Andrew Kuhn

Abstract

Mercy Rule and My Progress Through the Thesis Process is a feature-length script and dissertation analyzing, among other things, the challenges during the process, the criticisms voiced after the reading, and the overall experience. Mercy Rule is a comedy about a young baseball player named Kevin Jasper who takes up little league coaching after being kicked off his team for fighting. Through coaching Kevin finds joy and comes to grips with his athletic mortality. In 2010 the story proposal for Mercy Rule was a script about two outlaw umpires, an undeveloped idea my brother and I had been discussing during our years of umpiring together. However, ideas develop and change, and my open-mindedness to criticism is one of the factors that helped get Mercy Rule to the point it is at today. At times I felt unorganized, and much of the process centered on thinking. Thinking is stressful to me. I prefer to be "doing." Through the thesis process I learned how to "think" and "do" simultaneously in treatment development. I had never been a proponent of treatments until this project, and found a certain outline to be particularly helpful for me in structuring Mercy Rule. Meticulously going through the script-writing process and learning new tricks along the way helped me grow as a writer. Whether or not the script is funny or has potential to be funny is debatable, but looking at it objectively I see a structurally strong story with demonstrations of my ability to intercut effectively and write engaging dialogue. Although the audience was small, they offered insightful and encouraging feedback, and left me feeling satisfied with the work I put into Mercy Rule. I see the script's completion as a major stepping-stone to a career as a script writer.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Motion picture plays; Motion picture authorship; Comedy films

Publication Date

12-10-2012

Document Type

Thesis

Department, Program, or Center

School of Film and Animation (CIAS)

Advisor

Lester, Howard

Comments

Note: imported from RIT’s Digital Media Library running on DSpace to RIT Scholar Works. Physical copy available through RIT's The Wallace Library at: PN1996 .K84 2012

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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