The Screenplay Business: Managing creativity in script development in the contemporary British independent film industry
A screenplay is sometimes said to be a blueprint for a film, and its genesis and development is therefore important to our understanding of how films are created. Film business studies has traditionally avoided close study of the screenplay development process, perhaps as a result of the film studies emphasis on analysing the text of the completed film, and the auteur theory emphasis on the importance of the director; both of which may have marginalised the study of development and the creativity of development practitioners. Professional screenplay development is a team activity, with creative collaboration between screenwriters, producers, development executives, financiers, and directors. So how does power and creative control shift between members of this team, especially as people arrive or leave? And how does this multiple authorship affect the auteur theory idea that the director is the creative author of the film? This research sets out to open debates around the process and nature of the business of script development, and consider how development practitioners experience, collaborate and participate in the process of screenplay development in the UK today. It uses original interviews, observation and hermeneutic reflection; and asks how cross-disciplinary ideas around creativity, managing creative people, motivation, organisational culture, and team theory could be used to consider how the creative team of writer, producer, director and development executive can work effectively together. It proposes new theories, including defining the independent film value chain and the commitment matrix, analysing changing power relationships during development, and establishing new typologies around film categories and their relationship to funding. The core of this PhD by Prior Publication is the book The Screenplay Business: managing creativity and script development in the film industry. The supporting paper explores the contexts of film industry studies; the film value chain; auteurship and screenplay studies.
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