[ecrea] SRN Screenwriting Research Network Conference in Milan - September 2018

*Writing for cinema. Writing for TV. **11th Screenwriting Research 
Network (SRN) International Conference*

_Call for Papers_

The 11th Screenwriting Research Network (SRN) International Conference 
will be hosted by Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. It will 
take place from *Thursday September 13^th  to Saturday  September 15^th 
, 2018.*

_Abstracts for original paper presentations and panels may be submitted 
until December 15, 2017._

The main theme of the 2018 Screenwriting Research Network conference is 
the relationship between cinema and television storytelling. Once two 
separate worlds, cinema and television narratives are progressively 
becoming overlapping domains in terms of screenwriting techniques, 
development methods, careers, contents and audiences.

If authorship, sophisticated drama, address to educated viewers, 
consideration by the critics had been for long the exclusive marks of 
stories written for the big screen, this is much less the case today. 
The cable channels and nowadays the streaming platforms revolution have 
led to series that have zeroed the distance from cinema artistic 
quality. Walls between careers have fallen, with prominent screenwriters 
like Aaron Sorkin, Paul Haggis, Stephen Knight and Steven Zaillian 
crossing borders between the two industries, writing for both media. 
Besides, the collaboration of a team of writers/authors in the 
development of a narrative idea — which is typical of the TV industry 
writers’ rooms — has started to become a valuable method also in the 
cinema industry, for example at Pixar, or when narrative potential of 
comic universes and properties are explored at a studio department as a 
possible material for franchises.

Yet, differences still exist — cinema is still a director’s medium, 
whilst TV is a writer’s medium, especially in the American industry that 
still has a very high share of the markets in any countries  — and new 
ones have emerged — for example the specialization of cinema and TV 
storytelling in different kind of characters, with heroes and 
superheroes dominating the big screen, and so called “antiheroes” the TV 
series.

The conference intends to tackle these issues, discussing them from the 
wide range of theoretical approaches and professional angles related to 
the craft of screenwriting.

We are particularly interested in abstracts for presentations on the 
following topics:

·The validity of canonical film narrative structure in writing a TV series.
·The different potentialities of television and cinema storytelling for 
the practice of film adaptation.
·How new platforms and spectatorship habits are influencing the way 
stories are constructed for TV.
·Do different target audiences (mainstream cinema audience, pay TV 
channels audiences, broadcast audiences, independent cinema audiences) 
require a different narrative rhetoric and/or different stories?
·Making documentaries for cinema, making documentaries for TV.
·The two different production cultures and development processes of 
cinema and TV.
·The superhero narrative: reasons, values and flaws, successes and failures.
·The antihero narrative: constants and variations, cultural meanings and 
social influences.
·National specificity in writing for cinema/for Tv
·Manuals for TV writing: a not yet fulfilled market demand?

We would also like to invite abstracts for presentations beyond the 
theme of the conference. We are looking forward to abstracts that cover 
the wide field of screenwriting studies, including, but not limited to, 
the following topics:

·Practice-based research in the field of screenwriting.
·Different screenwriting practices and formats.
·Case studies on individual writers or texts.
·Historical perspectives on screenwriting and screenplays.
·Screenwriting and narrative theory in writing for short films.
·Screenwriting for games and animation.
·Screenwriting for new media forms, online, transmedia, etc. Are stories 
fully transferrable from one medium to another?
·How does the digital age change screenwriting?
·Writing for games (including video games and ARGs)
·Writing for online video as a new genre and profession
·The history of screenwriting around the globe, including Hollywood
·Screenwriting and the pressures of globalization
·Screenwriting traditions in different national contexts
·Screenwriting and adaptation

Proposals for individual presentations and pre-constituted panels:

Time allotted to each paper is 20 minutes plus discussion. Abstracts for 
original paper presentations and panels may be submitted until December 
15, 2017. Earlier submissions are welcome.

Please note: original, in-person paper presentations only (no 
repetitions from other conferences or former SRN conferences. Video 
presentations are not possible).

Proposals for pre-constituted panels should include no more than three 
presenters (20 mins for each paper), the overall issue of the panel, 
abstracts for all of the presentations and, if possible, the name and a 
short biography of the chair of the panel. The chair should not be one 
of the presenters. If a proposal for a panel does not include a chair, 
the conference committee will appoint one.

Please send abstracts (250-300 words) as a Word document, with the email 
subject heading “SRN2018 Proposal” to: (srnconference2018 /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(srnconference2018 /at/ gmail.com)>

Remember to state your name, affiliation and contact information. Also 
include a brief biographical statement (100 words) detailing your 
publications and/or screenwriting practice.

The organizing committee plans to notify acceptances/rejections by 
January 31, 2018.

Please see our SRN2018 website at:

www.unicatt.it/srnconference2018 <http://www.unicatt.it/srnconference2018>

It will be updated with general information about the conference 
(keynote speakers, housing, etc.).

Paolo Braga

Armando Fumagalli

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