Week Eleven: Reverse Adaptation

Last week we looked at the adaptation of graphic novels into film. This week we are looking at this process in reverse.  Select a screenplay to read from the course resource page. Please select one for which, ideally, you have not seen the movie. Read the screenplay without watching the movie.






Writing Assignment: Select a significant scene from the screenplay you have chosen. Adapt this scene into a one to two page comic. Remember this is not a storyboard, please use any of the techniques unique to comics to try to energize your story. The completed work does not have to be produced in a finished form. The quality of the art is not important to this assignment, what is important is how you break down the story and shape into sequential art. The primary point is to focus on communicating what you think are the important threads that run through the scene in the screenplay. Please post your comic on your blog. 

After you make your comic you can watch the movie for your screenplay.

Looking ahead to the next assignment your will be asked to watch three movies from a list of directors on the syllabus. Discuss how the three films embody a point of view of the director as author, should you believe that such a point of view exists. Alternatively you can argue against the authorial point of view as a way to understand and read film.

Week Ten: Adapting the Graphic Novel

Reading Assignment: Please read the graphic novel Ghostworld by Daniel Clowes by next week's class. In class next week we will consider this graphic novel, the movie made from it, and the issues of adapting graphic novels into films. 

Project Assignment: Before next week's class please adapt one of the partial scenes from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing into a small film (cell phone cameras preferred) or audio play. You can reset the play, add to the play, subtract from the original script all that you need to in order to get your vision of the script to work. The idea is to take a thread that runs through the text and emphasize that thread in your adaptation.

The scenes that I am recommending that you choose from in making your adaptation are the following, there is a separate PDF for each scene that focuses on just the selection from the script of the play that you need.

Much Ado The Song

Act II, Scene 2 Don John conspires with Borachio

Act II, Scene 3 Benedick talks about not falling in love

Act III Scene 1 Hero and Ursula entrap Beatrice

Act IV, last part of Scene 1, Beatrice "If I were a man" speech

Act IV scene 2, Constable Dogberry interrogates Borachio and Conrad



To help your thinking about this project, here is Hollywood Madam's Three Laws of Adaptation which discusses what she considers the three most important criteria when translating a book into a film.

Week Nine: Pattern Recognition and Adapting Classic Texts

Publicity Photo for Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing

This week I am asking you to watch a movie adapted from a Shakespeare Play. The play is Much Ado About Nothing and the adaptation is a 2012 film by Joss Whedon. You should read the text of the play on the course resource page if you can. You can watch another film of the play (there are several) if you can't find the Whedon version. 

Here is an excellent interview with Whedon conducted by Tavi Gevinson on her Blog Magazine, Rookie. This is well worth reading and you should read it before coming to class if you want some excellent insight on Whedon's filming of the play. 

We will use our reading of the play in text and film adaptation to discuss approaches to adapting texts. We will discuss some various ways to approach some selected scenes from the play and work through some of the steps to planning adaptations of our own.  The general point of our inquiry is to explore some of the the elements of transformation of individual and specific works across mediums.

Sixth Writing Assignment: Post a discussion on your blog about an aspect of the way in which the text of Sleep Donation by Karen Russell is situated.  You can substitute a discussion of the short story, "Vampires in the Lemon Grove," if you need a shorter text to read. I am asking you to consider the work in context, and discuss just one thread of the way in which the text is connected to other works along whatever thread you have chosen,  We have been focusing on ways to read that are grounded in the ways we make or can't make connection with the work. This week we are focusing on ways to read that are founded in the modes and manners in which a particular work/event is connected to other works/events.

Week Eight: Defining the Writer's Position and the Situation of the Text

Karen Russell from the MacArthur Foundation Awards Site

Last week we worked toward understanding how the position of the reader effects the reading of the text. To underscore that concept, the Fifth Writing Assignment is described below.  Please complete the writing by next week and post it as an entry on your blog. (See revised course requirement below about student blogs).

Reading Assignment for Week Eight: Please read Sleep Donation, a short novella by Karen Russell. Please try to have it read before coming to class. There will be additional in-class reading next week.

Preview: Karen Russell (Wikipedia Entry) has emerged as a prominent writer of the millennial generation.  She has been the recipient of a number of awards including the MacArthur Fellowship. You can go to her Amazon page and read some of the mediated and unmediated comments, the reviews on this page are generally intelligently written by readers who are interested in reading good writing, they can be generally helpful to preview the work we are reading (Her Amazon Page). Popular writers attract a lot of empty discourse and self-important flatulence in their Amazon reviews, but literary writers tend to get a high percentage of thoughtful responses. This can be a good place to enter the conversation you will be carrying on in your own blog.

Here is a link to an interview in which she talks about How She Writes.

Required Film: The Grand Budapest Hotel (2013) dir. Wes Anderson,

Fifth Writing Assignment: Write a blog post that discusses how your situation, your personal position, affected your reading of The Dewbreaker by Edwidge Danticat. You should have at least read the first story in this novel made of short stories. One way you might define your position on the story is to consider what you don't relate to or what elements of the story are not similar to your life or experience. In other words, contrast your situation with that of the story instead of compare.

Revised Course Requirement: As we discussed in class last week, I am suspending the regular use of Canvas as the course interface. Instead I am asking you to create a blog on Blogger or similar network and use your blog to post your writings and comments for the remainder of the course. As soon as you have created your blog and posted something on it, send me the URL so I can add it to the blog list for the class on this page. Please do this before our next class meeting. Bring you laptop or table to class please.