This dissertation explores screenwriting as a writing genre. Accompanying the dissertation, in a separate binding, is my feature film screenplay, Jungles of Sandakan, a spec script, written with the speculation of selling for production. The screenplay represents an experience of writing. From the writer’s position, the dissertation articulates a feminine voice, reflective of the writer who experiences the writing of the feature film script, rather than being an exposé on gender, or feminist-specific issues regarding the experience. As such, it is one kind of research. Nonetheless, the research attempts to explore the complexities of writing in relation to the problems that exist in the film world that prevent, or annihilate, and yet enable and require, the very experience of writing. Screenplays are the lifeblood of the picture business, writes Paul Lazarus, in Working In Film; The Marketplace in the ‘90s. Lazarus, a film producer and observer of the American film industry, paints the script as the endemic life force of the film business. Without the script, it is implied, there is no film production. This gives an impression of privilege in relation to the script, and writing. In the grand scheme of things in the picture business though, this is not the case, as anxieties about the script often render writing inconsequential in the context of film production, thus reducing the script’s privilege and placing its significance in uncertain terrain, quite often to the point of oblivion. The writer is often voiceless, and often expected, or required, by the production hierarchy, to remain impartial to her work, or relinquish ownership of her work altogether. For an industry that seemingly depends initially on writing for its own existence, the anxieties displayed towards the script, even though it is merely the blueprint of a film production, as well as the writer, appear very problematic The fiction/drama screenplay, as a storytelling device, has fundamental significance pertaining to history, national identity, issues of gender, sexuality, race relations, social, cultural and political dynamics, views and representations of self and of other(s), ethnicity, religion, multiculturalism and so on, a plethora of issues that inform the writing, the script, as represented by characters, and story. / Doctor of Creative Arts
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/189447 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Funk, Grace H., University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, Education and Social Sciences, School of Humanities |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
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