I meant to do this post yesterday but I dunno things have just been "interesting" at home and well I've been occupied but I haven't forgotten what is expected for this brief. It's been on my mind constantly while I have been dealing with other stuff. Suffice to say I will broadly go over where my thoughts have taken me for this unit. People are already aware that I have chosen the book "Drive" by James Sallis to work my adaptation on. Of course I have had some internal battles with what adaptation means for this brief but through discussion with Alan I have a fairly good idea what is expected of me, and where the limits are.
For those of you that do not know the aspect I am adapting is Drive's underpinning - "a driver who drives during the day as a stuntman and at night as a getaway driver". For this I chose to adapt the driver into 3 games models ("the day car" - stuntman, "the night car", getaway driver and of course the driver himself). Through suggestions within the pitch Alan advised me to consider sending the period further back then previously suggested in my pre-pitch document (from 1970s to the 1930s).
One of the things I found myself doing earlier on was trying to pull ideas from the "double life" theme but through discussion with Alan found they were less preferable and I assume less like an adaptation of a theme (I.e. I cannot change too much or undo the dangerous day vs night jobs - as they are the theme I have chosen).
The second asset is the "Driver" a man who lives the double life of "day" fame and "night" crime. In his case I just need a quiet professional who wears 1930s attire, the real fun will be with his facial features and true identity. The third and final games model will be the night car (which in the 1980s book is described as a "10 year old dodge"). This will be more of a beaten second hand car lot rust bucket - of course in a 1930s alternate.
Factor #1 (shown above) was my initial breakdown of "the double life" I ended up not using this after my discussion with Alan as I was trying to find more intriguing ways to show the driver as a kind of split personality instead of a job. I mentioned a few of these things to Alan but none of them drove further then the idea of "the second job", as defined by the text. I just gathered that I couldn't change the theme too much from the original text (making the second job be the sole choice). Still all the same I thought it was worth showing that I had worked on alternate ideas, just trying to expand the theme past the text. In short Factor 1 was originally the base to compare with Factor 2.
Factor #2 (shown above) was what I compared to factor 1 and that was year, during my research I found that the 1930s was the great depression. This was ideal for the setting, I couldn't think of a better reason for a person to have 2 jobs (not that It would be easy to find 2 jobs in the great depression - still it shows he must be good at what he does). The day job may not be earning the driver as much as he needs so he does the night job to acquire more money. The 1920s was another period I was considering as it was the birth of the radio but what I didn't realise was the car radio wasn't around until 1929. I really wanted a radio theme to run through this unit.
The image above shows the combination of the two, I did this mainly for my own piece of mind just so I didn't have to keep flipping around. Again the double identity themes was dropped after my discussion with Alan, I probably should have posted this up sooner on my blog just so he could have given me the Intel sooner... oh well its my bad. Still I liked some of the ideas these double life themes suggested, if it wasn't an adaptation Unit I probably would be taking this in a completely different direction. Still it was through favourable choice that Alan suggested a 1930s stuntman who doubles as a bank robber, if anything to keep it close to the original text... making the adaptation more prominent.
The idea sheet was some active thought when considering everything together and trying to add a short narrative. What I like to consider a "speed pitch" when someone asks you to describe something quick and fast... like a synopsis but shorter. Again this was before I had the discussion with Alan so a lot of this is themed as the "double life". I am posting this just to show that I did think about this, throughout my creative Journey on this Unit. I am glad it has been corrected but despite Alan's scepticism I did keep one or two from this sheet and move them forward to my final thoughts. I ended up settling on what I knew worked but I did like the taxi driver angle, I think cabs can be dangerous, whose to say who's getting into your cab... and he could double as a getaway driver (what blends into the background better then a 1930s cab). Oh well.
So to conclude I ended up sticking with the second job from my factor #1 graph based on "double life" mainly because it keeps it closer to the original text of "Drive". Alan suggested the 1930s during the pre-pitch and I concur (factor #2) mainly because the settings of the 1970s and 80s are not far apart - in order to truly "adapt" I have to go to a time completely out of character to the original text of "Drive". I found the concise element to be the "night" - getaway driver when considering dangerous jobs, these can be located back in the 1930s, the "day" had me considering 4 different ideas (shown above) but Alan still suggested I stick with a 1930s stuntman. I think this is mainly to once again keep it close to the original text. Still all the same I thought I would offer alternates.
My next task for this unit is to investigate 1930s cars and pick the opposing "day" and "night" 1970s alternates suggested by the text. The driver will be wearing 1930s apparel and will be a fierce but respected customer. I like the idea of a classic 1930s hat as shown in the private detective picture but I'm not 100% there. Alan suggested that I look at 1930s comics as it is when Noir was born so I will be doing that when I consider my visual research post (on its way very soon). I have opted to keep the theme of these 3D models very comic book and whatever I can do to attain the old school look I will work at.
Well, that's this post, I will be back with more shortly.
Take it easy!
xXStItChXx
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