The Public Library is a great place to gather bits and peices of dialogue, action and spectacle from a variety of film scripts available there. From Preston Sturges' to Neil Simon, it isn't hard to find appropriate comedy and drama material to read, discuss and compare to the film version. My students like "fishing" for the differences; a good "catch" warrants a "rewind" session and a talk about why what we see on the screen is different from what the author had written. -->Finding "infant" scripts is hard, but the following works to let students experience the process. All students write a basic scene, rewrite it following the basic beginning-middle-end format then collaborate on the peice with a student who has been assigned to film his scene. Actors from my Drama class are selected by a third person in the group - the Director of the video. From that point on, the writer has no say in the rest of the production. While they begin a new scene, the cameraman, director and actors go off into the building to complete the video. The end product, while it doesn't surprise the production group, usually generates questions from the writers about changes in dialogue, action and settings. ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]