Monday, April 30, 2012
Hunger Games Trailer
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Post 4: Adapting the Hunger Games
Hello to all my fans! I’m back again with some more mind-boggling thoughts!
Would the Hunger Games be a hard film to make? Well, there would be many challenges. A challenge a filmmaker might have into making the Hunger Games into a movie is the fact that the whole setting is in the future. All the buildings in the Capitol have to be created in a futuristic style and District 12 has to have a village-type feel to it. Also, a setting for the arena would have to be found. Another obstacle is that a lot of the actors of the main characters would have to go through training to be able to portray the skills of their characters. All the different technologies of the futuristic world of Panem would also have to be shown.
However, this movie might be easier than some other books to create, based on the fact that there is a lot of action that wouldn’t be too hard to recreate on the screen. I do admit that, especially in the arena, there is a lack of dialogue that would make the scenes become boring, so that is another thing the screenwriters would have to pay attention to.
Some scenes that I believe are essential to the book (that cannot be cut out of the movie) are:
· Katniss offering herself as tribute instead of Prim and Peeta is chosen
· Peeta declaring his love for Katniss during the interviews
· Katniss’ and Peeta’s suicide threat at the end of the Hunger Games
· Katniss telling Peeta that she doesn’t love him
This last scene (as I have heard from friends who saw the movie) was cut out of the movie, leaving the movie with a totally different mood at the end. I have not seen the movie myself, so I am not able to pass any judgments, but I believe they cut that scene out because they will not be making another movie. That’s just my guess.
Another scene (or scenes you could say) that I heard was cut out of the movie was the relationship Peeta and Katniss carried throughout their stay in the cave. I don’t think that was a good idea on the filmmaker’s part because to many, many fans, that was the best part of the book!! Tsk tsk.
If I absolutely had to cut two things from the book, it would probably be Katniss’ relationship with her father, and how Peeta’s father gave cookies to Katniss before she left for the Hunger Games. I feel like both scenes wouldn’t transition so well into the movie and they might just take up necessary space.
Although I have finished the Hunger Games, I have not seen the movie yet, and looking forward to doing that soon and evaluating if it does justice to the book! Goodbye for now!
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Book 1 Project
Hello ladies and
gentlemen! My name is Mehak Kalra, and today I’m going to help you all make a
lot of money! How? By advertising our book in a way that will gain a wider
audience in a fun and memorable way!
We’re all on the same
team here, Team John Dies at the End. Great
book, am I right? Now I’ve got here 2 fantabulous ideas that are going to help
us make the big bucks.
Idea
1
My first idea is that
we sell a pair of glasses with the book. Not just ordinary glasses, oh no!
These glasses would be fitted with special lenses that, when worn, would show
the wearer a series of monsters or supernatural images. This would duplicate
the images and unworldly creatures that John and Dave see in the book. However,
we’d have to put a cautionary warning on them, don’t we? *chuckles*
For example, the
wearers would see a monster like Dave and John saw on page 16 of the novel,
“The man-shaped arrangement of meat rose up, as if functioned as one body. It
pushed itself up on two arms made of game hens and country bacon, planting two
hands with sausage-link fingers on the floor…it stood fully upright, looking
like the mascot for a butcher shop…”
The glasses would sort
through the images of various monsters in the book in a random order, always
surprising the wearer. My engineers are in the lab right now, perfecting the
model of these glasses; there are sample prototypes if anyone wants to take a
look.
Attaching these to the
copies of the book will make the book more appealing on the shelf of a
bookstore. More people will see the humorous side of the book, which would
attract them to buy it. Also, the glasses will help the reader connect with the
book and feel a bond with Dave and John’s ability to see unnatural things. And
don’t worry; I haven’t forgotten the dedicated readers who already have the
book! Pairs of glasses will be available, without the book, at a low and
convenient price that will also bring us in money.
Idea
2
My
second idea to help promote the book is create a haunted house in which each
room would correspond to a different scene or location from the book. Who
doesn’t love a good haunted house, right? *chuckles* In each room would be the
different monsters Dave and John encounter at each location. Not only would
this type of attraction entice the adult readers of the novel, but also fans of
scary things (like haunted houses) that may enjoy the feel of it and decide to
read the book.
One
example of a room in the haunted house would be the Morrison’s house that Dave
and John go to with Shelly on page 9, “…a simple two-story farmhouse, black
shutters on white siding. It sat on an island of turf in a sea of
harvest-flattened cornfields. We walked past a mailbox shaped like a cow and
saw a hand-painted sign on the front door that read The Morrison’s-Established
1962.” Once the people went through the front door, they would follow a guide
that would tell them to go to the basement, like John and Dave did, seeing, “A
nice, modern basement. Washer and dryer. A hot-water heater making a soft
ticking sound. One of those waist-deep floor freezers.”
The guide would explain what happens in that part of the story, and press a
button that would play the voices of John and David’s narration in the scene as
they come to the realization that Shelly is a monster. Then, the people would
be led up the stairs to see, “She burst into snakes…Her body sort of spilled
out of itself, falling into a dark, writhing puddle on the ground. It was a
tangle of long, black serpents, rolling over each other and down the steps.”
The guide would lead them through the rest of the house, and they would
encounter the frightening creatures Dave and John did.
Another
example of a room in the haunted house would be “Big Jim” and Amy’s house that
Dave and John visit a couple times throughout the book. They would see that
outside of the house as, “The two-story psycho-style
house…would have cost most of a million dollars had it not been run-down and
located in a weedy, desolate section of town…Peeling paint, filthy windows, no
tire tracks in the driveway” (Wong 258). Then the people would be lead inside,
the whole time listening to clips of conversation that had occurred in the
book, and “Up a stairway, into a darkened hall” (Wong 261). The guide would
direct them into a side door that would be, “…a large room, that in the dim
glow from the window, looked like a library of shelves mostly filled with odd
shadowy shapes that were not books. I saw what looked like a bundle of cobweb
hanging from the ceiling…” In that room they would see a monster described as, “…a
bundle of wet string, suspended in the air by nothing at all. It didn’t look so
much like a jellyfish as a man-o’-war, the slimy things that float lazily on
the ocean surface and let their stringy tentacles hang down in the water” (Wong
261).
So,
ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, this haunted house would lead people
through the different adventures of Dave and John, providing the real fear they
must’ve felt. After this thrilling quest, copies of the book will be available
for them to buy at the end of the haunted house.
All
in all, these ideas will grab in a ton
of money for the book, and are sure-fire ways to catch more people in! Thank
you!
Thursday, March 22, 2012
What Is A Book?
A book is a scene. A book is a moment. A book is a second, minute, day, lifetime. A book is my childhood memories. A book is the peace of nature, the noise of a city. A book is a laugh or a tear. A book is life, death and everything in between. A book is, well, everything.
A book is like a train. Sometimes you don’t get a very smooth ride, but sometimes you find just the right train that takes you exactly where you want in a very soothing, entertaining way. Sometimes you don’t ride a train after a long time, but in the end you always go back to it.
What is my opinion on digital books? I hate ‘em.
In this day and age, our society is literally obsessed with technology. I mean seriously, think about a weekend camping in the mountains with no technology. That includes cell phones, TV, iPods, laptops… BORING.
I’ll be the first to admit that I am dependent on technology. Who isn’t? But once in a while I do tire of the constant screens. It’s nice to lie down on my couch and pop open a book. I like to take in the feel of the cover, the smell of the pages, and the swish as I flip through it. The physical aspect of the book is soothing, to hold something in your arms and to be able to look back at the stack of pages you’ve already read is a childhood tradition that I as one cannot seem to let go.
My outlook on this subject is a bit outdated, I know. I do agree that the Kindles and the BookNooky things are very cute, but looking at a screen just screams “VIDEOGAMES” to me, not reading. I guess my mind separates reading as an old custom from long ago and technology screens as present, and the clash of those really boggles my mind. So thank you very much for the BookNooky devices, but I’ll pass.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Why do I read?
Recently I have been asked the question, “Why do you read?” Good question, why should anyone read? I read because I have always enjoyed it. From as long as I can remember, reading books has always provided me with a satisfaction that simply cannot be found anywhere else.
I have a memory as a child reading the Junie B. Jones series and finding them hilarious beyond compare. I guess that’s where my passion really started. Along the lines of reading The Magic Tree House and Peter Rabbit, I became addicted with this lifelong obsession.
As I started to grow up, Harry Potter became my best friend, following me around everywhere. I still remember the first time I decided to start the Harry Potter series; there was a girl in my 3rd grade class who had already started reading them, and quite frankly, I was kind of jealous she was already reading a book that big. So, I dragged my mother to the library and, voila! , I held Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in my little hands.
Then I grew older, and my book choices matured. Reading became very prevalent during summers when I would enter the reading contest at the Mason Public Library. In 8th grade, I spent almost every intervention at the library hunting for books; I must’ve scoured that place so many times the librarians started to recognize me!
Sadly, however, my passion for reading started to dim when I reached high school. In my first two trimesters, I already had an English class that required me to read, so I simply fell out of the habit of regularly visiting the library. In my English classes, I learned different purposes for reading that had never occurred to me before. I learned how to read to analyze a text, and I learned that all books were not meant for entertainment, some had deeper meanings and morals hidden between them.
Through English class, I got the chance to read books that I’ll admit I would’ve never read by myself. And I enjoyed the challenge. Learning to read this new way now drives me to get a deeper understanding of books I read outside of school, and I have learned this realization is quite thrilling.
Now I read for an interesting plot, well-rounded characters, clear imagery, and many other writing crafts that I have learned make, in essence, a good book.
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