Screenwriting Commons^™

Slacking, Dazed And Rocking: A Study Of Richard Linklater, Parker D. Otto

Honors Capstones

The purpose of this capstone is to examine a filmmaker’s work to better understand the artist as well as look at an underappreciated filmmaker. Richard Linklater is that filmmaker. Several of his films are popular, others less so. By exploring his filmography, it can be determined whether he’s a true artist deserving of more attention from the filmmaking community as well as general audiences. After examining Linklater’s films, not only were there recurring thematic elements that cemented his artistic dominance, but there’s a feeling of evolution as he ages. The research of this project was conducted through watching Linklater’s films …

Starless Nights, Deepak Rauniyar

Theses and Dissertations

A film about the filmmaking process and the life of a filmmaker. But it's also a story about immigration, home, and negotiation. We constantly negotiate in our lives to maintain our relationships, opportunities, and dreams.

A Vermont Romance Turns One Hundred: Vermont's Earliest Surviving Photoplay, Martin L. Johnson, Frederick Pond

University Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

In 2016, a hundred-year-old film spent the year touring the northern half of Vermont, drawing audiences to refurbished opera houses and picture palaces. But the picture being celebrated for its centenary year was not D. W. Griffith's Intolerance or Lois Weber's Shoes, two of the best-known films made in 1916. Instead, Vermonters were watching what they believed to be the first feature film made in their state, the fetchingly titled photoplay A Vermont Romance.

But A Vermont Romance is not a conventional feature picture. None of the people who appeared in the film had previous movie acting experience, …

Escaping Suburbia: A Study In Film Auteur Pertaining To Tim Burton And The Coen Brothers, Morgan Bedard

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project will focus on the concept of “Auteur Theory” which is a particular film theory branch that emphasizes the filmmaker as the “author” of their work. “Auteur” is a French word meaning “author” in the sense of a person holding complete creative control. Studying Auteur Theory allows for viewers to better understand the filmmaker as a person by connecting visual patterns to the auteurs’ own life. The “filmmaker” in Auteur Theory is defined as the director and they must exercise almost or complete control of all aspects of a film. Distinct visual characteristics as well as repeated casting of …

Here To Win, Not Here To Settle, Sarah Kaino

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Ethnic representation goes beyond color blind casting, the diversity of actors, or non-stereotypical casting choices. It is not just a matter of minorities being included in mainstream storylines, but minorities being able to tell their own stories as well. The relevance and relatability of storytelling in film and theatre transcends culture, which is in part the beauty of these mediums. But the impact of Asian Americans seeing stories from their own culture cannot be exchanged for anything less because there is no substitute for visibility. Movies are the source of inspiration for many. Movies can also reinforce a transparent ceiling …

Dinesh Sabu Interview, Mitch Buangsuwon

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Dinesh Sabu made his first feature documentary Unbroken Glass with Kartemquin Film. It played at numerous film festivals and was broadcast on America ReFramed’s 5th Season in May 2017. Dinesh was awarded “Best Director” at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in 2017 for his debut feature. Before Unbroken Glass, Dinesh shot parts of American Arab and The Homestretch with Kartemquin filmmakers. He also shot and is co-producing the forthcoming How to Build a School in Haiti with director Jack C. Newell. He is currently attending Stanford University’s Documentary Film and Video MFA program.

A Mellow Night For Memories, Angelo Ilya Raphael Chammah

Senior Projects Fall 2019

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

The Revolution Of Plastic, Marine Brun-Franzetti

Theses and Dissertations

The Revolution Of Plastic is a fiction film about the overconsumption of plastic in our everyday lives. Leo, a ten year-old girl who loves dolphins, rebels against her father Mister Risso, the Manager of Detergents at Willy Supermarket.

The Effect Of Post-Production On Storytelling In Narrative And Documentary Filmmaking, Natalie Pace

Senior Honors Theses

Documentaries and narrative films both tell stories in different ways. A common saying states that narrative filmmakers write one movie, shoot another, and edit a third. In postproduction, timelines are rearranged, montages are created, new dialog and voiceovers are written, and the score can alter the mood and meaning entirely. Documentaries can change even more over the course of their creation. Usually, the script of the documentary is not written until the edit, after most of the interviews and B roll have been shot. This paper examines whether documentary post-production makes more or less use of storytelling techniques than does …

A Reason To Daydream, Corinne Schipull

Honors Theses

Sexism in American culture comes as no surprise. In 2017, the film industry saw an increasing number of powerful men within its ranks exposed and exiled for allegations of sexually predatory behavior. Many see this purging as a sign of changing times, but this view is optimistic: the tides of change ebb in and out, and this problem far exceeds the movie industry. Well before the onslaught of articles on the likes of Harvey Weinstein, my classmates and I resolved to craft our senior thesis film with a crew made up entirely of women: we simply saw the pool of …

A Theoretical Application Of Metaphor Research To The Film Industry, Michael J. Stanton

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper explores the value of using metaphor based marketing research methods (most notably Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique) in the development and green-lighting processes of filmmaking. A review of literature reveals that even large blockbuster films lack any marketing research employed in the developmental stage. Audiences are extremely difficult to analyze when considering something as abstract and subjective as what makes a “good” film. Metaphor based marketing research methods (e.g. ZMET) offer a solution by examining the minds of consumers through language markers called metaphors. Using a metaphor based marketing technique early in a film’s development process may help to …

Exploring Ethnic Stereotypes Through The Production Of Five Short Films, Ines Galiano Torres

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is a nontraditional thesis that combines social research in ethnic stereotypes in TV and film with the creative process of film production. This paper contains the formal step of research, in addition to the details on the production and creation of five original short films related to the issue of ethnic representations.

Mdocs Poster-2015-11-11, Sixty Years Young, Michael Zhou

MDOCS Publications

In support of the 60th anniversary of the Adult and Senior Center of Saratoga, Skidmore students prepared a video and exhibition, Sixty Years Young, drawing on the Center's archives and interviews, documenting its past, present and hopes for the future.

“Shining” With The Marginalized: Self-Reflection And Empathy In Stanley Kubrick’S The Shining, Bethany Miller

English Seminar Capstone Research Papers

This paper examines Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror masterpiece The Shining and how it references the history of violence against the marginalized in America.

Filmmakers In Conversation, William Friedkin, Buck Henry, Melvin Van Peebles, Anthony Loeb

Conversation With

Several of these conversations were published in monograph form, available on this website. However, three conversations with William Friedkin, Buck Henry, and Melvin Van Peebles appear here for the first time in this 1982 publication.

Other conversations include John Cassavetes, Joan Tewkesbury, Steve Shagan, and Bill Butler. The publication was edited by Anthony Loeb, then chair of the Film Department, Columbia College Chicago. 135 pages.