Examining the centrality of dialogue to American independent cinema, Jennifer O'Meara argues that it is impossible to separate small budgets from the old adage that 'talk is cheap'. Focusing on the 1980s until the present, particularly on the films by writer-directors like Jim Jarmusch, Noah Baumbach and Richard Linklater, this book demonstrates dialogue's ability to engage audiences and bind together the narrative, aesthetic and performative elements of selected cinema. Questioning the association of dialogue-centred films with the 'literary' and the 'un-cinematic', O'Meara highlights how speech in independent cinema can instead hinge on what is termed 'cinematic verbalism' when dialogue is designed and executed in complex, medium-specific ways.

Since 1979, China has been undergoing a period of immense social and economic change, transitioning from state-run economics to free market capitalism. This book focuses on how the 'Reform Era' has been constructed in the work of the director Jia Zhangke, analysing the archetypal class figures of worker, peasant, soldier, intellectual and entrepreneur that are found in his films. Examining how these figures are represented, and how Jia's cinematography creates those 'structures of feeling' that concretise around a particular time and place, the book argues that Jia's cinema should be understood not just as narratives that represent Chinese social transition, but also as an effort to engage the audience's emotional responses through representation, symbolism and the affective experience of specific cinematic tropes. Making an important contribution to scholarship about the Reform Era, and opening up many new areas in the larger fields of Chinese visual culture, cultural studies and the affective qualities of film, this is groundbreaking work about a cinematic culture in a period of profound transformation.

Winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
From the Obie Award-winning author of "Quills" comes this acclaimed one-man show, which explores the astonishing true story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. A transvestite and celebrated antiques dealer who successfully navigated the two most oppressive regimes of the past century-the Nazis and the Communists--while openly gay and defiantly in drag, von Mahlsdorf was both hailed as a cultural hero and accused of colluding with the Stasi. In an attempt to discern the truth about Charlotte, Doug Wright has written "at once a vivid portrait of Germany in the second half of the twentieth century, a morally complex tale about what it can take to be a survivor, and an intriguing meditation on everything from the obsession with collecting to the passage of time" (Hedy Weiss, "Chicago Sun-Times").

Aimed at students and educators across all levels of Higher Education, this agenda-setting book defines what screen production research is and looks like-and by doing so celebrates creative practice as an important pursuit in the contemporary academic landscape. Drawing on the work of international experts as well as case studies from a range of forms and genres-including screenwriting, fiction filmmaking, documentary production and mobile media practice-the book is an essential guide for those interested in the rich relationship between theory and practice. It provides theories, models, tools and best practice examples that students and researchers can follow and expand upon in their own screen production projects.

In 1997, a BAFTA award-winning British film about six out of work Sheffield steelworkers with nothing to lose took the world by storm. And now they're back, live on stage, only for them, it really has to be The Full Monty. Simon Beaufoy, the Oscar-winning writer of the film, has now gone back to Sheffield where it all started to rediscover the men, the women, the heartache and the hilarity of a city on the dole. The Full Monty was the winner of the UK Theatre Best Touring Production award 2013.

In state and public discussion about war and conflict, figures of transgression such as deserters, pacifist and emigrants are often marginalised, but they also play a key role in rethinking cultural and national identity in the wake of military violence. Raising questions of agency, responsibility and culpability in relation to the 'other', their cultural representation can enable reflection on and renegotiation of values and collective norms after the destabilisation of war. Through an interdisciplinary lens, this collection analyses the depiction of these transgressive figures in a variety of visual media, as well as the narrative, socio-cultural, political and historical contexts in which they emerge.

The Hours is David Hare's screen adaptation of Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. In Richmond, England in 1923, Virginia Woolf is setting out to write the first words of her new book. In Los Angeles in 1951, a housewife, Laura Brown, is contemplating suicide. And in present-day New York, a hostess, Clarissa Vaughan, is planning a party for her friends. In extraordinary and ingenious ways, the film shows how a single day - and the novel Mrs Dalloway - inextricably link the lives of three very different women.

Best known as one of the leading Irish poets of her generation, Paula Meehan is also an accomplished and much-admired playwright, and her stage work has been performed by, among others, Team Theatre Company, Rough Magic, Calypso Theatre Company and The National Theatre Company at the Peacock. As well as her work for stage, in recent years she has also written for radio, a medium which provides particular scope for the oral and sonic qualities so often admired in her writing. Music for Dogs presents, for the first time in print, a selection of that work for radio from a poet of "perfect pitch" (Midwest Book Review). Janey Mack is Going to Die, The Lover and Threehander were all written for and first performed on RT Radio 1.

From concept to finished draft–a nuts-and-bolts approach to adaptations

Aspiring and established screenwriters everywhere, take note! This down-to-earth guide is the first to clearly articulate the craft of adaptation. Drawing on his own experience and on fourteen years of teaching, screenwriter Richard Krevolin presents his proven five-step process for adapting anything–from novels and short stories to newspaper articles and poems–into a screenplay. Used by thousands of novelists, playwrights, poets, and journalists around the country, this can’t-miss process features practical advice on how to break down a story into its essential components, as well as utilizes case studies of successful adaptations. Krevolin also provides an insider’s view of working and surviving within the Hollywood system–covering the legal issues, interviewing studio insiders on what they are looking for, and offering tips from established screenwriters who specialize in adaptations.

• Outlines a series of stages that help you structure your story to fit the needs of a 120-page screenplay
• Explains how to adapt anything for Hollywood, from a single sentence story idea all the way to a thousand-page novel
• Advises on the tricky subject of just how faithful your adaptation should be
• Features helpful hints from Hollywood bigwigs–award-winning television writer Larry Brody; screenwriter and script reader Henry Jones; screenwriter and author Robin Russin; screenwriter and author Simon Rose; and more

It is a near-future world, and in many ways London is the same bustling metropolis it has been for centuries; but look a little closer and Viral Inspectors roam public places delivering fines and forced immunisation against Avian Flu, and an organisation called the Genetic Protection Authority has been established with unnerving oversight. It is the role of the GPA to oversee the genetic future of mankind: a noble mission to protect humanity from the worst genetic diseases and impairments, but one that seems increasingly liable to abuse, using its vague definitions of eradicating anything more than 'three standard variations from the human norm'. When Sandra Small becomes pregnant with a child that has the same strain of achondroplasia dwarfism as her husband, Ivan Henry, an ugly domestic dispute escalates to a legal battle with the GPA and the High Court. What could have been a marital issue becomes a challenge to the GPA's authority and jurisdiction, in a test case that could set an alarming precedent for the whole country, redefining the very definition of what is, and isn't, human. The stakes for Ivan, dwarfs, and anyone else with a genetic condition, become increasingly larger threatening to engulf London and beyond. This ambitious and provocative script is a faithful recreation of Ross Martyn's original vision, looking at ethics, science, and society; a story of how small actions can lead to catastrophic consequences.

Two stories which have been made into films. In Smoke a novelist, suffering from writer's block and the violent death of his wife, is inspired by a young black boy to write again. The action of Blue in the Face partly takes place in the cigar shop which was the focal point of Smoke.