Adaptation With Other Media
Television is used as a medium for the visual presentation of fiction. In order to draw on an established audience, or simply to leverage the existing creativity of an author, television shows are sometimes based on novels or series of novels. The process of converting a print story is called adaptation. Producers, studios, or other intermediaries acquire the rights to produce shows based on a book with a contract known as an option; one might say "the studio optioned the book". Many popular novels are optioned, but only a tiny fraction of these ever materialize as an actual show; often, a producer who is interested in a particular show has to purchase an option from another producer who originally negotiated with the author. Rarely, other media are adapted for film, notably computer games.
The reverse process of adaptation also occurs. Shows may be translated into print novels as novelizations, where an author is contracted to write a prose version of the story line. Just as television series are a collection of episodes, if there is a plan to convert a series to print, that usually is done as a series of novels. A popular series like Star Trek has resulted in hundreds of novelizations over the years. The visual content of a film is an excellent resource for the development of computer strategy or action games. As well, a series, particularly one that has lasted several seasons, has a rich background of character and setting detail that can provide a strong background and an established market for a role-playing game. The most popular series and novels can result in adaptation in many different media.
Read more about this topic: Science Fiction On Television
Famous quotes containing the words adaptation and/or media:
“In youth the human body drew me and was the object of my secret and natural dreams. But body after body has taken away from me that sensual phosphorescence which my youth delighted in. Within me is no disturbing interplay now, but only the steady currents of adaptation and of sympathy.”
—Haniel Long (1888–1956)
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)