The Oval Portrait – Production Notebook

I somehow came across this little stop-motion piece on Google Video the other day and it impacted me in two ways.  First, it made me reconsider my attitude on life in general (which was it’s purpose… kudos to the creators, your film works!  That’s not an easy accomplishment!)  Second, the “alternate ending” spoof is making me reconsider the ending of my film.

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I downloaded the 78th Annual Academy Awards (since I don’t have a TV) and caught a neat piece of drivel from Dustin Hoffman as he introduced the nominees for best adapted screenplay.

 ”So the saying goes, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’  Well, when you adapt material from a novel or a short story or some other source, you have to take something that works… and then you have to break it, and then you have to fix it, and then you have to turn it into a film… that works.  And that ain’t easy.”

How encouraging.  But it’s true… you can’t just stick a work of literature on the screen and expect it to work, for reasons covered quite well in Robert McKee’s Story which I heartily recommend.  Thanks, Mr.  Hoffman.  I’d also like to thank the Academy…

Welcome to the production notebook for my new short film, The Oval Portrait. It’s going to be a loooooooong, strange journey. Basically, I’ve taken the shortest short story of Mr. Edgar Allan Poe, trimmed it down to the last paragraph, and am trying to adapt this portion to a short animated film. Easy, right? We’ll certainly find out… let’s get started!