Fictional Adaptation - Pre-Production

Whilst waiting to hear back from Mike I started working on a rough script for the poem - If We Must Die, I called up Delta Force Paintball in Orpington and asked them whether it would be possible to film a short video and they seemed very interested on the condition that I credit them in the video and if we film out of business hours.


I started working on a shot list/storyboard as well and researched where I can buy some camouflage uniforms, I will also look at second-hand sites and surplus shops as I will need several uniforms and I do not have the funding needed to buy multiple costumes, however I may be able to make it work with what I have if I get creative.


I am in the process of filling out a risk assessment for the project and am a bit nervous as there will be a scene in which a character needs to be shot with paintballs, I am looking at getting motorcycle armour for him to wear to mitigate the impacts as from what I have heard getting shot on bare skin with a paintball hurts.

Fictional Adaptation - A Change of Plans

With the poem "If we must die" I did minimal research as I was eager to start on with the idea of a epic sacrifice, this was incredibly unwise, Mike spoke to me today about how the poem was written about during the "Red Summer".

The Red Summer refers to the summer and early autumn of 1919, which was marked by hundreds of deaths and higher casualties across the United States, as a result of race riots that occurred in more than three dozen cities and one rural county. In most instances, whites attacked African Americans. In some cases many black people fought back, notably in Chicago and Washington, D.C. The highest number of fatalities occurred in the rural area around Elaine, Arkansas, where five whites and an estimated 100–240 black people were killed; Chicago and Washington, D.C. had 38 and 15 deaths, respectively, and many more injured, with extensive property damage in Chicago.^[1]

Claude McKay's sonnet, "If We Must Die",^[40] was prompted by the events of Red Summer.^[41]


I have therefore decided it would be insensitive of me to carry on with the idea I had, I should have looked into the poem more before choosing it as my final idea.

I do not know how I could portray the poem in an accurate and respectful manner therefore I have changed the poem I will be adapting to "Do not stand above my grave and weep"

The idea I had for the story is as follows.

The day is cold, Owen has is in the Park with Dog, he is laughing and throwing a stick (distinctive stick) for Dog to fetch, Dog ignores the stick and instead chases after Owen, they play for a while before Owen gets a phone call.

They make their way home whilst Owen is on his phone distracted, dog crosses the road and is distracted by (something) he hears a screech and a thud, he turns around then starts barking he runs up to Owen who is laying on the floor unmoving. He sniffs at Owen then whines laying his head on Owen's chest. 

Dog is looking up at door whining, he scratches at the door and sits down, he barks once and a woman comes round the corner, she leans down and strokes Dogs head before opening the door, Dog bounds inside with his tongue out but is met by an empty bed. His face falls and he jumps up onto the bed sniffing before laying down and whining.

The women comes in with his lead and takes him to Owens grave, Dog sniffs and starts to tear up and whine, he runs off and into the woods, he ends up in the park, he looks down at something at his feet and whines again.

The woman is sitting in front of the grave, her hands covering her face as she cries, she pulls her hands away to see Dog with the Stick Owen had thrown in front of him, he nudges it onto the grave and moves over to the women and lays his head on her leg.

I really like this Idea, the main issue is having a dog being well trained enough to follow commands like that since my dogs are not on that level I considered animating the dog by hand. The more I thought of it the more I liked it.

To save time I will animate the dog at 12 frames a second, I tested out the idea of having the video portion as a timelapse to help show the time passing for dog and the woman, however I didnt like how it looked and decided to film it instead.

I made a shot list and my artist drew some designs for the dog, I wanted a specific look and not a cartoon dog so we went through a through iterations before we settled on one I liked.

In terms of sound design I want the video to be almost silent with only the sound effects, I may add a score in if I can find one I like that works but the lack of sound should work in my favour to create a lonely feeling with the audience.

Fictional Adaptation - Production Notes

Weather and Plot Change

The filming for this project has been difficult as I haven't had many free days in which I can film, this is compounded by the weather as the first filming day there was non-stop rain which meant I could not film outside, I instead filmed all the inside shots on the first day of shooting and then on the second I filmed outside, I decided mid-shoot to change one of the key plot points which was Owen being hit by a car.

I realised that this would be too difficult to show and maybe a bit abrupt, therefore I simply had Owen collapse and leave the audience in slight suspense on whether he was alive or not.

An issue arose where my actress was called away before we could film the final shots in the graveyard, this was a problem as I didn't have any free days before the rough cut but Mike was ok about it, I filmed the final scene on Sunday and ran into another issue with the weather, specifically the few inches of snow.

Whilst this does work in a way with showing the passage of time I was hoping to have a shot of the dog with a snowflake falling down and landing on his nose, this would be a "sign" from his owner, I cant change the weather unfortunately so the snow will have to stay, I feel the scene will not have the same impact but there isn't much I can do in the time I have.

Timelapse

I also planned to do a timelapse to help show the passage of time, my initial plan was to do a timelapse showing from night until day and loop it a few times to show days passing, however I discovered a different method which requires setting the camera to the Apeture Prioty, this will change how long the shutter will be open for and expose the image to the same brightness.

It creates an interesting effect which looks like there has been a picture taken every day when in actuality it was over one night and morning. This works much better as it shows a larger period of time passing. Having the dog sitting in one spot with slight movements on each image also will help show how he has been sitting infront of his door waiting for his master to return.

Animation

The animation of the dog is something that is quite new to me, I have gotten help with a animation student to animate the dog onto the footage, since there is a lot to edit I wanted to start the animation and the edit at the same time, I made a rough cut quickly and sent it over to my animator so she could start.

Fictional Adaptation - Project Evaluation

The process of generating an idea was not as easy as I had imagined, my main issue was that I came up with several ideas for several different poems. My main idea was a poem by Claude McKay, "If We Must Die" When I read the poem I thought of a group of soldiers pinned behind enemy lines or something similar, in my research I discovered that the poem had been written during the Red Summer, a time where African Americans and the white populace clashed together in a series of riots which resulted in many people being killed.

In my mind I was thinking of a group of African Americans trapped or hiding and someone gave a rousing speech to fight back at their oppresors. When I pitched my idea to Mike he suggested to me that the idea might be Insensitive to the true meaning of the poem. When he said this I realised what he meant, I had been so eager to find an idea that I didn't fully think through my idea which was to replace the guns with paintball guns instead which would devalue the impact of the poems original meaning.

I attempted to come up with some other ideas which would be more suited to the poems original intentions but I couldn't think of any, I also felt like I was not suited to adapt the poem as it wasn't something I could relate to.

Instead, I chose the poem by Elizabeth Mary Frye, the poem " Do not stand above my grave and weep" was the only one that I could actively think of ideas for, I thought of several ideas but the one I went for was the story about the Dog whose owner dies. The issue I had with this was that I could not find a dog who was well trained enough to play the role.

I decided that I would animate the dog, I felt that this would be different from what other people would attempt and I would be able to invoke a wider range of emotions in a drawn dog than with a real one.

Having the Dog animated causes its own issues but I was confident that I would be able to get it done. My aim was to animate the dog at 12 frames a second and actually film the real footage in the form of a timelapse which would also play at 12 frames a second. However, after some testing I decided to instead film at 25 frames and animate at 12 frames a second. This would cause a jittering effect with the dog but It works with the intent I wanted.

In the future I will research my idea more thourougjly and rather than racing ahead with my idea without consulting anyone, I will discuss my idea with someone, this way I will also be able to hear my idea out loud which can also help flush out details better.

When reading the source material I will also try and keep an objective mind, this can be difficult when the source is something you enjoy as you can let your emotions get the better of you and not fully realise the risks and obstructions the idea may entail.

For my actors I should have branched out more, I decided to use an acquaintance called Kieren who has worked as an actor on several plays and shows, Kieren whilst experienced in acting has not really acted before a camera, this became an issue as he would over act small things, where he works on a stage he has to make his actions more obvious and revealing when in front of a camera I wanted to movements to be subtle and small.

It was also difficult because as we knew each other the attitude was casual, I frequently had to get the conversation back onto the work at hand and not on social things. Kieren played his role well and didn't complain about the cold weather, he was very professional about his role and attitude other than being a bit too chatty between shots.

My girlfriend Chloe played the role of Sarah, she has done acting several times before and stepped forward to help after I received no applications. on mandy.com(casting call).

Location

For my locations I decided to keep it simple, in the past I have always had issues getting a hold of locations as most people are unwilling to have a student film in their property.

I decided to use contacts I already had such as friends and Family, the only location I sourced outside of my social circle was the park, to which I called my local council for permission to film at a close by park and they said it would be fine as long as I didn't film anyone there. This meant I had to choose my shots carefully to avoid having the public in the background.

The other location I used was my own home, I knew the location well and had permission from the owners, there was only a small issue which was that I had to take down and put back up Christmas decorations, I decided to keep them for the shots that happen later in the narrative but took them down for the earlier shots.

The third locations I needed for my project was a grave yard, this posed more of an issue as many of the places I called were unwilling to let me film there or if they were they did not want me filming any gravestones with names on it.

I knew I could use a friends allotment as a location but the issue was to have a gravestone, I got creative with some cardboard and spray paint and was very pleased with the end result. (insert pic here)

Filming

I used all of my own equipment in the filming of my project which allowed me more freedom with the days I would be able to film, typically Ferg will book out equipment for a few days at a time but by using my own I could choose my own filming days which was needed as my schedule was very erratic during the time of filming along with my talent who could only film certain days.

The main issue I had during filming was the weather, the first day I intended to film it rained continuously all day, then on my last day of filming we had a downpour of snow instead.

This didn’t really end up being much of a problem but it did derail my plans and because of the increased traffic I had less time to film. I still got all the shots I needed but filming in the snow with no gloves was unpleasant.

In the future I will keep an eye on the weather for my filming days, I will also try to free my schedule during my filming days however in this case it wasn’t really possible.

Creativity

I tried to be creative in this project as typically we are quite restricted in what we do, in this project I did several things which I think were creative, firstly I decided to use animation on top of actual footage this added many layers of difficulty to the project but I think it was worth it.

Secondly I wanted to have a time lapse showing the passage of time as the dog waits for its owner to come back through the front door, I felt like this showed the dogs belief that his owner was not dead and the passage of time will help the audience emphasize with the dog.

The decided to have a over head tracking shot as well of “Owen” on the floor as the dog runs around him confused. This slow track really helps set the emotion of the scene.

In summary there are many things I would change in future projects, namely it would be scheduling, I had limited availability during the filming period and I think my project suffered because of it, I will also endeavour to keep weather in mind for shoots, having to cancel a shoot because of rain and then having to film in the snow were definite hindrances which I could have predicted if I had simply checked the weather online.

Research will be another key thing I will work on, having to change my poem halfway through the project, this could have been avoided If I had thought more about what I would be doing and saying. I will also pitch my idea to a group of friends for their honest opinion, this will help me avoid tunnel vision with my projects and help smooth out any plot holes or difficulties during filming.

Fictional Adaptation - Background Research

Claude McKay

"If We Must Die"

Claude McKay was born in Jamaica on September 15, 1889. He was educated by his older brother, who possessed a library of English novels, poetry, and scientific texts.

In 1912, McKay published a book of verse called Songs of Jamaica (Gardner), recording his impressions of black life in Jamaica in dialect. That same year, he traveled to the United States to attend Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He remained there only a few months, leaving to study agriculture at Kansas State University.

In 1917, he published two sonnets, “The Harlem Dancer” and “Invocation," and later used the form in writing about social and political concerns from his perspective as a black man in the United States. McKay also wrote on a variety of subjects, from his Jamaican homeland to romantic love, with a use of passionate language.

During the twenties, McKay developed an interest in Communism and traveled to Russia and then to France, where he met Edna St. Vincent Millay and Lewis Sinclair. In 1934, McKay moved back to the United States and lived in Harlem, New York. Losing faith in Communism, he turned his attention to the teachings of various spiritual and political leaders in Harlem, eventually converting to Catholicism.

McKay’s viewpoints and poetic achievements in the earlier part of the twentieth century set the tone for the Harlem Renaissance and gained the deep respect of younger black poets of the time, including Langston Hughes. He died on May 22, 1948.

The Red Summer

The Red Summer of 1919 refers to a series of race riots that took place between May and October of that year. Although riots occurred in more than thirty cities throughout the United States, the bloodiest events were in Chicago, Washington D.C., and Elaine, Arkansas.The Red Summer of 1919 refers to a series of race riots that took place between May and October of that year. Although riots occurred in more than thirty cities throughout the United States, the bloodiest events were in Chicago, Washington D.C., and Elaine, Arkansas.

This event is what prompted Mckay to write the poem "If We Must Die"

"If we must die—let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die—oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
Oh, Kinsmen!  We must meet the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!" 

Mary Elizabeth Frye

Mary Elizabeth Frye (November 13, 1905 – September 15, 2004) was an American housewife and florist, best known as the author of the poem Do not stand at my grave and weep, written in 1932.

She was born in Dayton, Ohio, United States, and was orphaned at the age of three. She moved to Baltimore, Maryland, when she was twelve. She was an avid reader with a remarkable memory. She married Claud Frye, who ran a clothing business, while she grew and sold flowers. The poem for which she became famous was originally composed on a brown paper shopping bag, and was reportedly inspired by the story of a young Jewish girl, Margaret Schwarzkopf, who had been staying with the Frye household and had been unable to visit her dying mother in Germany because of anti-Semitic unrest. Because people liked her twelve-line, untitled verse, Frye made many copies and circulated them privately. She never published or copyrighted the poem.


"Do not stand at my grave and weep 
I am not there. I do not sleep. 
I am a thousand winds that blow. 
I am the diamond glints on snow. 
I am the sunlight on ripened grain. 
I am the gentle autumn rain. 
When you awaken in the morning's hush 
I am the swift uplifting rush 
Of quiet birds in circled flight. 
I am the soft stars that shine at night. 
Do not stand at my grave and cry; 
I am not there. I did not die."

Fictional Adaptation - Adaption Proposal

Fictional Adaptation - Experimental Workshop

We were given free reign today to experiment with footage, I wanted to test out the way we see time with film, there are many examples of Time-lapses and slow motion in film so I decided this is what I would focus on.

To start with I practised with using time lapses, i wanted to practice a method which would be suited to telling a story, I had an idea to do with the poem "do not stand above my grave and weep" If the character is standing in one spot and the shutter speed is low on the camera the movement will be blurred, however the character will be in focus, this accentuates the time passing, I thought this would work well with a character standing above a grave, this way the character who is in morning is being shown standing in one spot whilst the world is moving around and changing behind him.

I also wanted to try out the slow motion capabilities of the panasonic cameras, as they can go at 120 frames a second at 1920X1080 frames.
A shot I was picturing in my mind for the "If We Must Die" Poem was a shot of a character making a noble sacrifice and being shot multiple times, I tried it out and was quite pleased with the results.

Fictional Adaptation - Camera Movement Workshop

In todays workshop we looked at the different types of camera movement and what they added or took away from a visual narrative.



Camera movement is a wonderful tool to use in the making of a film, it adds emotion and empasizes a scene. However its a double edged sword as it can take away or cancel out the emotion you are trying to convey.


Types of Camera Movement -

Track - This is where the camera moves  closer or further from a subject.

Pan - This is where the camera is in a fixed point and is simply rotating from one side to the other.

Pan and Track - A mix of the above where the camera is gliding forward to focus on a character or subject and panning to follow their movement.

Contra Zoom - This is a interesting effect caused when a camera zooms out with the lens and is moved forward at the same time, the background comes closer and the subject will stay the same, this can be reversed by moving away with the camera and zooming in with the lens.

Hand Held - This is the simple act of holding the camera in your hand, since we cannot keep the camera perfectly steady you get unstable footage.

Steady Cam - This is a rig that helps stabilise the camera and make a handheld shot steady, this gives a smooth gliding motion.

In the workshop I tried out using a jib to get a tilt shot whilst the camera was tracking in a downwards motion. I also tried out different movements such as handheld, panning and a track from left to right, the card I stored my footage on was broken when I forgot it was in my laptop in my bag.

Fiction Adaptation - Idea Development

For my project I am looking to several avenues.

The first is adapting a chapter from one of my favourite book series Zombie Fallout, I think this would be a good idea to try out as it would be adapting a narrative piece rather than a poem which can be quite obscure to their actual meaning. I am friends with the Author of Facebook and we reguraly converse about his books.






"Hi Mr Tufo, 

I'm currently studying television production at university and we have recently been given the task of adapting a piece of fiction into a 5 minute short film, we have been given some poems but are allowed to find other work as long as we have permission to use it, I was wondering if it would be possible for me to use the first chapter of Zombie Fallout for this purpose? I would not monetize the video or anything of the sort and give full credit to you. I hope that this would be ok, 

Kind Regards Simon Lawrence"

I sent this message to him on Facebook and am currently waiting for a response, whilst I am waiting I will check with a friend of mine who does make up on whether she would be willing to do zombie make up, she was very interested in the project and said she would help.

Whilst this idea is in the works i dont want to put all my eggs in one basket, therefore I will look for a poem to make a video about, after some research I found a poem which sparked my interest and was in the public domain.

If We Must Die - Claude McKay

If we must die—let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die—oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
Oh, Kinsmen!  We must meet the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

The moment I read this poem I was struck with many ideas ranging from battlegrounds to scenes from films, I had a strong impression of a group of comrades being forced back into a retreat or being over run with enemy forces. Then there would be a rousing speech from their commander and they would go out into a hail of bullets or force back the enemny facing overwhelming odds.

These are the mood boards I created for the poem

Fictional Adaptation - Unit Briefing - 17/10/19

Today we were briefed on our next project, We had a choice between Fictional Adaptation and Professional Practice, I chose the former as I thought it would be a good chance to flex my creativity a little bit.

What is Adaptation? - When the written language is translated to the visual language.

Adaptation is all around is in television and films.
here are a few I can think of on the top of my head.

Marvel Comics
Iron Man
Hulk
Thor
Captain America
Dr Strange
Black Panther
Guardians of the Galaxy
Deadpool

DC Comics
Batman
Superman
Green Lantern
Suicide Squad

Sherlock Holmes

Biblical Stories

300

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Harry Potter

Lord of the Rings

Hobbit

Eragon

Green Hornet

The advantage of adapting an existing piece of work is that there is already an existing audience to watch it, and there is a lower risk for example with Harry Potter, there is already a large fanbase who are reading the books, this is almost a guaranteed market of millions of viewers as a large percentage will go and watch the film version of their favourite book.

There are however challanges and pitfalls about adapting a piece of work.

1) Translating the interior thoughts of a character from a written medium into a visual action, many books tell audience what the character is thinking at any given time. such as

"Harry sat on the bench and thought about whether to tell his friends or not"

Translating this into something the audience can understand from a visual standpoint is difficult.

2) Remaining Faithful to the material - This is very important as to not put off the audience, such as having a character who is noble and honest in the book be a liar and greedy in the films.

I think this is more important than people realise, I have watched several adapations in the past, some quite recently which are either completey different from the books or change key features.

For Example in the recent film Batman Vs Superman - They have both characters who never kill in the comics, killing people.

Or in the film - The Seventh Son, an adaptation of The Spooks Apprentice having the mentor character who in the books is very refined and self controlled being a degenerate alcoholic and having two of the main characters who are supposed to be 12-13 in the books being 18 so they can put a sex scene into the film twenty minutes in.

3) Not Alienating fans of the literature - it needs to be something someone who has never read the books before can understand, this is something the new Star Wars films is struggling with as many of the new fans of the series are people who have never watched the originals or prequels, this makes it difficult to put a reference in which only the people who have watched all the films understand.



You also need to think of the Writers intention? Why did they write this piece of work.

What was the main concept which informed their choices?

If you can aim for what the author aimed for to help guide your decisions when visualising the work.