I. MacDonald & Ian W. Macdonald 
Screenwriting Poetics and the Screen Idea [PDF ebook] 

A new, original investigation into how screenwriting works; the practices, creative ‘poetics’ and texts that serve the screen idea. Using a range of film, media and creative theories, it includes new case studies on the successful ITV soap Emmerdale, Hitchcock’s first major screenwriter and David Lean’s unfinished film, Nostromo.

Table of Content

1. Introduction 2. Theoretical Approaches 3. The orthodox poetics of screenwriting 4. The real world and screenwriting as work 5. The Screen Idea Work Group: Emmerdale 6. The individual, their creativity and the poetics 7. Hitchcock’s forgotten screenwriter: Eliot Stannard 8. God is in the details: the text object 9. The poetics of the screen idea: Nostromo 10. Screenwriting studies References Appendices Notes Index

About the author

Dr Ian W. Macdonald worked for the BBC, IBA, London Weekend Television, and the British Film Institute before becoming Head of the Northern Film School at Leeds Met in 1992, joining the University of Leeds in 2006. He is the co-editor of the Journal of Screenwriting and co-founder of the Screenwriting Research Network (www.screenwritingresearch.com).