Journal of Screenwriting - Volume 11, Issue 2, 2020

In Deaf¹ film and television, modest production budgets and limited training opportunities present considerable challenges for emerging screenwriting talent. This article argues that orthodox approaches to developing screenplays must be expanded when working in this context. The analysis focuses on an individual case study: the development of a half-hour television drama between a professional hearing script editor and a novice Deaf screenwriter. The article discusses the creative and cultural complexity of the editor–writer relationship, drawing on Schon’s ‘reflective practitioner’ concept, Ladd’s analysis of Deaf culture, Gramsci’s elaboration of the subaltern and the theories of Bourdieu, Foucault and Freire. More specifically, Macdonald’s Screen Idea Work Group is employed to explore the dialogical process of shared creation, which expands out to include production team, actors and interpreters via a uniquely adapted ‘table read’ situated at the heart of the development process. Reflecting on the value of this powerful encounter, the aim of the study is to address a gap in knowledge about this practice phenomenon and to contribute to Deaf filmmaking practice by proposing an original methodology. Overall, it is contended that greater investment is required to develop assured screenwriting voices to serve Deaf film and television audiences.

Drawing on teaching sessions that I conducted last year, alongside my own practice-based doctoral research in narrative or cinematic VR (CVR) predicated on the Deleuzian notion of immanence, I propose that the CVR screenplay is better understood as a moebius strip than a linear narrative; a tale that turns around on itself. But far from being unorientable like its mathematical paradigm, the moebius narrative can be both oriented and scripted, as I hope to illustrate using student work as well as my own script iterations. Taking it to be both a model and a metaphor, this article explores how a moebius narrative can be designed – and why design thinking is more suitable for this process than traditional screenwriting methods. While still an understanding-in-progress, I find this conceptual framework useful for both practice and pedagogy. This article hopes additionally, therefore, to make a case for pedagogy as a research method in its own right, especially in the context of practice-based research.

The American political thriller, from its cinematic beginnings in the 1960s until its most recent period of popularity in the late 2000s and the early 2010s, has consistently displayed two salient characteristics: on an extra-textual level, it tends to keep a close relationship with the (geo)political environment at the time of production, with themes that resonate with the cultural moment, sometimes even referencing current events, and frequently challenging traditionally upheld American values with mistrustful attitudes towards the State, its institutions, the military and a suspect corporate establishment. On the other hand, the textual configuration of these films reveals a certain nonconformity with the traditionally dominant narrative-aesthetic norms of Hollywood cinema, featuring reactive agency in its protagonists, an unusual degree of subjectivity in its narration and a remarkable degree of ambiguity in the dramatic resolutions of some storylines. These formal features enhance the thematic concerns and cinematic worldview of the political thriller genre, both creating and exploiting perplexity and paranoia in the audience, through highly demanding narratives that remove the feeling of control from the viewer, and with a specific political intent that becomes exceptionally effective thanks to its entertainment value. The works analysed to illustrate this trend covers theatrically released Hollywood films of the genre from 2001 until the present day, with special attention on the impact of 9/11 and the War on Terror in their narrative premises and themes.

In the last decade, the television landscape has drastically transformed with the digitalization of the medium. Subscription video on demand platforms have started to produce original content and as such, are changing distribution and consumption patterns of contemporary TV series. Netflix, one of the main platforms that instigated this change, has systematically produced original drama and comedy content indented for binge-watching. The Haunting of Hill House is a recent example of these Netflix original miniseries. In this article, I analyse the overarching story of the series and argue that the structure of the narrative works more like a long-form film rather than a TV series. In doing so, I comment on the nature of television drama writing in this new binge-watching era.

Review of: Fade in, Crossroads: A History of the Southern Cinema, Robert Jackson (2017)

New York: Oxford University Press, 344 pp.,

ISBN 978-0-19066-018-5, p/bk, $34.95,

ISBN 978-0-19066-017-8, h/bk, $99.00,

ISBN 978-0-19066-020-8, epub, $34.95

Review of: Ethics in Screenwriting: New Perspectives, Steven Maras (2016)

London: Palgrave Macmillian, 263 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-34971-359-2, p/bk, USD 29.99

Review of: The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives, Lajos Egri (1972)

Originally published by Simon&Schuster in 1942 as How to Write a Play

New York: Touchstone, 320 pp.,

ISBN-13 978-0-67121-332-9, p/bk, $18.00