The screenplay text as a means and an effect of communication 35

This chapter argues that the screenplay text can be analysed through the use of a

communicational approach. Depending on if a researcher focuses on the screenplay as part of the potential film’s development process or as a text-type, the screenplay can be regarded as either an effect of the communication between members of the potential film’s production team and the writer, or as a means of communication between the writer and the reader.

Research that focuses on the screenwriting process argues that a film does not solely originate from the screenplay text but rather from the film’s development process, during which the screenplay is being revised and rewritten. Osip Brik, for example, finds that the screenplay format and the literary language are insufficient means to convey the film. He therefore states that ‘the process of work on the script is far more important than the finished

script.’1 _{Brik thus clearly positions the screenplay text in the background while highlighting}

the importance of the film’s production process. Ian Macdonald, in line with Brik, emphasises that the screenplay text should not be regarded as the sole origin of a film. Macdonald argues that the film originates from the ‘screen idea’, which he defines as ‘the essence of the future screenwork [the potential film] that is discussed and negotiated by those involved in reading

and developing the screenplay and associated documents.’2 The screenplay text is thereby

defined as only a partial record of the screen idea, intended to ‘convey (or at least record) the

screen idea, but the idea itself is formed in the minds of all those involved in its production’.3

Both Brik and Macdonald highlight the importance of the input from the participants (e.g. director, producer, writers) who develop the screenplay (and the potential film), and they consequently regard the screenplay text as an effect of the discussions that take place between the participants; as a partial record of their conceptions of the screen idea. The participants’ conceptions of the screen idea continuously change throughout the film’s development stage, which leads to multiple drafts of the screenplay. For researchers who focus on the

screenwriting process, the purpose of each consecutive draft of the screenplay can then be                                                                                                                

1 _{Osip Brik, ‘From the Theory and Practice of a Script Writer’, Screen, 15.3 (1974), pp. 95-103 (p.}

99).

2 _{Ian Macdonald, ‘Disentangling the Screen Idea’, Journal of Media Practice, 5.2 (2004), pp. 89-99 (p.}

89).

identified as conveying the notion which the participants of the development process have of the screen idea at a specific time during the film’s development stage. This makes it possible to regard every version of the screenplay text as a result of the communication between the participants in the film’s development process.

Screenplay researcher Claus Tieber defines the screenplay in the following way: ‘A screenplay is a documentation and a product of the communication that occurs during a film’s

production.’4 Tieber thereby places himself firmly amongst the researchers who focus on the

screenwriting process rather than on the screenplay text. Tieber’s position is further emphasised by the following declaration:

The screenplay does not exist. No other text-type is as work-in-progress as the screenplay. From the first to the last version, from the filming until the editing is complete, the screenplay is constantly revised. […] The screenplay of a film, therefore, does not exist. The different versions are documentations of the film’s production

process.5

Researchers who follow the other strand of research, which focuses on the screenplay as a text-type, do not regard the screenplay text as a result of a communication but rather argue that the screenplay text itself may result in the development of the film. It is thus the screenplay that, in this case, brings about the development of the film through conveying the screen idea instead of the developers of the potential film bringing about multiple screenplay texts during the film’s development stage.

Claudia Sternberg clearly focuses on the text when she argues that despite the multiple versions of the screenplay that exist during a film’s development stage ‘the equality of all

versions still enables the analyst […] to examine each individual text in its own right’.6

Steven Price also focuses on the text instead of the development process of the film. Price regards the screenplay text as an ‘enabling document’ that is ‘necessary for the production’ of the potential film, and he highlights that the anticipated industrial production is the screenplay

text’s ‘raison d’être’.7

4 _{Claus Tieber, Schreiben für Hollywood: Das Drehbuch im Studiosystem (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2008),}

p. 19 (my translation).

5 _{Tieber, p. 19 (emphasis in original, my translation).}

6 _{Claudia Sternberg, Written for the Screen: The American Motion Picture Screenplay as Text}

(Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 1997), p. 40.

7 _{Steven Price, The Screenplay: Authorship, Theory and Criticism (London: Palgrave Macmillan,}

For researchers who focus on the screenplay text, the purpose of the text can then be identified as the communication of the potential film to the reader. The screenplay can thus be regarded as the writer’s means of communication. Sternberg emphasises that ‘[a]ny deeper understanding of the text-type derives from an awareness of the communication process

between the text and its readers.’8

One way of differentiating the strands of research outlined above can then be through how they relate to the concept of communication. Regarded as a partial record of the screen idea – as conveying the participant’s conception of the screen idea – consecutive drafts of the screenplay become a result of the communication between the participants of the

screenwriting process during the potential film’s development stage. Regarded as a text in its own right, an enabling document, the screenplay becomes a means of communication for the writer in order to convey the screen idea to a reader situated within a production context.

This chapter, and this dissertation, will focus on the screenplay as a means of communication, thereby following the strand of research that analyses the screenplay as a text-type. This chapter first identifies the main characteristics of the screenplay as a text-type and how it correlates to a communicational approach. Secondly, the chapter introduces the communicational approach; how it is being used when analysing other text-types such as films and novels, and how it can be applied to the screenplay text. Finally, the chapter

proposes a communication model specifically made to fit the analysis of screenplay texts. The model introduces and identifies the relevant textual and non-textual agents that participate in communicating the potential film to the reader through the screenplay text.