Karen Sandler

Tag: film adaptation

  • Recombined Shoot

    DGA director Regina Ainsworth on the set of Recombined.

    As I described in my post Movie to Books to Movie to TV, I’ve been working with director Regina Ainsworth with an eye toward pitching my young adult sci-fi novels, the Tankborn trilogy, as a television series. Regina suggested we needed a visual expression of Tankborn‘s world as part of our pitch. To that end, I wrote the short script, Recombined, while Regina built relationships, raised funds, and gathered cast and crew who were as passionate about the project as we were. We shot the film December 1st, 2018 on one long (and very cold) day in Burbank.

    I’ve written a number short scripts and have seen three of them made into films, but other than one SAG actor in one of those films, cast and crew were amateurs. The cast of Recombined were all SAG-AFTRA, and we had a professional union crew.

    The Warner Bros. signature logo

    The shoot took place at Warner Bros. Ranch, just down the road from Warner Bros. main studio. It’s where the iconic Friends was shot, and it’s currently the home of Veronica Mars.

    It was an unusual arrangement allowing us to shoot a short film on the Warner Bros. Ranch lot (one of the security guards said “That never happens”), and we were all so grateful for the opportunity. The cast and crew blew me away with their performances and dedication to the film.

    As screenwriter, my main role was to consult on the script as needed. I also volunteered to be amateur stills photographer (we also had a pro, Molly White, taking stills). I entertained myself by getting pictures of the action between shots.

    Most gratifying for me as the author of the Tankborn novels was seeing my characters come alive. The lead actor, Naïma Hebrail Kidjo, did an amazing job breathing life into my main character, the GEN (Genetically Engineered Non-Human), Kayla. I loved how the makeup/hair artist, Alexandra Bayless, created the GEN tattoo on the GENs’ cheeks and how she did Naïma’s hair for her role as Kayla.

    Naïma Hebrail Kidjo (Kayla) in the makeup chair getting her hair braided and standing for a shot in front of the blue screen.

    The script is loosely based on a “wedding” scene that I’d originally written for Tankborn which never made it into the final published book. With several modifications, the scene became the script for Recombined. Since I started from my own source material, I had the freedom to add any necessary characters, including the GENs Gaddiel and the Intercessor who officiates the wedding (joining).

    Left photo, Glenn Stanton (Gaddiel), right photo, from left to right, Dane William, Jessie Hendricks (Alia), and Leilani Smith (Intercessor)

    Recombined is now in post-production, Regina working hard on putting together in a cohesive way the jigsaw puzzle of the shots we got that day. I can’t wait to see the final product.

    A picture, or it never happened. Here’s me hanging out with actors Shay Ali (Ved) and Patrick McCarthy (Captain Ansgar) before the first shot of the day. Photo credit: Molly White

  • RTW – What Makes a Book a Movie?

    This week, YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday offers up the blog prompt What is it that makes some books ideal for a film translation? I feel a little like that kid in class whose teacher finally asks a question she knows the answer to. The kid who suddenly wakes up and waves her arm, praying the teacher will call on her.

    Well, okay, I’m not that much of an expert on books being adapted into movies. But I have written a half-dozen or so screenplays and have written and produced a few short films. My book Tankborn and its sequels Awakening and Revolution were all adapted from a film script to books (so I’m hoping they can some day go the other way too). So I’ve actually thought a lot about what kind of books make good movies.

    IMHO, the one quality that makes a book most adaptable into film is a high concept premise. What’s high concept? I define it as a premise that can easily be described in one sentence. I’ve also heard it defined as a premise for which you can immediately imagine its movie poster. Hunger Games is an excellent example. In the future, teens are chosen in a lottery for a fight to the death with other teens. Jurassic Park–scientists recreate dinosaurs using DNA and the dinosaurs fight back. I think Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies books, in which “ugly” children are converted to “pretties” at age 16, but there’s something rotten at the core of the process, is pretty high concept and would make a fantastic film franchise.

    But not every movie is high concept, nor is every book that’s adapted to film high concept. Another crucial quality is that the book is very visual. There’s plenty of action on the page as opposed to lots of internal dialogue or long descriptive passages. There’s a whole lot of the novel Pride and Prejudice that’s left out of the movie because it just doesn’t translate into the visual medium of film.

    A third quality of a filmable book is that its story already follows a three act structure. I bet if you analyzed the movies you’ve seen, you’ll see the three act structure in most of them.

    What does that structure look like? The first act sets up the characters and their story dilemma, then there’s an inciting incident at the end of the first act that sets the hero/heroine on his/her way to their goal. The stakes continually rise in the second act, and there will be a turning point in the middle that changes everything, then a dark moment at the end of the second act. Then there’s the third act’s climax and denouement.

    Think about some of the books you’ve read, and I’ll bet many of them use this three act structure. Maybe the author made a conscious decision to write their book that way, or maybe the book ended up with three act structure because it’s a great way to write a story.

    So think about your own book, or if you’re not a writer, think about a fiction book you’ve recently read. Is it high concept (can you describe it in one sentence)? Is it extremely visual? Is it already written in a three act structure? Then you might have a very film adaptable story. I hope Hollywood comes knocking.