And We're Back

First day of school today. I had 2 classes: Screen Adaptations, and Line Producing. You probably have a good idea what the first is, and only sort of an idea of what the second is. I think I'm going to like them both though, so I'll blather a bit about each.

Screen Adaptations is making a screen play out of an existing work - novel, short story, etc. We had some really interesting discussions today about the value of adaptation. High brow literary people poo-poo it, and a lot of people's knee jerk reactions is "the book is better than the movie." Sometimes that's true, but only if the movie sucks. Because ultimately they are two different animals. If you find a new way to tell the story, a way that is uniquely cinematic, then there doesn't have to be a "better" when comparing the two. We talked about creativity, and originality, and inspiration, and homage. After all, it's not like the book was written in a vacuum with nothing that inspired it.

We talked about finding the nugget in a story that is what made you love it in the first place, which immediately made me think of Jan's directing class last term. He was always on about know what story you are telling and why you are telling it so that anything that doesn't forward those aims can get pared away.

I have a couple of weeks before I have to settle on what short story I want to use for my own adaptation and there are a few things left that I want to read before I decide. But I did find one possibility in a book of short stories that I was reading at the Cape. Unfortunately it was a library book and I had to return it. Now I don't find it on Amazon, or the Boston Public Library, or the BU library. Sigh. If I decide that's the one I want I'll have to go back to Harwich and photocopy that story I guess.

So Line Producing. We actually had a discussion in class about all the different job titles you see in film credits with the word "producer" in some form. Here's the short answer for you: Executive Producers raise the money. Producers spend the money at a high level. Line Producers spend the money day to day. Basically this class is all of the logistics and organization involved in pre-production and shooting. This is something that I am instinctively good at, being pathologically organized as I am. Still, I am looking forward to learning about how they do it for real in the industry.