Correction--Stephen Kloves

[peacockharpy at yahoo.com]

--- In HPFGU-Movie at y..., caliburncy at y... wrote:
> This is a tough question, because it's very hard to separate what is 
> ultimately the result of Kloves and what may have been more the 
> result of someone else like Columbus or Heyman or the chief editor, 
> etc.

I got the feeling that Kloves' original script was much longer, and
that much was left on the cutting room floor -- this is just a guess
from the way the film was edited.

I thought I'd give a quickie lesson on writers, scripts and the film
process from a rank amateur who observes this game with interest from
the outside:

What the writer puts on paper is not necessarily what gets into the
film.  Actors may ad lib, and the director finds it appropriate, and
that goes in.  Or the director may look at a scene and think "I could
do this better" and rewrite it (or demand another rewrite from the
writer).

And then there's the cutting room.  We've all heard about scenes that
were supposed to be in the film but weren't included ("Ickle
firsties!").  Sometimes these are filmed and then trimmed away because
the flow of the movie demands it.

Kloves certainly had a difficult task, and I would say he'd done well
- despite the fact that I haven't seen the script.  Hagrid's refrain
"shouldn't have told you that" was an example of niftily taking an
aspect of Hagrid's character and bringing it front and center for a
visual audience.  And Kloves did preserve quite a lot of dialogue
directly from the book, where possible.  I thought that, given the
challenges and SO MUCH to put in a movie, he did a pretty good job --
I might have made some different choices (e.g., take out the Devil's
Snare, keep in the Potions task, since we've met Prof. Snape but not
Prof. Sprout!), but that would be my opinion over his.

For those who are interested, one of the most interesting lessons in
adaptive scriptwriting I've ever experienced is watching Emma Thompson
and Lindsay Doran's commentary on the DVD of _Sense and Sensibility_.
 (Also, reading Thompson's _Sense and Sensibility_ diary is a very
educational experience as well.)  Thompson talks about how difficult
it was to adapt the contents of the book, as well as what happened
when they filmed scenes, put them all together and then found that
some were not only potentially unnecessary, but stopped the natural
flow of the story.  They worked on paper, but not on film, and so were
dropped before the "final version."

Anyway.  My $.02 on scriptwriting vs. the final product, and I hope
someone finds it at least interesting.  :)

- Darice