What is Dramaturgy?
That's a good question. I've been learning a lot about dramaturgy over this last year. I discovered this topic in January 2020 while attending a theatre conference. I'll have to be honest. Before that workshop, I had never heard of dramaturgy. It was created over 300 years ago in theatre with Lessing.
When breaking it down in a nutshell, dramaturgy is the philosophy of a production. It's being the philosopher in the room. When a play for a theatre has a dramaturg, the dramaturg basically philosophizes everything! They're a researcher, an analyzer, a historian, an 'expert' in the subject and the time. This fascinates me. Something I never knew about before last year. I've been in the entertainment business for over 35 years, and had never heard about this before. Being the philosopher in the room, analzing, criticing, researching, getting community engagement....this is fascinating!
As I get older, I'm looking at the arts in a different way. All of my life, it was about the creative process: acting, writing, producing, directing, editing, production, distribution, publicity...I never looked at the arts from a philosophical viewpoint, questioning things, wanting to learn and teach. This is different. Dramturgy has helped open my eyes to this view of art. I love it.
After discovering this a little over a year ago, last year, I wrote 3 dramaturgy protocols for plays. That was a lot of work. Each protocol ranged from 30 to 70 pages. There's a lot that went into each one, with each taking many weeks to write. This is definitely a field I want to pursue more.
How can this be incorporated into film? Why is there not a field called film dramaturgy?
I can totally see this relating to a film. Film is like theatre that way. When you make a movie, it's similar to someone putting on a play. You have the production team. You have a writer, producers, directors, a creative team. When it's in production, you have the actors and the tech team. There's the whole process of creating it, publicizing it and performing it. Why isn't dramaturgy an element in a film's process like it should be for a play in theatre? I can totally see having a 'philosopher', researcher, historian, expert on the subject for a film project. Someone who's there to analyze and process the film project, and being a supporter of the director, making sure the director's vision is coming out. To research, question and educated with this, it would help film artists do their best work and educate the public creatively about this form of dramatic art. There is a whole process of dramaturgy that could and should be incorporated into the filmmaking process. Maybe I can see this because I've worked in both fields. I was in theatre for 20 years, then in the film business for 20 years, along with being a filmmaker for 15 years. It's easy for me to envision this connecting with both fields. It seems like a no brainer. Why haven't I heard about this before? Why hasn't the film industry incorporated an element like this into the entertainment business? Theatre and film has so much to learn from each other.
There is nothing like this in the film business. The studios should have this. How can their eyes be opened to film dramaturgy? Maybe start with introducing it in independent film? Maybe start teaching it to today's film students and filmmakers that are the future of the business? There has to be a way.
The importance of dramaturgy in art is obvious and is just sitting there. It's time to open people's eyes about this subject.
No comments:
Post a Comment