Have you ever wondered what your favourite novel, comic book, play, song or even video game would look like on the big screen?
What is common about movies like The Hunger Games, Twilight, Romeo and Juliet, Haider, Joker, Assassin’s Creed and Ode to Billy Joe? These are all films that have been adapted from other sources such as novels, stage plays, video games and even songs. In other terms, we can say that these films have been adapted from other sources.
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For all the geeks who are here for the Media Academia, let's understand what 'adaptation' and 'remediation' is.
A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualised recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dialogic process.
Digital technologies have accelerated intertwining ‘old’ and ‘new’ media logics, forming a hybrid media environment.
“Remediation” is a media theory which focuses on the incorporation or representation of one medium in another medium. It is the blending of old and new media. However, this process is not unidirectional. Old media can remediate new media as well, as an attempt to reassert themselves in a world where digital media rule. Digital technologies don’t radically change the mediascape so much as alter and add to older media, as with the Web borrowing from television, photography, film, and print.
Marshall McLuhan said it best: “The electric light is pure information. It is a medium without a message, as it were, unless it is used to spell out some verbal ad or name. This fact, characteristic of all media, means that the “content” of any medium is always another medium.”
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There are different styles that media can use when doing remediation. One remediation style available for countermedia is to adapt mainstream media content and transform its salient aspects to fit countermedia’s perceived reality. Such reframing has been observed as one style in previous research: the news story is presented in a different perspective. In an online media environment, resources are limited for original content production. This remediation style may therefore be useful. However, this type of remediation style would not be detected by observing flows of content between mainstream media and countermedia. Reframing is not only about content flow but more importantly about how countermedia use and change mainstream media content. Remediation styles highlight that countermedia make choices about how to present the content being remediated. This is true for all media. Media stories – even if they have unique frames – are an assemblage of other media stories. The assemblage creation is an active choice where various styles can be envisioned, including direct remediation without any distortions. Reframing content demonstrates one style of remediation, where the remediation process distorts the original content.
Film adaptation is a motoring force in modern-day creative industries. Today, all the different media forms are sooner or later being turned into films.
Films adapted from books are typically more successful than original screenplays as they generate 53% more revenue (£68m)than original screenplays worldwide. An incredible 70% of the world’s top 20 grossing films are based on books (Frontier Economics).
The percentage of books adapted for film vary each year, sometimes substantially, as trends in popular culture must be followed. For example, in 2005 66% of films released were based on books, this then dropped significantly to 28% in 2011 and then rose to 65% in 2015.
There are many examples of a book being adapted more than once in multiple remakes. But is there a limit to how many times one novel can be adapted and still be successful?
One example being Louisa May Alcott’s popular novel Little Women. Since its release in 1868 the novel has been adapted for film seven times and the eighth will be released in December this year with a star-studded cast including Emma Watson and Meryl Streep. This will mean that the film will appeal to a whole new generation that will buy the 1868 novel and it will come into popularity once again.
With the increasing amount of existing media being adapted into films, it might seem like the film industry is overshadowing other media industries. However, it is important to understand that other industries are bodies in themselves and the popularity of one does not necessarily indicate the decline of the other. Moreover, it has also been proved time and time again that once a novel, play or video game gets adapted into a film, sales for the original material witness a rapid boost. In one case study, the film adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel drove sales of the thriller so high that in 2017 alone, the book sold 23% of all sales since 1992 both in value and in volume.
Similarly, the television adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale was no doubt responsible for the boost in sales of the dystopian novel in 2017, the same year Hulu debuted the popular series.
Which of these adapted films and series have you watched?
Little Women
Game of Thrones
Dune
The Hunger Games
You can vote for more than one answer.
To make a good adaptation, writers and directors must be dedicated to celebrating that essence–the core of the original source. Finding the balance between what needs to be retained and what needs to be reimagined and rebuilt to cater to the current audience is essential for leaving a good impression.
References:
Ekström, A. (2016). Remediation, Time and Disaster. Theory, Culture & Society, 33(5), 117–138.
Kilbourn, R. J. A., & Faubert, P. (2014). Introduction: Film adaptation in the post-cinematic era. Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance, 7(2), 155–158.
Rajewsky, I. O. (2005). Intermediality, Intertextuality, and Remediation: A Literary Perspective on Intermediality. Intermédialités: Histoire et Théorie Des Arts, Des Lettres et Des Techniques, (6), 43.
Toivanen, P., Nelimarkka, M., & Valaskivi, K. (2021). Remediation in the hybrid media environment: Understanding countermedia in context. New Media & Society, 146144482199270.
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Good job 👍👌 keep it up and best wishes to miss perfectionist's team😁
Intresting!!
वाह
Interesting article
Daaamn!! , Wonderful article!. Keep it up!.
Little Women, definitely one of my favourites!