I have found this week really interesting given the lecture on the History of Screenwriting as I’ve always enjoyed watching the older films such as Against All Flags (Sherman, 1952), Captain Scarlett (Carr, 1952) and The Mark of Zorro (Mamoulian, 1940).
However, I’ve always assumed they were scripted in the same way films are now.
WRONG!
Yes, they may have been written down in a script but the formatting was very different if the screenplay examples of Sunset Boulevard (Wilder, 1950) and On the Waterfront (Kazan, 1954) are anything to go by.
Technological advancements have also impacted the progression of script or screenplay formatting for each advancement allowed for more complicated narratives, which in turn, called for a more formalised formatting of screenplays. This pattern went on and on until as recently as the 1980s. With a rise in scriptwriting competitions along with the want of filing for Copyright becoming more and more normal, scriptwriting format became all the more regimented. Even software designed specifically for writing screenplays is pre-set so as you’re typing your screenplay Final Draft, for example, automatically formats the text into the industry-standard layout.
Perhaps the most amazing thing I’ve found out this week is that during; what some would call; the ‘Golden Age’ of cinema. Screenwriters were not called screenwriters at all. They were called Scenarists and were so much more involved in the casting and production process than we screenwriters do now.
As for my creative work, I’ve completed the first draft of the Treatment for my short film assignment. I’m also thinking about redrafting the Outline so it’s a bit more in line with the Treatment.
What happens in the film?
Well, that would be telling!