Thanks to support from the MEDIA programme of the European Union, for the past four years la Poudrière has been offering training in literary adaptation to European animation students and young professionals.
The training programme is a module of 11 weeks which concentrates on scriptwriting and adapting children's books. It also includes a week at the International Animated Film Festival and Market in Annecy, which is the perfect occasion to measure the diversity of the latest international productions and meet up with great names working in the film and audiovisual animation industry and related sectors.
The aim of the course is to confront students with the practicalities of professional life by leaning on the ties established with publishers of children's literature enabling them to choose from a collection of some thirty books.
Participants work in groups of 2 or 3 and the adaptation is divided into two tasks: development of a concept for a TV series and screenplay writing for a TV special, both of which are similar from the point of view of writing, directing and methodology.
To begin with, each group works on developing a concept for a TV series taken from the works for children available. These books have been short-listed because of their strong graphic quality and a story that is sufficiently simple so as not to add a complicated dimension to an already difficult exercise. In addition to writing the script (dialogue and mini literary bible), the project also involves storytelling skills, cutting, tempo and the choice of graphic style, while still respecting the literary and graphic aspects of the chosen book.
Secondly, each group works on writing a screenplay for a TV special of 13 minutes, adapted from a children's book. Contrary to the previous exercise, where students have to take the graphic element into account, this exercise is centred on the telling of the story and its structure as the books chosen are not illustrated. This allows students to get involved in the writing process with a film of 13 minutes in mind, the standard format for television, together with the 26 minutes.
At the end of these two exercises, students present their projects to a jury of industry professionals (authors and publishers of children's books, scriptwriters, filmmakers and producers) who assess the interest and feasibility of each project (15-minute pitch for the TV series presentation and a public reading of the screenplay for the TV special).
