Date of Award
5-15-2020
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
English
First Advisor
Wendy Lee
Second Advisor
Rebecca Krefting
Abstract
I have always loved film and television, whether for casual consumption or academic pursuits. Throughout my time as an English and American Studies double major (and almost a Media and Film Studies minor), I have opted to study film and TV at every chance I could. In my junior year I began writing my own film, and I completed that film in the first half of senior year. When entering my final year of the English major and faced with making a decision surrounding my capstone, I was simultaneously deciding whether or not to pursue graduate studies in screenwriting. As I realized that my current career goal is to become a published screenwriter, I decided that I wanted to tackle a project that had been lying dormant in my head for years; adapting one of my favorite YA novels, Gone by Michael Grant, into a television show. This book was a major formative moment in my childhood, with its many intersectional representations that marked my first encounters with queerness, racial differences, and disability. On top of the positive social messages that the story promotes, the visual description in the book is immaculate, and makes translating it for the screen an easier challenge (but a challenge nonetheless). I was not only interested in the creative piece, however, as my academic career at Skidmore has always involved research. I also wanted to look at studies on adaptation, and discover what the implications of adaptation often are. Ultimately, I settled on pursuing a televisual adaptation of Gone because it synthesized all the different aspects of my academic career that I enjoy and am passionate about, as well as my career goals for the future.
Recommended Citation
Weinreb, Adam, "Adapting to Adaptation: Turning YA Literature into Television" (2020). English Honors Theses. 46.
https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/eng_stu_schol/46
Adapting to Adaptation