Margaret Leclere

My main role has been the development and delivery of scriptwriting modules. As a Senior Lecturer on the Scriptwriting Award, I created five modules, which, since that Award’s demise, are still running as scriptwriting strands through both FTVRS and the English & Creative Writing Awards. My focus in the university is almost entirely on the teaching, which sustains my interest and feeds into my own creative work, and academic studies. Scriptwriting, as an academic subject, is in its infancy; my aim therefore has been to establish solid foundations and to crystalize the essentials of scriptwriting: on the one hand, cinema’s roots in photography and painting, and on the other its roots in literature. This last aspect, which provides the bedrock of scriptwriting modules, encourages students to see scriptwriting as a part of the literary tradition and to therefore develop a greater interest in reading and language, as well as in the themes and ideas that all the arts deal in. Balancing this artistic/academic approach is a vocational element, with several modules requiring that students use industry-standard models in their research and editorial work, as well as in peer reviews and presentations.