REFLECTION 11 – LOST IN TRANSLATION

We have officially made groups now for our final assessment task, and I have the pleasure of working on Alex Ferguson’s film idea. In a group of five we are to create a short narrative film, which from what I can tell at the moment, will come across as a simplified and more quirky version of My Dinner With Andre.

As we were discussing the script and what will be happening in the actual film, I wondered how this film will reflect the observation it was based upon. There was a certain element of acknowledgment and ‘coming-of-age’ which called to me. I wanted to focus in on that moment where we see the guest to this dinner start off as uncomfortable and foreign, but eventually he adapts and enjoys himself in this ‘new’ environment. I wondered if the script would include an element of that, or have a moment that draws upon that. Or it could be a matter of Alex writing down his experience, word for word, specific to his memory, and him replicating the exact procedure he went through.

This brings up the question of whether we are creating new content, or simply adapting a story that has already existed. I mean we are re-staging the dinner that Alex has already experienced, and he put that experience into writing through his observation, and now we are filming that moment and editing it together to become a film. Is this whole process just an elaborate way from inspiration to film, or is it a straight adaptation of already established content. Is this an adaptation of life then, or a film just based on the true events in someone’s life, and are we allowed to change anything.

Are we allowed to insert lines, and change locations. Am I allowed to say that these people are actually cousins, instead of long friends. Would this still be considered an adaptation of what has happened, or am I changing it too much to let it be considered a re-staging.

 

 

I know these are roundabout questions that wont really get answered, but I think our film is going to be an adaptation, with us focusing on a key component or theme from the original observation. So we aren’t just physically re-creating the scene, we are going to also replicate the feelings Alex had in the original event.