Without question, narrative has changed from its inception in literature, and can now be viewed as film and games, or even classed as linear or non-linear narrative. A quick definition; Linear Narrative is where the story conforms to a beginning, middle and an end, and still remains the most popular choice of narrative style. The other choice is non-linear narrative, which can have the story flow in any order, like middle, end and beginning for example. That is not the only way a narrative can be non-linear though. The Christopher Nolan movie, Memento (2000) can be seen as an extreme example of non-linear narrative, as the parts of the standard beginning, middle and end are intersected, in comparison to TV series Lost (2004), with its flashback storytelling method. Both linear and non-linear narratives have grown, developed and adapted over the years, due to progress of technology within cinema and television.
Technology’s growth in the film industry has been phenomenal and has come a long way from Al Jolson talking in The Jazz Singer (1927), the first film to feature synchronised speech. The last 20 years alone has seen major changes in the way we watch film in cinemas and at home. We have moved from VHS tapes to Blu-Ray discs, 3D films moving from the traditional Red and Green format, into a more sophisticated style that allows you to watch the film in the colour it was intended to be.
Cinema in general has come a long way from the earliest film made by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, The Roundhay Garden Scene (1988).
“The use of computers makes it more efficient because things don't have to be cut out and glued together. Instead we use and reuse files from previous shows. The scripts for South Park are written days before a show airs, allowing the content of the show to stay topical. The speed of computer animation allows the animators to get the show on the air.” (Interview with Eric Stough, 2002)
Technology vs. Adaptations
Adaptations have been dominant in cinema over the last decade with old TV shows being remade for the big screen, like The A Team (2010), or comic books being made in to feature films, Iron Man (2008) being a good example, but the most popular adaptation is still the transfer from book to film. Every adaptation can be scrutinised in a different way, many people agreeing or disagreeing with the Fidelity Argument, which essentially argues that the adaptation is not as good as the original or source. The adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, A Christmas Carol is one book adaptation that has constantly been subject to the fidelity argument due to being adapted a number of times in plays, TV programs and even operas, but why remake a book that has already been adapted numerous times already? This is what we will be looking at for Book to Film adaptations, and for technology extending a narrative, we will primarily be looking at the 2003 video game, Enter The Matrix, which was made to link the two movies The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003). Did playing the game help you understand the narrative of the two films better or was it made to take advantage of the current home technology and exploit audiences to increase the studios profit margins?
Charles Dickens was an acknowledged great writer. A Christmas Carol, or to call it by its original title, A Christmas Carol in prose being A Ghost Story of Christmas, was first published in 1843 and is considered a classic work of fiction, as well as a classic Christmas story. The story is about a man called Ebenezer Scrooge, who does not celebrate Christmas and does not waste money, even for coal for the fire to stay warm. Three ghosts visit him on Christmas Eve, the ghost of Christmas past, the ghost of Christmas present and the ghost of Christmas future, each showing him a different image of Christmas to show him the error of his ways. After being visited by these three ghosts, Scrooge becomes a new man and changes his ways and attitude. The character of Ebenezer Scrooge is that of an anti-hero, and as the story progresses, you become more sympathetic towards him. It is a story that has been adapted countless times, with A Christmas Carol (1951), starring Alastair Sim, gaining acclaim as the best adaptation of Dickens’ novel by A.O. Scott of The New York Times in 2008.
In some cases, just the basic premise has been adapted, a recent example being Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009), where the Lothario lead character is haunted by his ex-girlfriends in a bid to change his attitude towards relationships, or Scrooged (1988) where a TV executive in modern day receives visits by the three Christmas ghosts. The most recent adaptation of Ebenezer Scrooge was A Christmas Carol (2009), which starred Jim Carrey and was directed by Robert Zemeckis. From watching this film, it is easy to say that it was made because of the technology available today.
Motion capture technology was used, invented by Ernie Blood in 1986 and allowed actors to act as normal but with their body motions and facial movements being digitally tracked, allowing the actors to be digitally shaped in to the characters originally illustrated by John Leech in Dickens’ novel. Without technology, this would not be possible and with the technology used to make the film, motion capture, it allows them to create Scrooge’s entire world including his house, his office, and Bob Cratchit’s house, all based on the original writings of Charles Dickens. It is the closest interpretation of the source material compared to other adaptations that are available. Technology has definitely driven this film to be made but the narrative has not been affected. This film is very true to the source material, “…the visuals are amazing and it remains largely faithful to the source text.” (Berardinelli, 2009)In some cases, just the basic premise has been adapted, a recent example being Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009), where the Lothario lead character is haunted by his ex-girlfriends in a bid to change his attitude towards relationships, or Scrooged (1988) where a TV executive in modern day receives visits by the three Christmas ghosts. The most recent adaptation of Ebenezer Scrooge was A Christmas Carol (2009), which starred Jim Carrey and was directed by Robert Zemeckis. From watching this film, it is easy to say that it was made because of the technology available today.
A mention must be added for the inclusion of the children Want and Ignorance, who are rarely seen in the adaptations as they are quite scary figures and darken the tone of the film. They were not included in A Muppets Christmas Carol (1993) for example as the target audience of this film was mainly children and it would frighten them, which would not be a good way to sell a film. So technology definitely drove Walt Disney Pictures to make the film but it did not have an influence over the narrative. In fact, it actually extended the narrative further than other adaptations, as they could go as close as possible to the writings of Charles Dickens and how he envisioned this world.
In the case of A Christmas Carol, the adaptations that have come out of Charles Dickens’ classic novel are not inferior to the written text. In the case of book to film adaptations, the fidelity argument seems wrong and creates an unnecessary hierarchical system where the book is always better than the book. When in fact, adaptations are more of homage to the source text, and actually keep the source text alive.
“…see filmic adaptations as ‘mutations’ that help their source novel ‘survive.’ (Stam and Raengo 2005, p. 3)
Other than cinema adaptations, the flurry of new technology available today has allowed studios to reach their audience in a new, more modern way. The video game Enter The Matrix (2003) furthered the narrative of the Wachowski brothers two films The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003). The original film, The Matrix (1999), where what we perceive as the real world is actually a simulated computer program, told the story of Neo, a freedom fighter that is prophesised to defeat the machines ruling the “real” world. At this stage, video games based on films were nothing new. The majority of Disney films have a video game tie in, but Enter The Matrix was something different. First of, it allowed the audience to play in the world created in The Matrix (1999), allowing the user to do all of the acrobatics and slow motion movement you see in the film. Secondly, it bridged the gap of the two sequels. Although it was not necessary to play the game to understand and enjoy the two films, it would help you understand the narrative better.
The game starts with you, playing the characters of either Niobe or Ghost, introduced in The Matrix Reloaded, retrieving a package from a ship destroyed at the end of the last Animatrix short. The game then runs parallel to the first sequel The Matrix Reloaded and even intertwines and extends scenes in the film. The game then ends with your character setting off an Electromagnetic pulse to destroy some machines that were about to destroy their ship, but also disables their ship. Their story is then picked up at the start of The Matrix Revolutions.
The whole idea of narrative overlapping between the films and a video game was something new, especially as the game narrative was written by the film writers Andy and Laurence Wachowski and contained over 200 hours of live action footage. The problem was it did not work very well as the game felt rushed and the films were poor in comparison to the original.
“...it seems the film itself has been deliberately made to suffer, to donate some of its lifeblood so that its vampiric brood can feed on it. In Reloaded, Niobe and her crew go to blow up the nuclear power plant, a feat of security-bypassing which would presumably require something like a lobby scene squared. Instead, we see nothing until they are already in the control room. Why? Because that’s what you get to do in the game instead. The film’s sense of rhythm and victory over threat is compromised just so we can bash buttons on our consoles at home.” (Poole, 2003)
“…it's worth a play to see the extra footage and experience the bullet-time and focused hand-to-hand combat.” (Carle 2003, p. 4)
On paper, it seemed that technology would actually aid and further the narrative of the films but in reality, it hindered it and would have been more impressive if they merged the extra footage in the game in to the actual film and just had a separate Matrix game that had time to be developed rather than being rushed to be marketed between the two films. It is fair to say that the Fidelity argument can be applied to this adaptation and the two sequels themselves were seen as inferior to the original, some fans even pretending there were no sequels.
“You can count on the fingers of one hand sequels that have lived up to the original, and two of them were directed by James Cameron ("Aliens" and "Terminator 2: Judgement Day"). But only one movie can legitimately be said to be better than the film that inspired it, and that is "The Godfather, Part II"- the only sequel to win an Oscar for best picture.” (Smith, 2000)
There are other ways they could have gone about furthering the narrative of the films for audiences to better understand. In 2006, the TV show Lost (2004) created an alternate reality game that would further the narrative and mythology of the show.
“The game, of a genre called alternate-reality games, is a multimedia treasure hunt that makes use of e-mail messages, phone calls, commercials, billboards and fake Web sites that are made to seem real.” (Miller, 2006)
It filled in parts of the story that would not make it in to the TV show for timing reasons. The game was on a global scale as it was co-produced by America’s ABC, UK’s Channel Four and Australia’s Channel Seven. It was very successful and lead to many other smaller scale alternate reality games up until the show’s finish in 2010.
Technology vs. Editing
“The dominant style of editing in narrative films is known as continuity editing – nearly all Hollywood films conform to this way of putting films together. They are cut so that shot follows shot in a “believable” sense, and it feels as though events were occurring seamlessly as the story unfolds.” (Allam 2007, p. 30)
Editing is one of the most important processes of film making as it brings together the hours of footage shot by the director and trims it down to a reasonable viewing time, yet keeps the story flowing. Over time, the technology editors have used to edit film has evolved, with editors developing their skills and the way they think about editing along with it, but does giving the editor more choice end up ruining the narrative or does it in fact allow the editor to further the narrative in a way that was never before possible?
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Moviola Editing Machine (http://introtoediting.com/home.html) |
“…we used imported Steenbecks or KEMs, “horizontal” editing machines from Germany that were quieter and handled the film more gently, had two large screens and two sound tracks, and were better able to handle large amounts of film.” (Murch 2001, p. 43)
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| Steenbeck Flatbed Editor (http://www.steenbeck.com) |
This non-linear style allowed quicker editing and allows the director and editor to be a lot more experimental with their films. While this is still possible on flatbed editors, it is a longer process and costs the studio money the longer it takes to edit. Technology definitely has had an impact on editing with the evolving of technology to the point where professional editing tools can be used on a personal computer, Final Cut Pro being the example. With all the developments of editing technology, it has allowed narrative to be changed a lot more simply and, as mentioned at the start, allowed directors and editors to be more experimental with their films than is possible with Moviolas or flatbed editors.
Conclusion
Technology has driven the way we have watched film from the start so there is no surprise that technology is now influencing the way writers create narrative for film and TV. Visual effects are now possible and come with many uses including creating environments that would have normally cost a lot to build as a set. In the cases of 300 (2006) and Sin City (2005), the entire film was shot using ‘green-screen’ technology, which allows the green colour to be replaced with a digital image in post production. Two videos of the same scene show how the green-screen technique, without visual effect and with visual effects. Gladiator (2000) didn’t use digital effects to the extreme lengths of those films but it was used to create the environment.
“Although no full set of the coliseum was ever constructed, viewers of the hugely successful film saw many shots of the entire coliseum, often filled to the brim with cheering spectators watching bloody spectacles...It is only through digital technology that we see the fighting gladiators and the cheering crowds in the gigantic coliseum at the same time.” (Lehman and Luhr 2008, p. 368)
Although the main focus was talking about technology’s impact on editing, technology has also had an impact on directors too. With digital cameras being used over the industry standard 35mm cameras to help keep costs down, which is ideal for small, independent films with small budgets. The big Hollywood blockbuster films are starting to use digital cameras, James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) using them along with the new stereoscopic 3D software that is now being used by the majority of big films and could possibly become industry standard. With stereoscopic 3D though, it does have a negative impact on narrative, as for example ‘Object A’ has to look as though it is coming in to the audience when the scene could have more meaning if it were shot at a different angle.
With technology having an influence on narrative, the bigger picture is that technology is being pushed by directors and studios wanting to make films ‘perfect’ and the more technology that becomes available, it is inevitable that we will see more and more remakes of classic films that, from a personal point of view, are not necessary when the classic is still well known and loved.
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Bibliography
Blogs
E-Books
Online
Online Videos
Further Reading
Blogs
Books
E-Books
Online
Online Videos
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Bibliography
Blogs
Animation Archive, 28 December 2007. Advice for cgi animators. ASIFA-hollywood animation archive. Available from: http://www.animationarchive.org/2007/12/2007-review-4-advice-for-cgi-animators.html [Accessed 04 January 2011].
Books
Murch, W., 2001. In the blink of an eye: A Perspective on Film Editing. 2nd ed. California: Silman-James Press.
Lehman, P. and Luhr, W., 2008. Thinking about movies. 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
E-Books
Raengo, A. and Stam, R., 2005. Literature and film: a guide to the theory and practice of film adaptation. UK: Blackwell Publishing. Available from: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=if2oWY58r9kC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false [Accessed 22 December 2010].
Online
Allam, C., 2007. The filmmaker’s toolkit: a practical guide. Sheffield. Available from: http://www.shef.ac.uk/content/1/c6/08/93/32/filmmakers-toolkit.pdf [Accessed 05 January 2011].
Animation Magazine, 26 July 2002. Interview with Eric Stough, Animation Director, South Park. Available from: http://www.spscriptorium.com/SPinfo/MakingOfSouthPark.htm [Accessed 04 January 2011].
Berardinelli, J., 2009. A Christmas Carol. USA. Available from: http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=1859 [Accessed 04 January 2011].
Carle, C., 2003. Enter the matrix review. UK. Available from: http://uk.xbox.ign.com/articles/403/403787p1.html [Accessed 04 January 2011].
Millar, L., 2006. To counter the doldrums during summer reruns, ‘lost’ fans can get lost in a game online. New York: The New York Times. Available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/24/business/media/24lost.html [Accessed 05 January 2011].
Poole, S., 2003. Edge 125. UK. Available from: http://stevenpoole.net/trigger-happy/edge-125/ [Accessed 04 January 2011].
Smith, N., 2000. The godfather part II. UK. Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2000/12/15/the_godfather_part_ii_1974_review.shtml [Accessed 05 January 2011].
Online Videos
Higher Plain Games. 2003. Enter the matrix trailer. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqv0VAJ2kAQ [Accessed 08 January 2011].
IMDb. 2008. IMDb video: sin city. Available from: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3183477017/ [Accessed 08 January 2011].
IMDb. 2008. IMDb video: sin city. Available from: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2915041561/ [Accessed 08 January 2011].
Le Prince, L., 2006. 1888 – roundhay garden scene. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1i40rnpOsA [Accessed 04 January 2011].
New York Times. 2008. Critics’ picks: ‘a christmas carol’. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqgQAqVgtg0 [Accessed 05 January 2011].
Further Reading
Blogs
Reelybored, 16 August 2008. Has hollywood ran out of ideas? part one: the remake. The reelybored blog. Available from: http://reelybored.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/has-hollywood-ran-out-of-ideas-part-1-the-remake/ [Accessed 04 January 2011].
Sri, S., 03 June 2010. Fidelity critics and counter arguments with examples. Of what use is fidelity argument in helping us understand film adaptation. Available from: http://seepsri.blogspot.com/2010/01/fidelity-argument-conservative-one-in.html [Accessed 05 January 2011].
Sri, S., 01 June 2010. Adaptations receiving critical acclaim. Of what use is fidelity argument in helping us understand film adaptation. Available from http://seepsri.blogspot.com/2010/06/adaptations-receiving-critical-acclaim.html [Accessed 05 January 2011].
Books
Cabarga, L., 1988. The fleischer story. 2nd ed. New York: DaCapo Press.
Cropper, S., 2006. Time out: 1000 films to change your life. London: Ebury Publishing.
Douglas, J. Y., 2001. The end of books – or books without end?: reading interactive narratives. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press.
Fell, J. L., 1974. Film and the narrative tradition. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.
E-Books
Dickens, C., 1843. A christmas carol in prose being a ghost story of christmas. North Carolina: José Menéndez. Available from: http://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Dickens/Carol/Dickens_Carol.htm [Accessed 02 January 2011].
Klinger, B., 2006. Beyond the multiplex: cinema, new technologies and the home. California: University of California Press. Available from: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/bournemouth/docDetail.action?docID=10114316 [Accessed 22 December 2010].
Online
Abbott, D., 1999. A brief history of moviola. Hollywood. Available from: http://moviola.com/history [Accessed 06 January 2011].
Perdue, D., 2010. A christmas carol. USA: Dap Designs. Available from: http://charlesdickenspage.com/carol.html [Accessed 04 January 2011].
Online Videos
The Gadget Show. 2009. The gadget show: assassins creed 2 motion capture. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxJrhnynlN8 [Accessed 05 January 2011].
Walt Disney Productions. 2010. The making of disney’s a Christmas carol in 3d. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8zdSY8O2tg [Accessed 05 January 2011].
Filmography
A christmas carol. 2009. Film. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. USA: Walt Disney Productions.
The muppet christmas carol. 1993. Film. Directed by Brian Henson. USA: Walt Disney Productions.
The matrix reloaded. 2003. Film. Directed by Andy and Laurence Wachowski. USA: Warner Bros. Pictures.
Scrooged. 1988. Film. Directed by Richard Donner. USA: Paramount Pictures.
The cutting edge: the magic of movie editing. 2004. Film. Directed by Wendy Apple. USA: A.C.E.
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