Screenwriting with Stanislavsky : Augmenting a Screenwriting Process Using Stanislavsky’s ‘System’

Abstract

When screenwriter and doctoral candidate, Anthony Mullins, first started studying Konstantin Stanislavsky’s ‘system’ of performance and script analysis, he hoped the well-known acting technique would be a useful tool for screenwriters. Mullins assumed that because Stanislavsky’s technique analysed all the characters of a story (not just the protagonist) it would naturally be a more detailed approach than conventional techniques like the ‘three-act structure’. It also appeared that Stanislavsky’s ‘system’ had the added advantage of being familiar to actors, the very people who would eventually bring the screenplay to life. However, as Mullins began adapting Stanislavsky’s techniques to his screenwriting process he found it was instead counter-productive, particularly in how it mirrored many of the prescriptive limitations of the ‘three-act structure’. Further research of Stanislavsky’s late-career techniques revealed his wariness of “over-analysis” and the embrace of more intuitive and little-known improvisational techniques, referred to by Stanislavsky as ‘active analysis’. The research centres on the creation of three original TV drama pilot scripts and the Stanislavsky-influenced techniques Mullins used to create the screenplays.