Storytellers Daniel Morden and Hamish Fyfe Headline UK Literary Conference Next Week

United Kingdom Literacy Association regional conference:

Time to Talk: Time to Write

Monday 24th September, Mason’s Arms, Cardiff

9.30am – 3.30pm

Speakers:

Daniel Morden: Internationally renowned storyteller and prize- winning author. Daniel works extensively in schools and has developed classroom resources to help teachers use narrative effectively.

Hamish Fyfe: Hamish Fyfe has worked as a teacher, actor, and researcher in a variety of contexts, before taking up his post as Chair of Arts in the Community at the University of Glamorgan.

His interests include digital storytelling with adults and children, an innovative way of exploring personal stories.

The speakers will be examining ways to engage children with narratives, both traditional and personal, and using oracy and digital technology to present these narratives.

This is a wonderful opportunity for quality CPD for all teachers interested in developing children’s self-esteem, emotional literacy, communication and presentation skills and use of new technologies across the primary phase.

Cost: UKLA members: £90 Non- members: £115

This includes lunch and refreshments.

School membership at £47.50 entitles two teachers to attend at member prices and the school will also receive three copies of Literacy, Literacy News and English 4-11 each year of membership. For parties of three or more special prices will also apply.

For further details please email jrharrett@beeb.net or ring Jacqui Harrett on 02920480442, 59 Egremont Road, Cardiff CF23 5LP. Numbers are limited so please book as soon as possible. Special rates for three or more attending from one school.

Emily Underwood

T: 01443 668631

E: efunderw@glam.ac.uk
http://www.glam.ac.uk/storytelling
George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries, ATRiuM, University of Glamorgan, Adam Street, Cardiff, CF24 2XF

Canolfan Adrodd Storïau George Ewart Evans

Ysgol Diwydiannau Creadigol a Diwylliannol Caerdydd, ATRiuM, Prifysgol Morgannwg, Stryd Adam, Caerdydd, CF24 2XF

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Why Do Many Small Nations 'Specialize' in Film Adaptations?

It has been estimated that an overwhelming percentage of Welsh films and television dramas are intentionally based upon other literary sources.

This overwhelming dependence upon literary adaptation is primarily from important Welsh literary or cultural sources. This suggests an attempt to ‘recall and recollect’ and to re-‘write the nation’, after a period of suppressed or neglected representations of Welsh-ness.

While Dave Berry’s book and other studies have attributed this Welsh dependence upon literary adaptation as ‘laziness’ (Berry 1994: 234), we see it as being related to issues of post-colonial ‘re-telling’ of a national story, or more related to the economics of production.



For example, Stephen Bayly directed Joni Jones (1982) as a well-received television series for S4C, an adaptation based upon the well-known children’s stories by R. Garallt Jones entitled Gwared y Gwirion or ‘Redemption of the Innocents’.

It is often the case in Wales, that directors will create a series which is actually suited to be converted into a feature film at a later date, should the funding and political will be present to effect the re-formatting.

Additionally, one of Wales's most famous sons is Andrew Davies, who is known around the world as the 'Prince of Adaptation'.

Andrew Wynford Davies (born September 20, 1936 in Rhiwbina, Cardiff, Wales) is a British screenwriter.

He is the creator of the children's Marmalade Atkins television series and A Very Peculiar Practice, and is also well known for his adaptations of classic works of literature, including the 1995 television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle and the 1998 adaptation of Vanity Fair.



Literary and stage adaptations have added clout with film production investors, who assume that a successful novel or stage play will naturally make a successful film.

Some screenwriters have been known to 'invent' a novel AFTER writing a film script, for purposes of marketing the film, and for raising venture capital.

In small nations, broadcasting drama department Commissioning Editors often opt for an adaptation. This satisfies several remits: nationalistic and cultural agendas are fulfilled, while it's assumed that an established audience exists for the new film or TV series.

My favorite book on film and literature in general is Tom Corrigan's 'Film & Literature' (1999, Prentic Hall Inc / Simon & Schuster).

Here's a pleasant Youtube tribute to Colin Firth in Pride & Prejudice:









'Adaptation: Studying Film and Literature' (Paperback) by John Desmond (Author), Peter Hawkes (Author) is concise and readable new text for courses in Film Adaptation or Film and Literature introduces students to the art of adapting works of literature for film.

'Adaptation' describes the interwoven histories of literature and film, presents key analytical approaches to adaptation, and provides an in-depth overview of adaptations of novels, short stories, plays, nonfiction, and animation.

The book concludes with an analysis of why adaptations sometimes fail.



mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!