Adapting Work

FÁS Screen Training Ireland is running a course on Adaptation in the Radisson Hotel, Golden Lane, Dublin 8, from 12 — 16 December.

Participant Profile:
This course is designed for professional screenwriters and development executives working in the Irish film and television industry. Participants ideally should have an adaptation project currently in development.

Course Profile:
The purpose of this course is to explore the process of adapting pre-existing material to the screen. Writers will analyze how a variety of source material: novel, stage play, short story, magazine article, graphic novel and history, can transform into a successful cinema story. We will have group discussions to identify the challenges posed by each source. Writers will also explore the process by conceptualizing adaptations of pre-assigned short stories and discussing the results. Combining the creative and analytic will give students a deeper understanding of what it means to adapt stories from one medium to another. The course will explore the following:

• Where stories come from
• Conceptualisation
• Comparative adaptation exercises
• Adaptations from novels (case study: Remains of the Day)
• Adaptations from plays (case study: Taming of the Shrew)
• Adaptations from history/articles (case study: Saving Private Ryan)
• Adaptations from short stories (case study: Rear Window)
• Adaptations from comics/graphic novels (case study: American Splendor)

The tutor is L.A.-based writer and story analyst Beth Serlin, and the course costs €350. Applications can be made online, and the deadline is the 7th November 2008.