Iluminace 2025, 37(2):5-10 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1816

Shifting Screenwriting – The Past, Present and Future of the Craft. An Introduction to a Special Issue “Conversation Beyond Script”

Jan Černík ORCID...1, Jan Trnka ORCID...2
1 Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic ✉
2 Národní filmový archiv, Prague, Czech Republic ✉

Although the status of screenwriter and screenplay was always uncertain, today‘s precipitous technological and economic changes are affecting its essence - however, history teaches us that no crisis is so deep that it cannot be turned into opportunity. Bunch of detailed analysis forming the core of this special issue of Iluminace can be read as illustration of this overarching simple idea, an invitation to one of the less explored territories and as call for both another adventurous journeys to the roots of screenwriting and erudite reflections of current screenwriting practices made by scholars, screenwriting teachers and authors. In this text, we offer a perspective on how to view the articles in this special issue in the context of the current challenges facing screenwriting. At the same time, we find in these articles a vision for overcoming the crises of the present. The fact that we are experiencing changes in screenwriting means that it will be with us for years to come.

Keywords: screenwriting, screenplay, screenwriter, Screenwriting Research Network, artificial intelligence, Writers Guild of America, cinema, television, virtual reality, sound

Received: August 3, 2025; Revised: October 4, 2025; Accepted: November 1, 2025; Published: November 10, 2025  Show citation

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Černík, J., & Trnka, J. (2025). Shifting Screenwriting – The Past, Present and Future of the Craft. An Introduction to a Special Issue “Conversation Beyond Script”. Iluminace, 37(2), 5-10. doi: 10.58193/ilu.1816
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