Film Direction and Screenwriting

Seminar workshop based on Aristotle’s “Poetics”
With Sophia-Louise von Wrangell


INTRODUCTION

1. The eternal present.
2. Visualization.
3. Cinematographic Language vs. Literary Language.
4. The structure of a short film: beginning, development, and sudden upturn of the situation.
5. The twist. The message.

Film screening and Forum "The Eye of the Needle"


ELEMENTS OF CINEMATOGRAPHIC LANGUAGE

1. The frame. Composition. The artistic frame.
2. The shot.
3. The sequence.
4. The rythmem.
5. Light. Darkness.
6. Movement. Composition in movement.
7. The angle. The dramatic angle.

Film Screening and Forum "The Piano"


THE PRINCIPLE OF DOUBLE MIMIC

1. Reality vs. verisimilitude.
2. The inherent character of cinema is not reality.
3. The creative process.
4. Cinematographic medicine, law, engineering and other "exact sciences”.
5. Cine Verita.
6. Documentary.

Film Screening and Forum "Bowling For Columbine"


THE CHARACTER

1. Its construction.
2. The protagonist.
3. The antagonist.
4. The anti-hero.
5. The abstract characters.
6. Characterization. Consequence.
7. Characterization of the absent character.

Film Screening and Forum "Other People's Lives"


DIALOG

1. Cinematographic dialog vs. literary inner dialog.
2. Cinematographic dialog vs. theatrical dialog.
3. Cinematographic dialog vs. broadcast dialog.
4. Dialog in counter point.

Film Screening and Forum "


ELEMENTS OF SYNTAX

1. Rhythm.
2. Time. Ellipsis. Cine time vs. real time.
3. Space. Symbolic space. Conventional space.
4. Continuity. Raccord.
5. Music.
6. Noises.
7. Silence.
8. The Alpha and Omega. The circle.
9. The last shot.

Film Screening and Forum " The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"


OTHER STRUCTURES.

1. The moment of suspense. Hitchcock. Modern suspense. The semantic ellipsis.
2. Surrealism. Luis Buñuel. Free association. Fantastic Realism.
3. Comedy. Out of limits: laughter as defense against extreme pain.

Film Screening and Forum "The Sixth Sense"

Feedback on the course.

You will write one screenplay a week, applying the concepts learned the previous week. There will be a weekly screening and forum in which to see, applied, the same principles and more. You will write a paper a week with your observations on each film viewed.

You will get a certificate of assistance to the course issued by Sophia's Galaxy.