Writing the Short Film

371 Pages·2005·3.37 MB·english

by  Patricia Cooper

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WRITING THE
SHORT FILM
Third Edition
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WRITING THE
SHORT FILM
Third Edition
Pat Cooper
and
Ken Dancyger
AMSTERDAM • BOSTON (cid:127) HEIDELBERG (cid:127) LONDON
NEW YORK (cid:127) OXFORD (cid:127) PARIS (cid:127) SAN DIEGO
SAN FRANCISCO (cid:127) SINGAPORE (cid:127) SYDNEY (cid:127) TOKYO
Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier
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Elsevier Focal Press
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Copyright © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Application submitted.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 0-240-80588-7
04 05 06 07 08 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Printed in the United States of America
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To the memory of Richard Protovin,
dear friend and colleague
—P. C.
For Gerald and Perry Charles,
my brothers
—K. D.
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CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
INTRODUCTION 1
PART I Fundamentals: Breaking Ground 7
Chapter 1 STORYTELLING IN GENERAL 9
Chapter 2 TELLING ASTORYIN IMAGES 17
Chapter 3 USING SOUND TO TELLTHE STORY 29
Chapter 4 DISCOVERING AND EXPLORING AMAIN 37
CHARACTER
Chapter 5 TELLING THE DRAMATIC STORY 47
Chapter 6 WRITING AN ORIGINALSHORT SCREENPLAY 65
Chapter 7 ON REVISION: SUBSTANCE AND STYLE 79
PART II Moving Forward: Writing Strategies 87
Chapter 8 THE NEED FOR STORYTELLING 89
Chapter 9 VISUALIZATION STRATEGIES 101
Chapter 10 DRAMATIC STRATEGIES 113
Chapter 11 CHARACTERIZATION STRATEGIES 127
Chapter 12 MORE ON DIALOGUE STRATEGIES 141
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viii Writing the Short Film
PART III Genres: Forming the Story 151
Chapter 13 THE MELODRAMA 153
Chapter 14 THE DOCUDRAMA 171
Chapter 15 THE HYPERDRAMA 187
Chapter 16 THE EXPERIMENTALNARRATIVE 205
PART IV New Directions 221
Chapter 17 THE OPPORTUNITYFOR RENEWAL 223
APPENDIX A Short Short Screenplays 233
Vincent, by Gert Embrechts 235
Sob Story, by Matthew E. Goldenberg and
Michael Slavens 241
Pigeon, by Anthony Green 249
APPENDIX B Short Screenplays 257
Another Story, by Lisa Wood Shapiro 259
The Lady in Waiting, by Christian Taylor 270
Sleeping Beauties, by Karyn Kusama 297
The Wounding, by Susan Emerling 308
Dead Letters Don’t Die, by Anais Granofsky
and Michael Swanhaus 323
INDEX 345
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PAT COOPER
I would like to thank Ken Dancyger for his provocative
ideas, easy wit, and exemplary patience throughout our
partnership on this project. He is a most gracious collabora-
tor and a valued friend. I would also like to thank Mary
Carlson for her perceptive comments on the first draft.
KEN DANCYGER
The notion of writing a book about scripting short films
began with Pat Cooper. I have to thank her for her enthu-
siasm, her insights, and her commitment to students. And
I thank her for bringing me into this project. She is a great
friend and collaborator. At New York University, I’d like
to thank Christina Rote and Delliah Bond, who assisted
me in the preparation of the manuscript. Finally, I’d like to
thank my wife, Ida, for her intelligent critiques of the
manuscript at all phases.
On this latest edition we would like to thank our new
scriptwriters—Gert Embrechts, Matthew Goldenberg,
Michael Slavens, and Anthony Green—for allowing us to
include their screenplays. We would also like to thank
Elinor Actipis at Focal Press and Trevor MacDougall at
Kolam, Inc. for their excellent and thorough edit.
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