Abstract
As with many small film nations, Denmark’s creative and economic approach to filmmaking diverges from the dominant Hollywood paradigm. With a focus on writer/director partnerships and story collaboration, the country’s script development practices are framed by an egalitarian sensibility. This chapter explores the script development process undertaken for the Danish feature film En du elsker/Someone You Love (2014), written by one of country’s most successful screenwriters Kim Fupz Aakeson. As a case study, the screenplay’s narrative provides an example of Danish transnational storyworld building, specifically in regard to how ideas on foreignness and home are incorporated into the text. I also analyse the screenplay with regard to the application of genre and theme as transnational mechanisms of engagement and analyse representations of family as a transcultural narrative device. Using practitioner interviews this chapter explores the writer/director interplay between Aakeson and the film’s director Pernille Fisher Christensen, in conjunction with how industrial sensibilities impact creative mobility within the development space.
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Notes
- 1.
A constraint-based manifesto, the movement was established in 1995 embracing traditional values of natural storytelling such as character and a focus on acting technique without the artifice of technology or special effects.
- 2.
This chapter builds upon Redvall’s (2009) illuminating case study on the unfolding scriptwriting process on Lille Soldat (2008), an instructive analysis of ‘integrative collaboration’ where both writer and director collectively navigate a transactional problem finding and problem solving methodology throughout the scriptwriting process.
- 3.
Synopsis written by Sisse Graum Jorgensen. Website. Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2659512/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl (12th October 2020).
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Moore, C. (2021). Textual Manifestations of Collaborative Screen Idea and Story Development: A Danish Case Study. In: Taylor, S., Batty, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Script Development. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82234-7_20
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