Browsing by Subject "Screenplay"

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Bomb, egg, etc.
(2006-05) Williams, Katherine Marie, 1978-; Harris, Elizabeth, 1944-
My intent was to write tales for my sixteen-year old self. The result is an odd brew: ten short stories, some realistic, others bizarre, populated with arsonists and divas, psychics and serial killers. Together they make up a world that I remember as being at the same time both flip and utterly heartbreaking—that is the world of adolescence.
Braving the elements: the writing process of “The Big Empty”
(2015-12) Scott, Colin Symmonds; McCreery, Cindy; Kelban, Stuart
The following report details the writing process of the feature screenplay “The Big Empty” from conception through outline, first draft, field research, subsequent rewrite, and future plans. I will examine these steps in order to better understand the creative choices made between initial inspiration and current screenplay draft, and address the differences.
Cooperative: A Creative Screenwriting Thesis
(2019-05-01) Curtis, Brandon Kiev; McCreery, Cindy
Residing at an international student housing cooperative (or co-op) for two years has been–more often than not–akin to being on a nonstop reality television show. Living with sixty people from more than a dozen countries and walks of life has created a never-ending stream of candidly bizarre yet hysterical circumstances. For an aspiring television writer, there could be no better environment for raw inspiration. Cooperative is a half-hour pilot script I first conceptualized in Fall 2017 and later developed in Spring 2018 in an undergraduate screenwriting thesis course modeled after a television writers room, in which students refine ideas, dialogue, and plot constructs through group feedback and class participation. Through three outlines, a treatment, and several iterations of “notes” on my script, I produced a first draft that allowed me to experiment and better understand scripted narrative development, and will ultimately serve as a creative sample for writing positions in the entertainment industry.This thesis is composed of the thirty-page script, addenda comprised of initial draft documents, and a treatise that details my experience writing (and rewriting) the script and serious questions I engaged with during the creative process. Anecdotes from my real life experiences at the Laurel House Co-op in UT’s West Campus, notes from my summer in the University of Texas Semester in Los Angeles program, and feedback on my work from screenplay competitions and writing festivals.
Cure
(2006-05) Thorne, Beau, 1978-; Lewis, Richard M., M.F.A.
This thesis consists of a feature-length screenplay, Cure, a process essay documenting the writing of Cure, and the short story “Mumbly Peg.”
Embrace the darkness : the writing process of “Diabolical”
(2016-08) Murillo, Renier Javier; Lewis, Richard M., M.F.A.; McCreery, Cindy
This report covers the process of developing, writing, and revising Renier Javier Murillo’s one-hour horror drama pilot “Diabolical” – including background information, inspiration, steps in the writing process, and personal reflections.
God says no : a novel ; &, You must remember this : a screenplay
(2006-05) Hannaham, James; Magnuson, James
God Says No is a novel purporting to be the testimonial of Gary Gray, a young black man coming of age in Charleston, South Carolina. Gary cannot reconcile his Christian faith with his homosexual desires. Eventually, before a suicide attempt, he asks God for a sign. The following day, his Amtrak train derails outside Atlanta and a vision of Christ inspires him to run away from his old life. While hiding out, he joins a dance/theater company and continues to explore and battle his sexuality. Eventually, his wife tracks him down and he agrees to attend a reparative therapy center in Memphis. While there, he rooms with Nicky, a former hustler, with whom he falls in love. Nicky dies tragically. Though the therapy center gives Gary a job setting up a new branch in Atlanta, his faith in the possibility of changing his sexual orientation is severely shaken. He tries to reconcile with his wife and family and is forced to make painful compromises and accept himself. You Must Remember This is a prequel to Casablanca (1942) that focuses on the love story between Ilsa Lund and her husband, Victor Laszlo. When the Nazis capture Victor, Ilsa must find and save him by posing as a reporter for a Nazi newspaper. Victor, in the meantime, devises a way to escape from a concentration camp. The couple cross paths at just the wrong moment, and Ilsa believes that her husband is dead. She returns to Paris and has an affair with Rick Blaine. Victor makes his way through the Sudetenland and has an affair of his own. Eventually the two find each other and make their way to Morocco, and they must untangle their pasts and find their way to America.
Horse latitudes : the melding of fact and fiction
(2010-08) Jackson, Catherine Sarah; Lewis, Richard M., M.F.A.; Kelban, Stuart
The following report documents the inspiration, themes, preparation, and challenges faced in writing the feature length screenplay Horse Latitudes. This is the story of a young woman who works as a spam writer for an advertising agency. In hopes of moving up in the company, Cairo begins working undercover for her boss, writing erotica blog entries for his personal website. She begins using the people closest to her for material, thus betraying her own morals. As she descends deeper into debt to her boss, she becomes physically ill until she can no longer survive in the world she has created. This is a story based on the author’s own experiences of working for a spam company and being committed to a hospital. This report also includes supplemental planning documents used in the final draft.
How I convinced everyone a story portraying the grief of surviving somewhat self-inflicted trauma through an unhealthy relationship with a bird makes sense
(2024-08) Brodt, Isabella; Kelban, Stuart; Willett, Thomas
The following report details the creative process leading to the most recent draft of my feature screenplay Call Upon Landing.
How to BBQ a comedy the UT way: the writing of Club Fed
(2009-08) Pinkerton, Kevin Jeffrey; Kelban, Stuart; Lewis, Richard M.
In this thesis report I describe in detail the conception of a fictional story set in present-day Florida and the Caribbean and its development as a screenplay, the University of Texas Graduate School learning environment that facilitated this writing exercise, and my reflections on the MFA process as a whole.
Killing realities, phantoms and darlings : the creative slayings of "Finishing school"
(2010-08) Cote, Jennifer Rounseville; Kelban, Stuart
This report chronicles the creative inspiration, writing, and rewriting processes that went into the development of Jennifer Rounseville Cote’s screenplay “Finishing School.” The following pages additionally examine issues in the horror movie genre and screenwriting practices in general.
Magic mountain : the scenic route from thriller to comedy
(2014-08) Henderson, James Dinkins, III; Kelban, Stuart
This report documents the creative process that resulted in the feature screenplay "Magic Mountain," including the first inspiration for a dramatic thriller, initial attempts to devise character and plot, writing and rewriting script pages, and then the radical change of genre and artistic intention toward surrealist comedy, culminating with the final sequence of rewriting during the thesis semester.
More than skin deep : the writing process of Roadkill
(2016-08) Silberman, Magdalen Anna; Kelban, Stuart; Thorne, Beau
The following report describes the writing process of my feature screenplay Roadkill. By looking back on the process and all its stages—including inspiration, planning, first draft, feedback, revision, and rewriting—I attempt to communicate my creative process and show how my time spent in the MFA program has influenced that process.
Mount Orbit : a short novel ; &, the ballad of Dick Shuck : a screenplay
(2007-05) Mandrell, Elizabeth, 1967-; Adams, Michael, 1945-; Harris, Elizabeth, 1944-
Mount Orbit is a short novel chronicling three months in the life of Willie Shanks, a ne'er-do-well orphan from Mount Orbit, Kentucky, who is sprung from jail on the first page, determined to go home, and walk the straight and narrow. He returns the prodigal son, attends a revival at church where the elders lay on hands in hopes that he stays in the hollow of God's hand. Things are different when he returns home. His sister is dating a cop named Baxter. His girlfriend decides she wants to be a self-reliant woman, and his guardian, Aunt Peel, has taken in Hazel DeVore, a unwed mother ready to give birth. Despite his best intentions, he ends up working for Big Mike Tritt, a small-town drug dealer who despises the town of Mount Orbit and wishes to wipe it off the map. Willie makes friends with Doc Walker, The Reverend, and Gerald Tate, regulars at Big Mike's and falls in lust with Maxine, Big Mike's sometimes-girlfriend and barkeep. When Big Mike offers to let Willie run a drug operation out of the drive-thru, Willie has a brief moment of conscience, but then decides that the ends will justify the means. Big Mike, a Vietnam Vet who suffers delusions of grandeur himself, doesn't have time to run his drug operation because he is busily buying up all the downtown property in a covert effort to tear down an entire city block to seek revenge on the upper class of Mount Orbit after they snubbed him as a returning vet. Things turn sticky when a hillbilly undercover agent turns up at Big Mike's, and Gerald is found mysteriously dead in the elevator shaft of an old downtown building. People suspect Big Mike, business grinds to a halt, and he's run out of town on a rail. Willie gets sole ownership of Big Mike's and control of a drug operation he never intended to have. The Ballad of Dick Shuck is about a Confederate solider returning to Kentucky after the Civil War. He is still poor and no better off than he was before the conflict. His parents are poor tobacco farmers, but Shuck refuses to live that life anymore. He takes up with King Jim Simmons and the Goodrich boys, counterfeiters and bandits that comb the Kentucky River for unsuspecting peddlers to murder. Sheriff Smoot offers Shuck a job the same day King Jim Simmons offers him a position with his marauding outfit. After accidentally shooting a loud-mouthed Yankee during a drunken card game, Shuck is blackmailed by King Jim and forced to work both sides of the law. Shuck doublecrosses King Jim, who seeks revenge by killing Shuck's parents and pinning the murder on Shuck. Shuck is so overcome by the guilt of the numerous other murders and sins he has committed, he decides to go to the gallows even though he is innocent of the crime that will send him there. In the end, Shuck hangs as a hero, while King Jim and the Goodrich boys are hunted down and lynched.
On writing "The death of us"
(2013-08) Stringer, Steven William; Lewis, Richard M., M.F.A.
This report details the writing and revision process that went into my thesis feature screenplay, The Death of Us, a romantic comedy about a young man who fakes his mother’s death to try to keep his girlfriend from dumping him. I trace my steps from the idea’s conception to the completion of my thesis draft of the screenplay, using the outlines and beat-sheets I created at various stages along the way as examples. I explain the circumstances and inspirations behind The Death of Us, and finally, I attempt to reconcile the giant gap between my original intentions for this script and the final product.
Performing resistance : Brian Friel’s adaptation of Brian Moore’s The lonely passion of Judith Hearne
(2014-05) Echols, Reid Glenn; Cullingford, Elizabeth; Loehlin, James
This paper tracks Irish playwright Brian Friel’s unpublished film adaptation of Brian Moore’s novel The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, examining the historical context and content of both works. In his screenplay, Friel recasts Moore’s heroine as performing a series of resistant gestures towards the social, economic, and religious institutions of Belfast in the 1950’s—institutions by which Moore’s protagonist is depicted as thoroughly trapped. I argue that the political violence of the 1970’s inflects Friel’s adaptation, causing him to shift his focus to the economic conditions of working class Catholics in the years preceding the Troubles, and to the possibilities of non-violent, resistant performances in both protesting injustice and articulating marginalized identities.
Returning to Ananda
(2013-12) Bernhardt, Deja; McCreery, Cindy
From the sprouting of the idea for the series to the final stages of post-production for Returning to Ananda, a one-hour, made for cable-television pilot, directed by Déjà Cresencia Bernhardt; this report details the pre-production to post-production phases of its development. Included in this report are the final screenplay and various other production notes.
Spilling red ink : the writing process for "Nature red”
(2013-08) Gammon, Michael Abraham; Kelban, Stuart
This report details the writing process that led to “Nature Red,” a screenplay about an aging hippy with a successful farm co-op whose dark past comes back to haunt him in the form of a sociopathic drifter. I begin with the inspirations for this story. Then I discuss the “story-breaking” process, pre-writing, drafting, and revising. I will discuss what I learned about the story’s subject matter as well as what I learned about storytelling for film. Included are samples of prewriting and revision materials.
States of Grace - Feature Film Screenplay
(2020-05) Bramlett, Audrey
The following treatise will dissect the fictional narrative feature screenplay, States of Grace, that I completed under the supervision of Cindy McCreery and Stuart Kelban as my senior thesis project. First, I will give a brief description of the story's plot; then, I will describe my writing process in creating this screenplay over the past year. Following the writing process, I will delve into the strongest influences on characters, tone, humor, and other elements of my script, and then discuss the most important themes that the story focuses on. States of Grace tells the story of mothers and daughters. It centers around the lives of Grace, her mother Camille, and Camille's mother Lena, as they navigate the challenges of caretaking, grieving in the aftermath of loss, and forgiving one another. Grace is a senior social work major who, while desperately well-intentioned, is naive and selfish in ways that hurt the people around her; Camille is her loving but tired mother, whose years of grief and frustration have led to a short fuse; and Lena is Grace's grandmother, an optimistic-to-a-fault widow who is suffering from deteriorating physical health and can no longer live on her own. When Camille moves to have Lena put in an assisted living facility, Grace refuses to allow it, opting to take Lena in to live in her apartment in New York with her instead. Her ensuing experience caring for her grandma yields medical emergencies, threatened future plans, and life-altering revelations for all three women.
Still the same old story : the process of transforming the behind-the-scenes story of the greatest movie of all time into its own feature film
(2023-08) Perelman, Britton K.; Lewis, Richard M., M.F.A.
The following report details the creative process of writing my feature-film script: You Must Remember This. Covering everything from my first interaction with Casablanca in the fifth grade to the moment I typed FADE OUT, this report attempts to capture the full breadth — the trials, tribulations, and delights — of crafting a script based on a true story.
Texas bright
(2006-05) Jones, Kimberley Kaye; Smith, Alex, approximately 1967-
This thesis consists of two feature-length screenplays, the drama Texas Bright, and the comedic drama The Summer of Breaking Into Public Pools, as well as "Funny Face," a spec script for the ABC medical drama, Grey's Anatomy.