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Manuals for screenwriting
The screenwriter's roadmap: 21 ways to jumpstart your story by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781136071898Finally, a GPS system for screenwriters! The potentially long and arduous journey of writing a screenplay was just made easier to navigate with The Screenwriter's Roadmap. Avoid the wrong turns, dead ends, gaping p(l)otholes, and other obstacles that result in frustration, wasted time, and wasted energy. The Screenwriter's Roadmap keeps you on track and helps you reach your destination- a finished, professional quality screenplay. ...
Screenwriting for neurotics: a beginner's guide to writing a feature-length screenplay from start to finish by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781609382766Screenwriting for Neurotics is a quirky and accessible handbook for beginning screenwriters. Whether you are a student in a screenwriting class or just someone who wants to try their hand at writing for film or television, this handy guidebook makes the entire process simple and unintimidating. Scott Winfield Sublett walks you step by step from start to finish and helps you navigate potential and unforeseen difficulties along the way, offering handy tips and suggestions to keep you from becoming blocked or stalled. ...
Writing for animation, comics, and games by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781136144455Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games explains the practical aspects of creating scripts for animation, comics, graphic novels, and computer games. It details how you can create scripts that are in the right industry format, and follow the expected rules for you to put your best foot forward to help you break-in to the trade. ...
Keeping up with the journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Film Studies? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's you can download and read the articles you want.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's now available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.
Introduction
A document setting out all the scenes, dialogue, and action of a feature film, sometimes including details of camera position, camera angle,shot size, and so on (see shooting script). The script identifies what needs to be shot, what has to be made in terms of sets, props and costumes, the locations that will be required, the roles to be cast, and the time frame of the shoot. A script is in essence, and crucially, a planning document: it is used in budgeting and arranging the production of the film. So, for example, production personnel, including those responsible for casting, costume, hair, props, and special effects, will make use of the information in the script in planning their work. The format and style of a script are functional and follow recognized conventions (for example, all scripts are presented in 12-point Courier font), and these are consistent across the film production industry.
[Source: Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Script. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21 Feb. 2021]
In the Library's collections
The following are useful subject headings for searching the online catalog.
- motion picture authorshipThis is the subject heading used instead of "screenwriting." The books on screenwriting and screenwriters are shelved in the PN 1996 through PN 1997.85 on Baker Level 4.
- motion picture authorship AND manualThis is a subject, keyword search.
Introductory reading(s)
Analysing the screenplay by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780203843383Most producers and directors acknowledge the crucial role of the screenplay, yet the film script has received little academic attention until recently, even though the screenplay has been in existence since the end of the 19th century. Analysing the Screenplay highlights the screenplay as an important form in itself, as opposed to merely being the first stage of the production process. ...
Essentials of screenwriting: the art, craft, and business of film and television writing by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1996 .W245 2010ISBN: 9780452296275Hollywood's premier teacher of screenwriting shares the secrets of writing and selling successful screenplays. Anyone fortunate enough to win a seat in Professor Richard Walter's legendary class at UCLA Film School can be confident their career has just taken a quantum leap forward. ...
The Hollywood pitching bible by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .M29 E26 2018ISBN: 9781717242792Publication Date: 3rd ed.Finally, a book that tells the truth about the art of pitching in Hollywood. The Hollywood Pitching Bible breaks it down, step by step. From choosing the right idea, to selling it in the room, this book tells you how it's done, in clear language, suitable for the beginner or the seasoned Hollywood professional. ...
Screenwriter's compass character as true north by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781138136458Ever watch a movie, and despite great production value, fantastic action sequences, a great cast, etc, you come away thinking-I just didn't buy it. Chances are it was because you didn't care about the characters. Screenwriter's Compass presents a new way of approaching screenwriting, examining how effective screen storytelling must be grounded in the vivid imagining and presentation of character. Screenwriter's Compass will not offer formulas to follow but instead will give you the tools needed to chart your own path to screenwriting success. ...
Selected book title(s)
Alternative scriptwriting: successfully breaking the rules by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781136053696Alternative Scriptwriting is an insightful and inspiring book on screenwriting concerned with challenging you to take creative risks with genre, tone, character, and structure.
Bring the funny: the essential companion for the comedy screenwriter by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781138929258A sharp, funny book about comedy screenwriting from a successful screenwriter that uses recent - as in this century - movies you've actually seen as examples. ...
Redefining adaptation studies by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780810872981Since films were first produced, adapted works have predominantly borrowed primarily from traditional texts, such as novels and plays. Likewise, the study of film adaptations has also been fairly traditional, rarely venturing beyond a comparison of the source material to its often less revered counterpart. Redefining Adaptation Studies breaks new ground in showing the range of possibilities that transcend the literature/film paradigm. ...
Script culture and the American screenplay by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780814332634Though the history of the screenplay is as long and rich as the history of film itself, critics and scholars have neglected it as a topic of serious research. Script Culture and the American Screenplay treats the screenplay as a literary work in its own right, presenting analyses of screenplays from a variety of frameworks, including feminism, Marxism, structuralism, philosophy, and psychology. ...
Women in Chinese martial arts films of the new millennium: narrative analyses and gender politics by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780739139103Women and Gender in Chinese Martial Arts Films of the New Millennium is an excavation of underexposed gender issues focusing mainly on contradictory and troubled feminism in the film narratives. In the cinematic world of martial arts films, one can easily find representations of women of Ancient China released from the constraints of patriarchal social order to revel in a dreamlike space of their own. They can develop themselves, protect themselves, and even defeat or conquer men. This world not only frees women from the convention of foot-binding, but it also "unbinds" them in terms of education, critical thinking, talent, ambition, opportunities to socialize with different men, and the freedom or right to both choose their spouse and decide their own fate. ...
Women screenwriters today: their lives and words by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780275985424The question of whether women write from a unique perspective has been debated since the silent era. McCreadie examines how this female sensibility has been defined and whether, in fact, it exists at all. Such films as Lost in Translation and Monster suggest that women screenwriters are moving in a new direction, heading away from the big-budget action movies that dominate Hollywood today. But action-driven genre films, like the thrillers of Alexandra Seros, seem to belie the perception that women write films that are more dialogue- and character-driven than those of male screenwriters. Whether or not women actually write differently from men and about different topics, the author's unique approach, working with and through the words and lives of the women screenwriters themselves, allows both readers and writers an otherwise unattainable look into the ever-growing and ever more essential world of women in Hollywood. ...
Other library resource(s)
Between the collections in Rauner Special Collections and Baker/Berry Libraries, Dartmouth has a large collection of scripts. Do a title search for the movie you want and see what you find.
Adaptation from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286Studies of cinematic adaptations—films based, as the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences puts it, on material originally presented in another medium—are scarcely a century old. Even so, particular studies of adaptation, the process by which texts in a wide range of media are transformed into films (and more recently into other texts that are not necessarily films), cannot be properly understood without reference to the specific period they were produced in. ...
American film scripts online by Call Number: Electronic resourceAmerican Film Scripts Online is an ongoing collection of feature films, when completed, will hold 1,000 scripts and over 100,000 scenes. Many of the scripts have never been published. The database is full-text searchable and includes detailed indexing on scenes, characters, and people. Supplemental information includes short biographies on the writers and awards given to individual films have been noted.- Creative labor in cinema and media industries from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286The rapidly burgeoning popularity of cinema at the beginning of the 20th century favored industrialized modes of creativity organized around large production studios that could churn out a steady stream of narrative feature films. By the mid-1910s, a handful of Hollywood studios became leaders in the production, distribution, and exhibition of popular commercial movies. In order to serve incessant demand for new titles, the studios relied on a set of conventions that allowed them to regularize production and realize workplace efficiencies. This entailed a socialized mode of creativity that would later be adopted by radio and television broadcasters. ...
- Dialogue: learning from the masters byCall Number: Jones Media DVD #various numbers, check the online catalogAn interview series that looks at some of the more notable screenwriters of our time. The writers interviewed include Paul Haggis, Sheldon Turner, Stuart Beattie, David Goyer, Ted Griffith, Jim Uhle, Ganz & Mandel, Jose Rivera, Scott Rosenberg, Callie Khouri, John Hamburg, Nick Kazan.
- Narrative from the Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286Narrative is often simply equated with story, a sequence of causally linked events with a beginning, a middle, and an end; however, narrative has also come to be understood as an essential component of human discourse and a complex concept in its own right for many disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. The study of narrative (narratology) has focused on written fiction, even though stories may be told (narrated) through a variety of media, including the cinema, but because motion pictures have historically drawn on literary sources, literary narratology has had a major influence on the study of film narrative as such. ...
Without lying down: Frances Marion and the power of women in Hollywood by Call Number: Sreaming videoGives voice to Frances Marion's words taken from her letters, diaries and memoirs. Footage from more than twenty of Marion's movies align with commentary by silent film historian Kevin Brownlow, critic Leonard Maltin and Marion's biographer, Cari Beauchamp.
Finding scholarly articles & journals
Articles and other writings about screenwriting can be found in many publications. Our collection doesn't have any current titles that look exclusively at screenwriting. You can use Film & Television Literature Index or the search box at the top of the page.
- "A Hollywood Muse Sought at Georgetown" from The Washington Post byCall Number: Electronic resourcePublication Date: 12/4/2017A recent article from The Washington Post about screenwriting professor John Glavin from Georgetown University.
Film & television literature indexCall Number: Electronic resourceThis index covers over 300 journal and magazine titles for film and television reviews, scholarly and critical analysis of cinema and television, and articles of popular interest about film and television. About half the journals and magazines are film periodicals and the other half cover film and television with some regularity. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews.
The web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Internet resource(s)
- American Screenwriters Association
American Screenwriters Association was the first screenwriting organization developed exclusively for emerging screenwriters, and we continue to provide guidance and support for new and upcoming screenwriters. - The Black List
The Black List is where filmmakers find great material to make films and great material finds filmmakers to make them. - Nicholl Fellowships in ScreenwritingThe Don and Gee Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting is the world’s most esteemed screenwriting competition. Each year up to five $30,000 fellowships are awarded to authors who have previously earned less than $5,000 writing for film or television.
- The Screenwriter's MarketA place where screenwriters without an agent and producers seeking screenplays can find each other.
- Screenwriting.infoThis overview tells about the screenplay format writing rules and screenwriting etiquette you need to know about. As you browse this material, you will see the words 'don't', 'avoid' and '...' unless you are directing the movie.' Pay attention!
- Screenwriting Resources from A.M.P.A.S.
Screenwriting tips from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. - Scripts on Screen
Scripts on Screen is a movie script search engine. It indexes films from 300+ sites – to help you find the script you want. They label the draft version if known to them and whether it is a PDF. Links that cost money are marked with a dollar sign ($). - Writers Guild of America, EastThe Writers Guild of America, East, (WGAE) is a labor union of thousands of professionals who are the primary creators of what is seen or heard on television and film in the U.S., as well as the writers of a growing portion of original digital media content. They have a whole section of "Resources" for screenwriters.
- Writers Guild of America, WestThe official site of the union representing writers in the motion picture, broadcast, cable and new media industries. They have a whole section of "Writer's Resources" for screenwriters.
