Journal of Screenwriting - Volume 8, Issue 3, 2017

Through an extensive survey of the field, this article asks, what is script development? How is it defined in industry discourse and in screenwriting scholarship? While definitions of script development can be found across the spectrum of screenwriting and screen production resources, ranging from the instructional guidelines offered by funding bodies to references in the how-to market, the article posits that academic scholarship on the practice is still emerging. As such, this article seeks to establish a platform from which we can both define and conceive of further research into script development – however it might be named, practiced and studied – possibly as a sub-discipline of screenwriting studies and/or central to the study of screenwriting practice. The article brings together extant definitions and documented experiences of script development, to offer a basis from which to discuss both academic and practice-based approaches to the phenomenon. While not suggesting that the practice of script development should be standardized or limited by definition, the article does argue for the importance of investigating the available definitions and identifying the gaps in literature. By seeking out the various angles and overlaps of those researching in this field, the article proposes to begin a conversation and invite further research around what script development is and looks like in various international contexts.

This study seeks to elucidate the role of the ‘script doctor’ in both Hollywood and independent American cinema. It attempts to reveal how script doctors, considering them to be cultural producers in their own right, create meaning in their doctored works. It poses several questions: Who are script doctors and how do they perceive their work as meaningful or not? Has this changed over time? Is this different for independent film producers, where the practice may be less formalized and institutionalized? Is the role of script doctor perceived in a certain way, either as a prestigious practice only conducted by seasoned screenwriters or as a lower form of professional writing? Finally, does their role in the production process problematize how we attribute authorship to some writers and not others? Archival material will be analysed in order to trace this practice historically, while this study will also draw from my own personal experience editing scripts for independent filmmakers, thus attempting to compare how historical, institutional script development practices may differ from independent practices where the role may be defined differently, in my case as a ‘script editor’, not a ‘script doctor’. Beyond considering script doctors as cultural producers who create meaning in and through their work, this study shall additionally examine how and where credit is given to various participants involved in the writing process, problematizing typical authorial associations.

In this article I foreground screenwriting as a creative writing practice, and argue that there are significant aspects of the genesis of screenplays that are not sufficiently acknowledged in the development field. In that field it is common practice that screenwriters produce formatted prose documents, predicting their screen stories in detail before the writing of a first draft is initiated. A pre-formatted approach – defined here as the Set Stage Chronology of Documents (SSCD) – has been institutionalized in European and American script culture, manifesting itself in schools, funding institutions and contract formulas. This practice implies that one specific writing method is universal and de-emphasizes such aspects of creativity as improvisation, free association and the accessing of subconscious resources – all widely assumed to be significant in creative work. Drawing upon a case study – the writing of my screenplay September during a fellowship at the Norwegian Film School – I ask how principles of improvisation can be adapted and applied to the writing of the first draft screenplay. Informed by the Russian stage director Konstantin Stanislavsky’s model for improvisation in theatre rehearsals, and the associative method practiced by screenwriter J. C. Carrière in his workshops, I suggest specific tools for ‘structured improvisation’ as used in the writing of September.

This article examines the use of digital tools to create audio-visual resources that can both inspire and inform the development of the contemporary feature film screenplay. With reference to Martin, Millard, Price and practitioners Waldo Salt, Raul Ruiz and Mike Leigh, I define this activity as a form of ‘underwriting’. This term refers to the creation of fictional, written or audio-visual work that does not feature in the screenplay but helps to inform the creation of characters, narrative and story world. The writers/directors listed above are noted for creating a mass of material that contributes towards the richness of their work but is not intended for publication in script form or in the final film. I then report on my own digital ‘underwriting’ in the early development of a feature film tentatively titled Fireflies. This activity has involved the use of digital cameras, mobile phones and social media to document and develop a screen idea during workshops with actors. The result is the creation of a mass of creative material (character improvisations, profiles and filmed ‘test scenes’) that informs the writing of my screenplay. Finally, I consider how this ‘underwriting’ might also function as an audience development tool. I situate my work alongside current industry practices in Australia and abroad (such as the production of proof-of-concept videos and mood reels) to demonstrate the increasingly common and desirable use of digital tools in the early development of a screen idea for both writer and audience.

This article explores the script development process in the pre-production of The Oil Kid, a collaboration between the Oil Museum in Stavanger, Norway, oil industry sponsors, a production company in transition, and a political activist upon whose memoirs aspects of the script were based. The article addresses the idea of how such collaboration works, and how each of the voices represent themselves as the project develops. As will be revealed, these voices are often in competition and have vested interests in how the final script emerges, suggesting that the scriptwriter is often cast as the mediator of such interests and responsible for maintaining creative integrity, political balance, social focus and economic viability. In this case it was required that the scriptwriter constantly be asserted as a particular role with specific skillsets, which was often overlooked when the project’s collaborators viewed the expression of an idea, an intervention about narrative or the provision of technical information as an act worthy of a script credit. The article thus asserts the distinctiveness of the scriptwriter as part of the production process in animation, not merely as an inherent and implicit ‘recorder’ of the script development process, but more significantly, as its key pragmatic leader and facilitator.

This article seeks to bring screenwriting research and screenwriting practice studies into closer proximity. It outlines arguments for seeing them as distinct fields, but suggests that doing so has contributed towards significant misunderstandings between practitioners and researchers. They are united in relying on both textual and non-textual materials, including anecdotal and first-person testimony; they face common problems in aligning these materials with traditional scholarly standards and overcoming the fragmentation of a field that is currently dominated by individual case studies; and they share some of the methodological and theoretical concerns of adaptation studies, with the term ‘script development’ itself risking the marginalization of intermedial and non-linear iterations. It concludes that collaboration between practitioners and researchers is essential if the study of script development is to flourish.

The Art of Script Editing: A Practical Guide, Karol Griffiths (2015) Harpenden: Oldcastle Books Ltd, 208 pp., ISBN: 9781843445074, p/bk, £16.99, ISBN: 9781843445081, ebook, £12.99

The Writing Dead – Talking Terror with TV’s Top Horror Writers, Thomas Fahy (2015) Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 168 pp., ISBN: 9781496813251, p/bk, $30.00

Screenwriting is Rewriting, Jack Epps, Jr. (2016) New York: Bloomsbury, 332 pp., ISBN: 9781628927405, p/bk, $19.95

Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood, Cari Beauchamp (1997) Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 475 pp., ISBN: 9780520214927, p/bk, $27.53