Literature Adaptations

I've recently read the teen book 'Shiver' by Maggie Stiefvater. The book first released in 2009, has a small fan following. Nothing the size of the 'Twilight-mania' just yet!

The story's about a 16/17 year old girl called Grace, growing up in a small American town called 'mercy falls'. Graces' house is backed onto the woodland area that surrounds most of the town. The woodland is filled with wolves, but they're 'special' wolves!

The story revolves around Graces fixation with the wolves and a certain one in particular with vivid yellow eyes.

The book is a strange but intense story about the fight for teenage love.

This book really caught me. It's not my usual read but i was grabbed by the style it was written. The book's separated into different view points. Also it's different in the way it doesn't really have an antagonist. The protagonists here are Grace and the wolf/boy, Sam. There is no real trouble apart from trying to save Sam from 'losing himself'

I've already had ideas of how to move this story into a teaser trailer, and will upload the storyboard in the next few days. I'm now looking into extending this piece. I'm trying to film a lot of things that most people would associate with 'werewolves' like the moon, and dark woodland areas. I've decided to do this as i can't get hold of a real, trained, wolf to be in the production!

I'm going to look briefly at the difference between a teaser trailer and a full length trailer. The trailers are both from 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon'. This has werewolves in it, so it sort of connects with what I'm looking at. They also link because the series of films are based around the hit teen books, so they are literature adaptations, which i will look into further in the coming weeks.

To begin with, Trailer 1:


Trailer 2:


Apart from the obvious difference between the two, length. The rest of the trailer consists of mostly the same scenes but the extended trailer takes the action a little further.
The reason for a film to produce an extended trailer as well as a teaser trailer is to just start to grab it's audiences attention. Once they're fully hooked on just the teaser usually an extended version is released and with that a release date for the film.
Also for films with such a big fan following such as 'The Twilight Saga', and 'Harry Potter' (just to name a couple) a few different trailers are released, all containing similar scenes but with a few exceptions.

Extended trailer for 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince' 3:


Extended trailer for 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince' 1:

Werewolves in the 'media'

In modern media, literature, drama, film and games werewolves are classed as an anti-hero. As I'm looking at films, I'm going to focus on the 'werewolf' in the film world and possibly how it's changed through literature adaptations.
A classic 'werewolf' film being 'The Wolf-Man' opened in 1941, has helped shape the great folkloric legend seen in 'Hollywood' blockbusters today.

(bad quality, the original 1941 trailer)

In later films from this era, the 'wolf-man' later goes on to join other creature of darkness including, 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein', there cementing his place in horror history forever.

Lon Chaney, who created 'The Wolf-Man' also created the original 'Werewolf in London' 10 years earlier, this film was the first 'werewolf' films of it's kind. Why? Because it was the first film to feature the creature on 2 legs, with human characteristics. As well as creating 'The Wolf-Man' Lon Chaney's films had a great cult following at the time, with many people creating spin offs of the original.

The first 'modern horror genre' 'werewolf' films to arrive were the ever successful saga: 'The Howling', first released in 1981, with seven films in the saga the final instalment being released in 1995. The film was a literature adaptation of a book by Gary Brandner. With a mixed public reception the film is now a modern claasic of it's genre, with cult following of most 'werewolf' films.

(1981 orginal trailer: The Howling)

Researching "Werewolves"

Also known as werwolf, is a mythological or folkloric creature. Thought to be half human with the ability to shape shift into various animal forms, although the most common being a wolf. This is either after being bitten by the 'infected', after being placed under a curse or through choice of their own.

('Dog Soldiers' 2002 Directed by Neil Marshall)

Generally thought of as a European character, although most myths and legends come from Native America, although common in other parts, stories of shapeshifters most commonly in the form of a wolf come from native tribes in America.

Although traits pass and change from story to story, werewolves are cemented in modern fiction as a character of true horror. The most notable characteristic that seems to stick is the wolf's vunerability to pure silver bullets.

Common Attributes and way to identify a werewolf differ around the world. Russian's believe that if you can tell a werewolf by looking under their tongue. They believe the 'infected' have slight bristles under their tongue. Other communities think cutting a suspected werewolf whilst in it's human form and then looking into the wound to find fur.

Other way of identifying a werewolf include:

• eyebrows meeting over the bridge of the nose
• curved fingernails
• low set ears
• and a swinging stride

Although the suspected appearance of the werewolf changes from culture to culture, two thing are questioned to stick out. One being the fact that they appear no different to ordinary wolves, although this can easily be over rided by the myth at werewolves are granted with extra physical powers beyond the realms of humans and ordinary wolves. The second is that werewolves are believed to not have tails, this comes from the belief that witches were thought to change forms as they wouldn't have tails. The only feature that is thought to stay with the werewolf is their human eyes.

Making my mind up

out of a page of notes i've made, here is the few ideas i'm going to consider and refine before making my final choice of which way to take this production:

Films/Literature

• Salvador Dali, 'Un Chien Andalou'
• Dean Koontz, 'Frankenstein' (a new twist on Mary Shelleys classic)
• Nosferatu, the original vampire
• Bram Stoker, 'Dracula'

I want to my production to fit in with modern pop culture i.e 'vampires' ( Stephanie Meyers 'Twilight') and 'Werewolves' ( Stephanie Meyers 'New Moon') but i also want my production to take influences from classic versions of these, hense the Noseratu and Frankenstein.