Step 1: Write your manifesto.

You may have recognised statements from cinematic manifestos, such as those from the French nouvelle vague, and Dogme 95.

Through theft and Forgery – call it study – you have found what resonates with you.

You have explored diverse writing styles from different genres and eras, and you have eliminated what you are not about.

As a result, you now have a collection of scrippets and script notes that collectively describe what grabbed your attention in terms of screenwriting.

These notes may cover subject matter, theme, or style.

You may find yourself adopting a style you find particularly exciting, and there’s nothing wrong with that. When I read Ray Bradbury as a kid, I wrote like Ray Bradbury – everything green and wondrous and seen through a lens smeared with the grease of nostalgia. When I read James M. Cain, everything I wrote came out clipped and stripped and hardboiled. When I read Lovecraft, my prose became luxurious and Byzantine. I wrote stories in my teenage years where all these styles merged, creating a kind of hilarious stew. This sort of stylistic blending is a necessary part of developing one’s own style, but it doesn’t occur in a vacuum.

– Stephen King

Each of these three relates to an aspect of the writer’s voice. And if you know where you sit for each, you have discovered aspects of your own voice.

It would be naive to expect that twenty-two days of work would lay bare the soul of the artist, but I believe that it has gone a ways in the direction.

I promised you a number of questions to help you pinpoint aspects of your artistic identity.

Write the answers down in your script journal, or start a new document, or – better even – open a real paper notebook.

Here we go:

• Which scenes did you most enjoy?
• Were they from the drama choices or were they genre segments?
• Were you inspired by the scene descriptions, or Which scenes did you most enjoy?
• Were they from the drama choices or were they genre segments?
• Did you notice any themes transpire through the short scenes?
• As you were copying/transcribing, did any favourite scenes from other movies spring to mind?
• Were you inspired by the scene descriptions, or more by the dialogue?
• Did you enjoy detailed descriptions, or rather the lean and economic approach?
• How did you respond to scripts that seemed to break with the general conventions?
• Were you guided mostly by what you found in other scripts, or did you explore new ways of expressing the ideas in the videos?
• How did the action sequences resonate with you, as compared to the more reflective scenes?As you work through these questions, perhaps other truths or statements may come to you that describe your preferences. Add them to the list of answers and earlier statements.
• Were you ever inclined to change the original text during the Forgery exercises? In what way(s)?
• Which scenes/sequences seemed short or long to you?
• Did any of the scrippets make you want to continue copy the whole script?
• What genre or style were those?
• Did you engage more with older, or more recent scripts?

As you work through these questions, perhaps other truths or statements may come to you that describe your preferences. Add them to the list of answers and earlier statements.

Your manifesto is the collection of these statements about your preferences, style choices and thematic ideas.

It doesn’t have to be long, but you need to be assertive about everything you write down.

Perhaps you have only figured out one thing, e.g. “I must write with cinematic vision in every scene.”

A statement like this alone could form your manifesto.

Or you could have a dozen, two dozen.

As you read and write more, over time you’ll discover new truths, and your choices may change.

For now, just spend as much time as you have available to make a start. You can always continue this later.

If you wish, you can upload your manifesto below to keep it with your course work, or as a conversation starter with Karel.

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