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.
I know what you mean. When it comes to writing you trust the reader to use his/her imagination, and in fact good writing invites readers to do that, to participate in the making of the story. With movies there's less collaboration with the audience because all the images you want to present are there, and the artistry comes more from what scenes, shots, images, and angles the directors choose. but even so there's still collaboration between the screen writer, the director, and the actors, each one bringing their own styles, visions and interpretations. good writers trust their directors and actors.
ReplyDeleteHello, I'm glad you found my blog! Nice to meet you!
ReplyDeleteI love the Twilight books and have read them a few times (or, more acurately, listened to them)... what I don't understand is when the screenplay writers fundamentally alter the plot of the book for no apparent reason, though I think this happens more in TV series adaptations rather than movie scripts... I have avoided the True Blood TV series because I enjoyed the Sookie Stackhouse books and can't see the point of some of the strange new directions the series plot takes.
Have you ever seen or read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, or movie, or radio shows? That's quite an interesting insight into how different media tell the same story.
I realize it has been a long time since you both responded. I haven't been on here much (lots of things happening) but I am back.
DeleteI feel compelled to answer Giles' post. I recently learned in another film class that writers change the plots to books for numerous reasons. To list a couple big ones:
1) The obvious, you can't fit all of the scenes from a book into a 2 hour screenplay.
2) In a book, not everything is key to propelling the story forward, in a screenplay every tiny detail matters.
3) To simply copy a book would take out all of the creativity for the screenplay writer. What's the fun in simply copying someone else's work?
Now, I'm not saying that we *like* the things that are changed. All I am saying is there is another way to look at it. :)