Blog 4. Kaufman, Wilder (Diamond, too), and Mathison

So let's get all the obvious differences out of the way. A Boy's Life is more of a science fiction story. It's got aliens. The Apartment is a comedy set in New York City. It's got white-collar unfaithfuls. Adaptation is also a comedy, but about a struggling screenwriter. It's got orchids and Nicholas Cage (twice).

The screenplays are pretty different in style. A Boy's Life has a lot more to say about camera directions. It's pretty down-to-the-detail when it comes to where the camera is and how it's moving. Adaptation, on the other hand, doesn't have much camera direction as I thought it would, considering what we read was the final shooting script. In The Apartment, there really isn't any camera direction. The Apartment reads as smoothly as any novel. So that's camera direction and movement.

The scenes. The scenes for A Boy's Life and The Apartment are pretty together. Together in the sense that they are chronological and organized clearly. This is definitely not the case for the scene arrangement in Adaptation. Adaptation is very jumpy, and it is unclear as to where we are in terms of the timeline of the story. Some scenes seem to be in there just to illustrate what Kaufman's voiceovers are saying- like the whole thing about the interaction of flowers and insects.

What I find interesting, is that all three are in some way, a comedy; they all find ways to make the audience laugh. Although the way they accomplish this is very, very different.

Krystian Lorenzana

Questions.
- Do you think Adaptation done in a more linear way (like A Boy's Life or The Apartment) would be just as good (if not better than)?

- After reading 3 different scripts in terms of the amount of camera direction, do you think camera direction helps or hinders reading through a screenplay?