Sunday, May 07, 2006

Picture Me Rollin': The Movie

No one in Hollywood has optioned the film rights, but I just finished an intensive screenwriters’ lab in an effort to adapt Picture Me Rollin’ into a screenplay. The 4-day lab was sponsored by the National Association for Latino Independent Producers. I have until Labor Day to complete a first draft of the screenplay and then I’m off to Santa Monica for the second part of the workshop.
As you may know, a good adaptation is not a literal translation. While a book tells a story using as many words as necessary, a film tells a story using preferably no more than one hundred twenty minutes. Each medium has its advantages and restrictions so when you take a story originally told in one and tell it another, changes are not only desirable but necessary.

But as I plan how to adapt Picture Me Rollin’ into a screenplay, I want to start with a simple step: deciding which scenes from the novel must absolutely be in the screenplay. Well, maybe that’s not as easy as it sounds, but like I said, it’s a start. So I ask those of you who have read Picture Me Rollin’ which scenes do you think must absolutely be in the movie?

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