Composing the Digital Screenplay

Abstract

The term ‘compose’ is used widely across the visual, performing and literary arts — within the latter it is often applied to poetry. For musicians, composition, from the Latin verb componere meaning ‘put together’, implies the assembly and structuring of musical ideas. Composers invent and work with materials drawn from their own experience, and from the history of their art form.¹ In the arts, the term emphasises the way artists interact with their materials, arranging shapes, lines, colours and textures to create meaning and visual experience. In screen media, composition refers primarily to how the director and cinematog-rapher frame events in front of the camera, often building on aesthetic strategies drawn from painting and photography. Yet, as pens, cameras and audio recorders merge, as writing becomes a process that involves creating and combining images, sound and words, the practice of composing becomes more and more relevant to screenwriting and filmmaking.