#screen adaptations

[indecisivecosplayer]

My issue with Despair's journey to the screen

I just finished Dead Boy Detectives and I think I've finally realised what my issue has been with the on-screen adaptations of Despair. It's not the acting, or even the wardrobe that is the issue (although the costume is not necessarily my favourite).

When we think about the concept of Despair, she is a something that creeps up on you. She is powerful, all consuming. She's confident in her own ability and purpose. She's a whisper in the back of your head that grows and grows until you're full to the brim with shadows and she's leaking out into everything around you.

And I think this could be done on screen. There just needs to be a change in the way she is shot, and what music is used.

Imagine a Despair, standing in her realm, observing through the mirrors. Half her face is in shadows, and the camera drifts to focus on her hand, where her hook is digging into her skin and a trail of blood is leaking down onto the floor. (Also imagine giving her pointed teeth. We really missed out there. That would be so cool.) Shoot from lower rather than above to make her seem larger and more intimidating. Show us her eyes, and her hair tied back, and the way her body moves when she breathes. Show us the tiny movements that break the stillness.

The music should be creepy, either silence apart from a soft rasping breathing noise, OR a quiet, slightly screechy violin, just playing by itself, a slow creeping tune.

Give us a long time to take her in, and then, just before she speaks, let the noise drown out and give us a long close up of her smile, wide and sharp, as she stares into the mirror. We hear a few drops of blood splatter against the floor.

And then she speaks and everything stops. She commands silence. The shot is a close-up of her mouth as she speaks. Then it moves to see the reaction of the listener, and after that we get mid to wide shots.

But she never stops seeming powerful, because that's exactly what she is. If Desire can be shot in a way that shows their strength and influence, then so can their twin. We need to start giving her the respect she deserves.

[principiumindividuationis777]

Ace-ssentially Sherlock

I am not myself asexual, as one already knows if one has browsed this blog (it's safe for work, though), but I always have felt that screen adaptations of Sherlock Holmes that have him as anything else do not work, no matter how good the acting, cinematography, etcetera.

Crucial to A. Conan Doyle's original Holmes is that, for the most part, he is a reasoning machine. If something is utterly irrelevant to the science of detection, then he is utterly indifferent to it (e.g. whether the earth goes around the sun, or vice versa). He would see attraction to or an intimate relationship with any other human being to be a distraction that would prevent his impartiality and take away his energy.

Enthusiasts and fans are free to ship anyone with anyone else, of course, but to me, the Sherlock Holmes, apart from headcanons, will always be ace.

[bertilakslady]

As @margysmusings has pointed out to me, Gareth Thomas would have made a PERFECT Heathcliff. In fact, I realised today that he was the actor I had in my head when I first read the novel all those years ago…

(This is actually a pic from The Revivalist, 1975)

[lifelinebooks]

Never did read Red White and Royal Blue but I LOVED One Last Stop (I read it every June) so now that Red is getting a movie I suppose I should read it. Does this mean I can hope for a screen adaptation of One Last Stop? Please???

[imthefailedartist]

Carrie is fat in the book. Learning that completely blew me.

The use of pigs blood makes so much more sense. The reason she was bullied so relentlesly, even though she does nothing to nobody, makes so much more sense. The relationship with her mother makes so much more sense.

I know they aren't going to, but I wish they would cast someone fat in this new Carrie adaptation. From the articles I've seen, they are already speculating which skinny actress it's going to be.

How many times can they tell the story the same exact way? The answer: endlessly.

I don't know what's worse the total erasure of fat people in movies or the only story we get to see ourselves in are the love yourself fatty movies.

[blessphemy]

the murderbot ao3 tag having 71% "gen" fic at 2,650/3,734 works does make it pretty unique and special as far as fandoms go. i can't imagine a lot of other fandoms have stats like that. i expect this high percentage of gen will shrink over time as the fandom gets larger but it still tickles me as a snapshot in this moment. i just think it's neat 🥔.

this has been a fandom that got me to realize just how much i actually really love genfic, both reading it and writing it. it's been a very enriching realization for me personally. and then as a genfic writer it's been nice to be in a fandom where genfic is celebrated on equal footing with shipfic.

also, "other" being the next biggest category at 19%, followed by "F/F" at 3%, "multi" at 2%, "M/M" at 2%, and "F/M" dead last at 1%..... this fandom is truly doing it Cool style. (and fun fact: the first F/M murderbot fic is a Reylo crossover lmaoo)

[linusbenjamin]

Pride and Prejudice S1.E1 | 1995 Adapted by Andrew Davies

[tartppola]

The conversation at Topsy-Turvy Square, gone differently

dialogue written by the talented @zgvlt

[jayblanc]

From my own brief experience of this...

When adapting a book/comic series to a TV series, leaving the writing of the pilot and the bible up to 'the studio' is not an ideal situation. In the era of "leveraged IP content", there's the possibility that they will view your project as an interchangeable sack of potatoes, and if there's a stall in producing a pilot-ready screenplay, the project gets dropped. Because they can always find a different sack of potatoes. Sometimes they will drop the project silently by running out the clock on the option. You might not find out that it's dead until many years after they made the decision to kill the project.

I was very remotely involved in a project where the creator and owner of the IP was not interested in writing the pilot and bible, joining the WGA, or even getting a media agent and assumed her literary agent was enough representation. That did not go well. Across multiple studios picking it up and then silently dropping it. Fine if you just want to cash the option cheque, not great if you wanted an actual show. (And kinda bad for the smaller people involved...)

There's also the not inconsiderable issue about credits. The show will go out with the credit "Created for television by" with the name of the person who wrote the "story" treatment for the pilot. This isn't the same person as the writer of the book/comic that this treatment was based on, it's specifically the person who wrote the treatment. To get on that "Created for television by" credit, the writer needs to have put in at least a third of the work on the treatment.

In my opinion, it's in the original writer's best interests to at least have involvement in the pilot treatment, if not the entire screenplay and bible. And they absolutely need a media agent. And then it's also in their best interests to join the WGA when they qualify. (Set aside some of that Option money for the WGA's induction fee!)

Curiosity question, because I know you work in both writing and film:

A book series I like is being adapted for film, and I have heard the author is working as a creative consultant rather than a writer because she isn't part of the WGA. Are book authors allowed to join the union if their book is being adapted for film? Or is there some technicality that would make it too difficult?

There's absolutely no reason a novelist can't become a Writers Guild member. I certainly did that when Michael Reaves and I pitched "Where No One Has Gone Before" to ST:TNG. (Michael was Guild already.) But it depends on what company you're working with, and what they want from you—or don't want.

The issue splits into two parts.

First of all: to qualify to join the Guild, you must accrue a certain number of "units" of TV, film or other Guild-covered media work within a three-year period (and then pay an initiation fee). The rules about qualification are here. You accrue these work units by selling your writing to a company that's signatory to the Guild's minimum basic agreement (MBA).

So as an example: if I was a series-owning novelist who wrote a screenplay for a feature film, or a bible for a miniseries of four hours or more, and sold either of those to an MBA-signatory company, that would be my twenty-four qualification points accrued immediately, and I could apply for Guild membership right then. To join I would simply fill out whatever paperwork was necessary and send the Guild my initiation fee, and that would be that. (US west-coast writers automatically join WGA West, IIRC: east-coast and international writers go to WGA East.)

But first you have to make that sale.

If the company that's adapting a creative property you own doesn't want to buy a script or a bible from you, that's their choice. The adapters may have a writing team or room they prefer to work with, rather than trying to train the novelist in screenwriting: or they might have other reasons not to commit to buying a script from the series owner. The novelist would then have to decide in what other way they want to interact (creatively speaking) with the people doing the adaptation.

In the case you describe above, if what you've heard is accurate, it sounds like the company the writer is working with has decided not to offer the novelist the opportunity to write a script for them. In such a situation, taking a creative-consultant job may be the best deal the novelist can leverage. You do, of course, also get novelists who actively don't want to be involved in the screenwriting process—either for lack of script experience or some other reason—and prefer a consultant position, especially if it comes with some kind of producer credit.

In any case, hope this makes the whole issue clearer!

[counting-stars-gayly]

This might be a hot take, but I actually like that Percy figured out Luke was the traitor at the last minute. There were A LOT of clues that would’ve been hard to ignore, and he ignored them for as long as he could. And it’s clear that even after accusing Luke, he’s still surprised and heartbroken at Luke’s confirmation of his suspicions. He was holding out hope, guys!!

Also, the Betrayal Scene flows better as an exchange of dialogue and a swordfight than it did, in the books, as a monologue and a scorpion sting. This also leaves a bigger impact on the viewers and characters because it’s more emotional.

[dogzcats]

pride & prejudice: from book to movie

[professorhayforbreath]

also sorry but i'm not sold on "they only have 8 episodes" as a defense for why the show is falling flat as both a show and an adaptation. 8 episodes is roughly 5 hours. that's 3 hours more than most movies lol. that should be plenty of time to adapt all the most important things, they're just not using their screen time as well as they could be. sorry i don't think it should actually be this hard to fit the essential core of the lightning thief's story and characters into 5 hours. the movie and musical were both 2 hours give or take and they still did certain things better. skill issue

[iliiuan]

I would say that the issue is, very largely, a marketing one.

Type 1 should be marketed as "The Wheel of Time: come to life on your TV screen."

Type 2 should be marketed as "The Wheel of Time: based on the books by Robert Jordan."

Type 3 should be marketed as "The Wheel of Time: inspired by the books by Robert Jordan."

When they were marketing the show before it came out, they were heavily implying that they were aiming for Type 1, while in reality they were producing Type 3. Of course people are disappointed and frustrated. I still say that the show would have been much stronger by fully embracing Type 3 from the beginning, not relying on book background to support their storytelling, and focusing on having a coherent plot. But I'm just some rando on the Internet, so whatever.

Before I say anything about my thoughts on the second season of the Wheel of Time I want to talk for a bit about adaptations in general

There are several ways to adapt something: 1) adapting as close to the text of the source material as possible (absolutely impossible for wot), 2) treating adaptation as a second draft and 3) taking characters and plot points and playing with them like dolls

There are no rigid boundaries between them, but Wheel of Time tv show is mostly the third type, and the best way to engage with it as a long time reader is to try to just mostly ignore what happens in the books. This is why I have enjoyed this season a lot more than the first one. My favourite episode of the season and the entire series so far (episode 7, daes dae'mar) is so inaccurate to the book characters and plot that if i looked at it only from that point of view i'd be seething and hissing. Instead I had a very good time

(On the other hand, calling all the people who dislike the adaptation fun-hating men who fret over every tiniest change is unfair. People were hoping for the adaptation of the second type and that expectation was not fulfilled and they are understandably upset. I hated the first season so much i stopped interacting with the fandom for nearly two years)

I am intrigued by the direction of the plot, and some of the choices the adaptation makes are the kind of changes I was hoping for. For example, Perrin's vision in an empty village. It replaces the scene that doesn't really adds anything new about the channeling with a scene that finally reveals some of Perrin's abilities to the viewer. (I do love that scene in the book but it's neither here nor there)

Same goes for some character details. Elayne making alcohol with the one power very much didn't happen in the books but it feels in line with the things she will be doing in the future and thus feels in character. Rand working in an insane asylum tells us that he is compassionate but also the kind of person who would constantly surround himself with reminders of his horrible unavoidable destiny.

That being said, the show is far from perfect, and my liveblogs reflected my opinion pretty clearly.

My main issue is technical. The writing and editing quality is extremely inconsistent and it really drags the show down. The show overall does a pretty bad job at establishing how much time passes between scenes, where the important locations are in relation to each other and how much distance is between them.

I could make a list of other writing problems: plot contrivances, unnatural sounding or cliched dialogue, contradictions in the internal logic of the world, a lot of telling with little showing, but most of it is in the liveblogs already.

Overall, I am looking forward to the third season and hope for improvements

[secretsofthewilde]

Hey wtf do you mean next year will be 100 years since we got a mainstream book accurate film adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera?

[sw1ft-sniff]

THERE IS A FUCKING SCREEN ADAPTION TO PASSERINE

this channel has a screen adaption of Passerine they’re making it at the moment but omg (I never read Passerine)

I’m not really in DSMP anymore but I feel like more people should know about this (I do not own this I just found it and think it has a surprisingly low amount of views)