The Art of Adaptation

Catalog description

From Shakespeare’s era to the present day, writers and other artists have created new works by using other art-forms as source material. This practice is especially true for film and television, where the source material can come from a novel or play, a video game or comic book, an historical event or even a blog or trashy headline. We will explore a variety of practices in the art of adaptation--as it relates to movies and TV--and apply them to an adaptation that students will develop over the course of the semester, resulting in a treatment for a film or television show. Through case studies, exercises and in-class discussion, we will refine and develop students’ work to its greatest potential. We will compare early drafts of award-winning screenplays with their original source material and the final shooting scripts, hopefully gaining insight into the iterative process of adaptation and the challenges and creative insights that the filmmakers discovered along the way. We'll also explore practical issues like options, rights, collaborations, intellectual property laws and licenses, etc.