia never recovers the ground she has lost with this simple smile. The opening she has offered is enough for Han to force his way into Leias emotional center and wrestle control from her. Leias stumble will continue through to h er final scene with Han, in which she confesses her love, in response to which Han utters his most famous (and famously unscripted) line, I know. This exchange exhibits wonderfully how praxis on the micro scale in the form of non-verbal expressions can shape an entire dramatic turn in screenwriting. Car chases arent always needed when a smile might do. 3.5.5. Verbal Behavior as Praxis. [Back to Page Topics] Oddly, Aristotles emphasis on the importance of praxis has long been coupled with film theorys traditional distaste for dialogue as a primary site for meaning in cinematic narrative, and this coupling has resulted in a distortion that places action in opposition to speaking. Certainly, passive, on-the-nose speeches, in which characters didactically reveal their inner emotional states, do fail to artfully produce the drama that praxis reliably delivers, but active speech as the term implies is no less praxis than any physical action. Indeed, philosopher Hannah Arendt goes so far as to declare that, No other human performance requires speech to the same extent as action.24 While Arendt isnt discussing drama, let alone screenwriting, her observation is nevertheless apt, as it reminds us of a fact we should not forget: the truths of drama are the truths of life. Praxis is not only how readers perceive characters in a screenplay, it is how human beings perceive other human beings. Arendt continues: In acting and speaking, men show who they are, reveal actively their unique personal identities and thus make their appearance in the human world . . . This disclosure of who in contradistinction to what somebody is his qualities, gifts, talents, and shortcomings, which he may display or hide is implicit in everything somebody says and does.25 Martin Luther King Jr.s I Have a Dream speech is no mere collection of words. It is a bold instance of decisive, historical praxis. Instances of active speech such as this can be revelatory in nature, and this is no less true for screenwriting than it is for life. In his incisive analysis of David Mamets Glengarry Glenn Ross, Kevin Alexander Boon makes a persuasive argument that dialogue can effectively meet the criteria for praxis: Action tells more about character than dialogue only when the dialogue to which we are referring is didactic. . . . Dialogue can take on the characteristics of action. Active dialogue is as much about where it is occurring and between whom it is occurring as it is about what is being said. Like action, it is context-driven. . . . Unlike the externally determined conclusions drawn from didactic dialogue, conclusions drawn from active dialogue are internally determined, thus increasing the audiences personal involvement with the overall production of meaning. 26

Active dialogue, Boon argues, is no mere string of words but a dialectic discourse between engaged parties vying for the upper-hand. A well-written conversation can be an as effective conveyor of praxis as a duel or a dance. This is certainly seen in the exchange between Han and Leia observed above. In Glengarry Glenn Ross, a script about salesmen, each character is always (always be closing) selling the other characters. One would be hard pressed to find a single exchange of dialogue in Mamets script in which one character is not trying to persuade another to buy what hes selling. It certainly helps when active dialogue is part of the characters job description, but it isnt necessary. In this exchange from the Coen brothers Fargo, Jerry the salesman finds himself on the defensive as Carl begins to take control from him: JERRY ... So I guess that's it, then. Here's the keys CARL No, that's not it, Jerry. JERRY Huh? CARL The new vehicle, plus forty thousand dollars. JERRY Yah, but the deal was, the car first, see, then the forty thousand, like as if it was the ransom. I thought Shep told you CARL Shep didn't tell us much, Jerry. JERRY Well, okay, it's CARL Except that you were gonna be here at 7:30. JERRY Yah, well, that was a mix-up, then.

CARL Yeah, you already said that. JERRY Yah. But it's not a whole payin-advance deal. I give you a brand-new vehicle in advance and CARL I'm not gonna debate you, Jerry. JERRY Okay. CARL I'm not gonna sit here and debate. I will say this though: what Shep told us didn't make a whole lot of sense. JERRY Oh, no, it's real sound. It's all worked out. In the boxing match that is this exchange of active dialogue, it is immediately clear to us that Jerry probably isnt the best salesman on the car lot and that it probably isnt as all worked out as he claims. Jerry quickly reveals himself to be inept and easily man -handled in conversation. A character who so easily fails at the verbal level of praxis isnt likely to succeed in his larger schemes and physical actions. Jerrys just destined for calamity. 3.5.6. Habitual Action. [Back to Page Topics] Habit may seem diametrically opposed to dramatic praxis, but in fact, habitual action has a vital expository role to play in most screenplays. One cannot introduce disequilibrium if there is no equilibrium to disrupt. John Augusts drug-fueled Go begins by establishing protagonist Ronas miserable day job (Containers of frozen orange juice spin endlessly on the conveyor belt. Ronna Martin the girl in the ditch is bagging groceries.) before sending her on her rave scene odyssey. Similarly, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylors Election uses habitual action to reveal just how ordinary their protagonist is before a series of extraordinary actions upend his entire life: Jim is at the blackboard finishing writing: EXECUTIVE, CONGRESSIONAL,

JUDICIARY. He begins to draw a triangle connecting the three words. DISSOLVE TO: Jim at the blackboard finishing the same diagram but in DIFFERENT CLOTHES. He repeats this process TWO MORE TIMES. While habitual action is more or less limited to act one exposition in archplot screenwriting, it can become the subject of the script. Italian neorealist screenwriter and film theorist Cesare Zavattini (Bicycle Thieves, Umberto D) explains the neorealist approach to screenwriting as follows: In most films, the adventures of two people looking for somewhere to live, for a house, would be shown externally in a few moments of action, but for us it could provide the scenario for a whole film, and we would explore all its echoes, all its implications.27 Such an approach is unusual in the American tradition, but some independent writer/directors (e.g. Jim Jarmusch, Richard Linklater) have tried it. 3.5.7. Character as Praxis vs. Characterization & Environment. [Back to Page Topics] TRUE CHARACTER, writes McKee in caps for emphasis, is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the characters essential nature. This sums up nicely everything weve explored in terms of praxis and character, but characters do not cease to exist when they are at rest. Action may be the best way to express character, but characters exist beyond action. Dont they? McKee is choosy about his words: Characterization [not character] is the sum of all observable qualities of a human being, everything knowable through careful scrutiny: age and IQ; sex and sexuality; style of speech and gesture; choices of home, car, and dress; education and occupation; personality and nervosity; values and attitudes all aspects of humanity we could know by taking notes on someone day in and day out. In other words, according to McKee, narrative agents are distinct from their distinguishing characteristics but not from their actions. Characterization is merely the decorative vessel through which action operates. This is an interesting way of looking at character, but does it gel with Aristotles observations as discussed above? Ethos and dianoia, after all, fall within McKees category of characterization. Are they merely decorative elements? What McKee views as decorative, Lajos Egri views as foundational. He refers to characterization as the bone structure of true character. Human beings, Egri writes, have an additional three dimensions: physiology, sociology, psychology. Without knowledge of these three dimensions we cannot appraise a human being.28 Egri builds on common sense observations to build his case that characterization determines action, whether physiologically (a sick man sees health as a supreme good), sociologically (if *. . .+ your playground was the dirty city street, your reactions would differ from those of the boy who was born in a mansion), or

psychologically (ambition, frustration, temperament, attitudes, complexes).29 Just as human beings are more than the sum of their actions, so, posits Egri, are characters. Egri also argues that Character and environment are so closely interrelated that we have to consider them as one.30 By environment, Egri means more than mere habitat. He refers to the entire state of equilibrium that surrounds a character at the beginning of a story. Environment is everything outside of the character that constitutes his routine existence. The smallest disturbance of [a character's] well-ordered life will ruffle his placidity and create a mental upheaval, just as a stone which the surface of a pond will create far-reaching rings of motion.31 This assertion levels a serious challenge to McKees dismissal of environment as just another level of characterization. Either true character is only perceptible to the audience through action, or environment locations, set decoration, wardrobe, etc. is capable of conveying interior states of character to the audience in the absence of action. We cannot hope to settle this debate here. Suffice it to say that character is not as clean-cut a concept in screenplay theory as pedagogical convention has heretofore suggested. 3.5.8. Character and Premise. [Back to Page Topics] Theme also shapes character, and Egris conception of premise can be particularly useful in an analysis of character motivations. If a screenplay has a clear premise, the protagonist must either (a) personally hold that premise to be true, or (b) personally hold an opposing premise to be true. If the scripts premise is Love conquers jealousy, for instance, an effective character will either: believe from the beginning that love conquers jealousy and over the course of the plot face opposing forces that threaten this premise; or believe from the beginning that Jealousy conquers love, but over the course of the plot encounters events that persuade him/her to embrace the opposite premise. Likewise, the antagonist must hold a premise that is opposite of the protagonists in order for conflict to exist. This assumes that characters behave rationally on the basis of their personally held beliefs and that they are capable of learning and changing as a result of their experiences. 3.5.9. Discussion Topics. [Back to Page Topics] The following are suggested key terms and topics of discussion for college courses studying this material. Key Terms:

Character Literary Artifice Non-Actual Individuals Text-Based Mental Constructs Anthropos

Praxis Ethos Dianoia Micro-Behavior Macro-Behavior Subtext Non-Verbal Behavior Kinesics Haptics Proxemics Paralanguage Verbal Behavior Active Dialogue Didactic Dialogue Characterization Bone Structure Environment

Questions:

What did Aristotle really mean when he said that action is more important than character? How do praxis, ethos, and dianoia work together to construct character? How can we expand our notion of praxis beyond traditional conceptions of action? How do non-verbal behaviors convey subtext? Under what circumstances can dialogue be considered action? Why does Lajos Egri argue that characterization and environment are foundational to character?

3.5.10. Footnotes. [Back to Page Topics] 1. Mamet, David. On Directing Film. NY: Penguin, 1992. Pg. 13. 2. Margolin, Uri. Character. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Edited by David Herman. NY: Cambridge UP, 2009. Pg. 66. 3. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by Heath, Malcolm. London: Penguin, 1996. Pgs. 11-12. 4. Margolin, Uri. Character. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Edited by David Herman. NY: Cambridge UP, 2009. Pg. 66. 5. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by Heath, Malcolm. London: Penguin, 1996. Pg. 11. 6. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by S. H. Butcher for The Internet Classics Archive. Accessed on 12 October 2010. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html 7. Kaufman, Charlie and Donald. Adaptation: The Shooting Script. NY: Newmarket, 2002. Pgs. 5-6. 8. Kaufman, Charlie and Donald. Adaptation: The Shooting Script. NY: Newmarket, 2002. Pg. 68.

9. Kaufman, Charlie and Donald. Adaptation: The Shooting Script. NY: Newmarket, 2002. Pg. 69. 10. Goldman, William. Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting. NY: Warner Books, 1983. Pg. 125. 11. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 116. 12. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 115. 13. Borg, John. Body Language: 7 Easy Lessons to Master the Silent Language. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2008. Pg. 17. 14. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg.117. 15. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pgs. 124-128. 16. http://face.paulekman.com/aboutmett2.aspx 17. http://www.brighthub.com/education/languages/articles/9626.aspx 18. http://www.aquiziam.com/rudegestures.html 19. Heslin, R., & Alper, T. (1983). Touch: A Bonding Issue. In J. M. Weimann and R. P. Harrison (Eds), Nonverbal Communication. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. 20. Jones, S.E., and Yarborough, E. A Naturalistic Study of the Meanings of Touch. Communication Monographs. 51(1), 19-56 (1985). 21. Hall, Edward T. The Hidden Dimension. Doubleday, Garden City, N.Y., 1966. 22. http://work911.com/communication/nonverbparalanguage.htm 2008-2010 Copyright Bacal & Associates. 23. Brackett, Leigh & Kasdan, Lawrence. The Empire Strikes Back: Original Movie Script. Monterey Park, CA: O.S.P. Publishing, 1994. Pgs. 59-61. 24. Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Pg. 179. 25. Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Pg. 179. 26. Boon, Kevin Alexander. Script Culture and the American Screenplay. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008. Pg. 90. 27. Zavattini, Cesare. Some Ideas on the Cinema. Sight and Sound. 23:2 (OctoberDecember 1953), 64-9. Edited from a recorded interview published in La revista del cinema italniano 2 (December 1952). Translated by Pier Luigi Lanza. 28. Egri, Lajos. The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1960. Pg. 33. 29. Egri, Lajos. The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1960. Pgs. 33-34. 30. Egri, Lajos. The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1960. Pg. 92. 31. Egri, Lajos. The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1960. Pgs. 45-46.

3.6. camera & cuts I am not a writer. I am a screenwriter, which is half a filmmaker. Paul Schrader1 3.6.1. Overview. If all other observations about the screenplay are open to debate, one is not: every screenplay is written for the camera. As Howard Rodman has argued, Screenplays are, to use James Schamuss fine phrase, brutally instrumentalist. They either become films, or they dont. Their worth is determined not by the quality of the writing but by which side of the previous sentences comma they fall on.2 One cannot expect to fully appreciate the intentions of the screenwriter if the screenplays relationship to the camera is not understood. Likewise, films with few exceptions are shot to be edited, a fact that also shapes screenwriting. As David Mamet has argued, You always want to tell the story in cuts.3 Despite the importance of the camera and cutting in the creation of a motion picture, most screenplays eschew explicit instructions for the cinematographer and the editor. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that screenwriters have ceded all responsibility for camera and cutting to the director. On the contrary, screenwriters have employed a variety of strategies to influence the cinematographic and editorial designs of the motion pictures made from their scripts. This section will explore some of these strategies. Page Topics:

3.6.1. Overview 3.6.2. The Scripted Camera 3.6.3. The Screenwriter as Editor 3.6.4. Discussion Topics 3.6.5. Footnotes

3.6.2. The Scripted Camera. [Back to Page Topics] William Goldman once quoted an anonymous actor as saying, You goddam screenwriters putting in all that camera crap trying to direct the picture is all youre doing. I hate all that camera crap. Just put down the words, Ill do the rest.4 The star in question is complaining about explicit technical comments in the screenplay text, but all screenwriters write for the camera, whether they appeal to technical comment or use other means. In the past, screenwriters often filled their scripts with explicit camera directions in the form of technical comment, but that practice has fallen out of favor today except when the screenplays author is also the movies director. Nevertheless, formatting conventions have been established for how such instructions should be handled when employed.

The word camera when used in the script to refer to the motion picture recording device (as opposed to a camera that appears on screen as part of the story) is always capitalized, as is any camera movement (e.g. PAN, DOLLY, PUSH, etc.) and any shot type named (e.g. CLOSE ON, MED. SHOT, POV, etc.). Sometimes the phrase ANGLE ON is also used to direct the camera. Some screenplays are written not in the master scene format but in the style of a continuity script, where every slug-line includes detailed shot information and scenes are broken up into several individual shots. A common method of implicit camera instruction that side-steps technical comment is to use the phrase we see, and this is not capitalized. One of the great challenges of the master scene format is the task of conveying the necessary visual information without boring the reader with filmmaking jargon. This requires a different stylistic touch than writing for literary prose or theatrical drama. For starters, writing for the camera requires at least some understanding of the visual language of cinema. First, one must remember that motion pictures do not present a continuous reality but an illusion of that reality through the projection of 24 static frames per second on the screen. The static frame is the smallest unit of cinematic grammar. The cinematographer may manipulate multiple elements of this frame: (1) Aspect Ratio the dimensions of the frame (sometimes native to format but often altered); (2) Aperture the level of light exposure, which also affects depth of field; (3) Composition the placement of the camera and arrangement of elements within the frame; (4) Color may be affected by film stock, lighting, filters, processing, and digital manipulation; (5) Depth of Field the clarity and sharpness of the image foreground, middleground, and background; (6) Focal Length the apparent perspective and spatial relationships between objects within the frame as determined by the type of lens used; and (7) Texture the images level of clarity, resolution, and grain, all affected by medium used, lighting, and post processes. A series of continuously recorded frames is called a shot. The shot is the smallest dynamic unit of cinematic grammar. All of the frame elements listed above can be changed within the shot, from one frame to the next. Changes between frames within the shot create the illusion of motion that is the definitive trait of cinema. Various kinds of movement made in the filming process will affect the motion perceived on screen, including movement (1) of Subject, such as the movement of actors or props before the lens during the shot; (2) of Media, such as the speed with which the film strip moves through the camera gate (a process simulated in digital cinematography); (3) in the Lens, such as the movement of the glass as the lens is focused or during a zoom; (4) of the Shutter, which will affect both the rate of exposure and also the apparent motion blur; and (5) of the Camera itself, utilizing a variety of means. Cameras can be made to move in any number of ways, usually with the help of specialized tools that create different styles of movement. A tripod, for instance, allows limited movement, such as pans and tilts, creating a rigid, formal quality of motion. A hand-held shot allows maximum versatility of movement but minimal stabilization, often creating a jerky, documentary-like effect. In a steadicam shot, the camera is mounted to a steadicam rig for fluid, versatile movements that emulate the freedom of the hand-held shot without the jitters. Dolly shots are

probably the most commonly used form of camera movement. Here, the camera is mounted on a rolling platform, usually on a track, that creates smooth, choreographed movements of a sweeping nature. For crane and jib shots, the camera is mounted on a long arm for sweeping, high-angle movements, usually creating an epic feel or point of emphasis. Shots are generally identified by angle of the camera (high, normal, low, or Dutch) and the size of the subject in the frame (Close, Medium, Full, Wide, etc.). For a Low-Angle Close-up, for instance, the camera would shoot up at a subjects head and shoulders from a point below the subjects shoulder line. Low-angle shots will generally give a subject more authority or make him more intimidating, while a high-angle shot has a diminutive effect. Dutch angle shots (tilted to the left or right) create an off-kilter reality. We do not need to go into the full range of shot sizes here, but one can find detailed explorations elsewhere. Filmmakers must take into account all of the variables of frame and shot discussed above when translating scripted sequences into cinematic ones, but screenwriters do not need to write EXTREME CLOSEUP in order to call the cameras attention to a fine detail. Consider the following hypothetical sequence: Michael enters the long hall and brushes an eyelash from his cheek. At the far end of the corridor, a small key lay on the ground. Michael walks to the far end, bends down, and picks up the key. He looks at an inscription on the key. It reads: Rm 382. This is not good screenwriting. However, without a word of technical comment, the text above has conveyed a number of technically restricting visual details to the camera crew. We know, for instance, that an eyelash on an actors cheek will escape perception in a wide shot and that a very tight shot will be needed if the audience is expected to read the inscribed numbers on a very small key. Further, it would prove almost impossible to shoot this sequence as written in one, uninterrupted shot without making the audience dizzy. Discrete units of visual information will be needed. We might call these discrete units visual beats. A visual beat is an essential, isolated action or uninflected image. Visual beats create curiosity by withholding information to create a question in the viewers subconscious and satisfy that curiosity by answering that question with the next beat. In the hypothetical sequence above, we might identify eleven visual beats. Lets count them (along with the questions they raise and answer): 1. Michael enters where has he entered? 2. the long hall and this is where he has entered. What will he do next? 3. brushes hell do this. What is he brushing? 4. an eyelash from his cheek. this is what he is brushing. 5. At the far end of the corridor, what is over there? 6. a small key lay on the ground. this key is over there. What is its significance? 7. Michael walks to the far end, does he see the key? 8. bends down, and he sees the key. What does he intend to do? 9. picks up the key. he will pick it up. Is this his key? 10. He looks at an inscription on the key. must not be. What key is this?

11. It reads: Rm 382 it is this key. What is in room 382? In this way, dividing a sequence of action into a series of visual beats clarifies for the filmmaker what exactly needs to be shot, what actions or images can be grouped together in a single shot, and which actions or images will need a specialized approach. Beats 4 and 11 clearly call for extreme close-ups, for instance, while beats 2 and 5 may play best in a wide shot. Lets apply this method to a passage from a real screenplay, Steven Soderberghs sex, lies and videotape: EXT. JOHN AND ANNE MILLANEY'S HOUSE DAY Graham has parked in the Millaney's driveway. He opens the trunk, revealing a Sony 8mm Video rig and a single black duffel bag. He grabs the duffel bag and shuts the trunk. Graham knocks on the door. He is stubbing out a cigarette with his beaten tennis shoe when Ann answers the door. She is unable to hide her surprise at his appearance. Here again we can identify at least eleven potential visual beats: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Graham has parked where? in the Millaneys driveway. here! He opens the trunk, whats inside? revealing a Sony 8mm Video rig and a single black duffle bag. these things! He grabs the duffle bag but whats the video rig for? and shuts the trunk. we dont get to know yet! Graham knocks at the door. who will answer? He is stubbing out a cigarette with his beaten tennis shoe why is a law school grad wearing crappy shoes? 9. when Ann answers the door. Ann will answer! 10. She is unable to hide her surprise what is she surprised at? 11. at his appearance. that hes a bum! While more than one of these visual beats may be covered in a single shot, at the very least, they suggest the minimum amount of information each shot must convey. By doing so, they also outline the parameters of what kind of shot will adequately communicate the necessary information. If beat number 8 above is important, a full shot wont suffice, since the quality of his tennis shoes needs to be evident to the audience. By breaking a scene into visual beats, directors can determine the best way to convey the necessary information with the camera. Screenwriters may not consciously write in visual beats, but the good ones tend to create them automatically. Visual beats inherently suggest instructions for the camera without resorting to technical comment. Visual beats also suggest a

method of telling the story in cuts by appealing to montage theory, which brings us to the role of the screenplay in the editorial process. 3.6.3. The Screenwriter as Editor. [Back to Page Topics] The master scene format typically conveys no explicit editorial instruction beyond an indication of when one scene should cut to another. Scene transitions, when used, are always capitalized (e.g. FADE IN:, CUT TO:, DISSOLVE TO:), but since most transitions are assumed to be a straight cut, they are usually omitted altogether, so that slug-lines alone suffice as scene transitions. Editorial direction may come in the form of a SERIES OF SHOTS (referred to colloquially as a montage sequence but not to be confused with montage theory). In these cases, each shot is presented in a numbered or bulleted list that indicates how the sequence should be cut together to convey the passing of time. While the master scene format does not include much explicit shot detail, good editors are skilled at reading for visual beats that imply shot transitions, and they use this information to shape scenes editorially. Good editors are excellent storytellers, and screenwriters can learn much from the theory that informs their work. The foundational principle that guides the art of editing is montage theory. As Mamet writes, montage theory proposes a succession of images juxtaposed so that the contrast between these images moves the story forward in the mind of the audience.5 Montage, according to George Bluestone, is the basic formative function. For the two strips, joined together, become a tertium quid, a third thing which neither of the strips has been independently. 6 To illustrate the principle of montage theory, we can return to our hypothetical scene with the key in the hallway. The final two visual beats of the sequence are as follows: He looks at an inscription on the key. It reads: Rm 382. It may be possible to cover this action is a single shot, but montage theory suggests that the most effective way to present this action is in two shots rather than one: a shot of the eyes looking and a shot of the inscription on the key. Either shot on its own is meaningless. A shot of a pair of eyes tells the audience nothing, but it does invite participation from the audience, encouraging them to guess at what the eyes are looking. A single shot that covers both bits of information creates no curiosity and allows the audience to adopt a passive relationship to the film. Great editors understand that montage creates anticipation and infuses the audience with interest. Great screenwriters reflect this principle in the design of their scripts. Sentence structure, punctuation, and paragraph rhythms can all be manipulated to suggest visual beats for the editor. Writing for the screen requires writing in cuts, if only subliminally. It is often said that movies are made three times: when the script is written, during principal photography, and on the cutting table. Screenwriter who dont understand visual language are likely to see their intentions significantly altered in the process of shooting and editing a motion

picture. The more screenwriters understand the role of the camera and cuts in cinema grammar, however, the more likely each of these stages will tell the same story. 3.6.4. Discussion Topics. [Back to Page Topics] The following are suggested key terms and topics of discussion for college courses studying this material. Key Terms:

ANGLE ON We see Frame Aspect Ratio Aperture Composition Color Depth of Field Focal Length Texture Shot Movement of Subject Movement of Media Movement in the Lens Movement of the Shutter Movement of the Camera Shot Angle Shot Size Visual Beat Series of Shots Montage Theory

Questions:

Why is it important that screenwriters understand cinematic language? How can screenwriters evoke cinematographic and editorial choices without explicitly guiding them through technical comment? How is montage theory relevant to screenwriting? How do screenwriters use visual beats?

3.6.5. Footnotes. [Back to Page Topics] 1. Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009. Pg. 48.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Rodman. 86-87 Mamet. 2. Goldman. 287. Mamet. 4. Bluestone. 25.

3.7. sound & silence I have assumed, and attempted to demonstrate, that music and dialogue, while they reinforce the photographic image, are really subsidiary lines in the total film composition. George Bluestone.1 The role which sound is to play in film is much more significant than a slavish imitation of naturalism . . . ; the first function of sound is to augment the potential expressiveness of the films content. V.I. Pudovkin.2 3.7.1. Overview. The tension between the filmmaker who works in images and the screenwriter who works in words has long been an impediment to the pursuit of screenplay analysis as a serious academic discipline, and no where is this tension called more into focus than in an examination of the role of sound in motion pictures. While film is essentially visual, the average screenplay expends a vast majority of its page space on dialogue, often with little attention devoted to visual detail, which is thought better left to the inspirations of a director. Despite this distinction, a careful survey of the uses of sound elements in both filmmaking and screenwriting will actually draw attention to the limitations of the screenplay text where sound is concerned. A film can accentuate an exchange of dialogue with simultaneous music, something a screenplay cannot do. A screenwriter can refer to music (though extensive use of music cues would become exhausting for the reader), but he or she cannot offer the reader an aural

experience of that music. If, for instance, the reader is unfamiliar with a particular piece of music, the effect of the reference will be lost. Film offers an entire, life-like soundscape, while the screenwriter can only afford to reference those sounds that are most important to an understanding of the story. And of course, the experience of sound in motion pictures is visceral, while the sound experienced in reading a script is mental and imaginative. Here we will examine some of these limitations in more depth while also looking at strategies screenwriters have used to successfully incorporate sound into their scripts. First, we will begin with a look at the different categories of sound that appear in cinema. Page Topics:

3.7.1. Overview 3.7.2. Diegetic vs. Non-Diegetic Sound 3.7.3. Situational vs. Expressive Diegetic Sound 3.7.4. Elements of Sound: Dialogue & Narration 3.7.5. Elements of Sound: Sound Effects & Ambiance 3.7.6. Elements of Sound: Music & Score 3.7.7. Silence. 3.7.8. Discussion Topics 3.7.9. Footnotes

3.7.2. Diegetic vs. Non-Diegetic Sound. [Back to Page Topics] All sounds experienced in the act of motion picture viewing fall into one of two categories: Diegetic (or actual sound) and Non-Diegetic (or commentary sound).3 Diegetic sound is any element thats source is either visible on screen or implied in the action of the film. These include the voices of the speaking characters, practical sounds made by objects in the story, and music represented as coming from a practical source (a stereo or live performance) within the storyworld. Standing in contrast to this, Non-Diegetic sound elements have no visible or implied source but instead comment on the film or have symbolic meaning. These include voice-over narration, sound effects used for dramatic effect (e.g. a record scratch heard when a character learns shocking new information), and score or music cues not represented as coming from a natural source in the storyworld. In short, Diegetic sounds are native to the storyworld of a screenplay and can be heard by the storys inhabitants, while Non-Diegetic sounds are impositions of an authorial voice, meant for the audience only. Sometimes, however, screenwriters will use a sound prelap to introduce Non-Diegetic sounds that will, in the next scene, become Diegetic.

In its first paragraph, the opening scene of Steven Soderberghs sex, lies and videotape introduces the character of Graham, alone in his vehicle: GRAHAM DALTON, twenty-nine, drives his 69 Cutlass while smoking a cigarette. One would describe his appearance as punk/arty, but neither would do him justice. He is a man of obvious intelligence, and his face is amiable. There is only one key on his keyring, and it is in the ignition.4 Soderbergh then breaks in to this scene with voice-over narration from the character Ann: Garbage. I started thinking about what happens to all the garbage. Anns V.O. continues with two or three more lines of this monologue before the writer indicates a cut to the next scene, in which were introduced to Ann as she explains her garbage obsession to her therapist. Here Soderbergh plays with the cinematic conventions of sound. Were Ann a man and her voice masculine, the audience of the motion picture might assume that her first few lines of disembodied dialogue were to be understood as Grahams internal thoughts, as they have no source in the scene, and such uses of voice-over narration to express internal mental states are common. To avoid such confusion in the screenplay, Soderbergh names the disembodied voice, even though weve yet to be introduced to Ann when we first hear her. Had he simply labeled the monologue as VOICE OVER, however, it would have been quite confusing to the reader. In fact, Anns monologue is not true voice-over at all, but a prelap of dialogue from the next scene, in which case it could be said to have a delayed Diegetic source. A similar effect is seen in Cameron Crowes screenplay for Almost Famous.5 In one of the films most enduring moments, Crowe uses Elton Johns Tiny Dancer to poignant effect. As with Anns dialogue in the Soderbergh scene, Tiny Dancer is introduced as Non -Diegetic sound. In the middle of a nighttime scene of dialogue and commotion, Crowe inserts the rather unassuming technical comment, We hear the beginning of Elton Johns Tiny Dancer. The scene continues with no further reference to the music. In the next scene a time and location jump to early morning on a bus the music is referenced as coming from a Diegetic source: Tiny Dancer continues on the bus stereo, and everyone on the bus begins to sing along. What is interesting here is that screenwriters rarely make reference to Non-Diegetic music, leaving such decisions to the director and music supervisor, and Crowe could have chosen to mention Tiny Dancer for the first time when its Diegetic source was known. Crowe, however, chooses to make a point of introducing the music in the previous scene, where its source is undetermined, having the effect of commenting on that scenes meaning. In both examples, sex, lies and videotape and Almost Famous, screenwriters emulate an edited film in their screenwriting by using sound prelaps to turn Diegetic sound from one scene into Non-Diegetic sound that comments on the preceding scene. 3.7.3. Situational vs. Expressive Diegetic Sound. [Back to Page Topics]

Within the category of Diegetic sound, there are two distinct kinds: Situational sounds incidentally produced by the environment and the characters, and Expressive sounds, which are naturally produced but not incidental, used for dramatic effect to create a mood or tone (e.g. a dripping faucet that heightens the sense of desperation for an insomniac). While films are by their nature filled with Situational sounds, almost all sounds described in a screenplay are Expressive by the very virtue of the screenwriter calling attention to their existence. Screenwriting is a craft of economy, so a screenwriter will rarely describe or report a Situational sound that will be incidentally recorded on set anyway, unless the sound moves the plot forward in some way (a phone must ring for it to be answered). On the other hand, if a sound is important enough to be mentioned in the script text, it is likely being used for dramatic effect and therefore Expressive. Consider the following sequence from John Michael Hayess screenplay of Hitchcocks 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much6: EXT. LONDON STREET - (DAY) - MEDIUM SHOT In a quiet street off Camden Town we see Ben, alight and pay off a London taxi. The taxi does a U-turn and disappears around a corner. Ben starts to walk TOWARD THE CAMERA. He glances at the piece of paper from, his pocket bearing Ambrose Chappell's address. He is completely alone in a deserted street -- so much so that his footsteps click on the pavement and create the feeling of an echo. As he walks he listens to the echo and for a moment wonders if it is an echo. He slows up and comes to a stop close to the CAMERA. There is complete silence -- only the faint distant London traffic noises. EXT. LONDON STREET - (DAY) - MEDIUM CLOSE SHOT He resumes his walk, the CAMERA DOLLYING HIM. The echo starts again. He slows up again and stops -- but this time the echo continues. He becomes tense, looks around in alarm. EXT. LONDON STREET - (DAY) - MEDIUM LONG SHOT The CAMERA PANS the streets from Ben's viewpoint. There is no sign of anyone. EXT. LONDON STREET - (DAY) - MEDIUM CLOSE SHOT

Ben resumes his walk, the CAMERA DOLLYING him. He stops suddenly, as though to trap the echo -- but the echo comes on after him. Slightly scared, he now resumes his walk with a more hurried pace. The echo gets louder. He glances quickly over his shoulder again. EXT. LONDON STREET - (DAY) - MEDIUM SHOT A man is following him, at about the same pace. He is rather well dressed, and appears nonchalant. EXT. LONDON STREET - (DAY) - MEDIUM CLOSE SHOT Ben continues walking, and after a bit cautiously glances behind him. EXT. LONDON STREET - (DAY) - MEDIUM CLOSE SHOT The same man is following behind. EXT. LONDON STREET - (DAY) - MEDIUM CLOSE SHOT Ben glances down at the paper in his hand, and looks up trying to locate the right house number as he walks. The street has a mixture of houses, yards, an odd dirtylooking store or two. Ben's expression indicates that he would like to make his destination before the man following catches up with him. Then he changes his mind. He deliberately slows up. EXT. LONDON STREET - (DAY) - MEDIUM CLOSE SHOT Showing Ben as he walks slowly along, listening to the man approaching behind him, listening with the back of his head, and with his whole body. The man walking behind is aware of Ben. He begins staring at him. Ben instinctively clenches his right hand into a fist of preparedness. As the man closes in Ben we see that he is rather elderly, sixty years old, perhaps. As the man reaches Ben, and passes him, Ben's follows him and studies him.

While the footsteps are natural (Diegetic) they are not incidental (Situational) but instead contribute fundamentally to the tension of the scene, making them a quintessential use of Expressive sound in screenwriting. 3.7.4. Elements of Sound: Dialogue & Narration. [Back to Page Topics] The most commonly referenced sound in screenwriting is of course dialogue and its cousin voice-over narration. Dialogue is a loose term and encompasses all words spoken diegetically by a screenplays characters, whether spoken in conversation with one another or alone in soliloquy. Voice-over narration refers only to non-diegetic monologues delivered directly to the audience by an off-screen narrator, often but not always representing the thoughts of one of the on-screen characters. Not all voice-over cues should be considered narration. For instance, dialogue delivered over the phone will receive a V.O. tag, but it is still considered dialogue. Evaluating dialogue is difficult. Script readers usually look for verisimilitude and balk at dialogue laden with clunky exposition. Generally, screenplay dialogue tends to be less wordy than the dialogue in novels and plays. It reveals character and moves the story forward. Beyond that, some lines just seem to grab readers more than others. Can one identify some objective criteria by which the American Film Institute has deemed Frankly, my dear, I dont give a damn the best line of dialogue in all of film history? Could one follow that criteria as a guide to writing memorable dialogue? Both questions remain unanswered. The best dialogue writers simply have an ear for the musicality of human speech that proves enigmatic to critical analysis. Screenwriters are often cautioned against the use of voice-over narration in their scripts, a practice lampooned in this fantastically self-aware scene from Charlie Kaufmans Adaptation7: INT. AUDITORIUM - LATER McKee scribbles a diagram onto a transparency in an overhead projector. It's some kind of complicated time-line with actbreaks and corresponding page numbers indicated. The audience members take copious notes. Kaufman sweats. KAUFMAN (V.O.) It is my weakness, my ultimate lack of conviction that brings me here. Easy answers. Rules to short-cut yourself to success. And here I am, because my jaunt into the abyss brought me nothing. isn't that the risk one takes for attempting something new. I should here right now. I'll start over -(starts to rise)

I need to face this project head on Well, leave and -MCKEE ... and God help you if you use voice- over in your work, my friends. Kaufman looks up, startled. McKee seems to watching him. MCKEE (CONT'D) God help you! It's flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write voice over narration to explain the thoughts of a character. You must present the internal conflicts of your character in action. Kaufman looks around at people scribbling in notebooks. "Flaccid..." writes the guy on one side of him. "Any idiot..." writes the guy on the other side. The gag, of course, is that Adaptation is riddled with voice-over narration and would not work as a screenplay without it. Narration is discouraged in most cases as unnecessary because some writers use it lazily to fill plot holes that should be solved at the structure level. One neednt look far, however, for dozens of examples of effective use of voice-over, as many of the best American screenplays have used it. The same general guidelines that mark good dialogue also mark good narration. Sometimes small snippets of dialogue are indicated in the scene text through the speech mode. Scene text speech usually refers to non-specific dialogue that may be improvised on set, such as a greeting between characters (The door man greets him as he enters). One should opt for this method only in rare circumstances, however, as the need to establish appropriate lines on set may slow down production and lead to confusion for the cast. The speech mode of scene text can also be used to express dialogue that is not meant to be heard. Consider this example, also from The Man Who Knew Too Much8: INT. HALL - (DUSK) - MEDIUM SHOT The CAMERA PANS with Ben as he hurries forward. He touches Jo lightly on the shoulder. She turns, startled, and manages to suppress an exclamation on seeing him. We do not hear what they are saying but by their pantomime

we see that Jo is telling Ben all about the impending shooting. Ben argues with her. He indicates he will tell Buchanan. She frantically restrains him, but he shakes her off and dashes away. This entire sequence is set against a soundscape of live orchestral music, and an effective tension is created between the silence of the characters and the thrilling suspense of the building score, a tension that is difficult to fully appreciate when reading the screenplay. The audience of the motion picture, however, is set on edge by their unfulfilled desire to hear what is spoken. Hayes and Hitchcock have utilized music and the absence of explicit dialogue to excellent effect. 3.7.5. Elements of Sound: Sound Effects & Ambiance. [Back to Page Topics] As explained above, situational sound effects and ambiance are usually excluded from the script text, unless they play some active role in the narrative (a knock at the door motivates a character to answer it). When sound cues are given, they are typically written in CAPS to help the sound engineer locate them during production. The opening sequence of Melissa Mathisons E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial9 is unusually rife with sound effects and ambiance. The sounds are used to set the tone and reveal character. Some examples follow:

An OWL HOOTS. THE CREATURES FREEZE. The danger passes. Work is resumed. The innocence and alien nature of the creatures is established in their fearful response to the hooting owl. THE SOUNDS of the forest rise: birds, babbling brooks, the twitter of insects. THE CREATURE moves deeper into the forest. The idyllic, tranquil quality of the scene is established through its ambient environment. To the SOUND of heavy BREATHING and an awkward tread, we SEE the CREATURES HAND reach out and pull back a leafy limb. These sounds establish a creature ill-suited to this environment, foreshadowing E.T.s future illness. The KEYS make a tremendous racket, displacing all other sounds of the night. E.T.s primary antagonist is introduced here through a prop, and it is no accident that this prop conflicts aurally with the peaceful sounds of the forest.

These excerpts from E.T. demonstrate nicely how screenwriters can use sound effects and ambiance to drive plot and create conflict. 3.7.6. Elements of Sound: Music & Score. [Back to Page Topics] While non-diegetic music and score constitute two of the most noticeable uses of sound in a motion picture besides dialogue and narration, screenplays rarely make reference to them. The reason for this is really quite simple: non-diegetic music cues require technical comment, and

technical comment is generally discouraged in contemporary screenwriting. Diegetic references to music, however, are much more common. Consider the opening scene in Francis Ford Coppolas The Conversation10: A band of street musicians have just set up in the park. Clarinet, trombone, banjo, saxophone and trumpet. They wear fragments of velvet and silk, pieces of old uniforms and odd-ball hats. They haven't yet attracted a crowd. One of them take a top hat from his head, puts it on the ground and then throws a few coins and bills into it. Then the band breaks into a jazz rendition of "Red, Red, Robin." Because the music here is diegetic, it only makes sense that the screenwriter would give an explicit cue. Of course, designating a specific song has both budgetary and marketing implications, so screenwriters often leave the song in question to the imagination of the reader, as Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor have in the excerpt below from Election11: Paul is in the driver's seat of his hitching big-wheeled PICKUP TRUCK. His door is open, and his radio blasts a SONG carefully selected to boost soundtrack album sales. While references to score are rare in screenplays, they do pop up occasionally, as one can see in the excerpt from William Goldmans Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid[Goldman, William. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Directed by George Roy Hill. 20th Century Fox, 1969. Unpublished "FINAL" draft dated "July 15, 1968."]: THE CAR, drawing closer, and now there is music under it all, nervous and fast, but not loud, not yet, as the train and the single car continue to come toward CAMERA. CUT TO BUTCH AND SUNDANCE looking at each other in absolute bewilderment. CUT TO THE CAR. It is still some ways off but the music is faster now and starting to get loud as the car continues to come toward CAMERA, steadily and swiftly, and the music builds and builds and then without warning we are into:

THE LONGEST TRAVELING SHOT IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD Of course, Goldmans writing is unconventional in many ways, so it is not surprising to see him reference music in a way that most screenwriters would avoid. 3.7.7. Silence. [Back to Page Topics] Even in the silent era, scenarios and continuities made explicit reference to sound. With the advent of the synchronized sound film, however, silence for the first time became an expressive tool. Silence, too, is an acoustic effect, writes Bla Balzs, but only where sounds can be heard. The presentation of silence is one of the most specific dramatic effects of the sound film. No other art can reproduce silence, neither painting nor sculpture, neither literature nor the silent film could do so.12 Consider the following scene from Sophia Coppolas The Virgin Suicides13, in which silence is invoked to create a meditative tone, only to be shattered by a mothers wild grief: CLOSE ON CECILIA IN SILENCE the still body of a 13-year-old girl floats in pink bath water. She stares past us. CECILIA'S POV: Two PARAMEDICS (one fat, one tall and skinny with a Wyatt Earp mustache) look down at her, mesmerized and frightened by her tranquility. Suddenly we HEAR a woman's SCREAM -- the silence is interrupted as her mother, MRS. LISBON, lunges into the bathroom, reinstating the reality (and sounds) of the room. Such a passage would have been impossible to pull-off in the silent era. One must have sound as a norm in order to use silence expressively. According to Balzs, silence can be extremely vivid and varied, for although it has no voice, it has very many expressions and gestures. A silent glance can speak volumes; its soundlessness makes it more expressive because the facial movements of a silent figure may explain the reason for the silence, make us feel its weight, its menace, its tension. In the film, silence does not halt action even for an instant and such silent action gives even silence a living face.14 This is a principle all screenwriters must keep in mind. Andrew W. Marlowe recalls the following anecdote from the making of Air Force One: Id written this little speech. Harrison *Ford+ came up to me and he said, Its a great speech. I said, Oh, thank you. He said, Im not gonna do it.

All this, I can do with a look. And he could.15 Silence can be a powerful tool for both the writer and the performer. 3.7.8. Discussion Topics. [Back to Page Topics] The following are suggested key terms and topics of discussion for college courses studying this material. Key Terms:

Diegetic Sound Non-Diegetic Sound Situational Sound Expressive Sound Dialogue Narration Sound Effects Ambiance Music Score Silence

Questions:

What are some uses of non-diegetic sound in screenwriting? How does using a sound prelap affect the meaning of the sound? Why are situational sounds rarely specified in screenwriting? Why might a writer use expressive sounds? What is the difference between dialogue and character narration? Why are non-diegetic music cues and score rarely used in screenwriting? Why is synchronized sound necessary in order for silence to become expressive?

3.7.9. Footnotes. [Back to Page Topics] 1. Bluestone, George. Novels into Film. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961. Pg. viii. 2. Pudovkin, V.I. Asynchronism as a Principle of Sound Film. Film Sound: Theory and Practice. Edited by Elisabeth Weis & John Belton. NY: Columbia UP, 1985. Pg. 86. 3. FilmSound.org: Learning Space Dedicated to the Art and Analysis of Film Sound Design. http://filmsound.org/terminology/diegetic.htm 4. Soderbergh, Steven. sex, lies and videotape. NY: Faber & Faber, 2000. Pg. 1. 5. Crowe, Cameron. Almost Famous. NY: Faber & Faber, 2000. Pg. 112. 6. Hayes, John Michael. The Man Who Knew Too Much. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Paramount Pictures, 1956. Unpublished Final Draft script dated 07/May/1955.

7. Kaufman, Charlie. Adaptation. NY: Newmarket, 2002. 8. Hayes. 9. Mathison, Melissa. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Universal Pictures, 1982. Unpublished shooting script dated Sept. 8, 1981. 10. Unpublished Final Draft dated November 22, 1982. 11. Election. Directed by Alexander Payne. MTV and Paramount Pictures, 1999. Unpublished, undated draft. 12. Balzs, Bla. Theory of the Film: Character and Growth of a New Art. NY: Dover, 1970. Pg. 205. 13. Coppola, Sophia. The Virgin Suicides. Paramount Classics, 2000. Undated draft. 14. Pg. 207. 15. Hanson, Peter, and Herman, Paul Robert. Tales from the Script. NY: HarperCollins, 2010. Pg. 170.

Resources Books and Journals on Screenplay Studies.

Analysing the Screenplay by Jill Nelmes. The Screenplay: Authorship, Theory and Criticism by Steven Price. Screenwriting: History, Theory, and Practice by Steven Maras. Script Culture and the American Screenplay by Kevin Alexander Boon. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text by Claudia Sternberg. Framework: A History of Screenwriting in the American Film by Tom Stempel. What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting by Marc Norman. Journal of Screenwriting.

Published Screenplays.

The Newmarket Shooting Script Series Faber & Faber Screenplays

Hard-Copy Screenplays for Sale.

Hollywood Book City Planet MegaMall Script City Script Fly Script House Script Shack

Online Screenplay Repositories.

American Film Scripts Online (subscription required) myPDFscripts JoBlos Movie Scripts Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) Screenplays Online Script-Fix Screenplay Explorer AwesomeFilm Script Collector Drews Script-O-Rama Movie-Page The Screenplay Database Screenplays for You Simply Scripts Daily Script INFlows Screenplay Repository Moovies! Being Charlie Kaufman: Scripts / Writing Film Scripts @ the Alfred Hitchcock Wiki HorrorLair Sci-Fi Movie Page

glossary A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M|N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z| Footnotes

Act As defined by Robert McKee, An ACT is a series of sequences that peaks in a climactic scene which causes a major reversal of values, more powerful in its impact than any previous sequence or scene.1 The apparent precision of McKees definition, however, belies the fact that the Act, as understood in terms of traditional three -act screenplay structure (which has itself been called into question)2, is a notoriously fuzzy concept with disputed boundaries. In theater an act is a narrative segment of some length that concludes with an act break, but most feature-length screenplays do not contain act breaks. Action Action, in the sense in which it matters to those who study the screenplay, is a concept strongly tied to both Aristotles views of the primacy of plot over character in drama and the old adage that screenwriters should show not tell. While the screenwriters craft is one of narration (diegesis), his/her art points toward another form, the feature film, which is a craft of performance (mimesis). Characters, then, are not known to the audience by their thoughts or feelings but by their actions. For this reason, the craft of screenwriting more than its prose counterparts relies heavily on carefully constructed actions. Likewise, screenplays that contain more action (in the broader sense of active protagonists participating in their own destiny) tend to be more commercial and accessible to audiences than those with minimal action (again, in the broader sense of passive protagonists reluctant to participate in their own destiny). Action is also the term for the main scene text that reports on character actions and contains scene descriptions, technical comments, and other relevant story details. Ancillaries A film business term that refers to all financial revenues not stemming from theatrical box office. These include home video, television, and merchandising. Antagonist Not simply a villain, the Antagonist is the dramatic force that obstructs the Protagonist from obtaining his or her desire. In a Romantic Comedy, for instance, the Antagonist may be a rival suitor (traditional villain role) or she may be the object of affection who must be won over by the Protagonist. A Priori Method Janet Staiger defines this method of genre classification as follows: make an a priori declaration of the characteristics of the group.3 Arbitration A process within the WGA in which disputes over screen credit are settled in a binding decision of objective parties. Archetype A character form that fulfills a certain universal dramatic or psychological function within a narrative. May be best understood as a functional mask worn by the character, as a character may wear the masks of multiple Archetypes throughout the story, and more than one character can wear the same mask. Mentor and Herald are just two common Archetypes. Not to be confused with a stereotype. Authors linked by & In formal WGA screen credit rules, authors linked by an ampersand are understood to be team writers or willing collaborators. Authors linked by and In formal WGA screen credit rules, authors linked by the word and are understood to be successive or independent co-writers or re-writers who did not collaborate together on a single draft. Auteur Theory A broad and complex theory for the critical analysis of film. However, for the purposes of screenplay studies, it will suffice to say that Auteur Theory proposes that the director is the author of the film.

Beat (in scene structure) In terminology borrowed from music, emotional beats mark the dramatic rhythm of a scene. A BEAT is an exchange of behavior in action/reaction. Beat by Beat these changing behaviors shape the turning of a scene, writes McKee 4, while Judith Weston writes, The beat changes are simple changes of subject. 5 Whatever strict definition is accepted, breaking a scene into smaller dramatic moments allows directors and actors to map the emotional arc of a scene for a more thoughtful performance. One can also refer to a visual beat, which is more or less synonymous with the shot. By breaking an action down into visual beats, a director can determine what shots he or she will need in order to build the scene through montage. Beat (in script terminology) You will sometimes see (Beat) as a parenthetical comment in a block of dialogue text. In this case, the screenwriter is instructing the actor to take a beat i.e. pause before continuing with his or her speech. Beat Breakdown The process by which a scene analyst (usually a director or performer) maps a particular scene for all its dramatic beats. Beginning A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. 6 As obvious as Aristotles definition may be, many overlook its implications for narrative selfcontainment. Blocking The staging of the actors in the scene. Blueprint Stage The stage of readership at which the screenplay serves its intended purpose, instructing a crew of artists and technicians in the shaping of a feature film. As Claudia Sternberg writes, The blueprint is the classic metaphor used to characterize the function and the significance of the screenplay during the production process. 7 Bone Structure Lajos Egris terminology for the physiological, psychological, and sociological makeup of a character, what Robert McKee might call Characterization. Catharsis An oft misunderstood and misrepresented concept from Aristotles Poetics, Catharsis has possibly been given more consideration in the study of dramatic narrative than perhaps Aristotle intended. Variably translated as purification or purgation, Catharsis is probably best understood as the release of excess emotion that some viewers experience when observing a tragic performance. It is important to understand that Catharsis is not the catch-all purpose of drama for Aristotle that some would have you believe. It is rather one possible benefit for those people who suffer from excess emotion.8 Central Producer System A system of management in the Hollywood mode of production. In the Central Producer System, creative power shifted from directors to a central producer who used the continuity script to control production activity. Chain of title Establishes the sequential history of ownership transfers for a particular property, in this case a screenplay. Character Character can be succinctly defined as storyworld participants.9 This definition, while succinct, doesnt offer much in the way of precision. TRUE CHARACTER, writes McKee, is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure,10 or as Mamet puts it, They always talk about the character out there in Hollywood, and the fact is there is no such thing. It doesnt exist. The character is just

habitual action. Character is exactly what the person literally does in pursuit of the superobjective.11 This abstract understanding of character as action is sacrosanct among screenwriters but difficult to process from an analytical perspective. For broader purposes, a character can be defined as a non-actual storyworld existent who causes or experiences change through dramatic action. Character Arc The change experienced by a character within a given narrative discourse. Characterization Defined by McKee as the sum of all observable qualities of a human being, everything knowable through careful scrutiny,12 characterization is synonymous with what Lajos Egri terms bone structure, or a characters physiolo gical, sociological, and psychological makeup.13 While Mamet and McKee minimize the relevance of characterization in favor of action, Egri argues that an understanding of the whole person is essential to determining the motivations behind actions. Without knowledge of these three dimensions we cannot appraise a human being. 14 Climax Climax seems to be a term that has fallen out of favor with the leading screenwriting gurus. Syd Field refers to it only tangentially in his Screenplay: the Foundations of Screenwriting, and David Trottier prefers the somewhat sillier term, the showdown in his Screenwriters Bible.15 McKee discusses the climax but doesnt much define it except to say that it brings about absolute and irreversible change. 16 In her four equal parts conception of screenplay structure, Kristin Thompson refers to the fourth act as the climax, in which the action shifts into a straightforward progress toward the final resolution, typically building steadily toward a concentrated sequence of high action.17 Interestingly, this concentrated sequence of high action comes closest to the traditional understanding of climax in classical dramatic structure: that of highest tension in a narrative. Writes Gustav Freytag: the climax . . . is the most important place of the structure; the action rises to this; the action falls away from this.18 Color pages Revised pages of a shooting script are printed on colored sheets of paper during production in order to track changes. Complication Defined by Aristotle as everything from the beginning up to and including the section which immediately precedes the change to good fortune or bad fortune, complication is the steady build of dramatic tension to the point of climax and resolution.19 In many screenplays, it often takes the form of a series of solutions to problems that only beget larger problems until the final solution is found (e.g. In Jurassic Park, resetting the parks electrical systems has the unintended consequence of setting the raptors free, which makes matters worse). Conflict The straight forward clash of desires and obstacles, dramatic conflict is the essential ingredient of narrative. Conflict can come in the form of an external desire blocked by an external obstacle (e.g. humanitys need to overcome an alien enemy in Independence Day) or an internal desire blocked only by the neurosis of the self (e.g. Charlie Kaufmans need to evolve beyond his own self-condemnation in Adaptation). Confrontation The second act in Syd Fields Paradigm, its ideal length is approximately 60 pages, and it contains both the second Plot Point at or around page 85 and the screenplays Mid-Point at or around page 60, or half-way through the script. 20

Consider The maybe grade in studio script coverage. Content Film content, writes Margaret Mehring, is what the screenwriter wants to say and the structure within which it is said. Its the story to be told, the characters to be met, the places to go, and the theme to be communicated.21 A nebulous concept usually discussed in dichotomy with form, content refers to the what that is transmitted by the how. In other words, a screenplay may be said to contain virtually identical content with the motion picture produced from that screenplay, but the script and the film transmit this information through drastically different forms: the script through language typed onto paper, the film through images exposed onto celluloid. Of course, this raises questions as to whether two such forms really share the same content at all, since both the screenplay and the movie will no doubt contain an excess of information exclusive to its particular form (for instance, language metaphors in the screenplay and human performances in the movie). Continuity (in film production) In film production, the script supervisor is in charge of tracking continuity from shot to shot and take to take. In this sense, continuity is the illusion that a motion picture presents a single cohesive reality rather than a series of differing performances cobbled together in the editing room. The script supervisor will track gestures, facial expressions, prop placement, the condition of wardrobe and hair, and numerous other factors to ensure the illusion of continuity. Continuity Script A precursor to the contemporary screenplay. This early shootings script was invented by Thomas Harper Ince in the 1910s as the first form of scripting capable of governing both visual continuity and budgetary fidelity. Controlling Idea According to Robert McKee, A CONTROLLING IDEA may be expressed in a single sentence describing how and why life undergoes change from one condition of existence at the beginning to another at the end.22 It builds on Lajos Egris concept of the Premise and adds an if, when, or because to it. (e.g. Great love conquers even death WHEN lovers sacrifice their own self-interest.) Copyright An authors rights of ownership, i.e. the right to copy, sell, and distribute a work of art. When screenwriters sell their works, they also sell their copyright to the studio that purchases said script. This is in contrast to novelists who retain their copyright, even when a publisher purchases the manuscript. Coverage A system of screenplay evaluation within the studio system. Screenplays are read, summarized, and critiqued, often graded on such elements as plot and dialogue, and given a final determination of pass (rejection), consider, or recommend. Dnouement While literally translated as unraveling the knot, denouement is best understood by contemporary readers as the tying up of loose ends in the plot. In classical five-part story structure, this follows the falling action. The brief epilogue described by McKee23 and Thompson24 in their respective plot models for screenwriting is a good example of the denouement (e.g. at the end of Back to the Future, Marty wakes up to discover that the lives of everyone in his family have improved as a result of his time-traveling adventures). Description One of Claudia Sternbergs five modes of presentation in the scene text of the screenplay, description is comprised of detailed sections about production

design in addition to economical slug-line reductions.25 It may also be understood as the filmable imagery contained within the scene text. Development The first stage of industrial movie-making, development precedes preproduction. During this stage, a script may go through multiple re-writes and screenwriter re-assignments before a studio feel comfortable committing to the project. Dialogue The lines in the script intended to be spoken by the actors. Discourse Time The duration of the telling of a story. In the case of a feature film, its running time. In the case of a screenplay, the time it takes a person to read it. Elements (in production breakdown) In a production breakdown, a script is thoroughly read and labeled for such elements as cast members, props, set designs, costumes, animals, etc. An element, then, is any unique factor that might affect the budget of a feature film. Elements (in script evaluation) In studio script coverage, a reader will often track specific characteristics that might make the film more marketable. These are sometimes referred to as elements. Elevator Pitch A 30-second story pitch. Emotional Display The term Claudia Sternberg uses to identify a spontaneous physical expression for momentary psychological moods, or non-verbal behavioral cues that exhibit only temporary emotional states.26 Empiricist Method Janet Staiger defines this method of genre classification as follows: determine from empirical observation the necessary and sufficient characteristics to include a film in the category.3 End An end . . . is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it.28 Event A moment in which change takes place. This may take the form of an internal event, in which the protagonist experiences a change in desire or disposition, or it may take the form of an external event, in which the protagonist experiences a change in fortune. Either way, there can be no event without change. Exposition Syd Field defines exposition as the information needed to move the story forward.29 Robert McKee seems to echo Field: Exposition means facts the information about setting, biography, and characterization that the audience needs to know to follow and comprehend the events of the story.30 EXT. The abbreviation for exterior in the slug-line of a scene, meaning that the scene is set outside. This usually means the scene will also be shot outside, though it is entirely possible that the scene will be shot on a stage dressed to look like an exterior location. External Focalization In external focalization, narrative information is limited to a heterodiegetic narrators perception and excludes internal observations or states of mind. Externalizer The term Claudia Sternberg uses to identify information about stable dispositions, opinions, attitudes, features and interpersonal relations beyond their temporary state, or non-verbal behavioral cues that exhibit permanent emotional states.31

Fabula Coined by Russian formalists, fabula is a term sometimes used in narratology to describe the raw facts and events of the storyworld of a given narrative as understood in chronological order, or the unplotted story. When engaging a narrative, particularly one that is non-linear, audiences mentally re-arrange the facts and events of the narrative as presented in the sjuzhet to fabricate a fabula in their imaginations and therefore understand the chronology of the narrative. Filmic Composition Device (FCD) A term coined by Manfred Jahn to define the narrating agent of a motion picture. If the narrating agent of an oral story is the narrating storyteller, then the narrating agent of a motion picture is everything that makes up a motion picture: the camera, the soundtrack, the performances, the editing, etc. The FCD is the hypothetical narrator comprised of all these elements. Focalization Limits the narrative information available to the reader through the perceptions of a focalizer or reflector. The reflector may be the narrator or a character in the narrative. Form Form, in contrast to content, is the term we use to single out the distinct attributes of a given narrative medium, the how that transmits the what of content. Film form, writes Margaret Mehring, articulates the uniqueness of the motion picture medium the moving and audible image.32 The screenplay is unique in that it is a literary form that both points toward and defers to another medium, that of the motion picture. The screenwriter must evoke the moving and audible image of film form through typed words. Formalized Non-Verbal Behavior In contrast to naturalistic non-verbal behavior, formalized non-verbal behavior is the use of unnatural, exaggerated body language for dramatic or comedic effect.33 Genre A loose set of formal, tonal, or thematic conventions used for categorizing narrative works of art, including screenplays. Hamartia Long mistranslated as the tragic flaw that illustrates a particular characters moral defect, it is better understood as a simple miscalculation, literally missing the mark. Aristotle argues that the most effective tragedy results from a good characters error in judgment. Haptics Non-verbal communication through touch behavior. Heros Journey A common description of Joseph Campbells monomyth cycle. Idealist Method Janet Staiger defines this method of genre classification as follows: find a film and judge other films against the pattern and conventions in that film. 3 Imagery May refer to either word symbols or picture symbols that appear in the screenplay. Screenwriters can evoke non-filmable imagery through use of such literary tropes as simile and metaphor in their writing. While these images may enrich the reading experience, they will be lost in the motion picture. On the other hand, screenwriters can also create literal images with multiple levels of meaning (e.g. in sex, lies and videotape, Grahams one key represents his inability to commit and become intimate with another person).

Information Dump The act of inserting chunks of exposition unnaturally into dialogue without dramatic motivation. INT. The abbreviation for interior in the slug-line of a scene, meaning that the scene is set inside. Internal Focalization In internal focalization (sometimes called character-bound focalization), narrative information is limited to the perceptions of story-internal reflectors (including homodiegetic narrators). Internal focalization may grant the reader access to a reflectors online perceptions (what is presently observed through the senses) or offline perceptions (dreams, memories, and hallucinations). Iteration an event that occurs multiple times in story time but is delivered only once in the discourse, with the one example standing in for the pattern. Kinesics Non-verbal communication through body language and facial expressions, including gestures, glance, and eye contact. Leave-behind A document created by a writer as a companion to a formal pitch, usually including at least a brief synopsis of the pitched story. Linear Presented in chronological order. Literary Comment Passages or parts of sentences which explain, interpret or add to the clearly visible and audible elements of the screenplay through such non -filmable images as simile and metaphor.35 Logline A one sentence screenplay pitch that boils down the plot to its most essential elements. Magnitude A somewhat archaic concept from Aristotle, it nevertheless has useful implications for the screenwriter. Aristotle argued that in order for something to be beautiful it could neither be too small (since it would be imperceptible) nor too large (since one could not take in the whole). Anyone who has seen a photograph taken through an electron microscope or seen documentary footage of the blue whale knows this is nonsense. However, the spirit of Aristotles argument remains alive today. A screenwriter needs to carefully consider the magnitude of his narrative. While some epic scripts need to exceed 120 pages, most screenplays will benefit from cutting excessive pages. A screenwriter must keep a sober mind when evaluating the magnitude of his or her screenplay. Master scene format The standard screenwriting format in Hollywood, it eschews shot-by-shot details in favor of telling the story from the perspective of the master shot. Middle . . . that which follows something as some other thing follows it. 36 It is important to note that the beginning, middle, and end of a narrative (sjuzhet) is not necessarily synonymous with the beginning, middle, and end of the story being narrated (fabula). In fact, it is often best to begin the narrative in media res into the middle of the story. Mid-Point In Syd Fields Paradigm, the Mid-Point is an important scene that usually takes place half-way through the screenplay (about page 60), which of course, is also the half-way point of Act II. In fact, Field never really defines the mid-point with much

detail except to say that it connects the two halves of the lengthy second act. How that link differs from all the other links that make up the dramatic chain of events remains unclear, writes Kristin Thompson in her critique of the three-act Paradigm. In response to this lack of clarity, Thompson posits her Four Large-Scale Parts structure model, in which Fields Mid-Point becomes the major turning point between the complicating action and the development.37 Mise-en-scene Setting into the scene. Involves the placement of all elements before the camera, including staging of the actors, choice of locations, production design, lighting, wardrobe, and makeup. Monomyth Joseph Campbells description of the common mythological story cycle he perceived to be universally present in the sacred narratives of every human tradition. Montage (in editing theory) Combining two uninflected images through editing to create meaning. Montage (in script terminology) More or less interchangeable with the term SERIES OF SHOTS, a montage indicates a sequence of brief shots expressing some idea (for instance, the passage of time), usually set to music. At one time, the MONTAGE cue was distinct from the SERIES OF SHOTS cut, in that montage indicated several images superimposed on one another simultaneously, such as in the opening of Apocalypse Now, but this convention is no longer observed.38 Motion The quintessential characteristic of film form is motion: the movement of the celluloid strip through the camera gate in analog film production; the movement of the camera (panning, tilting, booming, dollying, trucking, craning, and the free-form movements of the handheld or steadicam shot); the movement of the actors through the set, as well as their gestures and eye movements; and the movement of the spectators eye as he shifts his gaze from one object of interest in the composition to another. Screenwriters can evoke such motion through explicit or implicit cues. Motivation Refers to a characters objective or need. If an actor does not understand why the script calls for a certain behavior from his character, he may ask the director for his motivation, the objective or need that drives the character to the action in question. MOS A take without sound. No one knows for sure where the abbreviation originated, but legend attributes it to a German director whose broken English enunciated the phrase mit out sound. Narrative A series of logically and chronologically related events caused or experienced by characters and presented as a whole, unified action. Narrative Cinema Motion pictures that adhere to the rules of narrative logic (as opposed to experimental or avant garde cinema). Narratology The academic study of narrative structures. Narration The presentation of a narrative. Narration may be understood in two different senses. In the broader sense, all narratives are presented, and therefore, all narratives are narrated. In a more specific sense, narration (diegesis) may be understood as the literal telling of a story by a specific narrator (such as with an oral

story or a novel), in contrast to performance (mimesis), which is the process of showing a story by acting it out. Narrator The person, group, or device that narrates. Narrators may be homodiegetic (participants in the events being narrated) or heterodiegetic (non-participants in the events being narrated). In motion pictures, the narrator is the entire industrial apparatus of feature filmmaking: the edited image and soundtrack. Naturalistic Non-Verbal Behavior In contrast to formalized non-verbal behaviors, naturalistic non-verbal behaviors strive for authenticity in their rendering.39 This is especially consequential when a screenwriter tackles another ethnic or culture group whose customs must be meticulously studied for verisimilitude. Non-linear Presented out of chronological order. Non-narrative Cinema Motion pictures that do not adhere to the rules of narrative logic (such experimental or avant garde cinema). Non-recurring phenomenon William Goldmans term for a financially successful feature whose success cannot be explained by predictable Hollywood marketing logic. What it means, of course, is this: It was a freak, a fluke, a once -in-a-lifetime occurance.40 A non-recurring phenomenon is typically a character-driven, slice-of-life film, often with smaller stars in the lead roles. Non-verbal behavior Includes every element of body language as a method of communication, including kinesics, haptics, and proxemics. Objective What a character hopes to accomplish. Obstacle Anything blocking a character from achieving his or her objective. Option When a studio buys an option on a screenplay, they are basically calling dibs, reserving the right to purchase the screenplay in-full at a later date. This allows them to make a small investment in the picture as they determine the feasibility of the project. Options typically last for one to two years. If the studio does not exercise their option in that time frame, the option expires, and the writer is free to sell the screenplay to a rival studio. O.S. Dialogue that is spoken off screen by a character present at the current location. Also sometimes O.C. for off camera. Package When agents use their considerable clout to attach stars (and sometimes a director) to a particular screenplay before it has been greenlit. Package-Unit System A system of management in the Hollywood mode of production. After the collapse of the studios, creative and budgetary power over individual productions shifted away from a central producer to freelance producers. Each producer needed to put together a package in order to produce the film. Paradigm Syd Fields three-act model for screenplay structure at 1/4 1/2 1/4 proportions. Parenthetical Direction Dialogue cues that offer clarification of a line reading. These are usually unnecessary and often ignored by actors. Pass A no grade in studio script coverage, as in were going to pass on this script.

Pay-Off The answer to a set-up. Because screenwriting is a craft of economy, readers will assume that any seemingly extraneous information planted by the screenwriter is in fact an important plot seed that will be developed later in the script. If the thread is never followed, the reader will likely be disappointed. Perspective The point-of-view of a given narrative or narrative sequence, as in through whose eyes and mental capacity will we view this event? Pitch A sales summary of a screenplays story, usually spoken in a limited time -frame. Plot Primarily the sequencing and organization of a storys events. Plot Point In Syd Fields three-act structure Paradigm, a Plot Point is defined as any incident, episode, or event that hooks into the action and spins it around in another direction,41 or essentially what Aristotle called reversals. According to Field, each screenplay must have two plot points, one near the end of Act I and one near the end of Act II. POV A point-of-view shot, or a camera angle that presents the frame of view from the first-person perspective of one of the films characters. Premise Lajos Egris term for a particular formation of the theme. For Egri, the Premise is the screenplays purpose, its reason for being written. The writer writes because he hopes to prove something to be true through dramatic action. For this reason, we will define Premise as a statement of belief about what will result from a particular Universal Value placed into conflict. Production Breakdown The Production Manager reads through the shooting script, highlighting all of its important elements, and categorizes each of those elements by scene. This is the first step in both the scheduling and budgeting of a feature film. Property Stage The first stage of readership for the screenplay, during which studio executives, story editors, and agents all evaluate its qualities as a property or commodity and its saleability.42 Protagonist The primary and central character of a narrative, its driving force, and the person with whom the audience usually shares the most empathy as he or she sets out to achieve a particular objective. Proxemics Non-verbal behavior related to spatial relationships. Rainbow Script A shooting script with lots of revised pages. Reading Material Stage The final stage of readership for the screenplay, after it has outlived its usefulness as a production document. Here it belongs to the casual or scholarly reader to be enjoyed or analyzed as a piece of literature. Recognition . . . as the name indicates, is a change from ignorance to knowledge, writes Aristotle,43 or more specifically, the moment(s) in the screenplay in which a character learns a pivotal piece of information that reverses his or her path of action. Recommend The best grade in studio script coverage. Reflector Or focalizer: the focalizing agent of a narrative, or the character/narrator whose perspective anchors and limits the narration. Rehearsal Method Judith Westons approach to script analysis.44 Release Script The Release Script has changes that reflect the final version of the movie (for instance ad libbed lines, added or omitted scenes, etc.).

Repetition An event that occurs only once in story time that is delivered multiple times in discourse time, usually from different perspectives with new information conveyed each time. Report One of Claudia Sternbergs five modes of presentation in the scene text of the screenplay, report is the active mode of the screenplay and is typified by events and their temporal sequence and generally centers on the actions of human beings. 45 Resolution The word Resolution is used by different writers in different ways. In Syd Fields Paradigm, it is the entire third act. For Robert McKee, on the other hand, Resolution is any material left after the Climax46 of the third act and refers to the brief (two-page) epilogue at the end of the screenplay. Aristotle defines the Resolution as everything from the beginning of the change of fortune to the end. 47 For our purposes, it will suffice to agree that Resolution calls for the problems of the plot to be resolved at the end of the dramatic action. Result-Oriented Direction Directing an actor with adjectives instead of verbs. In most cases, directing an actor to be angry at a given moment will result in the actor forcing a false emotion through exaggerated expressions. Most actors prefer direction that gives them something to do rather than something to feel. Result-oriented direction should be avoided wherever possible. This relates to screenwriting in that most parenthetical dialogue directions have the same effect as result-oriented direction and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Reversal . . . is a change by which the action veers round to its opposite, subject always to our rule of probability or necessity.48 Dramatic action is built on reversals of fortune for the protagonist as he encounters obstacles that thwart his objective. Scenario An early form of script used as a narrative guide during the silent era of cinema. The scenario was typified as a list of shots, with each shot covering an entire scene. Scripting Writing for the screen. Script Supervisor Tracks continuity and coverage during feature film production. Screenplay by Credit The screen credit awarded a writer when the story-by credit has be given to someone else or when the screenplay is an adaptation of an existing work. Set-Up A piece of subtle plot exposition that is planted at one point in the screenplay to be paid-off at a later point (e.g. In Back to the Future, the woman collecting donations to save the clock tower at first appears to have nothing to do with the central plot of the film; however, her flyer regarding the lightening strike is paid-off when Doc and Marty realize they can harness the lightening to send Marty back to the future). The Setup is also Kristin Thompsons term for the first segment in her Four Large-Scale Parts structure model. Series of Shots A sequence of short successive shots used to cover the passage of time or quickly convey a series of actions that do not require full-scale scenes with dialogue.

Shooting Script A screenplay green-lit for production, including scene numbers, often with added descriptions and technical direction, and color-coded to track revisions. Shot The smallest unit of action in a motion picture. Shooting scripts will sometimes make explicit reference to specific shots, otherwise screenplays usually leave shot design to the director. If a shot is included in a technical comment, it is typed in all caps (e.g. CLOSEUP ON, MEDIUM SHOT, etc.). Sides Short segments of the screenplay, usually printed two-up and cut to save paper and ink, offered to actors, either for audition purposes or on set to rehearse the days scenes to be shot. Singularity an event that happens once in story time and is delivered only once in discourse time. Slug-line The term for scene headings in the screenplay. Slug-lines 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). Social Conventions Method Janet Staiger defines this method of genre classification as follows: use cultural expectations to categorize the text.3 Spec Script An original screenplay written on speculation to be sold on the open market. It generally avoids excessive scene description or technical direction in order to read as accessibly and concisely as possible. Spine Refers to the unified action of the Aristotelian ideal. The spine is the primary thread of dramatic action that connects the structure of the entire screenplay. One conception of the story spine comes from playwright Kenn Adams, who conceived it as a basic fairytale pattern of sentence fragments for which a writer need only fill in the blanks.50 His five stage model of the story spine boils down the plot of a given narrative to its most essential events. Stages of Readership Claudia Sternbergs description of the three periods during which a screenplay may be read. They are the Property Stage, the Blueprint Stage, and the Reading Material Stage. Staging The placement and choreography of various elements before the camera (the mise-en-scine). The staging of actors is called blocking. Stereotype A common personality clichs or cultural caricature substituting for real character. Story Any chronological sequence of events experienced or observed by a character. Essentially a collection of facts true to the storyworld, synonymous to the concept of the Fabula. Story by Credit The screen credit awarded when the basic narrative structure was originally conceived with intent to be used for a movie (as opposed to a short story) but the actual screenplay had different authors. A shared story by credit is the minimum awarded to the author of an original screenplay that has been substantially re-written by other authors. Story Time The duration of the storyworld events narrated in the screenplay.

Structure Facets of screenplay structure include but are not limited to perspective/focalization, organization/sequencing, rhythm/pacing, duration, and dramatic conflict, but more often than not, structure refers to plotting. Subtext Language is what we say with our words, and subtext is what we really say, with our body language, with the tone of our voice, with our eyes and expression. 51 It is the life under that surface thoughts and feelings both known and unknown, hidden by behavior.52 Subtext, then, is not stated in the words, but it is the pulse beating beneath those words; it is the unexpressed subconscious life that brings size and weight to your writing.53 Super-Objective Sometimes called the through-line, the Super-Objective is the overarching goal of the protagonist that governs his or her actions from the beginning of the script to the end. A character may have any number of objectives in an individual scene, but each objective must fit within the Super-Objective that ties the script together. It is the unity of desire that drives the unity of action that is the spine of the plot. Synopsis A selling document that summarizes a screenplay in a short, concise fashion. In the earliest days of cinema, short synopses were also used as a primitive form of script. Syuzhet Coined by Russian formalists, syuzhet is a term used in narratology to describe the plotted presentation of the story or the narrative discourse. Table Read A meeting at which the entire screenplay is read aloud, usually by the cast members. Tagline In contrast to the logline, which always summarizes the plot of the script, a tagline may pitch the concept of the screenplay in a clever slogan or catch-phrase. Technical Comment One of Claudia Sternbergs five modes of presentation in the scene text of the screenplay, technical comment refers to any explicit instructions for the crew, such as shot or sound cues, usually typed in CAPS. Theme Any value statement that motivates and/or shapes a narrative. Three-act Structure The classic conception of screenplay structure as consisting of three large-scale segments of action. Syd Fields Paradigm is the most famous account of this structure, but alternative examples exist. While the three-act principle is virtually sacrosanct in Hollywood, there is actually little inductive evidence that demonstrates this is actually how screenplays work. In fact, attempts at following the three-act model have long frustrated screenwriters, particularly as they struggle with the ill-defined functions of the second act.54 Transcript A script transcribed from watching the completed motion picture. Treatment A working document that summarizes each scene of the screenplay in some detail, usually without much in the way of dialogue. Turning Point A moment of reversal or recognition in the screenplay. Unity Connected by probability and necessity (causality). Aristotle argues that unity of action, not character, must drive the construction of the plot. From this principle others have derived the concepts of the Super-Objective and the Spine. The well-

constructed plot centers on the necessary and probable actions of the protagonist in pursuit of a single unflinching desire.

Value An issue central to human existence, encapsulated in one abstract word (e.g. love, truth). Thematic conflict is built around the opposition of one value against another. Verisimilitude Believability or realism. Vertical Writing Refers to a stylistic trait common to most screenplays in contrast to literary prose. Screenwriters typically avoid large chunks of scene text and instead write in very short paragraphs, moving the action down the page with lots of white space. This increases readability and helps maintain the page-per-minute rule. V.O. Voice-over, used when a character speaks while not present at the location, as in voice-over narration or a telephone call. WGA Writers Guild of America. WGA Registration A service offered by the Writers Guild that serves as a kind of proof of authorship. This is not as beneficial as a registered copyright, but it is cheaper. Whole A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end. 55 Written by Credit The screen credit awarded if there is no source material (novel, play, article, etc.) and the same writers receive credit for both the story and screenplay.

Footnotes: 1. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 41. 2. Thompson, Kristin. Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999. 3. Staiger, Janet. Hybrid or Inbred: The Purity Hypothesis and Hollywood Genre History. Film Genre Reader III. Edited by Barry Keith Grant. Austin: U of Texas P, 2003. Pg. 187. 4. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 37. 5. Weston, Judith. The Film Directors Intuition: Script Analysis and Rehearsal Techniques. Saline, MI: McNaughton & Gunn, 2003. Pg. 114. 6. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by S. H. Butcher for The Internet Classics Archive. Accessed on 2 April 2010. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html. 7. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 50. 8. Heath, Malcolm. Introduction to Poetics, by Aristotle. London: Penguin, 1996. Pgs. xxxvii-xliii. 9. Margolin, Uri. Character. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Edited by David Herman. NY: Cambridge UP, 2009. Pg. 66. 10. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 101. 11. Mamet, David. On Directing Film. NY: Penguin, 1992. Pg. 13.

12. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 100. 13. Egri, Lajos. The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1960. Pgs. 32-43. 14. Egri, Lajos. The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1960. Pgs. 33. 15. Trottier, David. The Screenwriters Bible: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script. 4th Ed. Los Angeles: Silman-James, 2005. Pg. 19. 16. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 42. 17. Thompson, Kristen. Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. Pg. 29. 18. Freytag, Gustav. Technique of the Drama: An Exposition of Dramatic Composition and Art. Chicago: S.C. Griggs & Co., 1895. Pg. 105. 19. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by Heath, Malcolm. London: Penguin, 1996. Pg. 29. 20. Field, Syd. Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. NY: Delta, 2005. Pgs. 24-25. 21. Mehring, Margaret. The Screenplay: A Blend of Film Form and Content. Boston: Focal Press, 1990. Pg. 3. 22. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg.115. 23. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg.219 24. Thompson, Kristin. Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001. Pg. 28. 25. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 71. 26. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 117. 27. Staiger, Janet. Hybrid or Inbred: The Purity Hypothesis and Hollywood Genre History. Film Genre Reader III. Edited by Barry Keith Grant. Austin: U of Texas P, 2003. Pg. 187. 28. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by S. H. Butcher for The Internet Classics Archive. Accessed on 2 April 2010. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html. 29. Field, Syd. Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. NY: Delta, 2005. Pg. 152. 30. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 334. 31. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 117. 32. Mehring, Margaret. The Screenplay: A Blend of Film Form and Content. Boston: Focal Press, 1990. Pg. 2. 33. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 126. 34. Staiger, Janet. Hybrid or Inbred: The Purity Hypothesis and Hollywood Genre History. Film Genre Reader III. Edited by Barry Keith Grant. Austin: U of Texas P, 2003. Pg. 187.

35. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 73. 36. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by S. H. Butcher for The Internet Classics Archive. Accessed on 2 April 2010. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html 37. Thompson, Kristin. Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999. Pg. 31. 38. Cole Jr., Hillis R. and Haag, Judith H. The Complete Guide to Standard Script Formats. North Hollywood: CMC Publishing, 2000. Pg. 41. 39. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 126. 40. Goldman, William. Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting. NY: Warner Books, 1983. Pg. 50. 41. Field, Syd. Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. NY: Delta, 2005. Pg. 26. Italics his. 42. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 48. 43. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by S. H. Butcher for The Internet Classics Archive. Accessed on 29 July 2010. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html. 44. Weston, Judith. The Film Directors Intuition: Script Analysis and Rehearsal Techniques. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2003. 45. Sternberg, Claudia. Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text. Tbingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1997. Pg. 71. 46. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 312. 47. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by Heath, Malcolm. London: Penguin, 1996. Pg. 29. 48. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by S. H. Butcher for The Internet Classics Archive. Accessed on 29 July 2010. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html. 49. Staiger, Janet. Hybrid or Inbred: The Purity Hypothesis and Hollywood Genre History. Film Genre Reader III. Edited by Barry Keith Grant. Austin: U of Texas P, 2003. Pg. 187. 50. Ohler, Jason. Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning, and Creativity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2008. Pgs. 120-122. 51. Weston, Judith. The Film Directors Intuition: Script Analysis and Rehearsal Techniques. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2003. Pg. 85. 52. McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. NY: Regan, 1997. Pg. 252. 53. Goldman, William. Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting. NY: Warner Books, 1983. Pg. 125. 54. Thompson, Kristin. Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999. Pgs. 24-27. 55. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by S. H. Butcher for The Internet Classics Archive. Accessed on 29 July 2010. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html.