Al-Anoud Mohammed

A book that enriches the specialized Arab cinematic culture by the American writer (Syd Field), including his long experience in teaching screenplay and his field work in Hollywood studios. It raises many questions, spreads the culture of cinema among ordinary readers to enlighten them about what happens before and behind the scenes and in its corridors. The book benefits professional and beginner screenwriters, as well as story writers, novelists, and playwrights, and all those working in the fields of cinema, theater, television, and radio.

The first chapter begins with the definition of a screenplay, and the author presents a model for visual dramatic construction. He believes that a screenplay is a "story told in images, and it is more like a proper name for a person or several persons in a place or several places, performing a certain action, and a cinematic film is nothing but a visual means that dramatically embodies the basic line of the story".

The second chapter searches for the subject or the dramatic event and the character, and the sensory action which is an expression of what happens inside the character during the course of the event in the story.

In the third chapter, the author explains the nature of the character and the method of its formation and creation, and emphasizes that the character is the essential foundation of the screenplay. What makes it closer to reality is the search into its three basic components: (professional, subjective, private).

The fourth chapter deals with building the character, behavior, dramatic event, and the foundations of creating a character through its life history, actions, emotions, general appearance, and social interaction. The fifth chapter completes the method of creating the character, and the author proposes two simple ways for creation and writing the screenplay around it. The first is based on preparing the idea and (pouring) the characters into it, and the second is based on creating the character and (weaving) the idea around it. The character is capable of generating a dramatic event.

The sixth chapter discusses endings and beginnings and how they captivate the viewer and affect them. The author continues displaying and analyzing images, clips, and examples until the ninth chapter to explain the plot and its concept. In the tenth chapter, he enters the door of the scene and emphasizes the importance of preparation as an element in building the screenplay. He says: "od scenes make od movies, and a successful scene pushes the story forward".

The author moves to topics related to the screenplay and its forms starting from the eleventh chapter, presenting the subject of adaptation and preparation, and how a novel, play, or book can be transformed into a screenplay and not just transferred and depicted in its original (mold).

The twelfth chapter explains the form of the screenplay and the task of its writer which differs greatly from the function of the director and photographer, not requiring him to search into camera angles and shot details, and restricting his function to writing the text scene by scene.

The author discusses how to assemble and build the screenplay in the thirteenth chapter, then the writing process, its details, hardships, and details of the time and effort exerted to complete the text, then the experience of collaborative writing and its methods. The author moves to the post-screenplay stage, and the importance of resorting to judges from friends and intellectuals before submitting the screenplay for production. The seventeenth and final chapter contained personal notes and professional guidance.

The book with its multiple chapters summarizes what can be described as (the od screenplay), which in the author's opinion: "We recognize it easily from the first pages, in style and formulation, the way of establishing the text, grabbing the dramatic situation, presenting the main character, and the idea. All these elements must appear in the first few pages of the screenplay".

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• Note: Screenplay Language: authored by Syd Field, translated by Ahmed Al-Jamal, published by the Syrian Ministry of Culture, Damascus.