Fiction Adaptation: Unit Overview

For the second unit this term, we have been given a brief under the title 'Fiction Adaptation'. Fiction Adaptation entails the process of translating a written text onto the screen. This can be on any scale and is used all the time in film making. Many timeless novels including the works of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens have been documented on film and television, with many different adaptations, each providing a new spin on the original text.

In this unit, we will be building on our screenwriting skills from the first year by taking a poem which translates a story and adapting this to film. We will also be introduced to the art of adapting literary material, thinking about it in a creative and constructive way to make the piece our own and not think about it in a way that is too literal and a direct copy of the text. The practical film is to be 3-5 minutes in length and can take any form and come under any genre. As we are adapting a poem, we have been instructed to keep the original text in the piece, whether this is on screen or spoken aloud in a voice over or by a character. This should help to illustrate the poem and tell the story through the words.

Along with the practical film, we must write an essay that answers one of three questions. All of the questions cover the same brief as the practical aspect of written texts being translated into on screen productions. By looking at existing examples of Fiction Adaptation, this should help me in thinking about my adaptation and how to approach it in my own individual way. I have decided to choose the following question for the essay component of the unit:

'Discuss the view that “with a successful adaptation, the original work is transformed into something new and different, although retaining many traces of what it was formerly’ with reference to at least one text adapted for broadcast on television'. 

Out of the three questions, this one felt like the most broad option and something that I could talk about in depth and even relate to the practical element. The first person that came to mind was Charles Dickens. He is a prominent figure in the history of literature, with his most well known works being Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and Bleak House, amongst many, many others. When I thought about literary material that has been adapted onto screen repeatedly, Charles Dickens novels seem to have been used over and over again in both TV and film. I may change my mind when it comes to what I discuss for the essay but the works of Charles Dickens was my initial reaction as I feel like there will be so much comparison amongst adaptations.