Writing for Film

Projects

The student writing on these web pages is taken from various Final Manuscripts generated for Film 4005. Some are Adaptations, some are without dialogue, some are dialogue-driven and others are scripts with integrated elements intended to be shot the following semester. Each has been work-shopped and, through that process, re-written and polished. We will provide updates for the production and completion of some of the work represented here.

Featured Student Work

Kyle Knudsen
  The Wind from Nowhere
Kyle Knudsen says: "The idea for The Wind from Nowhere first came to me in an arduous car ride from Denver to St. Louis. The Wind from Nowhere is the first part of a three part series that ultimately is about Glenn but where he exists only as supporting roles.  The three films do not relate to each other in terms of content but all three contain Glenn where his character is developed by exploring the lives of the main protagonist, in this case Brian.  For the record the pumpkin-eating squirrel got away and no animals were harmed in the making of this script."

Taryn Jones
  Rosebud Hill
Besides Film Studies at the University of Colorado, Taryn Jones has also studied at the New York Film Academy in London and the Prague Film School (FAMU) in the Czech Republic. Rosebud Hill is an adaptation of  J. Sheridan LeFanu’s story, The Child That Went With the Fairies, written in 1870.  As a point of interest, we have provided the source material, as well as Jones’ adaptation. She contemporized and personalized the story by incorporating childhood memories of going to visit her father’s family in Northern Alabama.  Says Jones: “In my adaptation, I wanted to portray the rural South as magical and timeless, which is the way I felt about it when I was a child. “

Adam Arlit
  Follow
Adam Arlit's Follow is an example of a piece told entirely in pictures. Raised in the small mountain town of McCall, Idaho, Arlit became interested in film while growing up as an avid freestyle skier, and started making ski movies with his friends. Says Arlit: "For a couple of years I wanted to be the next big director, but I realized that directing wasn't coming up with and creating a story that people would see; which led me into screenwriting." Of Follow, he says: "I have always been interested in personal connections and the idea of how different people who don't know each other can be connected without even realizing it."

Grazi DiPaolo
  Defacing Technology
From Flint, Michigan, Grazi DiPaolo is a senior at the University of Colorado, graduating in May 2008. Of Defacing Technology, DiPaolo says: “The genesis for this piece came to me when I was having a difficult time learning a computer application. I wanted it to be a guy kvetching about how technology changes people’s lives and thought processes in America.”

Ryan Winters
  The Nose
Ryan Winters chose to adapt Nikolai Gogol's The Nose as a short film. A native of Colorado Springs, Winters has long been attracted to visual arts. "I count myself as a product of the home video camera and personal computer editing software generation, seeming to have had 2 cameras in each hand even before a driver's license." Of the source material, Winters says: "I was attracted to the playful atmosphere and simple, straightforward narrative structure of the story as well as the hopelessness that nearly consumes the protagonist in the midst of these unusual circumstances.... The potential of The Nose to portray these ideas in a visual way, in the context of screenplay format, is what originally drew me to the project."

Matthew Rice
  The Lady with the Pet Dog
Of this piece, CU Film Studies student Matthew Rice says: “For this assignment, we were to adapt a story written before copyright laws would affect our work, and modernize it. Skimming through a classic literature anthology, I picked the short story The Lady with the Pet Dog, by Anton Chekhov. To make my adaptation more modern, I set it in a wealthy beach community, one that could parallel the rich resort town where the original story took place.”

John Moore
  Killing Time
This piece, entitled Killing Time, is an exploration of murder. It explores two characters: the child-like killer who is propelled by greed and selfishness, and a twisted father figure who mentally abuses the child.  John M. Moore, a senior in the Film Studies Program is “particularly interested in all things involving the camera and the capturing of the image.” He would like to pursue a career as a cinematographer.

Colin Maneval
  Lost in the Woods
Story is the foundation to all films.  It has always driven me mad when I watch a film with a story that does not seem true to itself.  Of Lost in the Woods, he says: “Many scenes could be taken as real events or as the thoughts or imagination of the main character.”