Attitudes to adaptation

Part of the problem with adaptation is the attitude of the audience, as they are usually in some way attached personally to the project in it's original form. Trying to make these people happy is, in my eyes, the route to failure in some way – it would be impossible to find what everyone enjoyed and to represent it successfully, as people are different and they each take away their own opinion and loves/hates from the original works. I feel the most successful adaptations are those which take their own themes from the original to explore – there will always be the original, so why try to remake that?

This is a quandary I'd like to explore a little, but not too much. There are reams of complaints regarding remakes and explanations as to why they did or didn't work, but I would like the solution to be presented through an adaptation that avoids these problems.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/961dcskm4tdzejz/Chapter%201.wav
The audiobook adaptation I will be working on, rights owned for the adaptation by Euan Tennant.

http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/theshadowoverinnsmouth.htm
A link to an online copy of the original short story, currently in the public domain.

 

The project will be a secondary adaptation really, with the original being an audiobook adaptation of the original short story. My ideal interpretation would be to create something that is perfectly understandable on its own, that is made more atmospheric by the inclusion of the audio.

Research should start by rereading the original short story and listening to the audiobook version before starting to look into visual styles of the work. I have ideas in mind, artists that inspire me to move in the darker direction that the work requires – not dark as in gory or shocking, but dark in a much more unsettling way.

Untitled Painting (1984) By Zdzislaw Beskinski

 Zdzislaw Beksisnki is a constant inspiration of mine, and I feel his unsettling art style fits this project brilliantly, after all, Lovecraft never used scenes of gore or nastiness in his work - he just used the description of the characters reaction and how it made them feel. 

For my honours project I will again be looking in to the worlds of motion comics, but with much more of a focus on the idea of adaptation between works. I have several ideas in mind but my main focus will be on adapting a work from H.P. Lovecraft – a short story called 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth.”

This is the project part of the year, while I am looking to investigate the thinking and methods behind adaptations between all forms of media as well as the current bleed through between media types: games like the projects created by Quantic Dream, that are as much movie as they are games, or the Telltale games, specifically the Walking Dead which manages to stride between game, comic and video at once.

Specifically, I wish to look into whether these development techniques are harmful or helpful to the projects they are employed upon, for example, the Call of Duty games emphasize cinematic action in their gameplay and summer blockbuster effects, and are criticized for their lack of depth – but they are also some of the best selling games in the world. Similarly, the current comic book movie craze and its division of love or hate between viewers. Can lessons learned in one media type affect the outcome of a project that, in its infancy, shares very little of the rules that define that media? Could studying mise-en-scene and the use of a camera make you a better writer? The knowledge of writing and scripting techniques and the beats of language make you a better artist?

Researching this should also allow me to create a stronger composition of motion comic, whether it leans more towards the original short story's methods, or those of film-making, game developing or comic structure