Screenwriting Commons^™

An Ambiguous Hermeneutic: Doubleness In Ingmar Bergman’S Quest For Self, Ingy Aziz

Theses and Dissertations

One of the functions of art in all its forms is to provide the means for self-exploration and, in this way, to enable us to relate cultural representation to the question of meaning. The beauty of cinematic art is that it gives voice to our deepest and most profound concerns and enables us to bridge the gap between personal psychology and public understanding. As interpreters, we do not always unearth the answers that we seek, but we certainly gain more insight through delving into the minds of major filmmakers in the canon of modern cinema. This thesis is on the …

Smokebox: Writing Into Embarrassment, Julia Storch

Theatre & Dance ETDs

Engaging with theoretical concepts and dramaturgical tools, this essay follows my journey through The Dramatic Writing MFA program at the University of New Mexico, focusing on the production of my thesis play, Smokebox. In Part I, I give the background and development of my journey as a playwright, exploring the obstacles I faced and overcame through my engagement with coursework and staged readings. I map out the development of Smokebox, from its humble beginnings as a class assignment, to its transformation through workshop, and finally its realization through an intense rehearsal and production process. In Part II, I …

The Wolves' Teeth, Abigail Moore

Honors College Theses

This is a Neo-Noir screenplay examining the femme fatale, mental illness, and the Noir male protagonist.

A New Era, Bridget Dietz

Whittier Scholars Program

This piece of art is a short film about a girl who returns to her old high school to become an assistant football coach due to struggling to find her identity outside of sports. Over the last several years, we have seen many women play very significant roles in football, which is primarily a male dominated sport. This film demonstrates an accurate depiction of the challenges women may face when they work in a position that is superior in a male dominated field. Additionally, the film also displays the struggles that athletes often face when they retire from a sport, …

The Gray Area: Sexuality And Gender In Wartime Reevaluated, Natalie Pendergraft

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

These three works, two academic papers and one screenplay, challenge traditional notions of gender and sexuality during wartime. Queer Vietnam service members did not all experience oppression, all the time, but rather carved out a space for themselves amongst their peers. Female nurses in the early cold war could keep their careers in the medical field due to its unique gendered history despite demobilization efforts across the country in different industries. Finally, through the medium of historical fiction, a Civil War soldier’s fears and desires are questioned as he experiences the phenomenon of the Angel’s Glow, a blue light that …

Georgia, Lesley Brian Bargo

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

The Vietnam War cast a massive shadow, both home and abroad. Relationships, morality, and humanity hang in the balance.

How Do Stories Affect Careers?, Victoria Read

Honors Projects

Determining viable professional careers is one of the most important parts of going to college. Artistic careers, including those in film, are both competitive and dependent on the responses of critics and audiences. People in film careers take different paths; one of them is writing screenplays. Researching screenwriting and the careers of two professional women screenwriters, Diablo Cody and Nancy Meyers, I sought to answer three central questions: how does writing create career paths, what are those careers, and what is it like writing a story?

Through the research on screenwriting, I became familiar with story structures such Joseph Campbell’s …

Pathos, Spring 2023, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Stephanie Gresham

Momim, Christopher Halligan

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

Alex, an intersex 19 year old, decides that the only way he can be a complete man is to have penis resection surgery, but when the only job available to him is job on the river, he must face his extreme aquaphobia and fear of the feminine and learn to follow the true flow of his nature.

Ego Liminality, Sof Dubois

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

A short film portraying the experience of liminal feelings and space through the lens of the suspense horror genre. The film shows what it feels like to be trapped within one's own perception of one's place in the world by interpreting the feeling as literally as possible. Whether or not what is shown is up to the viewer.

"Real Women Have Bodies": A Study In Adaptation, Madison Ephlin

Honors Projects

The art of adaptation is a difficult process, and is often hard to please general audiences that have a connection to the source material. As a student who studies both English Literature and Film Production, the question asked through this study is what does it take to write a “successful” adaptation? What qualifies as “successful”? How does an adaptation balance the themes, characterization, and plot of a piece of literature with the continuous momentum and visual complexity that the medium of film requires, all in 120 pages or less? This study engages with these questions by actively practicing adaptation, adapting …

Climate Action At The University Of Maine: A Documentary Short Film, Santiago Tijerina

Honors College

Fossil fuel divestment is central to the discourse surrounding climate change, nevertheless, it is a movement driven by student activists and it is a sign of institutional change at a global scale. Climate Action at the University of Maine, written and directed by Santiago Tijerina and created in collaboration with the University of Maine and the Center for Undergraduate Research (CUGR), is a documentary short film driven by the research objective of understanding the rise of student activism at the University of Maine and the recent decision of the Board of Trustees to divest from fossil fuels.

The subject matter …

Soothers, Everett Wall

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

When a meticulous chef, who can't eat anything without throwing it up, discovers the cure for his ailment in a recalled antacid from the 1970s, he solicits the help of his in-house taster to hunt down more of the tablets and in the process discovers that she was the cure all along.

Flm170.1 Storytellinh For The Screen: Inheritance [Film], Sae Institute

Exemplars

FLM170 Project 1 Distinction

Flm170.1 Storytelling For The Screen: A Few Bitter Brews [Film], Sae Institute

Exemplars

FLM170 Storytelling for the Screen Project 1. Logline: When a recently heartbroken romance author is stricken with writer's block. She attends a speed dating event to conduct character research but is thrown off by a man who she fears could break her heart.

Narrar El Final De Los Tiempos: Misantropía Y Liberación En Dos “Cuentos Atómicos” Del Salvadoreño Álvaro Menen Desleal (1960s), David Díaz Arias

Alambique. Revista académica de ciencia ficción y fantasía / Jornal acadêmico de ficção científica e fantasía

El presente artículo analiza una parte de la obra de ciencia ficción del salvadoreño Álvaro Menen Desleal. Para eso, se concentra en uno de los temas que, aunque no dominante, sí es abordado de forma crítica y sagaz por parte de ese autor: el exterminio de la humanidad a partir de una hecatombe nuclear. Así, se estudian dos cuentos publicados por Menen Desleal en 1969 y que forman parte de su premiado texto Una cuerda de nylon y oro y otros cuentos maravillosos. Los cuentos son el que le da nombre a esa antología de relatos y “Hacer el …

An Analysis Of The Episodic Writing Process, Megan Kanger

Honors Theses

Writing for an episodic series vastly differs from writing for a short film. This essay explores the major differences between writing a short film in contrast to writing an episodic series and how these differences impact the writing process. The essay examines the topic by breaking down my own experience writing an episodic series and the key findings I uncovered throughout that process. I describe my series, Scythe, and the central themes and characters that encompass the series. With a central theme of death, I describe how I worked to establish an emotional tonal balance between drama and humor within …

There Will Be A Tomorrow, Cameron Webb

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

After her young daughter is killed in the aftermath of an apocalypse, a mother travels back in time to save her by stopping the apocalypse from ever happening.

Excuse Me, Everybody, Noah G. Battaglia

CMC Senior Theses

For my senior thesis I planned to write, produce, and direct a short-form, narrative film, entitled Excuse Me, Everybody. The original plot of the film is about a 19-year-old college student named Jacob who feels that his life is turned upside down after taking lewd photos of a fellow female student. While meeting with his psychotherapist, he refuses to reveal to him the true nature of his distress. He ultimately comes to terms with his crime by experiencing a hallucination where an imaginary being named Ego appears to him and forces Jacob to recollect the past events and explain …

Nothing Happens Here, Kai Diego Parcher-Charles

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.