Making the Masterpiece

A dramatized version of how a book, painting, movie, etc. came to be made. Unlike the Biopic, focuses on the creator's work on a single piece rather than the entire story of his life, though usually one or two other pieces crop up as background.

This trope is not about "making of" documentaries, which are far more common.

Film

 * Capote (In Cold Blood)
 * Finding Neverland (Peter Pan)
 * The Agony And The Ecstacy (painting of the Sistine Chapel)
 * Topsy-Turvy (The Mikado)
 * Cradle Will Rock (The Cradle Will Rock)
 * Creation (Darwin's On the Origin of Species)
 * Shakespeare in Love, an entirely fictional account of how Romeo and Juliet was written.
 * Shadow of the Vampire, Nosferatu, obviously fictional (Max Schreck is really a vampire!).
 * RKO 281 (Citizen Kane)
 * BAADASSSSS! (Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song)

Literature

 * The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follet (building of Kingsbridge Cathedral)
 * Girl With A Pearl Earring

Theatre

 * The first half of Sunday in The Park With George (Seurat's painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte"), though Very Loosely Based On a True Story at best.