The successful project will take its cues from ancient primary sources, whether prose or poetry, visual or literary, and will transform those sources into cinematic form.  Students should harness the narrative power of film in the service of retelling an ancient story, whether a myth or a historical event.

Our in-class discussions and formal analyses of the films will undoubtedly be intrumental in guiding your semester project.  Nevertheless, it will be essential that you do outside reading and research in order to produce the finest possible work.  This means not only consulting "how-to" books on screenwriting and storyboarding (or even actual movie scripts), but also sorting through ancient primary sources, picking and choosing the elements upon which you will focus.

Your choice of elements is crucial, since you will undoubtedly encounter in the primary sources differences of taste between ancient and modern audiences.  When you do, you must make a decision:  do you play up the differences, remaining true to the intention of your original sources, or do you change your sources to suit your audience?  In fact, a crucial choice early on is whether or not your film will be set in the ancient world (like Troy) or will bring your story into a different era (like O Brother).

Similar choices lie before you in the script: do your dialogue, soundtrack, and shots (to name only three) work with or against your primary sources?  Is it possible for your film to show and/or tell what your sources do, and yet show or tell in a new modality (i.e., method of showing or telling)?  Or can you mirror the modality of the ancient sources while showing or telling something different?  The films on our viewing list provide excellent examples of these kinds of choices.

Also important is the continuity between your treatment, scripts, and storyboard.  The first of these offers an overview of the story from beginning to end, and provides a roadmap for the last three.  That said, it often happens that a script might depart from the original treatment.  The shooting script and storyboard, however, must be in lock-step, the latter providing an exacting visual sense of the former.

You should approach the project from the perspective of an up-and-coming film auteur (read: screenwriter/director) with a passion for the classical world.  You have the idea for a film on the ancient world, and you must persuade an easily distracted producer to take a chance on you.  Prof. Curley will play two roles: (1) R. F. Curley, the producer who, if you are persuasive, will greenlight the various phases of your project;  (2) Prof. D. E. Curley, R. F.'s brother and academic black sheep of the family, a professor of the Classics and sometime paid consultant to R. F.

Finally, as noted above, you should take full advantage of the recommended books on our Syllabus page, as well as the websites on our Resources page.

Good luck — you're swimming with the sharks now.  Have your people call my people, and we'll do lunch.

Some judiciously-spaced milestones will help keep the project on track.  Note that many are due Sunday nights by 11:00 p.m., and that work might be be submitted both to D. E. Curley, R. F. Curley, or both. Be sure that your submissions are appropriate for their intended reader.

NOTE: If you choose to work in groups of two, then you must do more work to compensate.  See each milestone for details.

Overview (September 11, in class)

An in-class review of the project webpage, and an opportunity for students to ask questions.

Preliminary sources (September 21, 11:00 p.m. via email)

Send D. E. Curley the story you wish to film, along with a list of primary sources in which the story is found.  Emphasize which sources you feel will be most helpful in transforming the story into film, though you need not have read (or even acquired all of them).

Remember that the story should be one not previously commited to film, so be sure to do due diligence by consulting IMDb beforehand.

GROUPS:  Send two stories, each with its own list of sources.

Pitch and annotated sources list (October 12, 11:00 p.m. via email)

Pitch your film in a one-page cold-contact letter to R. F. Curley, executive producer at Monumental Pictures.  Curley is a known supporter of fresh, young talent, and his studio is looking for a hit.  Your pitch should of course sketch the subject matter and general plot of your film, but it should also offer a sense of your angle:  now would also be a good time to remind R. F. of how well recent films on the ancient world have done at the box office (though you should take care not to remind him of films that have been poorly received).  A "film X meets film Y" approach might be helpful.  Your goal is to interest R. F. to enough to want to see a treatment of your film, in which you will re-pitch the story in greater detail.

At the same time, send D. E. Curley an annotated sources list, clearly indicating the importance and influence of each source on your film:  in essence, indicate what elements you plan to take from which source, as well as what you intend to leave behind or invent on your own.

GROUPS: Send two pitches to R. F., and two annotated lists to D. E., one for each story.  R. F. will hopefully greenlight one of the pitches to be turned into a treatment.

Treatment (October 26, 11:00 p.m. via email)

Email a treatment of your story to R. F.  For our purposes, we will use the definition of Atchity and Wong, 2004:  "A relatively brief, loosely narrative written pitch of a story intended for production as a film for theatrical exhibition....  Written in user-friendly, dramatic, but straightforward and highly visual prose in the present tense, the treatment highlights in broad strokes your story's hook, primary characters, acts and action line, setting, point of view, and most dramatic scenes and turning points" (p. 9; for definitions of these terms and for more useful advice see Atchity and Wong's book, excerpted below).

GROUPS: Same as individuals.

Scenic script and reaction paper (November 23, 11:00 p.m. via email)

Email to R. F. a rough script (a.k.a. "beat sheet" or "spec script") that lists and describes the scenes that will tell your story, but generally without reference to individual shots or exact dialogue.  All matters pertaining to plot should now be resolved:  your job is to help R. F. understand where and when the action takes place, and what happens in each scene.  R. F. will read over your script and ask you to write a shooting script for two of the scenes (or three, if you are working in a group), and will specify one sequence (or two for groups) from one (two) of the scenes to be storyboarded.

EXAMPLE OF A SCENIC SCRIPT: Consider this excerpt from a putative treatment of Homer's Odyssey:

A man clad in a rich tunic sits on the shore of a lush Mediterranean island.  He stares out at the scarlet sunset, weeping as if his heart will break.  He is Odysseus, lover of the beautiful goddess Calypso, and he wants nothing more than to die, or to return home.  Following an argument with the nymph, and an intervention by Hermes, Odysseus wins his freedom, builds a ship, and sets sail for Ithaca.

Now consider the excerpt retooled as a scenic script:

Exterior, shore. Odysseus stares out at the sunset and weeps. Exterior. O. makes his way to Calypso's grotto. Interior, grotto. Calypso waits at table, ready to serve him dinner. O. refuses the meal, saying that all he wants is to return home to Ithaca. Calypso scoffs. O. storms off. Interior, same. Hermes visits Calypso and convinces her to release O. Exterior, clearing. Calypso finds O. moping, and tells him that Zeus has heard his prayers: he is free to leave. Montage of exterior shots: Odysseus builds his boat from the materials on the island. The last these shots shows O. looking with satisfaction at the craft. Exterior, day. O. launches his boat on the open sea. Calypso watches from high atop a cliff as his ship clears the breakers.

The excerpt from the scenic script handles the same material as the excerpt from the treatment, except that the scenic script breaks the action down into specific scenes.  There is some reference to specific shots (such as the boat-building montage), but the action and dialogue are described very generally, with little narrative adornment and with reference to where they happen.  A change of scene (or a major entrance, like that of Hermes) indicated by a new bullet.  Atchity and Wong (see Resources, below) specify no more than three pages for the scenic script; you might well need more.

In addition to your scenic script, email to D. E. a 3-5 page, typed, and double-spaced reaction to the project thus far.  Consider such matters as which technical books you've read to help you along, some of the choices you've made in the service of plot and why you made them, and -- perhaps most important -- how the films we have seen thus far have influenced yours.

GROUPS:  Attach an extra page to your reaction paper in which you describe for D. E. your collaborative dynamic:  How often do you meet?  Who has been responsible for what?  Why did you choose to collaborate, and would you recommend collaboration to others in the future?

Shooting script and storyboard (December 17, 9:00 p.m. via email)

Email to R. F. a shooting script for the scenes he has specified.  The script must look as professional as possible and should follow clearly established conventions of screenwriting in each scene: numbering scenes, specifying locations, describing shots, and assigning dialogue to your characters.

You will find good guidance on shooting scripts and storyboards in the Resources (below). Bear in mind, though, as with all aspects of the screenwriting process -- from pitch onward -- the genre of a shooting script permits great variability. Generally speaking, it is more than a screenplay, which is typically concerned only with dialogue (examples abound, below).

Moreover, for the purposes of this milestone, you will have to break two of Trottier's seventeen commandments (don't specify camera angles, don't number scenes).  In a sense, you are the director of your film, and so the shooting script should provide direction.  Perhaps the fullest and most useful example is the excerpt from Trumbo's Spartacus script.

Also email R. F. (or send in hardcopy, but observe the deadline) a storyboard to illustrate the specified sequence.  The board need not be a masterpiece of graphic art, but it should provide visual support for the descriptions of shots, camera angles, and camera movements in your sequence.  At your discretion, you may fold your storyboard into your shooting script, or you may leave them separate.

GROUPS:  As already noted, write a shooting script for three specified scenes and generate storyboards for two specified sequences.

Here are some resources (in addition to those on our separate Resources page) to help you move the project forward.

Treatments

• Atchity, K. and Wong, C.  2004.  Writing Treatments that Sell.  Holt paperbacks.
  -- Introduction and Chapter 1, "The Nature and Role of the Treatment"
  -- Chapter 2, "The Big Screen: Original Treatments for Motion Pictures"
  -- Chapter 6, "From Book to Film: The Adaptation Treatment"
  

• Trottier, D.  2005.  The Screenwriter's Bible.  Silman-James press.  4th edition.
  -- Book I, "How to Write a Screenplay: A Primer" (esp. pp. 1-62)
  

Scenic scripts

• Atchity, K. and Wong, C.  2004.  Writing Treatments that Sell.  Holt paperbacks.
  -- Introduction and Chapter 1, "The Nature and Role of the Treatment" (esp. pp. 17-20)
  

Shooting scripts

• Blacker, I. R.  1996.  The Elements of Screenwriting.  MacMillan.
  -- Available as a Scribner Library e-book and via Open Reserve
  -- See esp. Chapter 7, "The Look of a Professional Script"
  

• Trottier, D.  2005.  The Screenwriter's Bible.  Silman-James press.  4th edition.
  -- Book I, "How to Write a Screenplay: A Primer" (esp. pp. 63-80)
  -- Book III, "Proper Formatting Technique: A Style Guide"
  

• Excerpts from actual screenplays (varying degrees of specificity):
  -- Gladiator (Franzoni et al., 2000)
  -- Ifigenia (Cacoyannis, 1977)
  -- O Brother, Where Art Thou? (E. and J. Coen, 2000)
  -- Orphée (Cocteau, 1949)
  -- Spartacus (Trumbo, 1959)
  

Storyboards

• Begleiter, M.  2001.  From Word to Image.  Michael Wiese Productions.
  -- Chapter 2, "Storyboards in Preproduction"
  -- Chapter 3, "Text, Image, and Diagram" (especially recommended)
  -- Chapter 6, "Composition"
  -- Chapter 7, "Perspective"
  -- Chapter 8, "Figure Notation"