“I'm used to adapting my novels for feature film - it can be challenging to cut and compress three or four hundred pages into two hours of dramatic action.” TwoActionFilmUsedThreeHoursChallengesNovelFourCuttingPagesHundredFeaturesDramaticAdapting Author:Tom Perrotta
“Look at it this way: if you write the novel of 'Cold Mountain,' it costs exactly the same to produce and market as a novel set in a room. If you make the film, the disparity of costs is huge.” IfsWayWritingLooksFilmRoomsNovelProduceHugeColdCostMountainDisparityCold Mountain Author:Anthony Minghella
“I think graphic novels are closer to prose than film, which is a really different form.” ThinkingDifferentFilmFormNovelProseGraphicGraphic Novels Author:Denise Mina
“It's easy in a novel to be completely unambiguous about the relationship between animal and daemon simply by stating it outright; whereas you get very few opportunities to do this in an elegant way in a film.” WayFilmOpportunityEasyAnimalNovelElegant Author:Chris Weitz
“In my view the plangent artificiality of a lot of creative work results from the fact that the people who write novels, direct films and put on plays tend to read too many novels, watch too many films and go to too many plays.” PeopleWritingPlayFactsFilmResultsViewsWatchesNovelCreativeDirectCreative WorkArtificiality Author:Will Self
“I had two projects that fell apart during preproduction. The first one was this movie that Judd Apatow and I had written about two guys following the Rolling Stones. It was going to be half concert film, half pseudo-documentary. It was Mick Jagger's idea.The other one was Simple Plan, based on a novel by Scott Smith. It's a great book - really stark, not a comedy - about a guy who finds $4 million in a plane crash and decides to keep it.” FirstsTwoBookIdeasFilmGuySimpleHalfMillionsNovelComedyPlansWrittenProjectsStonesFollowingPlanesConcertsCrashRollingDocumentariesStarksRolling StonesGreat BookPseudoTwo GuysJaggerPlane CrashesSimple Plan Author:Ben Stiller
“. . . you [film critics] always overstress the value of images. You judge films in the first place by their visual impact instead of looking for content. This is a great disservice to the cinema. It is like judging a novel only by the quality of its prose. I was guilty of the same sin when I first started writing for the cinema. . . . Now I feel that only the literary mind can help the movies out of that cul de sac into which they have been driven by mere technicians and artificers.” FeelsWritingMindFirstsHas BeensHelpingFilmValuesSinQualityNovelJudgingImpactMereCriticsDrivenGuiltyCraftsCinemaVisualsProseTechniciansDisserviceFilm Critics Author:Orson Welles
“I try to write things that can't be made into movies. My novels have thwarted many attempts to film them and I think that was true of the essay, too. If you'd actually tried to be true to the essay, it would have been, perhaps, boring. So taking that narrow little cast of characters and expanding it out, that was what was exciting about the project for me.” IfsThinkingWritingTryingLittlesHas BeensMadeCharacterFilmNovelProjectsExcitingCastsBoringBeing TrueEssaysExpanding Author:Jonathan Franzen
“Most of the complexity of the stories has developed as the stories came along (and may be a product of the principle that "nothing is what it seems"). I did start with some essential ambiguousness in the aliens' motivation and the questions this raises in human minds, which I consider to have been disregarded in Contact (novel and film). That, in part, may be what has delayed the writing of the fifth and sixth novelettes in the series.” WritingMindHumansMayHas BeensStoriesSeemsFilmMotivationPrinciplesNovelProductsEssentialsRaisesSeriesContactAliensComplexityHuman MindFifthAmbiguityDelayedDisregarded Author:James Gunn
“Novels are very different than films and I love to see someone else's imagining of my story.” DifferentStoriesFilmNovel Author:Nicholas Sparks
“There have been 15 or 16 screenplays over the years, including one by me, but none of them has gotten made because Paramount is a huge studio. The Dice Man is an anti-establishment cult novel and you don't normally make studio films from such dark comedy material.” MenYearsHas BeensMadeFilmDarkNovelComedyMaterialsHugeIncludingStudiosEstablishmentCultScreenplaysDiceParamountDark Comedy Author:Luke Rhinehart
“Personally I don't think there's any real intrinsic difference between comic books, movies, theatre, novels. I know there's sure to be some differences of some sorts. I've worked on novels, films, and video games, and in an adaptation, I guess one of the issues is that I have to be in love with the thing I'm adapting before I do it. So that can cause a problem. You can be too scared of it. You could be too reverential. But at the same time you want to try to capture this thing that you're obsessed by. You're fixated for a reason. What's the reason? You try to get ahold of it.” ThinkingKnowsWantTryingBookRealReasonProblemFilmGamesCausesDifferencesNovelIssuesScaredTheatreVideoComicObsessedCaptureComic BookAdaptationAdaptingMovie Theatre Author:Alex Garland
“Working on a novel is very solitary and I get to be the boss. I'm the dictator, so I win every battle. So, in that sense, novels are easier because you don't have to answer to anyone. And then, you go into something like film and there are more cooks in the kitchen, so to speak.” FilmWinningSpeakAnswersNovelEasierBattleCooksKitchenBossSolitaryDictatorCooks In The Kitchen Author:Nicholas Sparks
“Whatever I am, I'm not as bad as the person that read the novel before watching the film. I'll enjoy whatever they [producers] are putting in front of me. If they made an attempt to get things right, then I'll criticize them for what they got wrong. If they made no attempt to get things right, and yet they stumble on something that's right, I'll comment on what they got right.” IfsPersonsMadeFilmEnjoyNovelFrontsProducersCriticizeComment Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
“When you saw the movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," that was Michael [Jackson]'s story write large. Born as an elderly person, Benjamin Button was, in the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel and in the film starring Brad Pitt, he dies as a newborn child. Michael Jackson's childhood was one of enormous, prodigious production.He was a child prodigy, he was a wunderkind.” WritingChildrenPersonsStoriesFilmDiesBornCasesNovelSawsChildhoodProductionsEnormousCuriousButtonsElderlyNewbornBradProdigiesProdigiousScott FitzgeraldNewborn ChildBenjamin Button Author:Michael Eric Dyson
“We have a thriving subculture of 'independent' American movies that makes an impact on America as a whole roughly equivalent to that of a the modern literary novel. These are the films sincere viewers marry, whereas, once upon a time, movies were a lifetime of one night stands.” WholeAmericaFilmNightNovelModernHollywoodIndependentImpactLifetimeSincereViewersOne NightOnce Upon A TimeAmerican MovieOne Night StandSubculture Author:Edward Jay Epstein
“It's an eclectic film and I think we served the novel really well. And we had a great cast who worked for free. Everyone read it and said, I'm in, from Nick [Nolte] to Albert [Finney] to Omar [Epps] to Barbara [Hershey]. We really had fun and shot it in a very short time. I think the subject matter is more topical today, more to the point, than it was 30 years ago, when it concerned the Vietnam War.” ThinkingYearsWellsSaidWarMatterTodayFilmFunNovelSubjectsShotsConcernedYears AgoCastsVietnamVietnam WarSubject MatterShort TimeEclecticBarbaraHad FunOmarHershey Author:Bruce Willis
“Novels written with film contracts in mind have a faint but unmistakable, and ruinous, odor.” MindFilmNovelWrittenContractsOdor Author:Annie Dillard
“I never think about a movie when I'm writing a book, because I think only two things could happen and both of them are bad. You write a lousy novel and a lousy film.” ThinkingWritingTwoBookHappensFilmNovelTwo ThingsWriting A Book Author:Don Winslow
“I feel like they are two different things, and when I write books, they're just books. If they can be movies that's okay. But I would write a novel that couldn't be a film.” IfsFeelsWritingTwoBookDifferentFilmNovelOkayDifferent ThingsTwo Different Things Author:Augusten Burroughs
“No one reads novels anymore. And I don't see the situation improving. People prefer video games, reality TV, and films. There are so many reasons now not to read novels.” PeopleReasonRealityFilmGamesSituationNovelTvsVideoImprovingReality Tv Author:Gore Vidal
“Books are great for if you want to work on the craft of writing for yourself, or, you know, to write novels or indie films, stuff like that.” IfsKnowsWantWritingBookFilmStuffNovelCraftsIndie FilmsWriting For Yourself Author:Thomas Lennon
“A lot of Chinese martial arts films were based on Chinese martial arts novels. And these novels created a world of putting history, calligraphy, and martial arts into one.” WorldArtFilmNovelChineseMartial ArtsCalligraphyArt Films Author:Donnie Yen