New material in the form of Outtakes included in the course of an episode or added to the end in the form of a Tag, often became interjected inside the locked script. These outtakes truly let the audience feel as if they were a part of the whole production, in on the laugh as it were. In the end that is one key to the success of the program, letting the young audience be a part of something at a time they felt they had little say in anything going on around them.
You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!
Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library
Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.
Hey, guess what’s in the theaters right now that’s an adaptation? We have the Steve Jobs film which comes originally from the book by Walter Isaacson. Being made into the film now which just opened. Aaron Sorkin is the screenwriter here and Aaron Sorkin fully admits in all interviews “I want you to get the feel of his life, not the facts of his life.” So he made up a bunch of stuff and added it to the movie because he thought it made a more interesting scene. It doesn’t even come from the book. It’s things he imagined maybe Jobs might have done when he was visiting with friends or having a private conversation with this daughter. And Sorkin fully admits that he was interested in studying the relationship between the father and the daughter because in his own life he has a dysfunctional relationship with his daughter and so in a couple of interviews I heard recently on NPR he came out and said, “I really just wrote a movie about me and my daughter and I threw Steve Jobs name on it.” That’s how far from the book he has taken that particular story.
About this talk
Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.
Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm
About Dr. Rosanne Welch
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona. In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University. She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.
Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”
During the ’30s and ’40s, Hollywood produced a genre of madcap comedies that emphasized reuniting the central couple after divorce or separation. And the female protagonists were strong, independent, and sophisticated. Here, Stanley Cavell examines seven of those classic movies for their cinematic techniques, and for such varied themes as feminism, liberty and interdependence. Included are Adam’s Rib, Bringing Up Baby, and The Philadelphia Story.
You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!
Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library
Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.
So, because of simply changing his age by a few years they totally tweaked how the book turned into a film and it failed, miserably. They were going to make all 5 films, but they only ended up making two. Which is really kind of amazing when you think about it because it came after Harry Potter. They had a lesson in how to do it properly and they ignored every single moment, which shocks me.
About this talk
Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.
Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm
About Dr. Rosanne Welch
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona. In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University. She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.
Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”
In “Monstrous Monkee Mash” (written by Neil Nephew and David Panich, directed by James Frawley and edited by Pozen) when a frightened Micky piles chairs before the door to avoid the Wolfman, the film is sped up to highlight his fear and sense of panic. The creative team on The Monkees often used the frenetic personality of Micky’s character in this fashion as in “Alias Micky Dolenz” (edited by Stanley Frazen).
You never know when you’ll stumble on a piece of popular culture proof that The Monkees were an entrenched part of the 1960s – and a bonafide world-wide phenomenon of that time. I thought I had found quite a few of them in my research for the book – from the then newest moment on the first season of Grace and Frankie (where Frankie admits she once hung out with Micky) to the couple of Simpsons show references – to the now ubiquitous “I’m a Believer” ending of Shrek (no matter who sings it, that is always a Monkees song).
But watching reruns of the long-running BBC detective series Lewis unearthed a new one I had missed. This moment I’m posting came in Season 3, Episode 3, titled “The Point of Vanishing” in 2009 between characters at a high class Oxford cocktail party. The character properly credits the writer of “I’m a Believer” as Neil Diamond (in my other, non-Monkees-fan life I do teach screenwriting so I’m always pleased to see writers credited) so he does not call it a Monkees song – but we all know that it IS a Monkees song being referenced in this high-end program (it did air in the U.S. on PBS’s Mystery.
To achieve this amount of material to use in the editing bay, directors would have to manage 78 to 100 camera set ups a day, an unheard of number in an era when 30 set ups were considered a long day. They would also have to be free enough creatively to show the audience the metaphorical wizard behind the curtain.
While metatextuality is largely the work of the writers and actors, the examples in the previous chapter also represent the work of many of the other creative craft departments involved in producing a television show, beginning with directors, editors, properties masters and costumers, all hand-picked by producers Schneider and Rafelson. The show even involved detailed work from the transportation department in the form of the design and creation of the Monkeemobile by Dean Jeffries, who had already created the Mantaray for Bikini Beach and Black Beauty for The Green Hornet.
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