I’m
not going to lie; I was one of those “Twilight freaks”. I still love Twilight,
don’t get me wrong but now I normally have to be in the mood for it. But that’s
not the point. The point is that I have read all of the books at least once,
watched all of the movies (that are out) at least once, and now I am reading
the screenplay for the first movie. I can’t
tell you how interesting it is to compare the different Medias.
The
reason I am reading the screenplay is because I am taking a screenwriting
class, I was supposed to read a screenplay based off of something else, like a
book. I came to understand why movies based off of books are always so
different. Books are detailed, drawn out and can give you limited access to
information, movies cannot do that very easily. Movies have to fit a book that
took you three months to read and condense it into a two hour film, saving the
content and still make it exhilarating. I didn’t quite understand this point
until sat and thought about it, a screenplay is something completely its own.
It’s not a book, song, or comic book, it’s a screenplay and it follows its own
rules.
Actually
reading the screenplay after watching the movie helped me realize just how
important the actors are and how much character they can put into their role. There
was a spot in the screenplay where a teenager Angela says “There’s whale
watching too. Come with.”
“Come
with? Seriously?” I thought as I read it, "she did NOT say that, or if she did
she made it sound a lot less awkward than it did reading it in my mind." The actress brought a whole new life to this
character. Of course I realized all of this before, but sometimes I need
something to just “click” in my head for me to fully understand it, and
normally what “clicks” in my head, makes absolutely no sense to others, but
that’s ok.
My
point in all of this is that I learned something, these three different media
groups - novels, screenwriting, and movie making – I want to be involved
somehow in all of them, and I need to separate them in my head, especially
novels and screenwriting.
