Screenwriting Commons^™

The Call, Sophia S. Chesner

Student Publications

Creative writing screenplay

What Can The Active Learning Teacher Learn From Dramatic Arts Practice?, Strutts Psyridis

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

This presentation explores how active learning pedagogy can be informed by practices in the dramatic arts, particularly film editing and theatre direction. Drawing on an autobiographical lens, it argues that teaching and creative practice share a performative, interpretive, and collaborative structure. Concepts such as facilitative teaching, embodied cognition, intuition, and kinesthetic empathy are used to reframe the teacher as an active orchestrator rather than a passive facilitator. Through analysis of narrative construction, interpretive space, and audience engagement, the paper highlights parallels between editing and classroom practice. It proposes that effective teaching operates as a dynamic, multi-dimensional, and emotionally responsive creative …

Through The Glass Darkly: Cross-Cultural Collaboration And The Experimental Adaptation Of Shakespeare, James Thompson

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

Through the Glass Darkly is an experimental Australian-Indonesian film adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, employing fragmented narratives, hallucinatory imagery, and cross-cultural spiritual frameworks to explore violence, guilt, and moral corruption. The project emerged from a collaboration between Australian and Indonesian film professionals and educators. Drawing on trauma cinema aesthetics and Indonesian mystical traditions (Kebatinan, Rangda masks), the adaptation structures itself around five vignettes: prophecy, murder, hallucination, retribution, and washing. The filmmaker employs a "heuretic" research methodology, prioritizing exploration over interpretation, to create a hybrid cultural text that interrogates Western canonical literature through postcolonial perspectives while navigating censorship through international collaboration.

Reveltion Perth International Film Festival Academic Conference 2025, James Thompson

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

The Revelation International Film Festival conference invites vibrant discussions and debates, exploring creative practice and praxis, and the theoretical surrounds of contemporary cinematic and screen culture.

Revelation stands as Australia’s exclusive international film festival integrating academic discourse within its renowned screening program. Our mission extends beyond screens, sharing compelling discoveries with audiences across the country and beyond. Embracing a pivotal role in fostering film discourse and analysis, Revelation is a cornerstone in Australian cinematic dialogue.

Under the auspices of SAE University College Perth, the academic conference took place at the SAE campus 116-120 Roe St.  Northbridge, Perth, Western Australia.

The …

Fancy Mice, Damian Aguilar

University Honors Theses

In this proof-of-concept screenplay, a family becomes the subject of an isolating experiment that observes their behavior changes after remaining in their home for an extended period of time with all their basic needs met. The first twenty-pages of this psychological horror lays the foundation for a larger work that explores existential themes related to purpose, competition, and play.

How To Walk On Water: Living Through The Absurd, Esther Du

Masters Theses

Set in a speculative world submerged by water, this thesis constructs a fragmented, nonlinear narrative that reflects on survival, memory, and displacement in the aftermath of catastrophe. Through three interwoven chapters—The Outcast, The Researcher, and The World—the project explores the emotional and psychological landscapes of individuals navigating a post-apocalyptic existence where the past is irretrievable and the future uncertain. Using an interdisciplinary form of visual storytelling, writing, and sound, the work draws from personal experience and collective trauma to examine how people reconstruct identity and meaning after loss. Rather than offering a definitive answer to existential …

Inpatient, Anna Schmalz, Rob Bragin, John Strauss

Honors Thesis

A suicide attempt lands a golden-boy tennis prodigy in an upscale Malibu rehab. There, he must survive the dysfunctional owner and his coke-snorting son, an eccentric mix of troubled teens, and a manipulative ex hellbent on sabotaging his last shot at recovery.

The Corps, Greta Zimmer, Daniel Rogers

Honors Thesis

When a rich, sheltered girl joins a ragtag community service team in Mississippi, she must learn who she is while dealing with her arrogant rival, manipulative boss, and the brutal challenges of serving the unhoused population.

Social Media Addiction Explained Through Film, Matthew Layton

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

“How much is too much?” The central frame of my creative work tackles this question through the lens of queerness, addiction, isolation, and self-identity, giving an unfiltered voice to today’s youth. Social Media’s negative effects go deeper than the usual anecdotes of decline in sleep quality, physical activity, and attention span. The ramifications of a negative mental headspace are often overshadowed by flashy promises and a false sense of belonging. The societal impact is especially influenced due to the malleability of the adolescent brain. In 2022, up to 95% of teenagers ages 13 to 17 claimed to use social media, …

All You Can Eat, Kelly Schiesswohl

Theses and Dissertations

All You Can Eat is a 2D-animated horror short following the patrons and inhabitants of a bakery as they prepare for its annual pie-eating contest. As the contest nears, tensions rise after the discovery of a dark secret amongst the staff inspires rebellion. Through the visual metaphor of pie and the pie-eating contest, this film explores how sexual violence functions on a systemic level. It explores our collective conditioning to a range of behaviors that contribute to patriarchal oppression and the social cycles that reinforce them across generations. Through design and surreal storytelling, this film captures the urgent threat of …

Student Film Fest 2025 Playbill, Providence College Department Of Theatre, Dance, & Film

Playbill and Promotion

Providence College Department of Theatre, Dance & Film

John Bowab Studio Theatre, Smith Center for the Arts

Student Film Fest 2025

Thursday, May 1, 2025, 7PM

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS:

Fr. Ken Gumbert

COMPETING FILMS:

Will Drew ‘25, A Day in the Life: Luke Fonts, 3:49

Nariah Scott ’25, No Limit Just Miles Ft. Kimberly May, 4:25

Teddy Lucier ’25, The Growing Game, 5:53

Janet Newman ’27, Marvelous, 5:00

Rodney Lopez ’25, Lost and Found, 7:24

Gavin Sheridan ’25, Born to Die, 9:52

JURY DELIBERATIONS

The 2024 Film Festival winning film will be screened while jury …

Student Film Fest 2025 Poster, Providence College Department Of Theatre, Dance, & Film

Playbill and Promotion

Providence College Department of Theatre, Dance & Film

John Bowab Studio Theatre, Smith Center for the Arts

Student Film Fest 2025

Thursday, May 1, 2025, 7PM

A Narrative-Focused Machine Learning Approach To Predicting Feature Film Success, Arisa T. Trombley

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (MS) Theses

For decades, the field of film production has been driven by marketability, and it has relied on gut feelings and subjectivity to produce feature films. The analysis of the relationship between a screenplay’s narrative and a film’s success has been widely overlooked due to the challenges involved in data acquisition and complexity. This study investigates the predictive power of narrative structure on film success and aims to build evidence for hypothesized narrative principles. The results suggest that narrative structural elements exhibit moderate predictive power, with strong support for the alignment of the 2nd act crucial moments and the 2nd act …

Michigan Fiction, Bryce Durfey

Honors Theses

The screenplay Michigan Fiction follows a failing children's book author who is desperate for another taste of success. His father has told him his entire life that success by any means is all that matters. After a chance meeting with a more successful crime-novelist colleague, and learning of his next book idea, he decides to follow him to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to steal his idea for a book. He stays in a motel where the original killer once stayed and killed. Things go awry when he accidentally murders someone. After the town thinks it's the old killer returning, …

Loz, A Feature-Length Screenplay By Audrey Ickes & The Midwest’S Playground: An Autoethnography Of “The Lake” In Accompaniment To The Screenplay Loz, Audrey M. Ickes '25

Honor Scholar Theses

The following screenplay and critical paper mold together into one comprehensive project. The historical context found in the critical paper informs the screenplay as much as the screenplay weaves its way into the critical paper’s autoethnography. For example, the unique section breaks throughout the critical paper were taken directly from my grandfather's letterheads that he used for his seasonal business letters.

Pathos, Spring 2025, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Adriana Stanzione

Nps-1, Johanna G. Ziegler

Honors Thesis

NPS-1 is a biopic/political thriller feature-length screenplay that follows the true story of Stephen Mather, a public relations whiz and self-made millionaire who dedicated his fortune to lobbying for the creation of the National Park Service, eventually becoming its first director. Navigating political obstacles on the path to establishing the NPS, Mather struggles to conceal his history with manic depression as his erratic behavior becomes an increasing threat to the success of his campaign. Alongside his reliable but in-the-dark assistant Horace Albright, Mather navigates the ethical minefield that comes with park policymaking: can a push for road development, or border …

Come To Jesus, Christopher Cunningham

LMU Theses and Dissertations

"Come to Jesus" is a comedy feature screenplay. With a tonal comp being "Superbad in sunday school", it follows a young evangelical boy named Toby, who attends his final Vacation Bible School camp at church before graduating high school. His lifelong dream of winning a bible college scholarship through his church is put in flux as his biggest rival, Shadrach, returns unexpectedly from his few years away in New York. Possessing all of the natural charisma and charm in the world, Toby sees the writing on the wall - he has no chance of winning this scholarship. That's when he …

Stereotypes Of Female Characters In Disney, Merouge Hazem Elboraie

The Undergraduate Research Journal

The depiction of female characters in Disney films has undergone a significant transformation throughout the decades, reflecting societal shifts and changing perceptions of gender roles. As young girls tend to idolize fictional female characters, ensuring a healthy portrayal of women in animated films is crucial. This paper aims to discuss the portrayal of female characters in Disney movies within certain frames and their impact on the general public through a case analysis of literature reviews. It underscores the dynamic interplay between societal change and cinematic narratives, particularly in Disney. The research’s findings indicate that the negative portrayal of Disney female …

True Love Stays, Sydney Thier

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

True Love Stays is a love story, albeit an atypical one. Inspired by the bond I have cultivated with my dog, Ava, it explores the nature of relationships with other people and myself. As an essayist and a filmmaker, I was inspired by the way that writers like Jo Ann Beard, Joan Didion, and Leslie Jamison write about love and how Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Alice Birch approach the complexities of identity and relationships on-screen. This collected work is meant to be a multi-genre approach to unpacking how love, desire, and grief interact with identity formation through character-driven writing and an …