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All Outputs (32)

Beyond the Monoplot: How to Write Unconventional Films (and Why We Should) (2025)
Book
Neilan, C. (2025). Beyond the Monoplot: How to Write Unconventional Films (and Why We Should). Bloomsbury Publishing

This book provides a toolkit for unconventional practice-a comprehensive list of unconventional story shapes and the meanings they create, with accompanying case studies, including: one-act structure; two-act structure; passive protagonists; untimely... Read More about Beyond the Monoplot: How to Write Unconventional Films (and Why We Should).

We need to talk about Lynne: Modular structure as a reflection of the traumatized psyche in We Need to Talk about Kevin (2024)
Journal Article
Neilan, C. (2024). We need to talk about Lynne: Modular structure as a reflection of the traumatized psyche in We Need to Talk about Kevin. Journal of Screenwriting, 15(3), 257-271. https://doi.org/10.1386/josc_00162_1

Conventional linear three-act structure has become the dominant form in anglophone screen industries and creates a particular meaning and viewing experience. Modular structure, a feature of the puzzle film, uses radical non-linearity and complex plot... Read More about We need to talk about Lynne: Modular structure as a reflection of the traumatized psyche in We Need to Talk about Kevin.

Creative Play Working Group Live Session (2024)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Neilan, C. (2024, September). Creative Play Working Group Live Session. Presented at Screenwriting Research Network Conference 2024, Palacky University, Olomouc, Czechia

A live session of the SRN Creative Play Working Group, exploring methods for nurturing creative screenwriting practice in the classroom. With guest presentations from Ben Broomfield (University of Lincoln), Dr Deborah Klika (University of Greenwich)... Read More about Creative Play Working Group Live Session.

No Alarms and No Surprises: A Modern History of the One-Act Feature Film (2024)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Neilan, C. (2024, September). No Alarms and No Surprises: A Modern History of the One-Act Feature Film. Paper presented at Screenwriting Research Network Conference 2024, Palacky University, Olomouc, Czechia

In Story (1997), Robert McKee stated confidently that three-acts were the minimum for a feature-length film, declaring that the one-act form was suitable only for the short story or the short film of five to twenty minutes. He later updated his view... Read More about No Alarms and No Surprises: A Modern History of the One-Act Feature Film.

A Story of Bones: Absorbing Documentary Unearths Colonial Crimes in St Helena (2024)
Newspaper / Magazine
Neilan, C. (2024). A Story of Bones: Absorbing Documentary Unearths Colonial Crimes in St Helena

A community’s fight to properly honour the 9,000 formally enslaved Africans found in a mass grave in Saint Helena tells a wider story of traumatic colonial legacy in Dominic Aubrey De Vere and Joseph Curran’s sobering documentary.

Narrative Structure in the Iranian Screenplay: An Analysis of Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman’ (2024)
Book Chapter
Neilan, C. (in press). Narrative Structure in the Iranian Screenplay: An Analysis of Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman’. In The Bloomsbury Handbook of Global Screenplay Theory. Bloomsbury Publishing

Since the emergence of Syd Field’s Screenplay in 1979 and the modern screenwriting gurus that followed, Western cinema has undergone a profound conventionalisation process, deifying the single protagonist quest narrative, with its roots in Aristoteli... Read More about Narrative Structure in the Iranian Screenplay: An Analysis of Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman’.

Self-Shooting the Humanist Documentary (2024)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Neilan, C. (2024, July). Self-Shooting the Humanist Documentary. Paper presented at Times In-Between Conference and Film Festival: Barriers, Borders, and Boundaries in Short Film Forms, Gorizia, Italy

In ethnographic documentary traditions, the medium of film and video is used to communicate cultural knowledge and experiences (Gill, 2020). Jean Rouch advocated developing ‘an intimate understanding of the community’ in which the filmmaker works, s... Read More about Self-Shooting the Humanist Documentary.

Love and Border (2024)
Exhibition / Performance
Neilan, C. Love and Border. [Short film]. 10 July 2024 - 13 July 2024

Mae Sot is a border city in western Thailand, a few kilometres from the border with Myanmar, and home to sizeable community of Myanmarese migrants and refugees. Myanmar’s severe political and economic problems, including violent oppression of ethnic... Read More about Love and Border.

Mother & Daughters (2024)
Exhibition / Performance
Neilan, C. Mother & Daughters. [Short film]. 10 July 2024 - 13 July 2024

The Lahu people, an ethnic group originating in China and other parts of southeast Asia, began moving into Thailand probably in the 1870s or 1880s due to oppression in China. Lahu hill tribes in Thailand today total between 60,000 to 100,000 people,... Read More about Mother & Daughters.

Meet Big Bird (2024)
Exhibition / Performance
Neilan, C. Meet Big Bird. [Short film]. 10 July 2024 - 13 July 2024

The Karen ethnic minority, from Karen State in southeastern Myanmar, have been fighting for independence since 1948—the longest running civil war in the world. The Myanmarese junta have committed well-documented war crimes and acts of ethnic cleansi... Read More about Meet Big Bird.

Writing the Cine-Poetic: an Analysis of Screenwriting Technique in the Cinema of Lynne Ramsay (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Neilan, C. (2023, September). Writing the Cine-Poetic: an Analysis of Screenwriting Technique in the Cinema of Lynne Ramsay. Paper presented at Screenwriting Research Network Conference 2023, Stephens College, Missouri, USA

Lynne Ramsay has been called one of the most distinctive British filmmakers of her generation, yet despite her renown as a director she rarely receives attention nor credit for her mastery of screenwriting technique. Her early short films demonstrate... Read More about Writing the Cine-Poetic: an Analysis of Screenwriting Technique in the Cinema of Lynne Ramsay.

Me As Me (2023)
Book Chapter
Neilan, C. (2023). Me As Me. In K. Innes, M. Lotfi, & N. O’Gallagher (Eds.), New Writing Scotland 41: nothing but a set of eyes for stars (128-137). (Summer 2023). Association for Scottish Literature

Short story published in New Writing Scotland anthology

Ash at the Astoria (2023)
Book Chapter
Neilan, C. (2023). Ash at the Astoria. In Spellbinder (33-38)

Short fiction published in Spellbinder issue 11, the journal associated with the Durham University creative writing society.

Themes & Processes for Humanitarian Documentary Filmmaking (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Neilan, C. (2023, April). Themes & Processes for Humanitarian Documentary Filmmaking. Presented at Hard Cases study group, Antonio Meneghetti College, Recanto Maestro, Brazil & Online

A presentation of documentary films and discussion of the techniques used within those films, and their connection to a humanist ideology.

Experimental Screenwriting: the Importance of Breaking the Rules (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Neilan, C. (2023, March). Experimental Screenwriting: the Importance of Breaking the Rules. Paper presented at AR@K23 Symposium, Kristiania University College, Oslo, Norway

Modern screenwriting handbooks by self-styled gurus have been broadly criticized within the academy for restricting and revoking screenwriting practice, both noticing and concretizing a delimiting doxa, and in doing so presiding over a profound conve... Read More about Experimental Screenwriting: the Importance of Breaking the Rules.

Moving Away From the Monoplot: Conventional Narrative Structure in the Screenplay and the Unconventional Alternatives (2023)
Thesis
Neilan, C. (2023). Moving Away From the Monoplot: Conventional Narrative Structure in the Screenplay and the Unconventional Alternatives. (Thesis). Manchester Metropolitan University. http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/4245408

Through a combination of creative and critical practice, this project seeks to explore the conventionalisation effect that popular screenwriting handbooks have had on screenwriting practice, the unconventional structural models that are available to... Read More about Moving Away From the Monoplot: Conventional Narrative Structure in the Screenplay and the Unconventional Alternatives.

Teenage Actress (2022)
Book Chapter
Neilan, C. (2022). Teenage Actress. In Broken Sleep Books 2022 Anthology (275-277). Broken Sleep Books

Short story published in Broken Sleep Books' annual anthology 2022.

The power of schism: Unconventional narrative structure in No Country for Old Men (2022)
Journal Article
Neilan, C. (2022). The power of schism: Unconventional narrative structure in No Country for Old Men. Journal of Screenwriting, 13(3), 313-328. https://doi.org/10.1386/josc_00103_1

Whilst screenwriting handbooks have popularized and disseminated practical approaches to writing the screenplay and, to a certain extent, demystified and perhaps even democratized the process of screenplay creation and development, they have also sol... Read More about The power of schism: Unconventional narrative structure in No Country for Old Men.

A Process of Becoming (2022)
Book Chapter
Neilan, C. (2022). A Process of Becoming. In Pennsylvania English 40.2 (77-89). The Pennsylvania College English Association

Short story published in Pennsylvania English, the journal of the Pennsylvania College English Association and the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.