Du scénario de film aux scénarios multimédias dits interactifs : étude des pratiques d’écriture scénaristique

Penser et écrire pour le multimédia. La scénarisation destinée aux fictions sur CD-ROM est-elle en train de développer des règles d'écriture très différentes de celles de la scénarisation cinématographique? Réputées pour la capacité à proposer des structures textuelles « éclatées », les fictions multimédiatiques sont-elles vraiment interactives et non linéaires? Jusqu'à quel point les règles d'écriture du scénario de film sont-elles valables et adaptables aux fictions dites interactives? Le multimédia a-t-il vraiment transformé notre façon de raconter des histoires? Enfin, que change cette nouvelle technologie à notre façon de lire, d'écrire et d'expérimenter un récit?What is writing for multimedia? This article questions the developments of screenwriting rules and functions in regard to multimedia technologies. How does the narrative structure of a fiction offered on a CD-ROM change and adapt to an interactive and non-linear environment? How interactive and non-linear is it and what can we do with it? Do electronic media really transform the way we tell stories? What happens to reading strategies and dramatic impact when the script reader has become a hypertext navigator? What does the hypertext technology do to the user's involvement in the fiction? And finally, how do we write a script for multimedia entertainment and what questions does that "new practice" raise for the theory and the future of screenwriting

Money for writing: Screenplay development and screenwriters earnings in French cinema

The funds allocated to developing screenplays currently constitute on average 2 to 3% of the overall budget of a film in France. Producers are more than ever dependent on presenting attractive draft screenplays to find their financial partners. As a result, screenwriters undoubtedly are active economic partners of production planning, but they do not seem to receive much professional recognition for this vital role. Moreover, their earnings often fail to reflect the amount of work produced and do not reward adequately the risks taken, including the possibility that production could stop after the screenplay is written. This article investigates the place of screenplay development within the economics of French cinema. Using recently published official reports and interviews, the author identifies different types of screenwriters – freestanding screenwriters, writing teams and screenwriters co-writing with the director – and addresses their working conditions. She surveys some of the contract modalities for the remuneration of professional screenwriters. Finally, she reviews the proposals made by different professional bodies to improve the remuneration of screenwriters and reform the financing of screenwriting

Stories of a ruined space: filmic and sonic approaches to practice-as-research

This article reflects on the authors’ work in investigating how audiovisual practices might represent the experience of disused or ruined structures. With backgrounds in visual and sound practice respectively, the authors have, in their most recent experimental film project Coccolith [UK: Coccolith Productions], conceived the Ramsgate wartime tunnels in Kent as a point of collision for divergent artistic approaches to the representation of space. Challenging the site’s association with wartime mythology, the project sought to reconfigure the relationship between film and sound practice in order to articulate an alternative representation of the tunnels’ history, heritage and temporality. The article reflects on the role of the sound designer in developing soundscapes that embodied the ruined space, and on the role of the director in visually conceiving a spatial experience of the tunnels characterized by the absence of sound – silence. We argue that in conceiving an audiovisual project in terms of texture and gesture, it is possible to reconceptualize both the role of the soundtrack in relation to a film’s diegesis, and the role of the director in relation to sound design

Le cinématographe comme nouvelle technologie : Opacité et transparence

La « découverte » qui fonde l’avènement d’un média soulève souvent un plus grand intérêt que le contenu transmis par le nouveau média lui-même. En portant son attention sur le cinéma et le multimédia, cet article évalue les impacts de l’avènement d’une technologie nouvelle, en privilégiant une approche comparative et diachronique. On y propose une comparaison entre films des premiers temps et productions interactives récentes, assortie d’une réflexion sur la transparence et l’opacité des médias.The “discovery” that constitutes the advent of a new medium is often more interesting than the content that it transmits. While drawing attention to film and multimedia using a comparative and diachronous approach, this article evaluates the various influences exerted by the introduction of a new technology. A comparison between films of the early period of cinema and more recent interactive productions is proposed, in addition to a reflection on the transparency and opacity of various media

Le Lecteur/spectateur du scénario

Le texte scénaristique est avant tout un texte écrit en vue d’une réalisation cinématographique. Il doit par conséquent s’occuper à la fois de la conception du film, du traitement de l’idée en termes cinématographiques, mais aussi être écrit en fonction de ce qu’il précède, prépare et doit permettre : le film. Le film constitue indéniablement l’horizon d’écriture du scénario, lequel est déterminé par ce rapport au film futur. Cependant, quel est son horizon de lecture? Comment le scénario de film est-il lu? À qui s’adresse le texte scénaristique? Car si le scénario est bel et bien écrit en fonction de ce qu’il doit permettre — le film —, c’est le spectateur qui est le foyer de perception en fonction duquel est organisée une part des informations contenues dans le scénario. Pourtant, le scénario ne s’adresse pas à un spectateur mais bien à un lecteur. Ce lecteur est souvent spécialisé (praticien/ne) et surtout, c’est un lecteur qui a les attributs perceptifs du spectateur. En fonction de qui et de quoi un scénario de film est-il écrit? Quel type de lecteur le texte construit-il? Ce sont les questions fondamentales que cet article approfondit.The text of a screenplay is above all a text written with a view to making a film. It must therefore encompass the film's conception and the treatment of the idea in cinematic terms, but must also be written in terms of what it precedes, prepares for and makes possible: the film. The film constitutes the inescapable horizon of the writing of a sceenplay, which is determined by its relationship to the future film. But what is the horizon for its reading? How is the screenplay of a film read? To whom is the screenplay text addressed? Though the screenplay is really written in terms of the film it makes possible, it is the spectator who constitutes the focus of perception around which part of the information it contains is organized. However the screenplay is not actually addressed to the spectator but to a reader. This is often a specialized reader (practitioner) and, in particular, a reader who has the perceptual attributes of the spectator. Who and what is the screenplay written for? What type of reader does the text construct? These are basic questions which this article explores