Posted by Dave Thewlis on October 11, 2004 at 02:05:43 from 24.254.88.210 user dthewlis.
In Reply to: Re: Colouring In (was: Full set of 1st editions??) posted by Peter H on October 10, 2004 at 19:52:16:
Peter references being stymied by an Indiana Jones film. I managed them okay but couldn't follow the M.A.S.H. film at all, and I still have problems with movie and television packaging, timing, visual cues, etc., because I wasn't really raised on them (esp. television). But the underlying point I think is that there are real differences about content, pacing, etc. between a book and a film. There are also cultural, period, time, and so forth differences but you can get away with (and sometimes must) things in a film that wouldn't work in a book, and (thank heavens) vice versa. To me the tremendous and overriding difference is that with a book, the reader establishes his or her own pace, whereas with a film or television the pace is driven by the medium. If nothing else, a book must take into account somehow very different ways of approaching it for different readers to try and achieve broad appeal. I suspect there is a similar problem for filmmakers but I bet it's a lot different. Note the struggles that Jackson had with filming The Lord of the Rings and establishing a visual medium for the story (or the part of the story he felt he could manage to tell).