Adapting Personal Memoirs to Screen
Who am I and what sparked my fire to be a visual storyteller? My aspiring aim in the creative industries is to be a storyteller and filmmaker that brings raw, authentic and meaningful stories to life through film that have us, as the audience, reflecting on our own lives and experiences. The intent behind my project is to create an in-depth creative Concept Proposal for a four-episode mini-series based off of real events, by adapting the personal memoir Don’t Ask Forever: My Love Affair with Elvis (Bova & Nowels, 1995) to our television screens.
A close friend and colleague of mine, who is my production partner on this project, has a direct connection with Joyce after establishing contact with her for research purposes, and after getting to know her a little, we both fell in love with her story, personality and soul. Joyce wrote her memoir to give a voice to her experiences throughout her time dating the famous Elvis Presley in the years leading up to his death and speaks about certain events which took place when they were together, correcting many of which the media publicised without ever including her. Her story has inspired this mini-series as she has personally expressed how much she regrets that she hasn’t yet that the opportunity to work with someone to bring her story to life visually. The vision is to give Joyce the platform she deserves by creating a world where we can transport those who were lucky enough to have lived through that time, back to the nostalgic 70’s, authentically and honestly.
As I’m creating a concept proposal for my project and am yet to find much research on already published concept proposals for other productions (as they rarely every make it into the public eye), I thought I would look into some artistic work that is similar to that I am aiming to achieve as the end goal; the four episode mini series itself.
Above is some images taken from Joyce Bova’s memoir Don’t Ask Forever: My Love Affair with Elvis (Bova & Nowels, 1995).
Adapting a personal memoir or biography into the the film or television format can definitely create some challenges in the way it is portrayed and may need to be adjusted sometimes to bring the story to life in a way to appeal to the audience. Although this is something I am aiming to steer clear from, a big challenge filmmakers tend to come up against is historical accuracy. There is the risk of not straying true and authentic to the time period of the events taking place, along with having a stereo-typical understanding of the characters at the time. Without living in the period of time yourself, it can be extremely difficult to honestly portray a real, authentic story that does justice to the biography or personal memoir that is being adapted.
A project which I am drawing some inspiration and lessons from is the limited television series streaming on Netflix at the moment, Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C. J. Walker. The series is based on the biography On Her Own Ground by A’Lelia Bundles premiered on March 20, 2020. The series evidently received criticism for various historical inaccuracies throughout and is understood to have incorporated modern day influences and culture within the adaption, to create the ideally engaging Hollywood story. As Cowell states, “From the banging soundtrack — which reads like a Who’s Who of hip black female artists — to its take on skin colour, Self Made is undoubtedly a 21st-century take on Walker’s life and you can see the appeal”(2020).
However, although it is established that the story is based on true events, Lindquist argues that “The writers and producers of “Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker” don’t claim complete historical accuracy in their Netflix series” (2020).
This now further establishes my understanding that although I am strongly aiming and would ideally like to adapt Joyce Bova’s memoir honestly and authentically with very little interference at all, it may not necessarily resonate on screen well enough to keep viewers engaged from beginning to end, and thus, may need a writers touch in the end.
REFERENCES
Bova, J., & Nowels, W. C. (1995). Don’t ask forever: My love affair with Elvis [Kindle for Mac version]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com
Cowell, L. (2020). Self Made on Netflix misses out some important facts from Madam CJ Walker’s real life. Retrieved from https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a31899199/self-made-netflix-madam-cj-walker/
Lindquist, D. (2020). Was Addie Munroe a true rival of Madam C.J. Walker and other questions about ‘Self Made’?. Retrieved from https://www.indystar.com/story/entertainment/arts/2020/04/03/self-made-questions-answered-madam-c-j-walker-netflix-show/5000292002/
Self Made Poster [Image] (n.d.). Retrieved from https://thedirt.online/event/watch-along-wednesdays-self-made/2020-07-08/
