One of the classes I took in college was a screenwriting workshop focusing on adapting a book to a movie. The professor was a working screenwriter based in California, so we would only meet once a month to sit down and talk about screenwriting. As a college class, I enjoyed it because it was finally a class that went at my own pace. I appreciated the independent study, which I could fit in-between my other classes. It was also a class that trusted me, a young and naive thing, as a storyteller.
The overall gist was that we had a stack of books that were purposefully hard to adapt, and over the course of the semester, we would be at least starting a screenplay adaptation of one of these books. (My book was Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. I had nothing to do with the Syfy TV adaptation).
It's because of this class that I have my current feelings around adaptations. They can be summarized into 3 big rules:
( 3 Rules of Good Adaptations )
Agree? Disagree? What makes a good adaptation for you? What's your favorite adaptation, and why does it work for you? What's an adaptation you think adheres to these rules that I didn't mention? Inquiring minds want to know!
The overall gist was that we had a stack of books that were purposefully hard to adapt, and over the course of the semester, we would be at least starting a screenplay adaptation of one of these books. (My book was Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. I had nothing to do with the Syfy TV adaptation).
It's because of this class that I have my current feelings around adaptations. They can be summarized into 3 big rules:
( 3 Rules of Good Adaptations )
Agree? Disagree? What makes a good adaptation for you? What's your favorite adaptation, and why does it work for you? What's an adaptation you think adheres to these rules that I didn't mention? Inquiring minds want to know!