This study applies computational sentiment analysis to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) to reveal the mathematical precision of its emotional architecture. By quantifying sentiment polarity and subjectivity patterns throughout the screenplay, we uncover evidence of deliberate emotional engineering that contributes to the film’s enduring psychological impact. Our analysis identifies several key sentiment mechanisms: Jack Torrance’s mental deterioration follows an exponential emotional decay curve rather than linear progression; archetypal narrative frameworks produce mathematically distinct emotional signatures that activate deep psychological responses; strategic escalation of subjective language systematically undermines the distinction between actual events and psychological projection; interpersonal dialogue creates quantifiable emotional contagion networks through which characters influence one another’s affective states and symbolic repetitions establish consistent emotional reference points that guide viewer psychological experience. The spatial sentiment mapping reveals how the Overlook Hotel operates as a psychological landscape where emotional intensity corresponds precisely to physical location. Results demonstrate that psychological horror achieves its power through systematic emotional patterning calibrated to archetypal structures rather than through shocking visual content alone. This research bridges computational linguistics and film theory, providing insight into how cinematic storytelling constructs emotion through mathematical calibration. The findings advance our understanding of narrative emotional design while illuminating the technical mastery underlying Kubrick’s psychological horror classic.
Review of: Writing and Producing for Children and Young Audiences: Cases from Danish Film and Television , Eva Novrup Redvall (2024) Cham: Springer Nature, 256 pp., ISBN 978-3-03167-072-5, h/bk, USD 139.99, GBP 119.99
It has been over twenty-five years since Buffy the Vampire Slayer first appeared on our screens. Pitched as a feminist icon in a distinctly 1990s mould, Buffy Summers grew to become the defining heroine of her generation. Now, in a markedly different decade, one characterized by a rightward swing into neofascist politics, the legacy of the series can be re-examined as a structural masterpiece, a study in character, a pop cultural phenomenon, and, with revelations about the show’s creator, a misleading statement of intent. This article will examine the history and development of the series as well as its tiered structure, which became a blueprint for subsequent forays into fantasy television. It will then expand into a discussion of Buffy ’s position as a cultural artefact, how that dissonance between the politics of the show and the politics of its creator has impacted the framing of the series, and whether Buffy should be dismissed (as conservative critics have long hoped for), valorized (as legions of fans demand) or simply recontextualized. As we head deeper into the new millennium, will this modern fable continue to resonate with audiences? Is Buffy ’s premillennial idealism passé… or do we need slayers now more than ever?
The 2025 Screenwriting Research Network (SRN) conference and Sightlines: Filmmaking in the Academy festival, hosted by the University of South Australia (now Adelaide University) on Kaurna Country, brought together delegates from screenwriting and screen production, inviting participants to connect, relate and collaborate under the theme of hyphen. As a continuation of this invitation, this conference report is designed as a series of after-perspectives that speak through and with the registers and languages of the authors’ respective creative practice and research, translating conference impressions into the expression of our work. This leads us to consider conference takeouts as an invitation to continued dialogues and conversations on screenwriting practice and research. Gushing, itching, longing, de-centring and embracing uncertainty, we inquire into the conference theme hyphen as the desire to connect is met with both the challenge and opportunity to move beyond the boundaries of the languages and registers of our own creative practice and research.
Review of: Screenwriting in French Cinema , Sarah Leahy and Isabelle Vanderschelden (2021) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 392 pp., ISBN 978-0-71908-842-1, h/bk, GBP 85.00
The 2025 Screenwriting Research Network (SRN) conference and Sightlines: Filmmaking in the Academy festival, hosted by the University of South Australia (now Adelaide University) on Kaurna Country, brought together delegates from
Television screenwriting theory traditionally discourages dialogue-heavy character exposition, yet contemporary serial narratives increasingly demand psychologically complex characters. This study applies Michael D. Bristol’s vernacular approach from literary criticism to television dialogue practices, demonstrating how writers can use strategic verbal cues to create authentic character motivations. Using the false villain method, this research reimagines Shakespeare’s Juliet Capulet for a speculative television adaptation, showing how canonical character traits can appear transformed through trauma while remaining psychologically consistent. The methodology reveals how audiences naturally interpret scattered verbal cues to construct coherent character portraits, an interpretive process that current screenwriting theory has not systematized. The study finds that Bristol’s two-step framework (identifying structural absences and applying background knowledge) provides television writers with practical tools for dialogue-driven character development. Rather than avoiding exposition, writers can transform it into opportunities for collaborative interpretation that engage audiences’ psychological understanding. This research contributes to screenwriting theory by introducing philosophical concepts of character from literary studies, particularly the idea of treating fictional characters as psychologically real people. This perspective validates character-based interpretation and challenges formalist approaches that reduce characters to structural elements, demonstrating how literary theory’s understanding of character psychology can enhance television writing practices.
Review of: The Passion of Pedro Almodóvar: A Self-Portrait in Seven Films , James Miller (2025) New York: Columbia University Press, 208 pp., ISBN 978-0-23122-004-0, h/bk, USD 26.00 ISBN 978-0-23156-303-1, p/bk, USD 25.99
While addressing the question of artificial intelligence (AI) application to writing for the moving image, this Special Issue takes a close interest in the modes and practices currently applied and tested when AI becomes a collaborator or an assistant in the creative processes gathered under the overarching term ‘screenwriting’. In doing so, it offers a space for emerging theory that examines and imagines what it means to enter a mind that is ‘other’, and how human creativity can survive, evolve and find unprecedented advantages within technological power. This is a flexible editorial posture, one which above all aims to photograph the moment, and the ways a plurality of practices, both in terms of conceptual, geographical and social anchoring, explore what AI means to a human screenwriter.
Review of: Dreamwork for Dramatic Writing: Dreamwrighting for Stage and Screen, David Crespy (2024) Leiden, Boston, MA, Paderborn, Vienna, Singapore and Beijing: Brill Academic Publications, 264 pp., ISBN 978-9-00453-595-4, h/bk, $119
Review of: Lire des scénarios: Pour une approche interdisciplinaire et renouvelée des pratiques scénaristiques, Gabrielle Tremblay (2024) Montréal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 274 pp. ISBN 978-2-76065-003-9, p/bk, $34.95
Narrative conventions draw the screenwriter repeatedly to singular and permanent character change as an essential component of a dramatic film. When writing an interactive film with a multi-linear branching narrative, the concept of character change was problematized. Opportunities emerged for the protagonist of the resultant interactive film to change in contradictory ways depending on the choices the audience made at key intervals. These contradictions led to a dilemma: if the protagonist of a film is effectively realized, then how can multiple character choices and consequential character changes remain viable? Using screenwriting as a mode of inquiry, I reflect on the process of writing multiple drafts of an interactive film and consider how the protagonist of a dramatic narrative might change in ways not usually prescribed by narrative conventions-especially when one considers how the protagonist often weathers a crisis which leaves them vulnerable to unauthorized impulses. However, in the process of writing an interactive film, I continually resisted this possibility, removed the protagonist from the story altogether and embraced an ill-fitting meta-narrative rather than face this potential plurality. This suggests that screenwriting pedagogy might account for the power of internalized narrative conventions which could misdirect creativity when one is deliberately experimenting with the form.
The recent field of 'Shadow Cinema' highlights the challenges of telling an alternative film history emphasizing the role played by unproduced pictures, opening a new line of research, including new issues to screenwriting studies. This article aims to stress the role of unproduced screenplays towards shadow, and to briefly introduce a typology of unfilmed scripts, highlighting four types of unproduced screenplays. Furthermore, this article will focus on the former type of unfilmed screenplay, the virtuous cycle of some unfilmed screenplays, which is characterized by a broad time gap and historical interval. As an example of the latter, I will focus my analysis on Dune, a screenplay and film project written in 1974 by Alejandro Jodorowsky. The article also analyses the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune, by Frank Pavich, and an anonymous experiment with generative AI, found on YouTube, with speculated scenes from Jodorowsky's unproduced picture.
In 2024, a GBP 1.04 million Innovate UK-funded programme brought together a consortium consisting of Oxford AI company Charisma.AI, UK higher education arts specialists University of the Arts London (UAL) and Falmouth University, broadcaster Channel 4 and animation studio Aardman. The Charismatic project explored the opportunities for the creative industries to better leverage the potential of AI technologies and the potential presented by AI to enhance and supplement storytelling practice in film and television. Working in partnership with creative companies, the consortium developed bespoke tools in response to the challenges to their practice identified by those taking part, inverting the more common retooling to creative applications of general-purpose machine learning products. Within the project, the screenplay form was used as a laboratory for testing and developing a tool that challenged creative ideas and narrative paths, creating playful approaches to linear storytelling. This article both articulates what was learnt through the first year of research and development and identifies some of the more challenging parts of the process-the distinction between what filmmakers aspire to do and the extent to which this can be codified in AI development, in addition to the challenges presented in the quite different vocabulary of these distinct creative practices.
The use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the way we tell stories - from the way we develop ideas to writing and production processes. This article presents a case study that followed the screenwriting processes, supported by generative AI, used in the making of RENO, a short science fiction film, produced by multi-award-winning Bristol-based visual effects (VFX) studio Lux Aeterna. RENO was developed as an industry case study as part of the UKRIfunded MyWorld programme, which explores the future of creative technology innovation in the south-west of the United Kingdom by pioneering new ideas, products and processes. This article shares findings from this case study, achieved through tracking the development of the screenwriting processes developed in the production of RENO, which included a series of interviews with those involved in the process. The findings highlight a nuanced relationship with generative AI, which, while initially embraced as a creative driver, the team ultimately found more valuable in specific creation and production contexts. This case study offers valuable insights for screenwriters, emphasizing the importance of both maintaining human creative control while also experimenting with emerging technologies through a reflective process. The article argues that defining generative AI's specific role in the screenwriting process, whether in the role of research assistant, character development tool, co-writer/writing partner or editor/critical friend, becomes a crucial part of the creative process.
The process of globalization has created what one can call a transcultural era, in that screenwriters can embrace a more transcultural view of screenwriting, adopt a more flexible approach to storytelling and write stories that transcend cultural boundaries. However, not all independent screenwriters have access to the means to pay professional translators to adapt their work. In response to these concerns, this practice-based research article investigates the application of artificial intelligence (AI) as a practical and low-cost tool for translating screenplays. Specifically, the study focuses on translating a feature-length screenplay from English into Korean to systematically test the capability of AI to translate dialogue and scene descriptions to create a screenplay suitable for presentation to Korean-speaking collaborators. The study explores the efficiency and accuracy of AI as an intermediate translator that can facilitate seamless language translation while preserving the natural and nuanced expressions essential to screenwriting; it utilizes OpenAI's natural language processing (NLP) technology for translations and conducts a comparative analysis between human and AI-generated translations to assess fidelity to the original intent, emotional impact and dialogue coherence. By evaluating the strengths and limitations of AI as an intermediate translator, the research aims to establish a framework for optimal human-AI collaboration that may benefit screenwriters who wish to embrace the opportunities available in this transcultural era.
The Screenwriting with Artificial Intelligence Framework (SWAIF) is a screenwriting method that emerged from the attempt to articulate postdigital intimacy with AI technology through screen storytelling. It responds to calls for new narratives reflecting our everyday relationship with AI and widespread industry concerns about the use of generative AI in screenwriting. The resulting British Academy-funded research set out to explore AI's capacity to generate original, intimate, human-centred screen drama. In embracing the research, I extend two key concepts in my exploration: postdigital intimacy, the emotional resonance felt during interactions with technology; and the haptic encounter in screenwriting, which foregrounds the corporeal qualities of a character's subjectivity. These concepts are positioned in iterative conversations with each other, and with my screenwriting practice, to inform a mixed-method approach to co-writing with AI, that became SWAIF. This method
This study provides a new perspective on adaptation processes by examining the interactions amongst television screenwriters and book authors within Israel’s youth media system. It explores the relationships and dialogues between these content creators during the adaptation process using polysystem theory and a media systems integration model as theoretical frameworks in specific contexts. Through semi-structured interviews with fifteen youth content creators (seven screenwriters and eight authors), this study reveals how adaptations are shaped by professional norms and interpersonal dynamics in this marginal media system. The findings identify three key dynamics: creative autonomy for practitioners, which enables content creators to exercise their expertise whilst maintaining collaborative respect; interpersonal adaptability in navigating personal relationships and professional egos; and adherence to core narrative principles that preserve essential story elements. Additionally, the research exposes a status distinction within adaptation practices: literary-to-screen adaptations are regarded as culturally valuable and pedagogically beneficial, whereas screen-to-literature adaptations are considered primarily commercial ventures with minimal artistic merit. These findings demonstrate how adaptation outcomes emerge from production contexts and professional relationships rather than being determined exclusively by source material analysis. The present work contributes to adaptation theory by highlighting the significance of production environment and creator collaboration in shaping adaptation processes and their cultural reception.
This article examines how comedy screenwriting offers a distinctive, though underanalysed, lens for representing mental health with nuance, empathy and authenticity. While dominant screen genres, particularly drama, often frame mental illness as an individual obstacle to be overcome, comedy's tonal flexibility, structural playfulness and character-driven humour create opportunities to challenge stigma, normalize psychological complexity and foster audience identification. Drawing on humour theory, screenwriting research and mental health scholarship, this article explores how specific comedic strategies - including narrative fragmentation, unreliable narration, meta-commentary and the integration of humour as a coping mechanism - expand the possibilities for portraying psychological struggle in long-form television. Through close analysis of five contemporary series - BoJack Horseman, Fleabag, Ted Lasso, Pose and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - it demonstrates how comedy can destabilize reductive portrayals, resist simplistic recovery narratives and promote more compassionate, socially embedded engagement with mental health. Particular attention is given to how screenwriting structures shape audience alignment and how intersectional, culturally specific narratives challenge exclusionary models of well-being. The article also addresses the ethical complexities of humorous mental health representation, arguing that comedy's potential to reduce stigma depends not on its presence alone, but on deliberate creative choices grounded in psychological nuance and ethical care.
Leading scholar, Ian Macdonald believes students must learn the orthodox rules of screenwriting first, or risk being called incompetent. This article looks at the consequences of learning the orthodox rules first in script development training. It critiques the nexus between industrial Hollywood and universities and argues that training students to write scripts according to the classic Hollywood narrative model intended for production in the industrial mainstream represents a narrow and inadequate pedagogy. The article takes a writer-centric view of script development drawn from a case study of the feature film Fell (2014) written by Natasha Pincus. Pincus's industry-free development methodology is used as the context for examining current script development theory and teaching practice, the heavily disparaged concept of the individual writer's authorship and the unequal balance between imagination and creativity/craft and rules that occurs in teaching students how to apply the classic Hollywood narrative rubric. The article argues for greater diversity in teaching script development and screenwriting, including a recalibration of the position of screenwriters so that their contribution is valued and respected.
