Send Me Someone

I do plan to talk about this again, but I wanted to share a moment. When I was in LA at the Memoir Writing Conference, I met a wonderful lady and her husband; her name was Diana Von Welanetz Wentworth.  She was the keynote speaker on the last day. What she said about her memoir Send Me Someone, resonated. Deeply. She had lost her first husband of twenty-five years to cancer and in some of their last days when she said: I will never find anyone like you he told her she would, she must (Lee said the very same thing to me) so she asked him: “Send me someone.”

I knew her story would connect and it has; on many more profound levels than I thought. I started reading it before Christmas, but had so many other books to read it has sat by my bed to dip into but now I am drawn to it. I am drawn to it in a must read this, devour it now kind of way, perhaps because I’m ready. There is a lot about intuition in her book and right timing. Now I have almost finished it. It’s one of those books I don’t want to finish though. I plan to post a review and contact her again. She also has a copy of my novel as it happens. Although I doubt she will remember me. But… she had no copies of her book there (it’s been out a while now, 2003) but she did have a copy in her car she said, and, lovely as she is, she said why not buy it paperback and cheaper on Amazon? But I wanted her to sign it for me; I just felt that was important. And so I followed her and her now husband Ted (also a writer and I want his book too as its message was so pertinent personally at the time we met as I will later share)… so yes, I followed them (not in stalking way you understand) to the parking lot of LA Valley College. It was the last moment of the conference, so kind of sad, and there we stood as she kindly signed me that last copy she had, hardback and I think, for its resounding message of hope I will leave it by my bedside even when I finish it this weekend.

This is the book by the way: LINK

But what it has made me think as I read, with many similarities to my own story, and the happy ending because he did send her someone (I will talk about that in the review) was what I would call my story. If I was to write my love story what would I say? Lee sent me someone?

I like to think Lee did send me someone; I think he probably tried before but I wasn’t ready or I wasn’t listening maybe. But I think he had to be involved because he sent me  someone so kind and so everything I needed. I just didn’t know it. It has taken some adjusting to that notion. I was really happy on my own, just me and my writing, and I always said and do feel I can be me on my own, but then little pieces of you starts to change.

Bit.

By.

Bit.

And you come to a point when you don’t want to go back.

No one knows what will happen next, and not wishing to sound oversentimental, but my new someone said something to me when we first got together, and it was a little shaky for me initially letting someone into that space. He said, Love will save me. He meant him, he’d also been alone for a long time. I never forgot what he said. So now I wonder…

I did not think I needed saving from anything, I loved my life, I still love it… but now I realise maybe. Maybe he was right. Maybe I needed to share it with someone? Maybe all I really needed was saving right back. Now I think about the ending of Pretty Woman. I love that film. I am sure you know the scene.

Maybe love will save us all and so if I was ever to write my story, as the lovely Diana has done so eloquently, maybe that’s what I will call it: Love Will Save Me.

And maybe it has.

Have a great weekend folks, whatever you do. 

Great book!

Books into Movies pt 2 [ Memoir Writing Series}

Following on from yesterday’s post, based on lecture notes from Dan Watanabe, I was looking at the process of adaptation from book to screen and this idea that you either come from the Selznick line of thought and adhere accurately to the book or you capture only the essence and make significant changes which is the Hitchcock way.

Both of these methods have created hugely successful box office successes and both have equally created films that ‘bombed’.

While many think the book is generally better, some films have literally delved into the core of a book that was a best-seller and enhanced it in the film and Dan cites Rosemary’s Baby as a good example. The movie was directed by Roman Polanski.

There is always a challenge when a book is based on more of an internal monologue since the screen adaptation now needs to turn this into ACTION.

But it is still possible to capture the paranoia in this book and translate it to the screen. To work, the audience must also feel the paranoia.  As such some great movies like Rosemary’s Baby have become iconic, so much so that they overshadow any subsequent remakes.

To return to the point that often the more literary novel does not translate to the screen, it is noteworthy that often the great movies are made from the not so great books (and this includes best-sellers) and Dan cites Jaws as a good example of this.

What was interesting was thinking about Harry Potter which while remaining faithful to the book, did not necessarily capture the spirit — why is that? Dan claims that the books conveyed a sense of vulnerability in the characters, not having self-confidence which is part of the characters’ journeys, in particular Harry. In the books there is a sense of being ‘less than’ and not being capable, and the journey is part of overcoming this. The movies (the earlier ones in particular) are more about story and special effects, whereas Dan claims, the book is more about feeling like the loser and coming to the realisation that you are not. Interesting. What do you think? Have you even thought about it in this way I wonder?

So, let’s say you want to make a movie, right… identify the buyer of the best-selling book, and try to appeal to those readers. Try to capture the spirit of the book in the same way, but always be mindful that when working in a different medium the story telling will change.

And there endeth Thursday’s insights.

Tomorrow something completely different. So different, even I don’t know what it is yet!

 

Books into Movies {Memoir Writing Series}

Strictly speaking this isn’t applicable only to memoir but is inspired by the talk given by Dan Watanabe at the LA-Genre Writers Conference in October and I loved this talk. What better than hearing a professor from LA Valley College talk with passion about the thing he knows most (movies) in the city where movies are made.

 

                Dave Watanabe

Photo and bio from LA Valley College page: LINK.

For over twenty-five years, Dan has been in the entertainment industry, primarily as a development executive/project consultant. Sixteen of those years were spent at the company now known as FremantleMedia, where he served as the Vice President of Current Programming, which included front office, on-set, post-production and distribution/marketing duties. One-hour dramatic series he supervised included Baywatch, Air America, Sirens, numerous movies of the week, pilots, and game shows (Family Feud, To Tell the Truth, The Price is Right). Graduated Cum Laude from the University of Southern California with a BA in Cinema, Critical Studies (1985). Current in process for an MA in Digital Cinema Production at National University.

What Dan talked about primarily was adaptation from book to screen  and what he said is that you have to consider your medium for story telling. Books and movies are quite different and it means taking the written story and reinterpreting it for a visual format. Some things naturally work better than others. He says that in order to adapt something from the page into something for the screen you MUST understand the medium of film. Wise words; and this guy knows, right?

He claims that what you have to do is change it into a new form while still capturing its essence.

He also said something that stayed with me, and that’s that like the short story, films are made to be taken in one go. I like that. He said actually plays and shorts are often easier to adapt than the longer fictions. And he makes the valid point that the movie does not have the same level of introspection as the novel and this is why some novels just don’t work in the film format, especially literary novels that are character-driven and sometimes all set in a character’s head.

Franci Ford Coppola is especially good, Dan says, at adapting novels and he uses The Godfather as an example.

It’s the more commercial number one best selling books that usually make better movies than the award-winning literary books.

What was interesting was when he talked about thinking of adaptation as visually transforming a story and naturally for a new format, things must change and often the hope is this will add depth, augment some aspects that work better visually.

Francis Ford Coppola had HUGE success with The Godfather but followed on with his screen adaptation of The Great Gatsby but this one struggled to reach the same heights, and he claims this is because in literature the novel was very nearly perfect in its field so harder to adapt in a way that would give it the same power, so it flopped. The newer adaptation is better and he says this is because it assumes the reader has not read it and so this allowed more scope for changes.

There are two ways of taking a novel and adapting it to screen. I am sure those out there who are screen writers and movie buffs will know this, but as a novice this was all new information to me.

These are David Selznick and the Alfred Hitchcock methods. I will tell you what these are to whet the appetite and resume the lesson tomorrow…

So the Selznick adaptation is to make a meticulously accurate adaptation that stays true to the novel in detail and yet the movie still works commercially and is able to mimic the commercial success of the book. In 1937 he did just this with Gone With The Wind  and all it did in terms of change was left some parts out but he was still able to capture the emotional essence of the book, it spoke to people in the same way.

In contrast the Hitchcock school of thought is to make complete changes yet still capture the heart of the story and still achieve the same level of commercial success. Dan says it’s using the source material but finding what he calls the ‘jumping off point’. Vertigo might be a good example.

Rebecca as an interesting example of an adaptation because Hitchcock worked with Selznick so now we have a process that uses a combination of these opposing viewpoints. Hitchcock gave into Selznick in allowing the adaptation to be faithful to the book, however, Hitchcock still got his way and you will see his stamp on it if you look. Again this had HUGE commercial success.

I will leave you with this and return to this fascinating discussion tomorrow. This talk really whetted my appetite to study film.

Have a great Wednesday folks!