Alternative Screenwriting
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General
Course Long Title
Alternative Screenwriting
Subject Code
FPFV
Course Number
472
School(s)
Academic Level
UG - Undergraduate
Description
Alternative Screenwriting
What's in a script? This workshop will explore the relationship between form and subject as a springboard to examine and experiment with the possibilities of the screenplay format. In the first part of the course, we will analyze different short films and documentaries next to their original screenplays. We will look at narrative film, artist cinema, feminist and queer video and text, experimental film, avant-garde performance, sound and visual-art scores, filmmaking that de-centers Hollywood, and traditional and hybrid documentary-work (i.e., that which dwells in both fiction and nonfiction), considering both script and screenplay format, but also the incorporation of other disciplines into our own writing--whether for the "industry," such as it is, or for a greater artistic vision.
We will read scripts, treatments, production notebooks, theory, artist writings, poetry, plays, and other texts from Luis Bunuel, Maya Deren, Robert Bresson, Raul Ruiz, Cauleen Smith, Noor Abed, Julie Dash, Anocha Suwichakornpong, Chantal Akerman, Annette Michelson, Kathleen Collins, Josephine Decker, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Jill Godmilow, Martine Syms, Iva Radivojevic, Kathy Acker + Bette Gordon, Babette Mangolte, Atom Egoyan, Sara Gomez, Charles Burnett, Harun Farocki, and Straub & Huillet. We will consider process films, documentary "writing," adaptation, rehearsal, improvisation, theatricality, and hybridity.
Interwoven into the course is a serious writing workshop. Students will develop an idea into a story (whether linear or nonlinear, documentary, experimental, etc.) that will be the basis for a longer script. We will also look at how production research intersects with creative practice, and how the research and defining of scenes before a shoot can help construct a film out of real experience.
In workshop, students can expect to: 1) participate in weekly in-class writing and at-home exercises; 2) develop constructive-feedback strategies; 3) leave egos at the door and be willing to share, read, watch, and listen generously; and 4) learn to close-read scripts, transcripts, scores, essays, and journal entries by artists and screenwriters. And of course, we'll consider what's fundamental: language, action, experience, environment, emotion, character, and context. Writing prompts will be handed out weekly. Final project will be a 20-page script, which will be workshopped by peers and instructor over the course of two or more class sessions.
What's in a script? This workshop will explore the relationship between form and subject as a springboard to examine and experiment with the possibilities of the screenplay format. In the first part of the course, we will analyze different short films and documentaries next to their original screenplays. We will look at narrative film, artist cinema, feminist and queer video and text, experimental film, avant-garde performance, sound and visual-art scores, filmmaking that de-centers Hollywood, and traditional and hybrid documentary-work (i.e., that which dwells in both fiction and nonfiction), considering both script and screenplay format, but also the incorporation of other disciplines into our own writing--whether for the "industry," such as it is, or for a greater artistic vision.
We will read scripts, treatments, production notebooks, theory, artist writings, poetry, plays, and other texts from Luis Bunuel, Maya Deren, Robert Bresson, Raul Ruiz, Cauleen Smith, Noor Abed, Julie Dash, Anocha Suwichakornpong, Chantal Akerman, Annette Michelson, Kathleen Collins, Josephine Decker, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Jill Godmilow, Martine Syms, Iva Radivojevic, Kathy Acker + Bette Gordon, Babette Mangolte, Atom Egoyan, Sara Gomez, Charles Burnett, Harun Farocki, and Straub & Huillet. We will consider process films, documentary "writing," adaptation, rehearsal, improvisation, theatricality, and hybridity.
Interwoven into the course is a serious writing workshop. Students will develop an idea into a story (whether linear or nonlinear, documentary, experimental, etc.) that will be the basis for a longer script. We will also look at how production research intersects with creative practice, and how the research and defining of scenes before a shoot can help construct a film out of real experience.
In workshop, students can expect to: 1) participate in weekly in-class writing and at-home exercises; 2) develop constructive-feedback strategies; 3) leave egos at the door and be willing to share, read, watch, and listen generously; and 4) learn to close-read scripts, transcripts, scores, essays, and journal entries by artists and screenwriters. And of course, we'll consider what's fundamental: language, action, experience, environment, emotion, character, and context. Writing prompts will be handed out weekly. Final project will be a 20-page script, which will be workshopped by peers and instructor over the course of two or more class sessions.