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Authors

Stewart McKie

Document Type

Article

Abstract

A typical feature film screenplay goes through many development iterations before the original story idea becomes the audio-visual movie we experience. As the screenplay is developed it becomes more complex and may involve an ever-larger group of "content stakeholders" who have a need for different perspectives on the content of the screenplay. Here I discuss four conceptual archetypes for analyzing and visualizing the textual content of a screenplay: Circular, linear, rollercoaster and nodal. I show examples of support for screenplay analysis and visualization in the current generation of screenwriting software and I also suggest how these visualizations and others may provide insight into ways to improve the quality of a screenplay.

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