ABSTRACT
An overarching message across the ethnographic fleldwork for this project was that new platforms and technologies inevitably mean new opportunities, that there’s ‘no excuse’ now, for not pursuing screenwriting dreams in whatever form or medium. Screenwriting work could well exemplify this unique positioning, enabling, as many writers acknowledge, the chance to conceive, develop and produce better visions of the world in-script and on-screen. Screenwriting — as an industrial, marginalized, individualized, collaborative and exclusive form of work — can highlight and also preclude some of the possibilities and problems associated with good creative work. Understanding screenwriting as creative labor and professional practice is about understanding these complexities and limits, because these determine who has access to screenwriting work and how that work is experienced. Screenwriting work-worlds are rife with handy aphorisms and industry knowledge, none more so than ‘Nobody knows anything’.
