Adaption - Part One

Adapting a story to the screen is a tougher job than I ever imagined. Jeopardy came from a story of Rick’s that was a page and a half long and that was told from a third person point of view, (narration,) so for film, it had to be done a little differently and I ended up having to add four other characters and drag out scenes so the film would make the eight minute regulation running time for “short films.”

My script was pretty accurate to Rick’s story except for the normal paper to film adjustments. Dana Reed in his story wore Timberland’s and Eddie Bauer pull overs. In my film, it had to be more provocative and aesthetically pleasing so it was a tight solid color turtleneck and red trench coat. With the exception of that and two of the four flashbacks I rewrote last minute due to the tight shooting schedule, it was as close as I could make it. Well, now that the film is complete, it follows nothing like the actual story of Rick’s or the script I wrote that was close which may explain why you hear, “The movie was nearly as good as the book,” statements. I now will be less harsh on adaption because I know how things kind of steer off the original path without control whether good or bad. I plan to be more prepared next time around by learning and studying.

So I did a crash course in adaption. I went out and found a copy of Stephen King’s “Different Seasons” that has the novella, “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” in it. I also found a third or fourth draft of Darabont’s “The Shawshank Redemption,” script. It’s amazing the similarities yet the suttle adjustments or differences of the two.

**This may be one of the best Adapted from book to film that has ever been made.

Here are really the only differences and I would think a couple of these were to keep the story from being too complex on screen. Sort of the same for my situation with Jeopardy. (My Captain Odem to Darabont’s Byron Hadley is one of the added characters that make a huge difference in the adaption. )

NOVELLA VS. FILM

The Indian Normaden that shares Andy's cell for a period does not appear in the film.
2. The scene where Norton inspects Andy's cell for contraband without finding the rock hammer (and they quote scripture at each other) does not appear in the novel.
3. In the novel, the lead guards come and go. In the film, Byron Hadley is the lead guard until the very end.
4. Similarly, in the novel, when Andy comes to Shawshank, the warden is a man named Dunahy; he is replaced by a man named Stammas; who is himself replaced by Sam Norton. In the film, Norton is warden throughout.
5. In both the film and the novel, Warden Norton has embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars, but in the novel, Norton quietly resigns after Andy's escape whereas, in the film, when Andy escapes and makes Norton's crimes known, Norton commits suicide in his office rather than allow himself to be arrested.
6. Many of the cons, such as Heywood, Floyd, and "Fat Ass", were either not included or much less involved in the novel than they are in the movie.
7. The screening of Gilda never took place. Andy asked Red for the Rita Hayworth poster while they were watching a movie called The Lost Weekend.
8. In the book, Andy has posters of Jayne Mansfield, Linda Ronstadt, and Hazel Court in his cell at times. In the Film he only has posters of Rita Hayworth, Marylin Monroe and Raquel Welch.
9. The tarring of the roof occurred in 1950 and not 1949.
10. Red never becomes assistant librarian in the novel.
11. Brooks' threatening to cut the throat of another prisoner to avoid being paroled only appears in the film. In both the novel and the film, Brooks is paroled and leaves Shawshank. His suicide soon after leaving prison only occurs in the film.
12. Brooks tells Andy that he came to Shawshank in 1905. The novel says that he was put in prison "while Coolidge was president". Calvin Coolidge was in office as the President of the United States from 1923 to 1929.
13. In the novel, Andy sells off all his assets while still on trial. Together with a friend, he sets up a false identity and transfers all assets there. In the film, Andy himself sets up the false identity so that he can create accounts to launder money for the warden; Andy then drains these accounts upon his escape.
14. Andy's prison identity is changed from "81433-SHNK" to "37927"
15. In the novel, Tommy is transferred to a low-security prison, rather than being killed, in exchange for not talking.
16. In the novel, Tommy came to Shawshank in 1962, not 1965. His child was a three-year-old boy, not a baby girl as in the film.
17. In the novel it was not Red who informed Tommy about Glenn Quentin, it was another con named Charlie Lathrop.
18. Andy only spent twenty days in solitary instead of a full month. The scene where Norton visits him in "the hole" was not in the book.
19. The endings are slightly different. The novel ends with Red en route to find Andy in Mexico but not sure that he will, ending with the words "I hope." The movie shows Red finding Andy on the beach in Mexico.
20. In the novel, Andy comes to Shawshank Prison in 1948, not 1946. Andy's escape also occurs 9 years earlier, in 1966, whereas in the novel, Andy escaped in 1975.
21. In the book, Andy goes through two rock hammers while making his hole. He only uses one in the movie.
22. Andy had a small frame and wore gold rimmed spectacles in the novel, he didn't wear any glasses until late in the film.
23. In the novella Andy never gave Red a harmonica, instead he gave him polished rocks that he collected from the exercise yard.
24. The men's lengthy discussion about institutionalization was not in the novel. However, Red does mention a bit about this topic at one point.
25. The scene where the guard beats the new 'fish' so badly that he dies after being left in the infirmary over night never happened in the novel.
26. The 'record playing' incident never happened in the novel.
27. Jake was not a crow but a pigeon in the novel. What becomes of the bird after Brooks sets him free is uncertain in the movie, but in the book, he is found dead in the courtyard shortly after his release.
28. Red and his friends did not give a sack of rocks as a present to Andy in the novel.
29. Red was paroled after only thirty-eight years instead of forty.
30. The postcard received from where Andy crossed the United States–Mexico border was not from Fort Hancock, Texas but from another town in the state named "McNary".
31. The prison yard is never asphalted in the movie.
32. Every year in Shawshank, Andy buys a bottle of Jack Daniels before his birthday and Christmas. He drinks a few shots and gives it back to Red to pass it around the other inmates. In the movie Andy says he "gave up drinking."
33. Andy did not steal warden Norton's shoes and clothes in the novel, nor did he ask Heywood for a line of rope.
34. The famous line "Get busy living or get busy dying" was never spoken by Andy in the novel, though it does occur as part of Red's narration.

The point to this, is my next project is yet another short story of Rick’s but it’s different than Jeopardy. It has meat and is 10 pages long. In part B I’ll show you how I adapted it and then I’ll probably ask for suggestions because I suck at it. Frank Darabont here, he’s a genius at it. I want his master class or want to be his next intern.