ENG 270 Online via Laulima
Summer I 2017 (CRN 91653, Section 601)
Introduction to Literature: Literary History
History of the US Screenplay
WRITING INTENSIVE SECTION
Instructor: Ida Yoshinaga (ida@hawaii.edu), ABD and MA, English, UHM Creative Writing Program
DESCRIPTION:
How did the American screenplay format come to be? What aesthetic, cultural, and economic problems did Hollywood (and other US) filmmakers face, as they developed this creative-industrial form? We will study the:
* Historical conditions behind the screenplay’s formal changes (such as its evolution from “scenario” to “master shot” to “continuity” stories in Hollywood’s first decades)
* Forgotten writing work of women scriptwriters in the early phases of the film industry
* Difficult literary labor of postwar progressive screenwriters who faced the House Un-American Activities Committee’s notorious “black list,” yet who thereafter made secret contributions to the screenplay’s transformation
* Further standardization of the mainstream script format and later anointment of the “screenwriter as auteur,” in the late twentieth century, and
* Millennial, alternative scriptwriting structures and experiments brought in by writers trained in other media including stageplays, global cinema, independent film, digital video, cultural storytelling, and avant-garde genres.
As we review the history (and anticipate the future) of US screenwriting, we will pay special attention to questions of gender-sexuality, race-colonialism, social class, globalization, industrial relations, and community.
GRADING REQUIREMENTS:
– 2 exams, 3 short papers, 1 PowerPoint essay, informal Discussion Board posts, participation
REQUIRED TEXTS:
– Maras, Steven. Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice. NY: Wallflower, 2009.
– Norman, Marc. What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting (REPRINT EDITION). New York: Three Rivers Press, 2008.
– Access to Laulima course website where the Resources folder will contain URLs and PDFs for accessing 20th century & millennial scripts; as well as other readings about US screenwriting history and the screenplay form.
– Access to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or another streaming or DVD/Blu-Ray purchasing service, that allows viewing of the filmed version of these scripts, texts TBA.