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Adaptations (part 2) with Mark Grenside
246 Plays1 year ago
This week, Brook and Sarah are joined by film and television producer, author, and entrepreneur Mark Grenside to discuss some of the decisions that go into adapting a book. They discuss how music videos and streaming have impacted adaptations.
Discussed in order
Fall Out (2020) M.N. Grenside
The Detective (2005)
Lonsome Dove (1989)
Forrest Gump (1994)
Forrest Gump (1986) Winston Groom
The Godfather (1972)
Chinatown (1974)
The Conversation (1974)
All About Eve (1950)
Columbo (1971-2003)
Poker Face (2023)
Death on the Nile (1978)
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
The Offer (2022) Paramount+
Fraggle Rock (1983-1987)
Where to find Mark Grenside
Mark's author website mngrenside.com
For more information
Instagram: @cluedinmystery
Contact us: hello@cluedinmystery.com
Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
Transcript
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Transcript
Introduction: Hosts and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke. And we both love mystery. Hi Brooke. Hi Sarah. Good morning. How are you this morning? I'm great and I'm so excited about one of our special interview episodes. This one is going to be great.
00:00:20
Speaker
Today we're going to be talking with Mark Greenside, and I'll just read his bio to get everyone acquainted with him. Mark was born and raised in London, began his working career straight out of school at Lloyd's of London, specializing in kidnap, ransom, and extortion insurance. At 25, it was time for a career change and to dump the suit and tie. So he started his media career working for Jim Henson and the Muppets. From that moment on, he has been involved in entertainment in nearly every aspect of it.
00:00:50
Speaker
He went on to create and produce several television series and miniseries. At the same time, he started a music management company launching million-seller artist Nina Cherry. In 2004, he arranged the US $250 million buyout of the Hallmark Channel International, which was then successfully sold to NBC.
00:01:13
Speaker
he returned to producing a number of movies and miniseries. He has recently morphed into a serial entrepreneur and is now a co-founder of seed-to-shelf CBD producer Dragonfly Biosciences and a co-founder in two separate digital companies.
00:01:31
Speaker
In addition to his love of cooking, an unhealthy amount of time and money is lavished on a collection of classic cars and he has raced all over the world. He enjoys risk and is parachuted in New Zealand, scuba-dived in the Pacific, hang glided in the Himalayas, and even toboggan down the Cresta Run. In nearly every case chasing after his wife, who he says is utterly fearless.
00:01:57
Speaker
He is now writing the follow-up to Fallout, entitled The Bastion. In addition, he writes a humorous blog with subscribers in over 40 countries, and you can find that at AndAnotherThing.com. Mark has two grown sons, two daughters-in-law, three grandchildren. He lives in Malta with his wife and two French bulldogs. Welcome, Mark. We are just thrilled to have you on the show. Thank you.
00:02:25
Speaker
Thank you for doing that. Sorry it was a bit of a mouthful for you. But I'm sure we left out lots of things that I've been up
Challenges in Book-to-Film Adaptation
00:02:32
Speaker
to. But anyway, I'm delighted to talk to you. And yeah, I've had a fairly varied career. I've argued with a lot of screenwriters over the years. And I now feel very guilty about it having started writing myself and knowing how difficult it is. But I've
00:02:51
Speaker
I've done a lot of adaptations of books to the screen, so I've seen both sides of the equation. That's a great place for us to start, Mark. What goes into the decision to adapt a book?
00:03:07
Speaker
You have to, there are a number of really basic things you have to decide. First of all, you have to decide who your audience is. And I know you were saying in a podcast I listened to earlier that, you know, if you have a best seller, it's sometimes pre-sold. Yes and no, because the audiences are not necessarily the same.
00:03:27
Speaker
The next thing is the content. The number of books requiring massive special effects. So if you're talking about science fiction or period drama battle scenes, you know, there's a limited number of those that get transferred into film anyway, just because of the statistics of doing it.
00:03:50
Speaker
So
Streaming Series vs Movies for Adaptations: Which is Better?
00:03:51
Speaker
you have to know who your audience is and you have to know what the best format is. I mean, when I started making miniseries, most of them for television, I did Arthur Haley, The Detective, but I also was involved in Lonesome Dove. Now, that was the first miniseries that wasn't a traditional miniseries of two times 90. It was a six episode show and it was the precursor of what's really now happening in the streaming business. Now,
00:04:21
Speaker
From my point of view, it is far easier and far more effective to transfer a book into a stream series of episodes than it is a movie. And I'm prepared to stick my neck out and make a bet that the book about Elizabeth Holmes
00:04:42
Speaker
was transferred both into a miniseries for Disney and it is now being shot as a movie with Jennifer Lawrence as a full movie. I don't know because I haven't read the script but I guarantee you the TV miniseries by Disney will tell the story better than the movie because you can't do it until now. So if I was looking at a project now
00:05:09
Speaker
Whereas originally I would always look, you know, and suck my teeth and go, how on earth do I do this in three hours? Now you have the luxury of doing eight, 10, 12 hours, depending on which platform you're on. And that's really the best place for a book to go. I mean, again, I was listening to you the other day, you know, a lot of adaptations of books,
Elements of Adaptation: Casting, Budget, and Locations
00:05:33
Speaker
have not been satisfactory, mainly because it's so difficult to compress. But it's not always the case. Some books are not as good as the movies. I would cite Forrest Gump as the movie is better than the film in my view. So there's a lot of elements that come into play and then, you know, then there's some really basic stuff like, you know, who's going to be in it?
00:06:03
Speaker
Are there, I'm afraid to talk about money, but are there tax deals where you could possibly shoot it? Because that's very important if you're a producer. How are you going to do that? Do you attach a director to it? Do you attach talent to it, the writer? I mean, there's so many elements that make up what you decide as a book. I mean, let me tell you, if Tom Cruise walked through the door saying he wants to make Mickey Mouse's live action,
00:06:32
Speaker
He's got a deal, but that doesn't happen very well. Sorry, OK. That answered the question a bit. Yeah, no, no, that was great.
Author's Role in Adaptation: Should They Be Involved?
00:06:45
Speaker
So when you're deciding or looking at a book to adapt, do you want to have the author involved in that adaptation? Or would you prefer to just have the author step away? My first book, Foul A,
00:07:02
Speaker
incorporates in it a script because the book is a mystery about a screenplay that has clues hidden in it as to what happened on a movie that stopped shooting 25 years before. And I can tell you the discipline between writing a screenplay and writing a novel are
00:07:24
Speaker
miles apart. On the whole, riders, and that isn't always the case. You were talking about Anthony Horowitz a while ago. You know, Anthony does both. He writes books and he writes screenplays and he's bloody good at both. You know, Mario Puzo wrote along with Coppola a fantastic screenplay for The Godfather. But on the whole,
00:07:50
Speaker
it's better to get a screenwriter to adapt a book than the actual writer, not least, because as I said, if you're having to compress it, you got to drown a few babies. And it's much easier to drown the babies if they're not your babies, if you see a screenwriter is much more cold hearted, I suppose is how it's best described. And you need someone to do that with a book because even even on a
00:08:18
Speaker
a stream thing, you can't probably fit everything in. I mean, to read a book takes on average, what, 12 hours, 13 hours. And even when you do that, you're short handing what you're looking at, you see what I mean? So even at eight to 10 hours, you're having to compress it down. I can think of a couple of examples of
00:08:37
Speaker
movies that I've watched that are based on books, where there are scenes that didn't appear in the book. And is that, you know, again, because the screenwriters or has recognized that there's something that that needs needs this story, but there's something else that the story needs. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think you have to understand or you have to grasp that screenwriting is a very different discipline from
00:09:08
Speaker
storytelling in a novel. There are some real basics. I mean, most screenwriters enter a scene as late as possible. I try to do that when I write, but authors on the other hand don't. They'll build up to a scene, screenwriter will go right in at the tail end of the scene. The other thing you have to remember as a screenwriter is only dealing with words.
Screenwriting Techniques vs Novel Writing
00:09:34
Speaker
There's no description.
00:09:36
Speaker
no emotional description. So he has to develop character by action. So I used this the other day, but it's such a good example. If you ever watched Chinatown, okay, it was Robert Towne wrote the screenplay. But there's a section in there where Faye Dunaway is in the car with Jack Nicholson and she's describing to him the fact that Noah
00:10:03
Speaker
her John Huston character is not only her father but the father of her child and this is something that Jack Nicholson has sort of guessed and doesn't want to hear. Now what Robert Towne makes him do is to take out a cigarette and he's trying to light the cigarette and he can't get the goddamn cigarette lighter to work. That action by Robert Towne explains all the turmoil that's going in in Jack Nicholson's character
00:10:33
Speaker
Now that is a screenwriter, okay, it wasn't a book, but that's a screenwriter who has taken action to show character. And that is a huge difference between what you can write in a book, because you can write obviously emotion and third party or all sorts of things. So when screenwriters interject or they inject or create scenes or do things,
00:11:01
Speaker
They're doing that because they need a method visually, usually to express an emotion or something that's going on. I mean, when you're writing a screenplay, they're called lanterns. You have lanterns in a scene that are specifically there to throw light on.
00:11:21
Speaker
the development of the story but mainly the character and that's why it's so different and you know it's a very pompous of me to say this and I don't mean to because I'm not saying that I'm brilliant at it either but one of the mistakes often that when you start writing that you make is you write dialogue never write dialogue.
00:11:42
Speaker
always say it because people overwrite dialogue. We never use any of the, you know, I don't know how many gabillion words there are in English, but we use like 5% of them when we're actually talking. And people make that mistake. Screenwriters understand that. They understand dialogue is disjointed. You know, a lot of people when they write, it's linear. It's somebody says this, and somebody says that, and somebody says this, and somebody says that. Great screen dialogue goes off at tangents.
00:12:12
Speaker
Someone will say, you know, it's cold today. And then somebody else will say, I was talking to the milk. You know what I mean? It's just, and that's how that's how it works. And so in defense of screenwriters who adapt books, it's a different discipline. It's a different view through the prison.
00:12:32
Speaker
And if they're good at it, they enhance the story, even if it's not quite along the same lines as was written in the book, because you just can't translate that. Does that make sense?
00:12:45
Speaker
I think that your experience as a screenwriter, it can happen in reverse as well, I think, Mark, because you were talking about having to build characters through action. And I feel like now as an author, your work does that a lot. So you're sort of using that trick, or it's not a trick, but
00:13:05
Speaker
skill to then inform the way that you write your fiction. And we do see a lot of action and things as a way to describe character. Yeah, I do. That's nice of you to say so. But you're right. And it's a different way. It's a slightly different way of writing. I mean, again, I can only speak now.
00:13:27
Speaker
scripts I could speak with some sort of authority because I've worked with so many writers. But when you're writing a book, I actually write quite filmically. If you're reading full-a, it actually rolls out as if you're watching a movie, hopefully, rather than
00:13:51
Speaker
a more esoteric maybe or a slightly less, how should I say, well-written novel. I'm not in the business of that. I'm in the business of giving someone a thrill ride that's fun, that's interesting, well-developed characters, hopefully, but in a style that they're more used to because we live in an age of visual medium.
00:14:19
Speaker
And if you write like a visual medium, hopefully you'll attract more readers. I mean, you know, I can remember when I was producing, when you mentioned Anna Cherry, there was a very famous video producer called John Baptiste Mondino. And John Baptiste Mondino was the first person to understand visual shorthand, which he put into videos. And the effect of that
00:14:49
Speaker
is dramatic if you watched how film shorthand has changed. So movies like The Conversation, The Godfather, All About Eve, they have a different visual style to them. All movies up until the mid-70s, early 80s have a different pace and a different pattern to them than post that. And funnily enough, that was down to
00:15:17
Speaker
People think it's to do with video games. It's not. It was actually music video changed people's ability to grasp very quickly visual science of what's happening. And that's why, in my view, that's why so many films cutting and pacing changed from, you know, video kill the radio star, but it also killed old-fashioned filmmaking.
Influence of Music Videos on Visual Storytelling
00:15:44
Speaker
And that timing is exactly right. And those are mini movies, aren't they? They're just small stories that we get in two or three minutes. So that's fascinating. I had never put that together. You've got to be old and smelly like me to have seen the change. But it's quite extraordinary, although sometimes there's reaction against it.
00:16:14
Speaker
If you look at Colombo, one of the fascinating things about Colombo is the last scenes when he's doing his and another thing and everything else. I don't know how many episodes they did, I think 70 or something, but 90% of those are one take. You watch them. Some of them are as long as eight minutes. God knows how they managed to do that. It must have driven the directors.
00:16:42
Speaker
absolutely crackers when they did it. But it's a fascinating reversal of how we now do denimance in movies. But those Colombo shows are one shot and it's quite interesting because if you look at Poker Face, I don't know if you've seen it, which is really an homage as a series to Colombo, it's the same format. It starts off with the crime
00:17:12
Speaker
So you know exactly who did it and you're watching, in this case, a woman work out how it's done. But the pacing, the style, even the print, screen print is a copy of Colombo's screen print. And it's very interesting because I'd have thought it was going to die as a show, but I quite enjoy it.
00:17:37
Speaker
but it's completely changing everything around again. It's gone back to a different pacing. So it's not that it doesn't work. You just, you know, sometimes you need someone clever enough to take the risk and try it. I haven't seen poker face, but I will. Give it a try. It really is. And it's the same idea. They've got a huge guest star. Do you know what I mean? It's the whole feel to it. They're not 90 minutes long. They're only 45.
00:18:06
Speaker
But it's an interesting show. Very interesting show. Well, I was going to ask, because you talked about music videos changing, being such a fundamental shift in what viewers saw in television and movies.
Impact of Short Video Content on Traditional Media
00:18:22
Speaker
And I wonder if TikTok and Instagram reels that really short 10-second, 30-second video, if there's going to be any impact in terms of what viewers will watch.
00:18:35
Speaker
I'm sure you're right. For my sins, I have to do little videos on TikTok like all authors do all the time. I'm sure they will have an impact. What I think we're missing at the moment is that far too many TV shows are being shot
00:19:03
Speaker
too filmically. And what I mean by that is the lack of clear lighting on TV drives me up the wall. And that is on the whole ego from the DOP and the director to try and get this ambience as if you were watching it on the screen. And you feel like slapping them all and say, listen, 50% of your audience don't even watch it on a TV. They watch it on a laptop or they watch it on a telephone.
00:19:32
Speaker
And, you know, greatest respect to Netflix and everything, but House of Dragons ratings have fallen off a cliff. And part of that reason is because it's too bloody dark.
00:19:44
Speaker
And I find that weird because at the same time as you're saying short clips and everything else on TikTok, you're absolutely right. They're going to have a fundamental effect on our visual shorthand when we see drama or whatever it is. At the same time, there's still a legacy of all-time filmmaking creeping into
00:20:08
Speaker
You know, broad stream drama. You know, I'm not talking about TikTok. I'm talking about stuff you see on Amazon and Amazon Prime and the Netflix. But yeah, you're absolutely right. It will. And it will be another shorthand that my generation won't understand. I mean, it's kind of like the shorthand that you get on WhatsApp and messaging and everything else, right?
00:20:31
Speaker
I still can't understand what the abbreviations are, but that generation do, and it will be the same thing visually, I think, as it moves forward. But what do I know?
00:20:42
Speaker
Well, and I wonder if that will translate into books, right? Like, I don't know if there's a shift in what authors were writing, you know, sort of pre-music videos, post-music videos.
Modern Writing Styles: Influenced by Visual Media
00:20:58
Speaker
You just think about how authors and all creators kind of borrow from everybody else who's creating at the time. And I wonder if we're going to see any of that reflected in what's being written.
00:21:10
Speaker
Look, I mean, you know, I read like everybody else, but I'm not having up my head in the book 24 hours a day. Modern writing. OK. For me, probably. Started in the fifties with Raymond Chandler.
00:21:37
Speaker
He was the first one to actually cut down the length of his sentences, very descriptive, but in a very concise format. And from him has grown now a generation of writers who you can definitely see our 21st century
00:21:59
Speaker
writers, not everybody, you know, if anybody's watching this and wants to scream and yell at me, they're entitled to I'm not talking about everybody. But in general, I have found that sentences are shorter. The use of adjectives has been reduced. As I said, this idea of coming into a scene in a book late has grown up
00:22:28
Speaker
as opposed to setting up scenes, those are all definitely, they're definitely legacies from a visual medium. No, no, I mean, I was listening to the one where you were talking about Anthony Horowitz, we said before we came on air, I was at school with Anthony, I know Anthony very well.
00:22:43
Speaker
I was actually a producer that gave him the first series on television so that he could give up working for an advertising agency. So I know Anthony quite well. You were talking also about adaptations of Agatha Christie and you were talking about the Branner one. I think you have to take it in context because Branner is remaking stuff that was already
00:23:07
Speaker
luxuriously remade in the 80s with Ustinov. So he couldn't go the big casting route. That's my USP. He hacked to change them. He hacked to adapt them.
00:23:25
Speaker
I on a personal level i find christie's work much better the closer it sticks to the source and i think you know paul browner i think it's unfair that you got some of the bread so you did because i think within the confines of what he could do he had to.
00:23:43
Speaker
He didn't have any choice. He couldn't really stick source material, because everybody will say, well, I've seen that. I saw that with Peter Eustonoff and David Niven in Death on the Nile, or I saw it with, goodness me, what's the name of the guy from Millers Crossing? Alec Finney in Murder on the Orient Express, you know what I mean? I don't think that was quite fair. But yeah, I mean,
Streaming Platforms: The Ideal Medium for Adaptations?
00:24:10
Speaker
Book adaptations are, in my mind, best now left to the streaming companies. Very, very few before that have really succeeded. Or they've been incredibly long. I mean, Harrison Ford, when he was doing the, what were all those thrillers? Oh, the Jack Ryan ones, the Tom Clancy ones? Yes, the Jack Ryan ones. At the time, they were incredibly long movies. They were two hours, 40 minutes.
00:24:40
Speaker
OK, and they were they were pretty good to do that in those times. But at that time, they were ridiculously long movies. I mean, the one thing I would advise your listeners is they get a chance because I know Al Ruddy quite well. Do watch The Offer, which is the story, the drama behind The Godfather. It is a a brilliant
00:25:08
Speaker
outline of what being a producer is all about. B, it's a brilliant example of moving from writer to screenwriter and what you have to compromise to do that and see it's a great story and everything else. But it's the best thing I've ever seen about Hollywood, hands down,
00:25:33
Speaker
It's just fantastic. So on Paramount Plus, not that I'm a big, you know, I'm not bigging up Paramount, but it's just wonderful.
Recommendations and Where to Find More About Mark
00:25:44
Speaker
And I cannot encourage anybody enough who wants to be involved in screenwriting as well as writing thrillers to get adapted to watch the offer.
00:25:53
Speaker
That's fantastic. Thank you. So, Mark, where can our listeners find you? Well, I have my own website, mngrensite.com. My books are available on Amazon. In some places, they're in shops. In Western Canada, Vancouver, you can buy Fallout. My next book, The Bastion, some of it is actually set in Vancouver and Point Roberts and the Aleutian Islands.
00:26:18
Speaker
My I have a blog it's not weekly, but it's sort of Two to three times a month called and another thing comm which is more fun and observations That's in 40 countries. I think now and and another thing comm is up there I have a page on IMDB obviously the international movie database and
00:26:45
Speaker
But yeah, you know, and I pop up, I get very kindly invited like yourselves onto these kind of shows. I just did one for the crime writers of Canada last week, which was very kind of them to ask me as I'm a limey. But but I have an affinity to Canada. I mean, Fraggle Rock,
00:27:10
Speaker
was shot at Glen Warren Studios in Toronto. I have fond memories of Toronto and Vancouver I've shot there as well over the years. Thank you so much for joining us, Mark. It was an absolute pleasure to speak with you today. Well, it was very kind of you to invite me. I'm sorry if I talk too much, but I suppose that's what you want. And anytime you want to do it again, I'm happy to do it. I'm sorry to have got you up so early in the morning.
00:27:40
Speaker
Um, um, but it's, it's, it's getting late here. Enjoy your days. Thank you for joining us today on clued in mystery. I'm Brooke and I'm Sarah, and we both love mystery.
00:27:52
Speaker
Clued In Mystery is produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers at Silvermansound.com. Visit us online at CluedInMystery.com or social media at Clued In Mystery. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or telling your friends.