Screenwriting: A Manual [Paperback]

Jonathan Dawson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 2000

Covering all forms of screenwriting, this is a wide-ranging and accessbile guide to industry practices and principles. While providing a comprehensive and considered approach to presenting work, it allows for a great deal of creative freedom. With script extracts, original storyboards, and narrative ideas for multimedia, the book offers concrete examples of successful and expressive screenwriting within the described production formats. It also contains exercises for generating and shaping the various elements of a script, an appendix on copyright and other legal issues, and a glossary of terms.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From the information covered in most screenwriting manuals, you'd think that there's only one kind of scriptwriting: the kind that ends up (completely rewritten, of course) in big-screen, feature-length films. Granted, all those hopefuls pounding away past midnight are probably not dreaming of the infotainment big-time. But Jonathan Dawson can't possibly be the first to inform them that "the majority of screenwriters who earn a regular living do so from two forms of screenwriting: corporate work and series drama." Dawson gives as much attention in Screenwriting to corporates as he does to feature films. Soaps and series, documentaries, comedy, animation, children's TV, and multimedia also get their due. Dawson is refreshingly forthright about the role of the scriptwriter in Hollywood. He advises scriptwriters to try to keep their egos at bay--this is, after all, a process in which as many people as possible try to meddle with their work--but he also urges them to stand firm when it comes time for credits. Dawson teaches in Australia, but he's the best kind of insider: he knows what's needed to succeed, but he's not recommending anyone make too many compromises to get there. "Tell stories you want to tell," he says, "not what other people tell you to." And don't bother investing in software programs to help you do it; they "interrogate you like a major market research focus group," Dawson complains. With chapters on plot, characters, legal issues, and "the worrisome and grubby business of having to pitch your ideas." --Jane Steinberg

About the Author

Jonathan Dawson is Associate Professor in the School of Film, Media, and Cultural Studies at Griffith University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (September 7, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195508327
• ISBN-13: 978-0195508321
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,821,827 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At last! A screenwriting book that's honest..., September 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Screenwriting: A Manual (Paperback)

This book proves that Aussies aren't just eccentrics who make quirkylittle films about ballroom dancing or killing crocodiles. This wonderfully sane and practical handbook assumes that any young writer will be prepared to, indeed want to, work in ALL of the fields of writing for the screen - not just features or hot television series.

In other words, the writer doesn't pretend that there's a direct pipeline or a magic formula to going from Nintendo to Hollywood screenplay in one jump. This book covers all the likely places you're going to have to work in - from educational video, ads, sitcoms, and so on but more importantly new media. There's a terrific chapter on multimedia scripting which doesn't appear to be covered by any other current manual and a unique chapter on animation with some quite extraordinary storyboards.

To be honest, this book is a bit of a surprise. This book is a great antidote to all those books and film manuals - let alone courses - that insist on formulas like the hero's journey, character arcs and so on to the exclusion of the kind of originality and excitement that produces movies like "Being John Malkovich" which, thank heavens, obey no such rules!