In all honesty, I feel the film is however great just the
way it is. Robert Rodriguez argues the point of changing subjects when adapting
things into trans-media when describing why he made Sin City such a faithful
adaption in the book Sin City: The
Making of the Movie: “I could rewrite it and change it completely and turn it
into something else, but why? You’re not making it better, you’re just making
it different, and it was so goo just the way it was.” This, without sounding
big headed, I feel applies to our film. It is beautifully honest and true and I
feel that is integral to it success, appeal and effectiveness. However, I will
indulge the few ways this could be done in other media.
One, would be a graphic novel. As a medium that is aimed at
adults that teenagers often have a huge interest in this could be a good way of
targeting an audience for the subject. This would obviously have no sound
(unless it was a web-comic), but could benefit by having a touching monologue,
which we felt wouldn’t work in the film. This could even be just as honest as
the film and be like a journal, where the monologue is the exact writing, and
the comic would unravel the life of the character. It could however, have
nothing but imagery, such as a page in a Marvel comic Ultimatum:
X-men/Fantastic Four, where it is revealed The Thing attempts self harm. Though
this is not gone into detail (enough in my opinion) it does display more
emotion in the troubled character than is often displayed in other comics when
he’s just portrayed as ‘down.’ This shows him as a more thought out suffering
character who feels far more human now and certain audience members really feel
they can relate to him, making his story far more interesting. This I feel
would be a good way to correlate the problem where there is more professional control
to tell the story you want to tell to no constraints.
Another idea would be to develop it into a video game. This
I feel could never be a AAA title, but as an indie game, such as Gone Home,
where you play as a concerned family member finds this out by exploring the
house that reveals these secrets. As this is such a personal story the
attachment users start to feel for the characters in this title would definitely
benefit the experience of a game similar, but may even be more effective. In
Gone Home the user finds out that their sister is a lesbian who is struggling
trying to make her parents understand, and considering joining the army like
her girlfriend. To have the same level of attachment and find out something
like a family member is self harming, I feel would be even more effective, and
if reading the journal, like you do in Gone Home, would really allow users to
understand the mindset of a depressed person. This also would make users to imagine
a family member of theirs suffering and as being an interactive medium this may
help bring the subject home.
Even a book may be an effective may this subject could be
placed in as a trans-media subject. A book that, like a graphic novel, could simply
follow the diary, or like the video game, have a character find this out about
someone else. It could tell the story of the character and have him narrate the
book but personally I feel there are better ways for this to work. Out of this
selection for a book, I feel the journal is the best option. Readers could more
easily get into the mindset of the character and may be able to relate and be
more understanding when confronting the problem in their lives.
The film could also be interoperated as web-isodes, where a
section of the story is released every week, and the users could even decide
what could happen to the lead character. This might be and effective way of
displaying it as if the audience really engaged with the series and kept of
watching for a lengthy amount of time, a greater bound and attachment can be
made so when they notice someone suffering from this in the real world, they
would be more comfortable and confident with approaching the subject as they
will have a clearer understanding of how that person is feeling. They may even
feel a want to help because they understand how it can affect people and if
they can see the signs of it, they could help stop it before it gets worse.
It could even be exactly how the film it is, but released to
self harm charities to help raise awareness. This could be a very effective
idea as it would help be able to take a very negative experience and give it a
silver lining, by allowing it to be a film to help others who suffer from it.
We have already had extremely positive feedback from the film, and feel every
faith it has the possibility to do this, and idea we may later explore.
To conclude, I do now feel there would be other ways of
telling this story, but it adapting it to different media would be something
that could very easily compromise the films integrity if no done with the same level
of passion and honesty as the film was. I would like to say the graphic novel
would be the best way of doing this, but purely because of Gone Home I feel a
video game may well be the best option. Arguably the point in trans-media is
something doesn’t have to be constrained to one media, but unfortunately if
telling a true story in its most honest sense, there would only be so many
times you can re-tell it before it loses effect, unless the story is really
dragged out over a long periods of time or told far less honestly, which I feel
wouldn’t be nearly as effective.
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