Adapting a novel, a book, a stage play or an article into a movie

is the same as creating an original screenplay. To adapt means to change from one medium to another. The definition of adaptation is: "The ability to make something more suitable or suitable through change or adjustment" - that is, changing something so that Inflict changes in structure,

function and form so as to be more appropriately adjusted.

In other words, a novel is a novel, a stage play is a stage play, and a movie play

is a movie script. Adapting a book into a movie script means changing one (book) into another (movie script), rather than superimposing one on top of another. above one. It is not a novel made into a movie, or a stage play made into a movie. They are two completely different forms. One is an apple and the other

is an orange.

When you adapt a novel, a stage play, an article, or even a

song into a movie script, you are changing a form into Another form

form. You're writing a movie script based on its original source material.

Essentially, however, you are still creating an original screenplay,

and therefore you must approach it in an original way.

A novel usually involves a person's inner life, which is the character's thoughts, feelings, emotions and memories that occur in the thought scene of dramatic

actions.

In a novel, you can use a sentence, a paragraph, a page of manuscript paper, or a

chapter to describe the character's inner dialogue, thoughts, feelings, impressions, etc. Little

saying often takes place inside the characters' minds.

On the other hand, a stage play uses dialogue to depict thoughts, feelings, and events within the prescribed limits of the stage.

Drama involves the language of dramatic action

.

Movie scripts deal with externals, concrete

Details - the ticking of a clock, a child playing in an empty street,

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A car turns the corner and waits. A movie script is a story told through pictures

and it takes place within the context of a dramatic structure.

Fu Yu, who has directed films such as "Breathless", "Weekend"

and "Vivre sa Vie"

The innovative French film director Jean-Luc G-

odard said that film is developing its own language, so we have to learn

How to read the picture.

The adapted script should be regarded as an original movie script. It simply takes

a novel, book, stage play, article or song as a starting point. These are the sources of materials

and are the starting point. That's all.

When you adapt a novel, you don't have to limit yourself to being faithful to the source material.

"All the President's Men" is a good example. It is adapted by William Goldmangan

based on the book written by Bernstein and Woodward (about Watergate, by the way) , here you need to make several drama choices immediately

. In an interview at Sherwood Oaks Laboratory, Goldman said it was a difficult adaptation. "I had to approach this very complex material in a simple way, without appearing simple-minded.

I had to

make a story out of material that had no story. Coming up with a story that makes sense

is always a problem.

“For example, the movie ends about halfway through the book. We decided

to end where Hardman made a mistake. Rather than show Woodward Audiences already know how Hibernstein was right, gained fame and fortune, and became the darling of the press. It would be a mistake to end the film on a high note, so we decided to end it here: at the point where Hardman made the mistake, a little more than halfway through the book. ENDING

The most important thing about a film script is to have a structure. /p>

If we are confused, we will lose them."

Goldman begins with the tense and suspenseful sequence of breaking into the Watergate Building.

Then, when the men are arrested, Woodward (Robert Redford) is introduced in the pretrial court. He saw the senior lawyer in court, became suspicious, and then got involved. When Bernstein (Dustin Hofmann) steps in to deal with the matter (this is plot point I), they successfully uncover the truth. A series of secrets and conspiracies led to the downfall of the President of the United States

.

Original material is the source of the material. How to turn it into a movie script is entirely up to you.

You can add some characters, scenes, incidents and events, etc.

But don’t copy the novel into a movie script, turn it into a visual,

story told by the pictures.

That’s what Goldman did in Marathon Man

He adapted his own novel: "People ask me if I wrote the movie script first. I tell them, no. Not at all! The novel came first. It

was It was purely a coincidence that I bought it to make a movie.

“The Marathon Man is a very complex movie script. This novel is

an interior novel, with most of the action taking place inside the young man's head

. In the original book and film, the only scene directly shown is the scene where Oliver is in the Diamond District. This is a location scene. I don't need to change

how much because it already performs well. It worked in the book, it worked in the screenplay, and it worked in the movie. ”

When you adapt a novel into a screenplay, you don’t have to limit yourself

to being faithful to the source material. Not long ago I adapted a novel into Movie script. I had to start with bits and pieces. It's a disaster novel about a meteorologist who discovers that a new ice age is coming. , of course, no one believed him. By the time the climate began to change, it was already too late for the meteorologist and a group of other scientists. was sent to Iceland to investigate the glacier, but the ship was frozen.

This is a book that lasts for six hundred and fifty years. page disaster novel. This is tempting enough.

However, in order to pursue more dramatic value. , I wanted to put him in an emotional conflict, so I made him a professor who was outspoken on political issues and who was being considered for the U.S. Grant. A tenure-track position at New York University.

His "irresponsible" statement about an approaching ice age could jeopardize his tenure.

Then I need to figure out what to do with the story. I need to change the ending to a "high note" or positive ending. I want them all to survive, instead of freezing to death in the ice and snow. I began to understand that I needed an exciting start. I read through the whole book, and on page 278, I saw that the protagonist was in Iceland

measuring the movement of glaciers. I decided to start from here - on this vast

ice field. This is a visual factor. As they descended deep into the heart of the glacier, an earthquake occurred, causing an avalanche. They finally escaped death. This is a strong visual sequence that sets up the entire story very well.

When the professor returned to New York and presented his findings to his superiors, they did not believe him.

The first snowstorm that year, a warning, becomes a plot point at the end of the first act. This snowstorm takes place on Halloween (my idea) because it

is possible to snow, and makes for a great visual passage.

This is what the future will look like.

The second act is another problem. I categorized most of the action into three main paragraphs: 1. The protagonist organized a worldwide network of scientists to try to

solve this problem; 2. New York City Beginning to freeze; 3. People finally accepted the facts and tried to formulate a plan. I picked some incidents from the book and strung these scenes together. I knew I had to avoid rehashing disaster movie clichés because there was no market for disaster movies at the time. As mentioned previously

the ending of the original book did not apply and had to be changed. I will end with the story of a future survivor.

I changed the action like this. After the scientist's ship was blocked by ice (plot point II at the end of Act 2

), I made the protagonist and his scientist girlfriend, and The other seven people left the ship and tried to adapt to the freezing conditions, just as the Eskimos had done for nearly a thousand years.

So the third act is completely new. The nine men form a traveling group, hunting reindeer along the way and leaving behind the remnants of the twentieth century. I ended the script with the meteorologist's girlfriend having a baby.

This script is very effective.

When you adapt a novel into a screenplay, it has to be a visual

experience. That's the job of a screenwriter. You just need to stay true to the integrity of the original material.

Of course there are exceptions. Perhaps the most unique exception is John Huston's screenplay for The Maltese Falcon. At that time, Huston had just adapted a book by W. R. Burnett into a movie script "High Sierra" (Starring Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino). The film

was very successful. So Huston got the opportunity to write and direct his first feature film. He decided to remake Dashiel Hammett's novel "The Maltese Falcon" into a movie.

This Sam Spade detective story was filmed twice by Warner Bros.: once as a comedy in 1931, by Reason Starring Ric-

ardo Cortez and Bebe Daniels.

The other time was in 1936, titled "Satan

Met a Lady", written by Warren William and Beatty ·

Starring Bette Davis. Both films were flops.

Houston liked the smell of this book. He believed that the story could be completely presented on the screen and turned into a tough-guy detective story in the style of Hammett. Just before he left for vacation, he handed the book to his secretary and asked her to read it through and then change the literary narrative into a movie script. Form, mark each scene as interior or exterior, explain the basic actions and quote dialogue from the original book as dialogue. Then he went to Mexico.

When he left, the movie script passed into the hands of Jack L. Warner.

"I like it, you've captured the beauty of this book," he said to the astonished screenwriter and director: "Let's start filming! That's it!" Like this! I wish

it succeeds!"

Houston does what he says. As a result, the film became a classic of American cinema!

When William Goldman talked about the difficulties he encountered in writing "Cassidy the Peanut Man and the Sun Dancer" he said: "First of all Investigating the West is boring because most of the material is inaccurate and writers who write stories about the West are spinning endless myths. It's false in itself. It's hard to find out the truth." Goldman spent eight years investigating the peanut seller.

He happened to find "one or more articles, or a piece of information about Cassidy,"

but no information about the young man who danced the sun dance: in his same card Cassidy

Before he went to South America, he was just a nobody."

Goldman found out that in order for Cassidy and the boy to leave the country and escape to

South America, history must be distorted. These two outlaws were the last two of their kind.

Times have changed, and these two Western outlaws can no longer do what they have been doing since the Civil War

Ended.

"In this movie," Goldman said, "Cassidy the peanut seller and the sun-dance guy rob several trains. And then the official organization A large militia group was chasing them. When they found that they could not escape the militia's pursuit, they jumped off the cliff and went to South America to make a living. In real life, when Cassidy, the peanut seller, learned about the large vigilante group, he just left. He knew it was all over and he couldn't fight it! They...

"I thought I should prove why my protagonist wanted to leave here and run away,

So I tried to write this large vigilante group as unforgiving, so that the audience would

The crowd applauded them for escaping the trap.

"Most of this film is fabricated. I used individual historical facts.

They did hijack trains twice, and they did use a lot of explosives. The car was blown to pieces, and Woodcock was in the car every time; they did go to New York, they also went to South America, and finally they did end up in Bolivia. Gun

Killed in battle.

In addition, there are some scraps of materials, and the story is completely pieced together. ”

T. S. Eliot① famously said: “History is nothing but a passage of fabrication.” ”

If you want to write a historical movie script, you should not pursue accuracy regarding the relevant characters

but only the historical events and their results.

If you must add new scenes, just do it

Add in a few events to make the story more personal, as long as they lead to the correct results.

Accurate historical results are enough. "Napoleon" (Napoleon) filmed by French film creator Abel

Gance is a use of history

An outstanding example of a springboard, this film was originally shot in 1927 and was recently unearthed by Kevin Brownlow and edited by Francis. · Ford Coppola released this film that traces Napoleon's early career. (Gance described Napoleon's military affairs as a child during a snowball fight. Talent is shown dramatically. Remember, action is character!) Then, the film jumps to 1789, showing the six years of the French Revolution, and ending with Napoleon's death.

The film ends with a wonderful three-screen scene (three screens showing it at the same time), showing Napoleon leading the French army to march. Italy.

However, history cannot be taken too casually.

In a recent European film script writing class, a French student wrote

A movie script about Napoleon's journey from Waterloo to St. Helena. He wrote the story as a romantic martial arts movie, which is full of historical inaccuracies and pure facts. It is a fictional event. He did not conduct sufficient preparation or research for this story, so the script has no other use than a negative writing model.

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Adapting a stage play into a screenplay should be treated in the same way

Although you are dealing with a different format, the same principles apply.

A play is expressed through dialogue, which involves dramatic action

Language. The characters in the play talk about their feelings and chatter about their

Memories, moods, and events are always confined to the stage frame

There was a time in Shakespeare's dramatic career when He cursed the limitations of the stage, calling it: "the worthless gallows" and "the zero of wood!" ” And he sincerely requested the audience to “use their own minds to make up for the shortcomings of the performance.

"He knew that on this stage it was impossible to express the spectacular and majestic scene of two opposing armies on the rolling fields of England under the blue sky. Only

it was It was only after he completed "Hamlet" that he transcended the limitations of the stage and created great stage art.

When you adapt a play into a movie. When writing a script, you should visualize the events mentioned or told in the play. Drama involves language and dramatic dialogue.

In Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire or A Cat on a Hot Roof

Hot Tin Roof), Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman

Or Eugene One In Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night" (Long Day's Journey into Night), all the action takes place on the stage, behind the scenery. , the actors are talking about themselves or each other

. You can pick up any script and read it, whether it's a modern drama like "Curse of the Hungry Class" by Sam Shepard. Starving Class), or Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? .

Because the action of a play is spoken, you must expand upon it,

give it visual amplitude. You should add scenes and dialogue to events in the play that are only mentioned in dialogue, and arrange and design them so that they lead to the original stage play. on the main scene. Find ways to visualize actions

in conversations.

The Australian film "Breaker Morant"

is a good example. The original play was written by Kenneth Ross (he also wrote "Day of the Jackal"), and was later written by Australian film creator and Bruce Bere-

sford adapted and directed the film about the Boer War (1900). , an Australian officer was charged, tried, and ultimately executed for killing enemies in an "unorthodox and uncivilized manner" (guerrilla warfare) Story. He became a victim of political struggle, a collateral in war

gambling, an Australian victim of the British colonial system at the beginning of this century. Original stage play. It took place in the court, but the film expanded the action. It not only added flashbacks to the battle scenes, but also added personal expressions to the soldier. scenes of life. The result is a powerful and thought-provoking film, both of which are, of course, unique in their own right. Drama

Writers and film creators

Film scripts that mainly show people, whether living or dead,

that is, biographical scripts. , there must be choices and concentration to make it effective

With "Young Winston" written by Cail Forman

), for example, covers only a few episodes and events in the life of Winston Churchill before he was elected Prime Minister. Your character's life is the only one you write about. Be selective. Just pick out a few events or events from the protagonist's life and build them into a dramatic story line.

"Coal Miner's Daughter" by Tom Rickman, "Arabia" by Robert Bolt "Lawrence of Arabia"

and Orson Welles and Herman Mankiewicz's "Citizen Kane" (based on

William Rudolph ·Hearst's life is loosely adapted) are good examples of dramatic arrangements of several events in the protagonist's life.

How you deal with your subject's life determines the basic story line; without

a story line, there is no story; and without a story, you cannot write. Movie

Script!

Not long ago, one of my students won the creative rights to make a film about the life of the

first female editor of a major metropolitan newspaper. My student tried to fit everything into the story; her early career, 'because they were so interesting'; her marriage and motherhood, 'because she had an unusual attitude"; she

covered several important stories in her early life as a journalist "because they were really

exciting", as well as getting the editorship and Several other stories, "because this

is what made her famous"

I advised her to focus on a few events in this woman's life, but she was herself

The subject was so entangled that she couldn't look at the problem objectively, so I asked her to do an exercise. I asked her to write out her story line in a few pages. . She wrote a full twenty-six pages of manuscript paper for me, and she only wrote half of this character's life! She didn't write a story at all, she just wrote. It was a narrative, and it was boring. I told her that this wouldn't work, and suggested that she focus on one or two stories from this character's editorship career in a week. , she came to me and said that she could not decide which thing to write about.

This indecision made her breathless, and she felt frustrated and depressed, and finally lost her mind.

She lost confidence and didn’t want to write this script. One day, she came to me crying.

Re-research the materials and find out the three most interesting things in this woman’s life.

(Writing, remember, is about picking and choosing), if necessary

Talk to the woman and ask her what she thinks is going on in her life and career

Which aspects were most interesting? She did so, and ended up with the news story

that the protagonist covered, the one that made her the first female editor

The story line becomes the "hook" or foundation of the movie script.

You can only use one hundred and twenty. Tell the story on the page. Choose the events carefully so that they illustrate your story with the best visual and dramatic elements. Make them interesting. The script must be based on the dramatic requirements of your story. After all, it is only a starting point, not an end point. p>Journalists seem to have a hard time learning this when they write a movie script based on a report. I don't know why, maybe because.

The method of structuring a dramatic story line in a film is exactly the opposite of the method of structuring a news report.

A journalist's business is to collect facts and intelligence. He accomplished his task by studying books or interviewing people who once had all the facts, could come up with a story.

The more material a journalist collects, the more information there will be; he can then use some, all, or none at all. Once he has collected the factual material, he looks for the "hooks" or "angles" of the story and uses only the most interesting and convincing ones. Facts

Write his story.

This is good journalism.

But writing a movie script is just the opposite. You write a movie script with an idea, a theme, an action and a character; and then weave a story line that can make it dramatic. Once you have the basic story line - like three guys robbing Chase Manhattan Bank - you can expand on it; conduct investigations, create characters , write biographies, and if necessary, interview some people to collect the missing facts and information that can be useful for the story. If the story is missing something, write it

.

In a movie script, the facts support the story; you might even say, they create

the story.

In movie script writing, you work from the general to the specific. You first find the story

and then gather the facts. In news writing, you work from the specific to the general;

You gather the facts first and then find the story.

A famous journalist adapted a movie script based on a controversial article he published in a national magazine. Although he had all the facts, he still found it difficult to break away from the text and dramatize the elements required for a good screenplay. He was at his wits end in finding the right facts and

details. After writing thirty pages, I don’t know how to continue writing.

He got stuck, panicked, and shelved what could have been a good movie

script.

He cannot make an article an article and a movie script a movie script. He wanted to stay true to the source material, but that didn't work.

Many people want to write a movie script

or a television script based on a magazine or newspaper article. If you want to adapt an article into a movie script, you have to approach it from the perspective of a screenwriter. What is this story about? Who are the main characters

? How does it end? It's a story about a man who was arrested, tried, and acquitted of murder, only to find out after the trial that he was actually the murderer. Guilty? Or is it a story about a young man designing and building a racing car, participating in the competition, and finally becoming the champion? Or about a doctor who discovers a cure for diabetes

? Or about incest? Who wrote it? What is it about? As you answer

these questions, you can arrange them into a dramatic structure.

When you adapt an article or news report into a movie script or television script

you will encounter many legal issues. First of all, you should be allowed to write the script, which means that you should obtain the adaptation rights from the relevant people, negotiate with the author, and maybe also negotiate with newspapers and magazines. . Most people would love for you to tell their story to the screen or television. If you're serious, you'll also need to consult with a legal advisor or literary agent who specializes in this type of matter

.

But no matter what, don’t get too entangled in legal matters. If you don't want to do it now,

then don't do it. Start by writing a first draft or outline. There is something in the material that attracts you.

What is it? Gotta explore. You might decide to write a draft based on the article or story and see how it turns out.

If it's good, show it to some relevant people

for a look. If you don't do this, you'll never know the outcome.

The above is everything you should do.

We have discussed above the problem of adapting novels, stage plays or articles into movie scripts

But we still have to ask the question: What is the best adaptation art

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Skill?

Answer: Don’t be absolutely faithful to the original work. A book is a book, a play is a play, an article is an article, and a movie script is a movie script.

An adapted movie script is an original movie script. They are distinct forms.

Just like apples are different from oranges!

Exercise:

Open a novel and read a few pages. Notice how the narrative action is described. Does it take place in the mind of the protagonist of the novel? Is it told through dialogue

? What about the description part? Take out another drama script and read a few pages. Notice

how the characters talk about themselves or the action of the script. Then read a few pages of the movie script

(just find any movie script snippets in this book) and see how the movie script handles

external details and events, the main characters See something.

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① T. S. Eliot: (T.S. Eliot) A modern American poet, he is known as the originator of modern American poetry along with Ezra Pound.

② Abel Gance is a famous French film artist, poet and philosopher.

③Tennesee Williams, a famous modern American playwright

Writer.

④ Arthur Miller, contemporary American dramatist. Eugene

Eugene O'neill is an American contemporary dramatist who is regarded as the father of contemporary drama in the United States.