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Brandon J.
Hale, Ted O’Hanlan
(Professor Jim Goodman) School of Communications
In the spring semester of 2005, both students enrolled in
JCM 322 (Screenwriting) in hopes of meeting specific
guidelines: acquire a basis of understanding regarding the
fundamentals of the art and technique/formula of the
screenwriting process and with that knowledge, complete fifty
pages of a professional screenplay. The idea for the
independent study arose from the student’s desire to
dive deeper into the axiom behind this literary technique and
complete a finished, respectable screenplay. While both
screenplays address entirely separate issues and exist in
contrasting genres, the essential question remained- How does
film genre and other films within that genre relate to the
screenwriting process and how does the context of the
respective genre relate to the competence and abilities of
the screenwriter?
The research methodology was comprised of meeting four
essential requirements that would ensure that the final
completed screenplay would be ideally acknowledged or
accredited by the film industry. First, we wrote an
additional 50-70 pages of screenplay that would complete the
three acts of the story. After that we conducted a workshop
reading of our stories in which we cast our characters and a
narrator. Following, we used the criticism to undergo a
complete re-write of the screenplays. We ended our research
by completing a thesis paper that exhibited our understanding
of film genre by analyzing three films released over the past
few decades.
Screenplays are structure and structure applies regardless
of film genre. The story created within those one hundred
pages unfolds in a particular structure within three specific
acts. There are certain elements within this structure that
hold stories together and move the screen story forward and
keep viewer interest.
Film genre relating to each of our particular stories means,
the “Coming of Age” story and the “Zombie
Horror” story, respectively. The appropriateness of
this aspect of the research as relates to SURF is measured by
the student’s reflection and discovery of how his own
screen story works in its genre and how it may be defined
within that genre. Research wise, what are the elements of
the genre, what films may demonstrate the best of the genre,
or in some cases define the genre, and how does that reflect
in the student’s work.
The SURF presentation will consist of an explanation by both
presenters that will inform the attendees of the complexities
that accompany the screenwriting process and a live read of
the each student’s thesis papers (both 5-7 pages in
length). This study will be advantageous to the SURF audience
in that people will be able to realize as, as we as
researchers realized, how each screenplay within a film genre
has its own binding “formula” and how meticulous
screenwriters must be throughout every step of the writing
process to make the “formula” work.
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