Welcome to the website for Evan, Railey, and Sean’s John Hughes text analysis project.
John Hughes (1950 - 2009) was one of the most influential filmmakers of the 1980’s, with many of his works still standing the test of time. This project is focused on analyzing the screenplays for three of his most famous movies: Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986). We are interested in seeing how the scripts hold up after nearly forty years (see research questions below), while also extracting certain data from them (including things like word tracking, dialogue frequencies, and other various comparisons between the three).
Research Questions
- * What kinds of dialogue/script inclusions are common throughout each screenplay?
- * How do the screenplays compare when it comes to intentionality of the camera?
- * How are ensemble casts handled differently in writing than a more individually-focused story?
- * What parts of speech are more commonly found in the scripts than others?
- * What cinematic techniques outside of typical dialogue and description are found in the scripts?
- * How are different production contexts accounted for in Hughes' writing?
Each screenplay’s original .txt file can be found in the links below.
Source Documents (Web Links):
Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sixteen Candles
IMDb Source Links (Photos and Information):
Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sixteen Candles, John Hughes
