Im going to be cross-posting some stuff here thats also available on the Morganville: The Series page and on the Kickstarter updates. Heres the first one ... BACKSTAGE: ABOUT ADAPTING A NOVEL TO A DIGITAL SERIES This is Rachel, and Im going to be doing some posts as we go along toward the release of the Morganville series explaining what was, to me, a pretty fun and interesting process (and one that most writers never get to experience when the option or sell the rights to their work for film or TV). Plus, I think itll be interesting to those who are readers about how something that begins on the page gets to the screen! So welcome to BACKSTAGE, and the first installment, which will talk about the process of adapting Glass Houses to the unique format of a digital series. First, lets define what that means! A digital series is a new thing, really -- web series have been around since 2005, gaining slowly in popularity and really beginning to hit their stride in 2007 when Felicia Days The Guild appeared on the scene (watch it here). Fast forward to today, and most original non-TV-network content is now known as digital series because its not just available on the web; its also on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and on demand through various sources. Its become a real alternative delivery mechanism for creators. Showing it on the web is still important, but its not the end of the process (which also goes to DVD, iTunes, etc.) The really interesting part is that what a digital series really means continues to change, not only in the way its delivered, but how long it should be in terms of running time. Originally, a typical episode would be no more than three minutes long, but viewers seem willing to invest longer stretches of time in watching, and so now the common wisdom is that it can be up to 15 minutes. In adapting Morganville, the first thing that I had to think about was time and money: how much time did I have to tell the story for the money we had available? (By the way: the cash you contributed via Kickstarter was matched by our producing partners Geek & Sundry, and I contributed a personal investment as well to get as much as possible from the process.) So after consulting with our co-producer and director Blake Calhoun, we decided that to keep production values high, pay our cast and crew fair wages for their work and time, and cover all of the other expenses (travel, lodging, locations, equipment, insurance, etc.), we would be able to create about 75 minutes of content in total. (For comparison, a typical network television show is at least $1 million per episode; we had, in total, less than $200,000. Our goal was to make it look like we had that higher budget!) Dividing that up, and aware that the current comfort level for viewers ran about 12 to 15 minutes per episode, we came up with a total of 6 episodes. So I needed to tell a story in 6 episodes, each about 12 to 13 minutes long. Now, obviously, a book thats 300 or so pages in length isnt going to adapt easily into that size (or even into a 2-hour movie). So choices had to be made! I did something maybe a little radical ... its been almost nine years since I wrote the book, and instead of re-reading it before I started, I wrote down what I remembered most strongly from the plot. Then I went back and re-read it, and discovered that what Id written down was actually most of the highlights of the story, and what we in the writing biz call the through-line of the main plot. Its the simplest, most direct part of the story. And the most important. So thats pretty much what I wrote. Now, about characters. Choosing which characters was both a matter of following the plot, thinking about what you, the audience, might want out of the show, and also setting up plotlines for the future ... all the while making sure we didnt have MORE characters than we absolutely needed, because each extra character means (a) less screen time for our major characters in a very tight timeline, and (b) less money to spend on the production overall. Difficult to make those choices, believe me. After struggling with it, I decided that I either needed Richard Morrell OR Hannah Moses, and I came down on the side of Hannah because in the end I just like her backstory better. (Richard will come into Season 2, if we get there.) Likewise, although I love writing Miranda, and she had some great scenes in the book, she didnt move the main plot forward ... and could also wait for Season 2 if/when we get there. Having made my character choices, knowing my time limits for each episode and the overall show, with my chosen plot in front of me, I started writing. Six episodes means that each episodes needs to have a good bit of story, drama, and end at a point that makes you want to watch the next episode to continue ... luckily, cliffhangers are something Im familiar with writing! ----------------------------------------------- Technical info: I used Final Draft for the screenplay software; FD is more or less industry standard, although Ive also heard good things about Movie Magic. But if you want to write screenplays, youll need to use the correct format, and those programs help enormously in making the process effortless. They also make comments and draft versions much easier to manage (drafts will change during the filming process). ----------------------------------------------- The major difference between a book and a screenplay, of course, is that the writer really only has dialogue and some very small setting description to get across all the character and plot information ... and less is more! Long speeches are rare, and you dont have the benefit of the characters thoughts to guide you. So I had to fight my training as a prose author to overwrite the dialogue (and often lost that fight, hence the revision rounds) ... and its a delicate balance between confusing the viewer and leaving too many questions about whats going on, and answering too many of those questions and frustrating viewers who dont want it all spoon-fed to them. That translates into many, many drafts. How many? Eight, I think. Eight full drafts of the script, which were workshopped through at least four professionals with real-world screen experience for feedback on every episode. The first seasons script was written in a week; it took more than six months to do the various turns of the revisions, and I learned a lot from each and every one. Did every word of the script make it into the final version? Nope. In fact, I suspect even about 15% of the locked, final script will end up edited out, simply for time, or because what the dialogue was doing is accomplished through visuals or acting or just plain didnt play well. Thats what makes this process so interesting ... the script isnt the show. The show is a collaboration based on the script. And the book isnt the script, and vice versa. Once the script was close to finished, we set our filming dates for April 2014, and in February, we started our casting discussions. So casting will be our next discussion on BACKSTAGE!
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 13:59:48 +0000