From Chariots of Fire to The King's Speech: Writing Biopics and Docudramas - Softcover

Rosenthal, Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0809332981 ISBN 13: 9780809332984

Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press, 2014

Synopsis

Over the past decade, movie audiences have become hungry for films based on real people and historical events. Never was this more evident than during the best-picture showdown between The King’s Speech and The Social Network during the 2011 Academy Awards, a scene then repeated, with Argo, Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty in the 2013 awards.. While Hollywood moguls have come to recognize the box-office revenue and critical acclaim that accompany such films and are now fast-tracking many docudramas into theaters, there remains a need for more reality-based film scripts.
In From “Chariots of Fire” to “The King’s Speech,” writer, director, and producer Alan Rosenthal presents a manual for screenwriters to develop their bio-pic or docudrama from concept to completion. This comprehensive guide begins with an overview of the genre before providing screenwriters with all the techniques and insights needed to navigate the often intimidating landscape of screenwriting for reality-based scripts. Included within the volume are tips for such challenges as inception and research, developing dialogue and narration, and capably addressing any legal and rights issues that may arise. Also included are appendixes containing useful marketing tips and broadcast guidelines.
A practical, down-to-earth manual for experienced and novice screenwriters alike, From “Chariots of Fire” to “The King’s Speech”  is the only manual dedicated explicitly to writing the bio-pic and docudrama. Rosenthal shares his decades of experience in the film industry, along with hands-on tools and maps, to help screenwriters completely master this popular film genre.

About this title

About the Author

Alan Rosenthal, a professor emeritus of communications at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is a documentary filmmaker with more than fifty films to his credit as writer, director, or producer. His books include Succeeding as a Documentary Filmmaker: A Guide to the Professional World and From “Chariots of Fire” to “The King's Speech”: Writing Biopics and Docudramas. His docudrama The First Fagin, about the transportation of convicts to Australia in the nineteenth century, was invited for special feature presentation at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2012.

Review

“Alan Rosenthal’s From “Chariots of Fire” to “The King’s Speech” richly examines from a practitioner’s perspective what constructs many deserving recent and important films. Rosenthal’s interviews with key creative contributors inform his study with invaluable insights, along with extensive, illustrative extracts from the treatments and scripts of earlier and recent films.”—Steve Lipkin

“Right now there is nothing like this on the academic or mass market. By using recent blockbuster and Academy Award–nominee writers as his constant references and case studies, the author has created a pop culture overtone, as well as a how-to book on writing the biopic and the docudrama, that should attract a wide variety of curious film writers and aficionados.”—Ned Eckhardt, author of Documentary Filmmakers Handbook

Edition details

• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0809332981
• ISBN 13: 9780809332984
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 214