Scott Delahunt" />
Psycho Drive-In logo
Search
  • PDI Press
    Featured
    • BETTY WHITE VS THE STUPID WORLD: The Movie

      Scott Delahunt
      January 17, 2022
      Fiction, PDI Press, PDI Press Writers
    Recent
    • BETTY WHITE VS THE STUPID WORLD: The Movie

      John E. Meredith
      January 17, 2022
    • Betty White Vs the Stupid World (Chapter Seven)

      John E. Meredith
      January 16, 2022
    • Betty White Vs the Stupid World (Chapter Six)

      John E. Meredith
      January 15, 2022
    • PDI Press Catalog
    • PDI Press Writers
      • Fiction
  • Columns A-D
    • A Fistful of Dollar Comics
    • ABCs of Horror
    • All Binge… No Purge
    • Anything Joes
    • Beautiful Creatures
    • Big Eyes Smart Mouth
    • Big Sleeps and Long Goodbyes
    • Cahiers du Horror
    • Dispatches From the Field
    • Drive-In Saturday
    • Dungeons & D-Listers
  • Columns F-P
    • The Final Girl
    • First Looks… Second Thoughts
    • The Flesh is Weak
    • Innocence and Experience
    • Lost in Translation
    • Page to Screen
    • Popcorn Cinema
    • Psycho Essentials: The ’80s!
  • Columns S-Z
    • Schlock & Awe
    • Shakespeare on Film
    • Shot for Shot
    • Sick Flix
    • Unnatural Selections
    • Versus
    • Video Word Made Flesh
    • We Got Lists
    • Women in Horror
    • The Xeno File
    • Zombies 101
  • Reviews
    Featured
    • The Marvels (2023)

      Scott Delahunt
      November 22, 2023
      Movies, Reviews
    Recent
    • The Marvels (2023)

      Nate Zoebl
      November 22, 2023
    • The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)

      Peterson Hill
      October 23, 2023
    • Heart of Stone (2023)

      Nate Zoebl
      August 18, 2023
    • Books
    • Comics
    • DVD/Blu-ray
    • Movies
    • TV
    • Series
  • Interviews
    Featured
    • Interview with Indie Horror Master, Chris Bickel

      Scott Delahunt
      July 13, 2018
      Interviews
    Recent
    • Interview with Indie Horror Master, Chris Bickel

      The Final Girl
      July 13, 2018
    • David Black: Carnies, Carnage, and the Creative Chaos of Darkness Visible

      Dan Lee
      March 7, 2017
    • Jaiden Kaine joins the Marvel Universe as new Luke Cage baddie, Zip

      Andre Lamar
      September 29, 2016
    • SDCC 2016 Interviews: The Cast and Creators of Batman: The Killing Joke

      Jason Sacks
      July 28, 2016
    • SDCC 2016 Interviews: The Cast and Creators of Syfy’s Van Helsing

      Dave Hearn, Paul Brian McCoy
      July 27, 2016
    • Wondercon Interview: The Cast of Damien

      Gary Richardson, Laura Akers
      April 16, 2016
  • News
    Featured
    • "PATER NOSTER AND THE MISSION OF LIGHT" UNLEASHES TERRIFYING UNDERGROUND HORROR - A PSYCHEDELIC CULT MOVIE EXPERIENCE COMING SOON!

      Scott Delahunt
      November 15, 2023
      Movies, News
    Recent
    • “PATER NOSTER AND THE MISSION OF LIGHT” UNLEASHES TERRIFYING UNDERGROUND HORROR – A PSYCHEDELIC CULT MOVIE EXPERIENCE COMING SOON!

      psychodr
      November 15, 2023
    • Breaking Down The Upcoming DC Studios Slate

      Paul Brian McCoy
      February 1, 2023
    • John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum arrives on Digital 8/23 and 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand 9/10

      psychodr
      July 30, 2019
    • Trailers
  • Psychos
  • Merchandise
Breaking
  • The Marvels (2023)
  • The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)
  • Heart of Stone (2023)
  • Obstacle Corpse (2022)
  • Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
  • Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
  • RSS
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Who We Be
  • Contact
  • PDI Press
    • PDI Press Catalog
    • PDI Press Writers
      • Fiction
  • Columns A-D
    • A Fistful of Dollar Comics
    • ABCs of Horror
    • All Binge… No Purge
    • Anything Joes
    • Beautiful Creatures
    • Big Eyes Smart Mouth
    • Big Sleeps and Long Goodbyes
    • Cahiers du Horror
    • Dispatches From the Field
    • Drive-In Saturday
    • Dungeons & D-Listers
  • Columns F-P
    • The Final Girl
    • First Looks… Second Thoughts
    • The Flesh is Weak
    • Innocence and Experience
    • Lost in Translation
    • Page to Screen
    • Popcorn Cinema
    • Psycho Essentials: The ’80s!
  • Columns S-Z
    • Schlock & Awe
    • Shakespeare on Film
    • Shot for Shot
    • Sick Flix
    • Unnatural Selections
    • Versus
    • Video Word Made Flesh
    • We Got Lists
    • Women in Horror
    • The Xeno File
    • Zombies 101
  • Reviews
    • Books
    • Comics
    • DVD/Blu-ray
    • Movies
    • TV
    • Series
  • Interviews
  • News
    • Trailers
  • Psychos
  • Merchandise
Home
Columns
Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation 180: Insights from Can-ConSF 2016

Scott Delahunt
September 30, 2016
Lost in Translation

Over the weekend of September 9-11, I was at Can-ConSF, a literary science-fiction and fantasy convention in Ottawa, Ontario. The con is small but brings both readers and writers together to discuss various topics. One of the panels was called “Adapting Literary Works to Television and Movies”, so, naturally, I had to go.

There were five panelists, representing different views of being adapted. Tanya Huff, one of the author guests of honour, had her Blood books* adapted as a TV series that can still appear on Canadian cable stations thanks to Canadian content requirements. Ian Rogers is a horror writer who has had stories optioned by Roy Lee, but nothing is going to pilot yet. Jay Odjick is the creator of Kagagi the Raven, a comic that he adapted as a cartoon that airs on APTN. Sam Morgan is a literary agent with the JABberwocky Literary Agency, and provided the insider view. Moderating was Violette Malan, a fantasy novelist.

can-consf-01

While there are some writers who either don’t want their works adapted or have had bad experiences and won’t go down that path again, for most, getting optioned is like winning the lottery, except the lottery has better odds. The money from being optioned isn’t that much, but if the adaptation is picked up, it can be comfortable. Tanya was able to pay off her mortgage thanks to Blood Ties going to air and still sees royalties coming in from the series.** But, while the money from adaptations may not be much, there is a boost in sales of the original work that comes immediately afterwards. Tanya saw a thirty percent increase in the sales of her Blood books right after the first episode aired. This boost, though, doesn’t necessarily carry over with comics. Jay didn’t see an increase and believes that movies may be too different from the comic to entice new readers.

Writers have little control over how a work gets adapted. Some writers may have more leverage; JK Rowling, thanks to the success of Harry Potter, managed to ensure that the movies remained as faithful as possible, but most writers don’t have that luxury. Stephen King treats adaptations of his works as entities separate from the originals. Changes will be made and the writer is low on the totem pole when it comes to decision making. The best thing to do in that case is to treat the adaptation like a grandchild; don’t complain about how they’re raised or you won’t see another grandchild ever. Tanya treats adaptations as fanfic that she’s getting paid for. She even wrote an episode of Blood Ties, so she wrote fanfic of her own work.***

kagigi-02

Kagagi the Raven is a little different. Jay tried shopping the adaptation around, looking for someone to pick it up. He and his partner wound up producing the series themselves. As a result, he had more initial control once APTN licensed the series from him. However, APTN doesn’t pay for the show until it’s done. Jay had to find a distributor to sell the show internationally. As a result, Jay is now beholden to network distributors and advertisers. However, Jay now has a producer credit and can now make pitches far more easily than when he was shopping Kagagi.

Each of the panelists had works optioned in different ways. Jay, as mentioned above, became a producer to turn his comic into a cartoon. With Tanya’s Blood Ties, the series had been optioned since the third book, with Kaleidoscope being the studio to take the adaptation to pilot and then to series. Kaleidoscope had read the books and loved them but, being Canadian, couldn’t pay as well as an American studio.

blood-ties-03

To make up for that, they let Tanya be involved with the show. With Ian, Roy Lee, who had adapted a number of Japanese horror movies including The Ring, had one of Ian’s stories recommended to him. Lee contacted Ian out of the blue to option the story and took a number of other ones that were related. Ian now has credit as a consulting producer even though the series hasn’t gone to pilot. Sam, the literary agent, often gets called to find out if the rights to a book are available. With True Blood, Alan Ball had bought the book prior to a dentist appointment, then read it afterwards, while recovering, and the rest is history. Sam also mentioned that production companies have people, book-to-film agents whose job it is to find works that could be adapted.

The big takeaway, at least from the writer’s view, is to know when to take credit. If the movie or series is a hit, take the credit as the creator. If the movie or series is a flop, blame Hollywood. “Eh, you know how it is in Hollywood.” This goes back to treating an adaptation as a grandchild; changes will be made. Knowing that changes happen and accepting that it’s beyond a writer’s control means sleeping easier, especially with option and royalty money coming in.

* Not to be confused with the Books of Blood by Clive Barker.
** Tanya recently received a $600 cheque thanks to Blood Ties being in the top ten shows in Pakistan.
*** Tanya also reports that most final drafts of scripts keep no more than five lines from the first. Her episode of Blood Ties managed to keep in six thanks to some actor improvisation that matched her early draft.


This article was originally published to Seventh Sanctum.

7S-Logo

Thanks to our friends at Seventh Sanctum for letting us share this content.

Seventh Sanctum is a partner in Crossroads Alpha along with Psycho Drive-In.

(Visited 66 times, 1 visits today)

Related

Blood TiesIan RogersJay OdjickKagagi the RavenLost in TranslationSam MorganScott DelahuntTanya Huff

Jaiden Kaine joins the Marvel Universe as new Luke Cage baddie, Zip
The Fear Revival (2016)

About The Author

monsterid
Scott Delahunt
Lost in Translation

By day, Scott Delahunt is an IT analyst, fixing problems and explaining operating systems for end users. By night, he takes his degree in Computer Science, his love of movies, his vast knowledge of tabletop gaming, his curiosity into how things work and becomes a geek!  Although he has nothing published professionally, Scott has written fanfiction, scripted an anime music video, play tested role-playing games, and applied his love of bad movies to Lost In Translation.  He has also helped put on an anime convention and organize bus trips to Anime North. In his spare time, he raises two cats to become Internet icons and maintains a personal blog, The Chaos Beast.

Related Posts

  • Lost in Translation 91: Veronica Mars

    Scott Delahunt
    March 29, 2014
  • Lost in Translation 249: Kingsman – The Secret Service

    Scott Delahunt
    April 6, 2018
RSSTwitterFacebookinstagramtumblr

Archives

Large_rectangle_336X280
All work on this site is Copyright © each individual writer.
  • PDI Press
    • PDI Press Catalog
    • PDI Press Writers
      • Fiction
  • Columns A-D
    • A Fistful of Dollar Comics
    • ABCs of Horror
    • All Binge… No Purge
    • Anything Joes
    • Beautiful Creatures
    • Big Eyes Smart Mouth
    • Big Sleeps and Long Goodbyes
    • Cahiers du Horror
    • Dispatches From the Field
    • Drive-In Saturday
    • Dungeons & D-Listers
  • Columns F-P
    • The Final Girl
    • First Looks… Second Thoughts
    • The Flesh is Weak
    • Innocence and Experience
    • Lost in Translation
    • Page to Screen
    • Popcorn Cinema
    • Psycho Essentials: The ’80s!
  • Columns S-Z
    • Schlock & Awe
    • Shakespeare on Film
    • Shot for Shot
    • Sick Flix
    • Unnatural Selections
    • Versus
    • Video Word Made Flesh
    • We Got Lists
    • Women in Horror
    • The Xeno File
    • Zombies 101
  • Reviews
    • Books
    • Comics
    • DVD/Blu-ray
    • Movies
    • TV
    • Series
  • Interviews
  • News
    • Trailers
  • Psychos
  • Merchandise