Adapting Short Stories Into Film

I think what makes adapting short stories into films is that short stories provide a backbone or a skeleton for an entire film's structure. What I mean is, a short story gives a film maker all the basic components to build upon deeper. The story provides hcharacters and their relationships to one another (something that can be expanded upon with dialogue and expressions and mannerisms, giving the characters more depth and personality), it can expand on the conflicts between the characters and their environments. Plus the visuals of a short story could get lost in the imagination, so experiencing someone else's vision can help ease the experience.

That's why "Bring Up Baby" easily translates to a script because the characters seem interesting and diverse enough to carry 100+ pages of dialogue and general interaction. Each character brings something different to the film's table, and the main conflict of a panther being loose keeps you laughing throughout.

Mise en scène and atmosphere and how they tie together

I was re-watching the opening scene from 28 Days Later and I couldn't help but think of the Mise en scène of the scene and it's correlation with the feeling of isolation. There's just his emptiness of not only people but noise. Dead air consumes the environment as Jim (The only man ever shown) wanders the empty streets of London. Now i've seen zombie movies in the past and I've seen this one a bunch to, but it always leaves me feeling tense when he's wandering the streets and no what where he goes, all Jim sees is empty streets... not a person on the ground or on the stairs or on the bridge, just remnants of destruction long rested. We follow Jim as he tries to configure to a new world without knowing it's rules, following the old ones on instinct, going to the pay-phones, stealing from a destroyed vending machine, and collecting thrown away money being the greatest examples of this. The entire scene is set up to give you an urgent wonder, not because it's whimsical, it's because we  (as the viewer) need some kind of footing in this reality just as much as our main protagonist, and this entire sequence just won't give us one.

Bringing up Baby

While I was reading Brining up Baby I felt as if I were watching an episode of I Love Lucy. Here's a guy who loves a girl so much he is willing to put his life on the line for her to find a panther. Suzan seemed like a "Lucy type" very unexpected and indecisive and witty. At the same time here is David the "Ricky type", serious, and straight headed. However, any crazy thing she does he sticks by her. What I found unusual of the story is why is it so important to Susan to make her brother proud? Why Did she keep baby way before she found out it was for her aunt? Also why did David just stand and watch Susan make "an ass out of herself" when she was by the pajama - clad's mans house? I didn't get the topic or point that the author was trying to make. I found the reading to be comedic and how Susan gets a kick on going back and fourth with David. David himself says he can recognize a familiar gleam in Suzan's eye. And that gleam tends to happen when they argue or something interesting happens.

Adapting Short Stories

Believe it or not, it used to be much more common for short stories to be adapted into feature films than for novels (unlike today when the opposite is true (unless it's a comic book)). This week on the blog, I'd like to discuss how Hagar Wilde and Howard Hawks managed to turn a 13-pp story into a hundred-and forty minute film. What changes were necessary to sustain the humor of the original story and expand on it? Also, why do you think that short stories are so seldom adapted today?

Feel free not to be limited by these questions. Any questions concerning the film/reading or the class in general are most welcome.

Bringing Up Baby

I just finished reading "Bringing Up Baby," and while I thought it was humorous and a mildly enjoyable short read, I felt that there could have been so much more detail, more imagery used.  I believe this would have been better as a play, or a maybe a show series.  As far as the characters, Aunt Elizabeth doesn't make much sense to me.. At first I thought that she was going to be this older hardheaded, women who is very old fashioned but then we find out that Baby the panther was sent for her.  I feel sorry for David, who is trying very hard to please a woman that he loves, but I enjoyed the part where they are bringing Baby in the wagon and you see how David will do anything for Susan even though it means risking his life (which he starts to wonder about during this scene.)

Killing vs Waiting to die

The importance of this topic is irrelevant, it's up for debate or debating purposes. As much as I liked the intriguing, intricate outer works, and dynamics of the film production processes we went over as well as the other happenings, something else caught my interest in our first class session. What leads to my inquiry, "Which would you rather or prefer? Having to kill people or having to wait to be killed?" is our Professor mentioning super heroes got me to think about the fairly new movie Batman vs Superman. I thought about Superman telling Lois, 'no one stays good in this world', before he goes off to kill the monster. In that I thought about what it would take to kill someone. Then I thought about Superman's death in the movie and how it would be to know all along when ones day of reckoning leading to death would come. I linked the two and by debating which can be worse, I debated which is worse and came to a conclusion that killing people is easier than the other. Observing and making connections can lead to refinements and/or broaden perceptions. Knowing how certain functions work really didn't interest me much before our first class session and although I may try to put forth the effort, going forward I think that it won't. Maybe I'll go through some changes and change up a bit.

A new set of eyes

To begin with, I'm not a very avid film or TV watcher. I'd much rather get lost in the pages of a book then find the time to sit down and watch a movie.  However, I found it to be incredibly intriguing to watch clips from films on Thursday with a new set of eyes.  Of course when you watch a movie, you know that every little thing is done for a reason, but you usually just ignore it and subconsciously process it.  It was interesting to really pick apart, and take a couple of minutes to think about why the directors made the decisions that they made.  To really dissect why a specific take was shot at the angle that it was, why certain sounds are more heightened than others.  It left me wondering about movies that I consider to be long time favorites, and if they are favorites due to certain things like that. I plan on beginning to re-watch them and see what I can pick up on now.