Everybody's a Writer Theorizing screenwriting as creative labour

Abstract

This paper offers a theoretical agenda for a labourist analysis of screenwriting, and critically evaluates the marginal status of screenwriting within film production systems. On the one hand, screenwriting offers an exemplary case study of creative work in post-modernized film production industries, work characterized by freelancing and multivalent working patterns, insecurity and hierarchization. Investigating screenwriting as creative labour also offers unique insights into an intensely industrial vocation; this requires a highly particular theorization of the contexts and conditions of writers' working lives. This paper draws on sociological analyses of creative production and utilizes a Foucauldian understanding of technologies of the self as this concept has been applied in the analysis of creative labour. This approach enables a critical examination of particular aspects of screenwriting labour, including the rigidity of the industrial screenplay form and its pedagogical frameworks, the standardized mechanisms of control over screenwriting labour (such as inequitable collaboration and practices of multiple authorship), and the heady mix of both creative fulfilment and punishment which characterizes this form of work.

Decentring the Creative Self: How Others Make Creativity Possible in Creative Professional Fields

“…Even in science, a domain traditionally associated with the image of lone geniuses, current literature tries to correct an individualistic bias and points to the collective efforts required by all great discoveries (see Collins, ). Scriptwriting, on the other hand, has been considered more consistently as a social type of practice (Conor, ), a practice born out of conversations with a series of others (Redvall, ). Finally, music composition is an equally socially embedded type of activity, especially in its improvisational forms; among them, jazz improvised performances have received considerable attention in recent decades (Sawyer, ).…”

The creativity maze: Exploring creativity in screenplay writing.

“…Screenwriters' activity has been theorized from a multitude of perspectives from sociology, economy, and labor (Blair, 2001;Conor, 2010), to critical theory and gender studies (Cox, 2005;Kohn, 2000). Only a few volumes have been published based on interviews with celebrated screenwriters (e.g., Engel, 2002;Ferguson, 2004Ferguson, , 2009Ferguson, , 2014Katz, 2000); others include personal reflections on one's own activity in the film industry (e.g., Goldman, 1996).…”

“…Only a few volumes have been published based on interviews with celebrated screenwriters (e.g., Engel, 2002;Ferguson, 2004Ferguson, , 2009Ferguson, , 2014Katz, 2000); others include personal reflections on one's own activity in the film industry (e.g., Goldman, 1996). The scarcity of studies is probably symptomatic of the marginalization of screenplay writers within a highly hierarchical film industry (Conor, 2010;Pritzer & McGarva, 2009).…”

Learning film production

“…Some research has focused on the labour market, prerequisites for film workers and film work (cf. DeFillippi and Arthur, 1998;Blair et al, 1999;Blair, 2001;Bechky, 2006;Jones and DeFillippi, 1996;Conor, 2010), while other researchers have been interested in the importance of the film industry from an economic perspective (De Vany, 2004;Eliashberg et al, 2006) or have focused on management (Cleve, 2000;Soila-Wadman, 2009). The current increasing research interest is probably linked to changes regarding work in general, rapid and radical changes, particularly in the so-called creative industries, but also because the film industry for decades has been organized around the temporary (Bechky, 2006;Conor, 2010).…”