Screenwriting Commons^™

"Everyone Leaves Me Behind”: How Harmful Tropes In Fiction Impact Autistic Women, Sara E. Allard

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

Until now, females with ASD have been ignored by healthcare professionals, policymakers, and the general public. The unique presentation of autistic women and girls is now in the cultural spotlight within not just the advocacy and scientific community, but also the arts. Female autistic characters are getting increased representation across literature and television, yet their narratives are still often stuck in the past. Most authors and screenwriters have yet to understand the specific struggles that female autistics face compared to their male counterparts, relying on the outdated, reductive perceptions that have plagued them for decades.

This article outlines three harmful …

A Puff's Exploration Of Wayne Hopkins, Ethan G. Mullen, Leon Wiebers

Honors Thesis

This thesis is a synthesis of modalities I have studied during the course of my Theatre Arts degree, applied to the realization of the principal character, Wayne Hopkins in the award-winning play Puffs (Or: Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic) a LMU Theatre Arts Department production. This work is divided into three major sections. First, I reflect on how I applied acting tools I have studied at LMU to the development of my character and performance. These include script analysis, story structure analysis, breath work, and Viewpoints training. Second, I share media displaying my …

Caladrius: Creating A Playable Game Via A Multimedia Experience, Isabelle Morgan Brookshire

Whittier Scholars Program

Caladrius: Creating a Playable Game via a Multimedia Experience hones in on making an experience through different forms of media to represent a game. If this project was fully funded and done, it would be a video game on Steam with an art exhibition, small poetry book, and novel accompanied with it. It would even have a show, a soundtrack, and merch. But at this level, it was to make an experience for my audience that they could experience whether or not they enjoyed video games as a concept. I wanted them to enjoy 'playing' within a physical exhibition and …

Dungeons & Dragons 5e En El Aula De Comunicación Audiovisual: Propuesta De Adaptación Pedagógica, Antonio Roda Martínez

Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM

Este artículo explora el proceso de adaptar Dungeons & Dragons Quinta edición versión 2024 a un contexto educativo dentro de sesiones únicas de menos de dos horas. Pese a que D&D es ampliamente reconocido como referente cultural y uno de los juegos de rol más influyentes, su complejo sistema de reglas y diseño para campañas de larga duración dificultan su implementación en contextos educativos formales con limitaciones temporales. Para abordar este desafío, se rediseñó la sesión para condensar las experiencias fundamentales del juego de rol de mesa—creación de personajes, interpretación, combate, construcción de mundo e investigación—en un formato breve y …

Pathos, Winter 2026, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Adriana Stanzione

110% Asset Disruption, Bradley W. Fish

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

110% Asset Disruption is a satire of the modern workplace set in a lightly dystopian near- future United States. Written as a feature length film, it follows Ethan Martens, a citizen and employee of Calcudyne. Ethan has a contentious relationship with his manager Douglas Farview, who performs a series of hostile actions towards Ethan in order to attempt to force him out of the company. The conflict between the two men escalates until Ethan is put in the position of having to prevent Calcudyne's President & CEO from starting a global thermonuclear war. 110% Asset Disruption is influenced and inspired …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

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

Pathos

Editor: Adriana Stanzione

The Call, Sophia S. Chesner

Student Publications

Creative writing screenplay

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 …

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, …

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 …

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

Pathos

Editor: Adriana Stanzione

East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon Film Pitch Deck, Micah Anderson

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

A pitch deck to present an idea for a film adaptation of the fairy tale "East of the Sun and West of the Moon." The deliverables include a 3-5 minute animatic of a single scene (complete with placeholder audio), the script of the scene, storyboards used to map out each action, at least one model sheet for each major character, and rough sketches of all 30 characters. They are to be presented in an exhibition with the animatic on loop on a TV, a public presentation in the Myers auditorium, and a written paper on the details regarding the medium …

From Ink To Code, From Binary To Boundless Reality—Until All Returns To Emptiness, Weitong Sun

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the entangled relationship between language, memory, and technology through the lens of immigrant experience. Moving from programming to visual storytelling, I investigate how dyslexia, bilingualism, and cultural displacement have shaped my ways of reading, writing, and coding.

Beginning with personal reflections on switching from computer science to art, I trace how code offered a form of clarity and expression where written language had once failed me. Yet as I ventured into real-time simulation and XR storytelling, I encountered new forms of mistranslation—where narratives dissolved, mutated, or resisted coherence altogether.

Through a series of experiments in code-driven art, …

History And The Teaching Of Dialect And Slang In Screenwriting, Mitch Olson, Chris C. Palmer

Faculty Articles

This article explores academic and industry perspectives on the use of dialect, slang, and historical language in screenwriting. It offers a chronological overview of major screenwriting manuals’ treatment of dialect and slang (or lack thereof) 1946-2020. It then presents survey data of 53 currently-practicing screenwriters’ views on working with dialect and historical language in scripts, as well as their sense of possible changes in the industry regarding attitudes towards diverse voice representation on the page. It concludes with examples from a teaching sequence that illustrates strategies for writing with dialect, researching it, and ethically considering its usage in scripts. Situating …

Extra-Terrestrial: A Television Pilot Script, Landon Adams

Symposium of Student Scholars

How do you make a home out of a place you don’t feel welcomed? This is the plight of Beatrix Ivy, a passionate fashionista, humanoid-martian who dreams of opening her own fashion business. The only issue: fashion does not exist on Mars. She impulsively decides to ditch her hypercritical mother in pursuit of Planet Earth. Destination? Paris, France. However, a GPS malfunction lands her in the unknown town of Paris, Georgia. Mistaken for a drag queen, Beatrix is met with hostility from the bigoted locals, including local darling SunRay, an equally talented fashion designer. Beatrix eventually finds companionship in a …

Birthday Girl, Makayla Tappin

Master's Projects

The lives of four friends plummet into chaos after a dead friend from college seemingly resurfaces – alive.

Pathos, Fall 2024, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Adriana Stanzione

Ani175.3 Cinematography Animatics And Previsualisation Example 2, Sae University College

Exemplars

Student exemplar for ANI175.3

Visions Of Inclusivity: A Screenplay Focusing On Women, Sexism And Film During The 1990s, Abigail Hayman

Master's Projects

In the 1990s film scene, Margaux Archambeau leaves for New York City to uncover the truth about her late mother. This research summary, "Visions of Inclusivity," acknowledges and carefully researches women's struggles and triumphs. This essay intends to share information about the film industry and the inappropriate treatment of women so that men and women in the film industry can support one another.

The Farm, Justin Morris

Master's Projects

Synopsis:

’The Farm’ is a psychological thriller series inspired by the recent folk horror revival. We follow a suburban family who begin to lose their trust in each other as they fall further into peril on a strange isolated farm. When Brian, the patriarch, repeatedly puts his family in danger to satisfy his own ego, he forms a rift between him, his wife Madison, and son Charlie that quickly spirals into delusion, blind accusation, and paranoia. Desperate, they seek the help of Elias, the owner of the farm with his own tenuous grip on reality, and his quiet daughter, Emma. …

The World Of Marubia: A Writer’S Perspective Into Building Worlds Using Transmedia Aesthetics, Diego Lucca Espinosa

Whittier Scholars Program

This Senior Project is a Generative and Research Thesis based around the techniques and aesthetics of Transmedia storytelling that are used when dabbling in World Building. It includes three interconnected creative pieces: 2 flash fiction stories and a short screenplay, all revolving and connected to the story world of my creation, Marubia. These stories exist in a world going through a technopoaclypse; Robotic creatures wield magic against their Human brothers in arms, slaved to the command of a Dark God. The Transmedia Aesthetics coined by Professor Geoffrey Long, specifically Resonant Simple-Story Myths, Fractal Storytelling, and World-Centric Narrative Design were pivotal …

Neo-Noir Investigations: The Art Of Directing And Writing An Interactive Experience, James Phillip Koehler Jr.

Honors Projects

This project intends to explore the process behind writing and directing for an interactive experience; video games, specifically. A team, including artists, programmers, and a musician, was organized to work toward the completion of a playable demo. Included in this project is a video of the playable demo, alongside various other completed materials that were unable to be included.

Dark As Day, Rachel Keady

CMC Senior Theses

“All works, no matter what or by whom painted, are nothing but bagatelles and childish trifles... unless they are made and painted from life, and there can be nothing... better than to follow nature." - Caravaggio

In the fall of 2021, I registered to take “Italian Baroque Art” with Professor Gorse at Pomona College, for the spring of 2022. Professor Faggen, one of my advisors, encouraged this and piqued my interest in the characters of this world. After some casual online research, I was transfixed by one artist in particular: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. How could I not be struck …

Depaul Digest

DePaul Magazine

College of Education Professor Jason Goulah fosters hope, happiness and global citizenship through DePaul’s Institute for Daisaku Ikeda Studies in Education. Associate Journalism Professor Jill Hopke shares how to talk about climate change. News briefs from DePaul’s 10 colleges and schools: Occupational Therapy Standardized Patient Program, Financial Planning Certificate program, Business Education in Technology and Analytics Hub, Racial Justice Initiative, Teacher Quality Partnership grant, Intimate Partner Violence and Brain Injury collaboration, School of Music Career Closet, Sports Photojournalism course, DePaul Migration Collaborative’s Solutions Lab, Inclusive Screenwriting courses. New appointments: School of Music Dean John Milbauer, College of Education Dean Jennifer …

Self-Listening & Envisioning Audience Exercise & Assignment, Jacob Kose

Open Educational Resources

This assignment and exercise encourages students to pick a formative story, artifact, individual, or moment in their acquisition of language and/or literacy. Students record themselves telling this story, then type that recording, and make choices about how to edit that text.Instructors may invite students to read these aloud, and/or peer edit. Students may also submit reflections and comment on each others' reflection.

Becoming George Lucas: From Avant-Garde, Auteur, Independent Artist To Studio Executive, Ryan Thompson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Because of the unprecedented popularity of Star Wars, George Lucas, the creator of the multi-media franchise, is one of the most well-known filmmakers in history. What makes Lucas’s relationship with Star Wars unique is that because the franchise has continually been exploited rather than left as a single unchanging, static text, its artistic value, along with Lucas’s legacy, is in constant flux and is often misunderstood. In other words, depending on Star Wars’s position in the public zeitgeist at a given time, Lucas is either revered, detested, or considered incompetent as a filmmaker. While there is no denying …