screenplay challenges : from life and books to movie treatments and graphic novels
the reasons, challenges and pleasures of writing scripts.
The moon brightens the pilgrims’ path through the windy, spooky forest. They’re tired and want to stop and rest. Baudolino doesn’t want to, they have to get to a clearing first. The moon light doesn’t help much as sometimes it gets covered by thick clouds. They walk now in total darkness. Gradually, the wind subsides Read More …
Along their route, the pilgrims learn that Chaos governs the many Greek deities, the Muslim’s God Allah has 99 names, the Zoroastrians believe in one God, an Evil (who shows his ugly head once in a while) and three principles of a worthy life. Across the Himalayan range, they get a lesson in Buddhism: enlightenment comes Read More …
Writing “The Poet Dreams about Bathsheba” sequence in Baudolino made me search for a camel photo. The one I found was fun and it inspired a little poem. Then, poetic inspiration spilled into sequential art. What if can turn this little sequence into a comics page? I could “see” the page and panels’ composition but Read More …
Walking through a small village with circular mud huts Baudolino stops to describe Zosimos and ask a villager if he saw him. The villager frowns not understanding the language. Baudolino mimics a traveler walking and points at Boron’s beard in an attempt to describe Zosimos. The villager seems to understand and speaking in his own Read More …
Rabbi Solomon sees it built with nails and glue, as the Temple of Ezekiel. The Poet disagrees, it must be beyond the richness of any Christian and Byzantium sovereigns’ palaces. Kyot agrees, must be at least as imposing as the Temple of the Templars. Under the influence of the green honey, Abdul sees it built Read More …
In Baudolino book, the Huns invade Pndapetzim, the city at the border with the Universal Religion realm. I think about replacing them with the apocalyptic Gog and Magog. However, while searching the internet I find a depiction of them less apocalyptic, apparently working hard in a Muslim land. Were they punished or just making a Read More …
The Greekling lied about having a map to the realm of the Universal Religion and invented all the odd creatures that Baudolino wrote down in the letter of Prester Johannes. He then made a copy of that letter, an early example of copy right infringement (just kidding!) and disappeared. What he did with the copy Read More …
“Despairing” is the qualifier in a Los Angeles Times article. It’ll take many, many more seasons to make it “inspiring”, but it could start now with screenplay adaptations from books hard to read and hard to turn into movies. Graphic novels along the way would delight at least eight million people, just do a Google search Read More …
The Adaptation of Ryunosuke Akutagawa “The Faith of Wei Sheng” Loaded with metaphors and symbols, the short novel is poetic. The adaptation to visual form must use poetic film language as well. 1993, Toronto. Taking Film Studies, night classes, homework to do is a short film script. Adapting Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s “The Faith of Wei Sheng,” Read More …
The recent answer is because it’s part of my lifestyle now. I took film studies in Toronto about twenty years ago and wrote fiction scripts for two semesters’ worth of homework. Life brought me to Los Angeles and I hoped to continuing the film studies and turning the plate on engineering, my day job. But Read More …