Film Study Worksheets

Related ELA Standard: RL.8.7

Core Standard
Answer Keys Here

Scripts of films are basically the complete blueprint to everything about a film. Screenplay writers are the people that compose these scripts. They are often based on the stories written by others, but they can also be originally composed solely for the screen. When a film project is being developed it often helps to use previous written works that have already gained an audience on their own. If the story previously resonated with an audience in written form, it will have a better chance to be a successful film. Once a script is written a film producer or assistant director breakdowns the script into digestible parts to create a filming schedule. These worksheets will have students compare the work of authors that compose scripts and how well the translate to the screen.

Film Study Worksheets To Print:

Staying Faithful to the Script - When we talk about the extent to which a film "stays faithful" to a novel, we're talking about how much the picture deviates from the written work. Do you know how many cinematic masterpieces were told off of script?

Evaluating Production Choices - If you had a screen play in your hand, how would it play out on film? Analyze the extent to which the picture you have seen stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors.

The Script vs. the Film - This is a bit of an after thought. A Monday Morning Quarterback of sorts...

Bringing a Script to Life - This is how film makers start to storyboard scenes. Consider the limitations of a script in presenting a story. In each of the following areas, do you think that the director and actors realized, improved upon, or failed the author's vision for the story?

Bringing Shakespeare to the Stage - Was the play better in your head? How did the staging of the play compare to the play in your imagination?

Be the Director - Plan how you would stage and film one scene from the novel. Fill out the form below.

Book to Motion Picture - Choose one scene from the story that is in both the book and the picture. Think about what happens in the scene. Then fill in the comparison chart below to analyze the extent to which the cinema version you have seen stays faithful to or departs from the book.

Think like a Filmmaker - Plan how you would stage and screenplay one scene from the story. Fill out the form below.

Film vs. Script - Reading a script to yourself is not the same experience as watching a stage production.

Reading the Play vs. Seeing the Play - How did the director deviate from the script? What was the effect of this change?

Novel vs. Silver Screen - Reading a script to yourself is not the same experience as watching a stage production.

Cinema vs. Text: Analyzing the Effect of Choices - You have both read and seen a video of the same story.

Interpreting Stories for Film - Describe the scene you have chosen. What is its setting? What happens next?

Staying True to the Text - Analyze the extent to which the film you have seen stays faithful to or departs from the book, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors.

Novels or the Silver Screen - A good outline for a storyboard. Read the assigned script. Then watch the production. Use the chart below to analyze the differences between the film and the novel.

How Do Scripts Get Made into Films?


It is now the most followed trend by movie makers and production houses to use the scripts of famous books and other literary genres and convert them into a movie. A lot of people oppose this trend because they consider it a useless act to invest so much in making a movie the story of which is already known by most of the people. However, this is not always the case because written scripts go through a process of immense change before they are transformed into a movie.


Here are a few of the most common changes that happen in scripts so that they are made into movies:


Summarizing

A book of 200 or more pages can never be transformed into a movie of an hour or two hours unless the irrelevant portions are excluded from it and the other important points are summarized and shortened by rewriting them or even changing them to some extent. This process of summarization is always involved in the transformation of scripts into films and is the main reason why movie based on books sometimes tell an entirely different story from that given in the books


Changing the Language

The language used in books is literary and formal and such a language cannot be easily understood by the non-readers. Therefore, while altering a script into for a movie, the makers change the dialogues to make them easier to speak and so that everyone can easily understand whatever the actors are uttering.


Changing the Sequence of Scenes

Sometimes the order of scenes through which the story is narrated in the book does not suit the silver screen version of a story. A lot of hard work goes into the transformation of the sequence of the narrated events in the written script to make it into a movie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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