A Cinema of Happenings: Exploring Improvisation as Process in Filmmaking

This thesis supports a practice-based-research project that examines differing methodologies

Offering (2005), Birdman (2009) and The Graduate Workshop (2010). By investigating the

the performer and the finished film there are inherent production processes that both finesse

extent are the footprints of improvisation visible within the performance and aesthetics of film

This study brings together a number of ideas about improvisation practice, as

Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez (The Blair Witch Project, 1999). I use dominant 'institutional'

informed by new materials, specifically, an interview with Penny Woolcock (Tina Goes

Where existing accounts of improvisation have principally sought to define this as a

distinct 'models' of improvisation process in relation to filmmaking. In comparing different

processes, the thesis proposes a paired down schema for future work; identifying clear points

developing narrative and filming. This project makes a distinct contribution to the study of

filmmaking.