The Screen Novel: a Creative Practice Approach to Developing a Screen Idea for the Television Crime Thriller
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THE SCREEN NOVEL: A CREATIVE PRACTICE APPROACH TO DEVELOPING A SCREEN IDEA FOR THE TELEVISION CRIME THRILLER A project submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Stephen Sculley Bachelor of Media and Communication (Honours) RMIT University School of Media and Communication College of Design and Social Context RMIT University October 2017 DECLARATION I certify that except where due acknowledgement has been made, the work is that of the author alone; the work has not been submitted previously, in whole or in part, to qualify for any other academic award; the content of the thesis is the result of work which has been carried out since the official commencement date of the approved research program; any editorial work, paid or unpaid, carried out by a third party is acknowledged; and, ethics procedures and guidelines have been followed. I also acknowledge the support I have received for my research through the provision of an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. Stephen Sculley October 2017 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank my supervisors, Associate Professor Craig Batty and Dr Stephen Gaunson, who steered and guided me through this PhD. Their knowledge, support and professionalism enabled me to remain focused and energised throughout the course of the research. I also thank all members of the review panels who provided feedback and support during the course of this research. I am additionally indebted to staff at the AFI Research Collection who assisted me in the early stages of my research and to the broader community of RMIT University. Finally, thanks to friends and family, in particular Paul Weedon, Jandy Paramanathan, George Kovevic and Mark Lane, who were supportive and interested in my development and process of discovery. ii PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS During my candidature I have had the opportunity to write several peer-reviewed articles and present at both the RMIT Sightlines (2014) conference and AAWP (2015) conference. Here is a list of the publications to date: Batty, C, Beaton, K, Sculley, S, Taylor, S 2017, ‘The screenwriting PhD: creative practice, critical theory and contributing to knowledge’, Text: Journal of writing and writing courses, special issue 44 <http://www.textjournal.com.au/speciss/issue44/content.htm>. Batty, C, Lee, S, Sawtell, L, Sculley, S & Taylor, S 2015 ‘Rewriting, remaking and rediscovering screenwriting practice: when the screenwriter becomes practitioner- researcher’, The Refereed Proceedings Of The 20th Conference Of The Australasian Association Of Writing Programs, <http://www.aawp.org.au/wp- content/uploads/2016/02/Batty-et-al-2.pdf>. Lee, S, Lomdahl, A, Sawtell, L, Sculley, S & Taylor, S 2016 ‘Screenwriting and the higher degree by research: writing a screenplay for a creative practice PhD’, New Writing: the international journal for the practice and theory of creative writing, pp. 1– 13, doi: 10.1080/14790726.2015.1135964 Sculley, S 2015, ‘Stringer episode 1: a television novel’, Scriptwriting as Creative Writing Research II Text: Journal of writing and writing courses, special issue 29 <http://www.textjournal.com.au/speciss/issue29/content.htm>. iii ABSTRACT This creative practice PhD is situated in the field of screenwriting practice studies and explores the development of a screen idea using novelistic techniques. By novelistic techniques, I mean the deployment of prose and image that one would usually associate with the fiction writer. It should be noted that I refer to image as a novelistic technique in the tradition of the illustrated novel. In writing the screen idea using the novel form, I explore how I and others might develop an idea, in this case a television (TV) series, that embeds the technical directives evident in the screenplay so that character and story are brought into focus. The creative artefact in this PhD is what I call a ‘screen novel’, which aims to complement and extend traditional approaches to script development. The intention of this research is to reframe how we discuss the development of a screen idea, in particular how we view the screenplay and summary texts as technical documents within the development and production process. As Steven Maras notes, ‘numerous writers, at different times throughout the history of film, tell us that production has little to do with writing’ (2009, p. 52). Here Maras refers to a long- standing tradition that situates the screenplay as something to be made as opposed to something to be read (2009). Maras’s comment resonates with my own experience of writing screenplays with both a technical and poetic sensibility. Discussing the screenplay as a production document has implications for the screenwriter not only in terms of the provenance and authorship of the screen idea, but also the act of screenwriting. The screenplay as a production text is prevalent in the film and TV industry and is also supported by many how-to screenwriting manuals that position the screenwriter’s role within a production system. My research thus investigates a model that situates the screen idea as a text, which is both a stand-alone object for public consumption and an industry source document. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ............................................................................................................... i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. ii PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS ........................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................. v LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES ............................................................................. vii PART 1 BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT ................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 2 CHAPTER 1 SITUATING THE SCREEN NOVEL ....................................................... 8 The screen novel as a stand-alone work ................................................................................. 11 The film novel and the literary scenario ................................................................................. 16 The screen novel as un-adaptation .......................................................................................... 23 Cormac McCarthy .................................................................................................................. 24 David Simon ........................................................................................................................... 26 Quentin Tarantino ................................................................................................................... 30 Abraham Polonsky .................................................................................................................. 32 CHAPTER 2 THE SCREEN NOVEL AND INDUSTRY ............................................. 35 Development documents in the film and TV industry ............................................................ 36 Aspects of the screenplay: technical and poetic ..................................................................... 43 The reader and the screen novel ............................................................................................. 46 CHAPTER 3 THE SCREEN NOVEL AND NOVELISTIC TECHNIQUES ............... 49 Active scene description ......................................................................................................... 51 The screen novel: syntax, flow and style ................................................................................ 54 The screen novel: past tense ................................................................................................... 56 Framing the narrator ............................................................................................................... 57 Interior monologue ................................................................................................................. 60 The screen novel and image ................................................................................................... 62 The creative work summary ................................................................................................... 65 PART 2 THE CREATIVE WORK ................................................................................ 67 Cast list ................................................................................................................................... 70 v Episode list.............................................................................................................................. 71 Prologue .................................................................................................................................. 73 Episode One More Mobility – More Freedom ....................................................................... 74 Episode Two The Invisible Hand ......................................................................................... 104 Episode Three Fight or Flight ............................................................................................... 132 Episode Four The Hour of the Wolf ....................................................................................