1. "An adaptation is undeniably an appropriation of the text, and although the plot remains the same, the telling ’ or the interpreting of it ’ radically changes from one generation to the next."
2. "You've only got about thirty pages to set everything up. Establish your main characters ... ground the audience in the world where your story takes place, introduce the dramatic problem, and move into the second act."
The author discusses the difference between a "good film" and a "good film version of a book". She focuses on the Harry Potter Series and dissects the films one by one. The process of adapting a book for film is tedious and the Harry Potter Series seems to have done this well. A big part of the films success is dedicated to the fact that J.K. Rowling was a collaborator in the scriptwriting process This benefitted the film because J.K. Rowling knows the story best. J.K. Rowling set criteria for many things in the movie that she felt would show off her book best. She chose much of the set design and her main request was that the characters casted must actually be British.
In this article, I noticed that the marketing techniques in the United States and the United Kingdom are very different. This is because they are trying to sell the movie to a different target audience. Different versions of films are also aired to different countries in order to aide to a specific group of people. Those living in the United States may know the first Harry Potter movie as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" but in the United Kingdom they called it "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone".
In accordance to the casting of adaptation films, it is very difficult to find an actor that fits a readers prototype of a specific character. As always, the director must take into account the popularity of a specific actor. If an actor is too popular the viewer may not look at them as if they are the character of a book. One thing that the director cannot control when casting a film is how the viewers are going to react emotionally to a specific character. For example, in the Harry Potter Series, teenage girls fell in love with Harry's enemy, Draco Malfoy, because he was an attractive young boy. This caused author J.K. Rowling to be perplexed because the viewers should be falling more in with the hero, Harry, rather than the enemy.
Films have been adapted from novels, T.V. series, and even musicals. Directors must meticulously craft every element from set design to cast in order to capture a readers vision of an imaginary world, but they also must understand that everyone read the book in a different way and it is almost impossible to please everyone.
1. "Sparks has written 17 novels, all New York Times best-sellers, that have sold more than 95
million copies worldwide and been translated into over 50 languages."
2. "Eight of Sparks’s books have been made into films..."
Nicholas Sparks is beginning production for his 11th book to join the adaptation market. That means 11 out of his 17 novels took on the transformation from text to the big screen. "The Choice" is to be filmed in North Carolina where many of Nicholas Sparks' novels take place, not surprising since many of his novels have very similar storylines. The director of this film is Ross Katz and Sparks is going to be working closing with Theresa Park, who is known to be one of Sparks' "long time collaborators". Nicholas Sparks may not have written the screenplay, but he is, in fact, paying for this film along with Nicholas Sparks Productions and others. "The Choice" will be Nicholas Sparks' first independent feature film. "The Choice" needs to be marketed as a feature film because Nicholas Spark Productions has a deal with Warner Horizon Television to makes series' for cable (see here:http://deadline.com/2012/04/author-nicholas-sparks-starts-production-company-signs-deal-with-warner-horizon-254835/). These TV shows will not be written by Nicholas Sparks himself but will use his style and ideas in order to capture a different audience.
New York Times best-selling author, Nicholas Spark, has drowned himself in the cinema and television production industry. And how can one blame him? His films do very well in box offices around the world as well as with teen girls and young adult woman, because of this Lionsgate has already received distribution writes for the U.S. as well as the U.K.. Sparks has no reason stop turning his books into movies because he found something that worked for him and he will continue to do it until he stops benefitting from it. Although some audiences may be getting tired of watching the same story over and over again, Sparks is definitely in a good economic position because of these decisions.
Wasting no time with production, Nicholas Sparks released a movie in October (The Best of Me), has a movie currently in post-production (The Longest Ride), and is already on his way to starting his next feature film (The Choice). "The Choice" is going to be a Lionsgate film. Lionsgate Films is know for previous movies such as The Twilight Series and The Hunger Games. The selection of this big time production and distribution company will surely bring a wider audience but how will Sparks decide to market his production differently than he has the last 10 times?
1. "Everyone wants to be number one, and by striving for that goal rather than trying to make the best product possible, all audiences are left with is a pile of unwanted series based on things they’ve already seen, and worse, possibly forgotten..."
2. "However, perhaps now more than ever, we’re living in the most adaptation heavy development season of recent memory."
Merrill Barr talks about how people are making their own T.V. shows based on the show that is currently making the most money. He explains the cycle that occurs and how a fantastic show results in many shows that are below average. Barr also voices his opinion about previous adaptations that have aired on broadcast television.
According to Forbes, the season five premiere of The Walking Dead broke record highs as the most watched cable show of all time, with 17.3 million viewers. The success of The Walking Dead, as an adaptation from a comic book, has led competitors into the dark hole of creating their own adaptations. When brainstorming ideas for new television shows, the people in charge of these TV shows want something that will attract viewers in order to make money. They think that since The Walking Dead is a successful adaptation, all adaptations will do well. This is mostly not true.
Forgetting to look back at the number of views The Walking Dead received in its first and second seasons, the creators of new adaptations are usually unhappy with the initial results of their show. Since, they do not receive the number of views they expected, the directors usually abandon the show in order to create something else (usually another adaptation). They forget about long term effects and want instant satisfaction. The cycle continues until a competitor comes along, with something other than an adaptation.
1. "We felt that this was something that we would start with the core fans and then we could see how much we could broaden it out from there..."
2. "We established early on that the fans really became this self-policing ecosystem. Within the comments they would say, ‘Don’t do that, this film is so much more.’ So, we learned from them the do’s and don’ts, and we learned early on that they didn’t want us to go there."
3. "It was all a tease of the colorful Capitol, which readers had only been able to imagine until then..."
The Hunger Games social media strategist, Danielle DePalma talks about how she got her fans involved with every aspect of the film before its release. There were many things to consider before the release of the film, but ultimately the fans came first. With its ability to reach anywhere in the world, social media is one of the biggest promoters of The Hunger Games and contributes to its success. With its already abundant fan base, consisting of those who have read the books, Danielle used the idea of a imaginary world coming to life in order to focus on promoting images of the "colorful Capitol".
When making an adaptation of a movie, the director must be very careful in order to not upset the readers interpretation of the books world; this can be a difficult task because every reader imagines a different world. Throughout the social media campaign, Danielle DePalma focused on this exact idea and made the center of her marketing campaign, The Capitol. Starting with the broad look of the Capitol and then targeting each character.
Whether we like it or not, movies get created in order to attract fans, and when a film is an adaptation of a well-known book, the fan base is already present. The Hunger Games used a number of social media outlets (see above) to promote their film in order to target as many people as they could. In order to not only promote the film to teenage girls, they stayed away from focusing on the love triangle between Peeta, Gale, and Katniss. The fans controlled the campaign by telling Danielle what to do and not do. All Danielle had to do was read tweets and communicate with her fans. This devotion led her to understand what the viewers wanted to see.
Another big part of any social media campaign is that the fans want to be teased. People react to excitement and cliffhangers but when dealing with an adaptation, the fans already know the storyline, therefore, the marketing strategies are different. This means they must show parts of how something will be shown, as opposed to what will be show. In my opinion, this makes it a little harder to reveal just enough information.
To raise even more excitement, Lionsgate decided to release a Hunger Games App just one day before the big premiere. The movie started as a book, then a film, and now has multiple social media websites. The only thing missing was a game on the Appstore so it was only a matter of time before their app would be released. Media convergence is a phenomenon that allows big companies, like Lionsgate, to gain more money because fans will go to any extreme in order to feel like they are part of the action.
Overall, whatever the fans want, the fans get, and after some time studying the fans of The Hunger Games, Danielle knew exactly what they wanted to see. Social media allowed The Hunger Games to make over $450 million in box offices worldwide, and is the newest phenomena that films are using in order to make money. It's evident that Lionsgate was able to communicate with fans of all ages and manipulate their product in just the right way, but what the fans don't understand is that they are the ones who sucked themselves into the excitement.
