Digital Filmmaking

They Make This Stuff Look Easy

November 10, 2010



Every couple of months or so, the film classes engage in a project in which they are to produce a film that’s supposed to be a certain amount of minutes long. Our first project had to be a five minute document on anyone we chose. For our second film project our instructor gave us a choice between either perfecting the document area now that we have more experience on our hands, or start staggering down the narrative road. We bravely chose the narrative road.

Being a part time class we already had heavy weight on our shoulders because of the lack of time. Add trying to adapt a short story that was written in the early 20th century and you have extreme pressure. I just have to say adapting is annoyingly hard and you should not try this at home kids. With adapting this particular short story, “A Gentle Knave” by Minnie Barbour Adams, the main problem we came across was the motive. When reading a story the choice of words the author uses allows you to figure out the motive of a character, you know what drives them to do the things they do. A movie is different, particularly a short movie. We can’t puzzle piece the motive and spread it out through the movie because our length is 7 to 10 minutes long. So we had to lay it out smoothly so the audience can grasp the idea quickly and watch as the story plays out in a tidy manner. Luckily our classmate Anne was able to maneuver around the script and it turned out to be a pretty darn good adaptation.

Looking at movies that have been adapted from books, I now have a special appreciation for anyone who attempts to adapt anything. It’s a complicated task. You have to weave around the story and see what is essential and what can be left out. In the end you’re never really sure if all you’re choices were the right ones. It’s brutal. To Steve Kloves, the screenwriter for Harry Potter: God bless you! I don’t know how you did it. J.K. Rowling had written a series that was so meticulous and so full of details that I honestly cannot understand how the screenwriter crammed everything into a set of two and half hour movies. The reason it has become such a cultural phenomenon is because of the scripts going side-by-side with the text. When readers see the movies, they are looking at the series come to life.  The fans are extremely happy with the outcome and that is a skill that I truly admire and wish to one day possess. For right now though, I think I’ll leave it to the professionals.