II – Lit Review

Lit review.

My essay will investigate professional script writing and how established script conventions make a compelling, professional script. The final report will detail how to write an accurate screenplay that could be used on film or TV

‘The Writer’s Tale’ Davies, R (Released 14th January 2010) is all about his journey to bring Doctor Who back to TV in 2005 leading all the way up to his departure 5 years later. The book details how he develops scripts for the show and includes a series of emails between Davies and Benjamin Cook (a friend of Davies’ and fellow Doctor Who contributor who helped him construct the book) detailing ideas and draft scripts for the show. Russell is a BAFTA award winning writer and has created / worked on shows such as Doctor Who as well as creating and penning the spin off’s ‘Torchwood’ and ‘The Sarah Jane Adventures’. Russell has created acclaimed shows such as Years and Years, Queer as Folk, It’s A Sin and A Very English Scandal. Russell is a very reliable source in terms of writing and how to pen a script. When reading The Writer’s Tale, I found a few chapters where Russell talks about how he constructs scripts whilst giving tips for aspiring writers on how to make a script as professional as possible. Here he talks about everything from what to include in scripts to what not to. Russell talks about exposition and how you shouldn’t tell people what’s happening in a script as it does not work on screen. He describes the process of realising that a good script should be able to tell the audience everything they need to know without being told anything in particular. I found this quite helpful as I believe I am quite guilty of doing this. I have come to the conclusion that I describe too much in scripts and that’s a mistake. What’s on screen should be telling the viewer what is happening.

‘Doctor Who: The Shooting Scripts’ Davies, R (2005) contains every script from the series but notes as well as to what changed, why it changed and notes on how the script was written so these two books are going to come in very handy when I come to write my essay. In comparison to The Writer’s Tale, The Shooting Scripts focuses entirely on the scripts at hand and what changed throughout the writing process. Whereas The Writers Tale details the process behind the ideas of the stories and scripts and has a lot more years to cover, 4 more to be precise. This book goes into much more gritty detail for example showing emails between the writers and stories behind how a script came to be. It’s a very interesting read and definitely opened my eyes to all sorts that can go into writing.

‘How to write a movie script: Screenplay format’s and examples.’ Lannom (September 1st 2019). The article lists everything that a professional script should feature talking about everything from how to structure it, to fonts, to talking about writing about interior and exterior shots. I feel this will come in handy with how I should format my script. The article lists many things that should be included like formatting and interior / exterior shots so this will come in handy quite a lot in terms of formatting.  Lannom is a screenwriter and director who is currently living in Los Angeles. He works as a writer, director, and content producer here at a company called StudioBinder.

The final article i have and my 4th source of information `On Screenwriting, with Advice from Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat` comes from television and film writers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (Doctor Who, Sherlock, Tintin, Dracula, The League of Gentlemen to name a few credits the two have worked on together or on their own) This article highlights things said by the writers spoke about scriptwriting at the ‘Doctor Who Festival’ and the ‘Sherlock: Script to Screen panel. In this article I particularly want to focus on Gatiss’ comments about ‘Writers Block’ because although my essay will be on how to write a script, I think it’s very important to talk about the issues you can get leading up to writing the script. Gatiss goes on to say all of the tactics he uses to relieve his writer’s block. He says how important it can be to actually get writer’s block because it means your idea isn’t working and needs work to be fixed. I admire Gatiss a lot as a writer because he has written for all different sorts of genres for years from dark comedy in `The League of Gentlemen` to docu-drama `An Adventure in Space and Time’ so I have huge faith and trust in any advice he gives about writing as i believe anything he says is quite useful. Especially the tips he gives about writer’s block.

I feel, armed with all this information i have everything i need to write a compelling essay about screenwriting in Film and TV

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Bibliography

Book bibliography:

  • Davies, Russell T and Cook, Benjamin (2010), The Writer’s Take: The Final Chapter, BBC Books: Ebury Publishing.

Davies, Russell T (2005), Doctor Who: The Shooting Scripts: Series 1 (2005), BBC Books, BBC Worldwide