Towards a Blueprint for a Music Centred Feature Film

Abstract

This research examines how insights drawn from the domain of film can provide provocation for creativity in the praxis of a musically inclined screenwriter-director. Through a research-based approach, a framework was sought to underpin the writing of a screenplay for a music-centred feature film. An extensive survey of films led to the fashioning of the Integrated Montage Interface - a digital tool for the process of script development. Nova emerged as an original screenplay, in which the exploration of narrative threads called for a more holistic praxis. Narrative directions were interrogated and refined to reflect the creative development within the discrete phases of filmmaking. Scaffolded by the unique perspective of the Integrated Montage Interface, a new multi-modal impetus was given voice within the work, engendering nuanced storytelling. Combinatory possibilities established a blueprint for a fully-fledged feature film production in emotional relief, where momentary tensions are mapped to multi-modal phrasing across audio, dialogue and visual strands. In purposed irony, the Nova-project’s protagonist mirrors the thesis - both being liberated by a fundamental reliance on synaesthesia found so readily in the cinematic experience and so crucially in Nova’s.