Last August, I blogged about a paper I presented to the University Film and Video Association called, “Teaching the Digital Screenplay and Its Role in Conception and Execution.” In that paper I began to use the term “Screenwriting 2.0” to refer to the application of Web 2.0 principles and processes to the craft of screenwriting.
Since August, I have presented a second paper, “Screenwriting 2.0: The Impact of Digital Technologies and Web Discourse on the Future of the Screenplay,” to the Society for Cinema Media Studies, have published a speculative essay in the inaugural issue of Frames Cinema Journal, called “Screenwriting 2.0 in the Classroom? Teaching the Digital Screenplay” (an update on the UFVA paper), and have had another paper, “Lean Filmmaking and Screenwriting 2.0: The Screenplay as Source Code and Interface,” accepted into the Theorizing Screenwriting Practice Workshop in Brno, Czech Republic. This has been a productive idea for me.
This week I was delighted to discover the Screenwriting 2.0 blog, maintained by Royal Holloway PhD candidate Stewart McKie, who is currently in the process of developing a new screenwriting app called Scenepad that I look forward to exploring. McKie’s work proves that I’m not alone in my interest in Screenwriting 2.0. This is an idea whose time has come, and I’ll soon be adding a permanent page to this site dedicated to the exploration of digital scripting practices.
Stay tuned for more on Screenwriting 2.0 in the future!