Film & Television

Scott Dodgson’s work in film and television spans original feature screenplays, television drama and comedy, literary adaptation, travel and history programming, and stories that later expanded into novels.

Several of his novels began as original screenplays. They were conceived first through image, dialogue, scene, movement, and dramatic structure, then later developed into prose works capable of carrying memory, interior consciousness, history, digression, and reflection.

His professional work has also included commissioned adaptations, writing consultation, development assignments, and writer-for-hire projects. Some of that work remains confidential under contractual and nondisclosure agreements.

PRODUCED SCREENPLAYS

Anna Nicole Smith Bio

Produced Screenplay · Biographical Drama

A produced biographical screenplay based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith.

Paris Hilton Princes Paparazzi

Produced Screenplay

A produced screenplay centered on Paris Hilton and the celebrity culture surrounding fame, image, and the paparazzi.

COMMISSIONED ADAPTATIONS

Living with the Dead

Commissioned Book Adaptation

Adapted from Rock Scully’s memoir Living with the Dead.

White Slaves of Maquinna

Commissioned Book Adaptation · Historical Drama

Adapted from John R. Jewitt’s account of his capture and confinement at Nootka.

The story follows Jewitt’s survival inside a culture entirely removed from the world he knew and the complicated human relationships that developed during his captivity.

ORIGINAL FEATURE SCREENPLAYS LATER DEVELOPED AS NOVELS

The Bohemian Angels

Original Feature Screenplay

Originally written as a screenplay and later developed into the novel The Bohemian Angels.

Optioned

The Fisherman

Original Feature Screenplay

Originally written as a screenplay and later developed into the novel Le Pécheur.

Optioned

Swipe

Original Feature Screenplay

Originally conceived and written as a screenplay before becoming the novel Swipe.

Optioned

The Casket Salesman

Original Feature Screenplay

Originally written as a screenplay and later expanded into the novel The Casket Salesman.

Optioned

History of Water

Original Feature Screenplay

Originally developed as a screenplay and later transformed into the novel The History of Water.

Optioned

Dirty Movie

Original Feature Screenplay

The original screenplay that later became the novel L’Auteur.

Optioned

ORIGINAL FEATURE SCREENPLAYS

The Swordsman

Historical Action Drama · Feature Film

In 1806, China’s greatest swordsman is assigned to guard a princess traveling to an arranged marriage.

When a shipwreck strands them on a British-controlled island, both are captured and forced into slavery.

Separated from rank, court, and the protections of their former world, the swordsman must keep the princess alive while confronting an enemy he cannot defeat by skill alone.

At its center, The Swordsman is a test of honor and survival: what remains of duty, identity, and loyalty when power, status, and freedom have been stripped away?

Sold to Steven Seagal.

The Wrong Man

Action

Crooked cops knock on the wrong house.

Inside is one of the CIA’s most dangerous operatives, temporarily on administrative leave after one violent encounter too many.

Their mistake gives him something to do.

The Chinese Box

Adventure / Thriller

A retired boxman, an expert safecracker, teams with a retired intelligence operative in a search for Marco Polo’s hidden treasure.

Bubblehead

Feature Film

A graphic feature-film project.

Untitled Science-Fiction Project

Science Fiction · Film / Gaming

A dual film and gaming concept developed with an accompanying narrative bible.

The Commander

Action / Adventure

Original feature screenplay.

Anahita

Sailing Action / Drama

An original maritime action drama built around sailing, danger, and the unstable loyalties created by life at sea.

TELEVISION

Mud

Comedy Shorts

When an esthetician applies a magical mud mask to a client’s face, she switches places with them.

She remains in the client’s body for as long as it takes to resolve the most pressing personal problem in that person’s life.

Each short follows a new client, a new body, and a new crisis, turning beauty treatment into comic intervention.

Went into turnaround.

The Wizard

Science Fiction Drama

A modern man is dropped into the fifteenth century.

By the standards of the age, Xavier’s knowledge makes him one of the most extraordinary minds alive. He is not an ordinary man even in his own time, and unlike the protagonists of most time-travel stories, he has no interest in preserving the timeline.

He wants to disrupt it.

Xavier believes that creating a sufficiently massive disturbance in history may be the only way to return home. He brings with him all the anxieties of a modern life: anger, questions of self-worth, conflict with his father, sibling rivalry, love, loneliness, and the need for companionship. He carries those concerns into a world where survival leaves little room for introspection.

But Xavier is not the only traveler.

Others have arrived through conflict, driven by power and originating from a distant world. They have their own designs on history and no desire to see Xavier succeed.

The title is deliberately ironic. Xavier appears to the fifteenth century to possess the powers of a wizard, but everything he knows comes from science, history, and the accumulated knowledge of the world he left behind.

Developed at AMC.

DOCUMENTARY, TRAVEL & HISTORY

Offshore Explorer with Scott Dodgson

Travel / History · Half-Hour Television Series

A travel and history series exploring the world through the mariner’s eye.

Each episode approaches place from the water, using ports, coastlines, trade routes, maritime history, local culture, and the long movement of sailors between civilizations as the lens through which a region is understood.

The series combines travel, history, and storytelling, treating the sea not as scenery but as one of the great historical roads of the world.

Optioned by PBS Los Angeles.

WRITING & DEVELOPMENT CONSULTING

Dodgson has also worked as a writing and development consultant on film projects, including:

The Hurricane

Lower Depths

The Russian Project

Additional screenwriting, adaptation, rewriting, and development assignments have been completed under confidentiality agreements and are not publicly identified.

FROM SCREEN TO PAGE

The transformation from screenplay to novel has been a recurring part of Scott Dodgson’s writing life.

Film supplied the first architecture: image, scene, dialogue, gesture, movement, and dramatic pressure.

The novel opened another chamber: memory, interior life, historical association, reflection, and the consciousness surrounding the visible action.

The screenplay remained the first structure.

The novel became its larger literary life.

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