Visible – Adaptation

Fey’s chapter on managerial style, ” A Childhood Dream, Realized,” explicitly expressed Calvino’s quality of Visibility. It is a series of quotes from Lorne Michaels, one of which reads “Television is a visual medium.” Although he was talking about how you should look your best if you’re on TV, for me it harkened back to screenwriting. Two quotes later, Lorne comments on how style should always dictate the writing (discussed in my Experience post). These things seem contradictory but after reading Krevolin’s How to Adapt Anything Into A Screenplay, I think I have a better understanding of what he means.

That being said, the way that this chapter is written is in a serious of anecdotes which give managerial advice. I think that if I were to adapt this section into a screenplay it would likely be included in Act II. As Krevolin explains, Act II is the longest act and it allows the viewer to explore the characters and the relationships. I think that Fey’s relationship with Lorne Michaels is really significant because he gives her the tools for her success. I also think it is important because throughout the memoir I felt there was a strong theme of a strong male mentor relationship with Tina and her father, Alec Baldwin (star of 30 Rock and everything awesome), and Lorne Michaels. I think her father taught her everything she needed to know about being a human, Baldwin taught her everything she needed to know about being a actor, and Lorne taught her everything she needed to know about directing and writing.

Exact – Adaptation

For my screenplay adaptation, I would definitely want to include this exchange between Tina Fey and her father. Fey was obviously influenced greatly by her father as she dedicated an entire chapter in the book to him. Therefore, I think it is necessary for the character development of Tina to include a large section on the fear and respect that he instilled in her. As her parent, Fey says that her father gave her the “gift of anxiety.” Although she always felt loved, she knew that she was not above the law. I think it is important to include this because of the cyclical motif of parenting. Fey mentions her father’s influence very soon in the book, and she also dedicates the last chapter of her book to her daughter.

Although I found many interesting anecdotes of Tina’s early life, I think the scenes of her father are the only ones that I would include. I spent a long time in one of my emails discussing the time when Tina visited her cousins and made some realizations about female beauty. However, Krevolin’s advice would be that if it doesn’t move the story forward, it shouldn’t be included.

Quick – Adaptation

This part of the film I would want to be the most visually stimulating. As Krevolin notes, when a novelist writes dialogue he uses it to advance the story – we must be able to transfer this to the visual. I think that the sequence of events that branches off in Fey’s life during and after her stay at the Second City would be the most visually stimulating.

It is during this time that Tina’s character fully becomes developed. She is getting used to her own style of comedy and is trying to fit in with her group of oddball peers. At the same time, she faces small struggles like being a minority as a female and struggling to afford her improv classes. I imagine this part of the film to be all about the laughs she shares with her friends and the performances they put on.

I expect that at this point in the film I would have to adopt Krevolin’s motto of “you owe nothing to the source material.” It would be necessary to fill up this space with fictitious performances and relationships and travel. However, it would help progress the story forward into Tina’s next stepping stone at SNL. Although the small anecdotes are good, I would have the burden of making the story better. I imagine that this part of the film would be chronological and would be composed of a lot of quick cuts to convey the feeling of story advancement.