Sweetland: Adapting a Novel into a Screenplay

This event took place on Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024 at 3:00 pmOld Fire Hall

Sweetland: Adapting a Novel into a Screenplay with Christian Sparkes (Sweetland and The King Tide)

The Process of Adaptation from Novel to Screen using Michael Crummey’s Award-winning Novel, Sweetland

In this master class, St. John's based writer/ director Christian Sparkes will discuss the novel and its core themes and ideas, what resonated with him & how he imagined it coming to life on the cinema screen.  How does a screenwriter or filmmaker adapt the novel into a script format? What is kept, what is omitted and what informs those choices.

The class will touch on other topics as well such as the financial structure of the film and what avenues/ opportunities for funding are available in Canada, the creation of the 'pitch deck' for the film, the legal process of optioning pre-existing material and collaborating with an author.

Anatomy of a Scene: finally, Christian will provide 2-3 scenes from the script & talk about how to break these scenes into beats. Then he'll share shot lists from one of those scenes and finish off by showing clips of these selected scenes from the finished film.

Pass-holders can pre-register for this session by emailing: alffindustry@yukonfilmsociety.com

Bio

Christian Sparkes is an award winning writer and director of film and television hailing from Newfoundland, Canada. He has directed numerous episodes of television and his films have screened at the world's top festivals including TIFF, Fantastic Fest and Busan. An alumnus of the prestigious Canadian Film Centre in Toronto, Christian’s debut feature Cast No Shadow was nominated for four Canadian Screen Awards including Best Picture, at which point Telefilm Canada named him one of Canada’s top directors alongside Xavier Dolan and David Cronenberg. His sophomore feature Hammer starring Will Patton and Mark O’Brien debuted in 2020 and received widespread acclaim from Roger Ebert, The Hollywood Reporter, and Variety magazine, amongst others. His third and fourth feature films, Sweetland and The King Tide, are currently touring the festival circuit, with the latter premiering as part of TIFF’s prestigious Platform Program.