Comparing audio, visual, and written stories
About this video
When a written story is turned into another medium, like an audio drama, film or illustrated book, it changes. By comparing the script of an audio drama with its recorded performance, the video shows how acting, music and sound effects can change a line's meaning, and suggests questions readers can ask about any adaptation.
You'll be able to
- explain what a medium is and how a story changes between media.
- compare a written script with its performance.
- describe how sound effects, acting, music, costumes, sets or camera choices affect meaning.
Key words
- medium
- A style or form of work, like a stage play, film, graphic novel or audio drama.
- adaptation
- A version of a story made for a different medium, like a film of a book.
- script
- The written words of a play, film or audio drama.
- sarcastic
- Saying something in a way that means the opposite, often to tease.
- sincere
- Meaning what you say honestly.
Transcript
- [David] When you translate a written work into a different medium, whether it's illustrated, animated, recorded, or performed live, it changes. It becomes a fundamentally different object. As readers, it's a valuable skill to explore how a text changes as it shifts from one medium to another.
And when I say medium, I mean a style of work, like a stage play, a film, a graphic novel, an audio drama, any of that, good readers analyze those changes, and use them to understand decisions that creators make. If you're watching Romeo and Juliet, and the director has made the decision to dress everyone in towering robot suits, a detail that is definitely not in the play as written.
What does that decision tell you? What does it mean to you? Maybe you have had the experience of reading a book series that was important to you, and then they made it into a movie, and you were so excited to see the movie, and you sat down to see it, and it was awful.
Like they cast the wrong actors, and they simplified the plot until it made no sense and it just didn't feel right. That feeling is an example of this tension, this change between a written material and its visual adaptation. Sometimes it can be bad, sometimes it can be good.
Some readers can imagine what characters in books look or sound like, hearing them in their mind's ear, seeing them in their mind's eye. The way your imagination renders a character is going to be different from how someone else's imagination does it. So let's compare the script for this audio drama we've got on Khan Academy.
Hands off my phone. And let's compare that against the recorded version. So first I'm going to put up the script and I'd like you to pause the video, and just read it to yourself very quickly. And now let's take a listen to the recorded version. (upbeat music) (bell ringing)
- [Sebastian] Oh, no, he didn't. That is so harsh.
- [Valentina] Right? - [Sebastian] Your dad took your phone away just for getting a D on the history test.
- [Valentina] Yep. - [Sebastian] My mind is blown.
- [Valentina] Mine too. - [Sebastian] I mean, that was an easy test.
- [Valentina] What? - [Sebastian] I can't believe you got a D.
- [Valentina] Hey, that's not really... - [Sebastian] And your dad is the school principal and he took your phone away. Whoa.
- [Valentina] You know, this isn't really helping.
- [Sebastian] Your life is so bleak right now.
- [Valentina] Well think so. - [David] You can read that script and think, oh, hey, Sebastian is being earnestly sympathetic. Like he really recognizes that his friend is hurting. But when you hear that performance, the way I interpreted this line, is that Sebastian is low key roasting Valentina.
He's not saying your life is so bleak in a kind way. He's rubbing salt into the wounds and being a dingus about it. There's also other stuff that's not explicitly in the script like that opening musical sting. (upbeat music) (bell ringing) The ringing of the bell.
Or those background school noises. All of that is meant to represent the fact that you're listening to a fictional show that takes place in a school setting. Does it work? That's for you to decide. When you watch or listen to a performance or a recording, or when you look at illustrations, ask yourself some questions.
For an audio piece, how do the sound effects the acting decisions and the music impact the story or affect the meaning of the words the characters say. How does the way that an actor delivers a line change its emphasis. With someone being sarcastic or sincere in a way you didn't expect, for example.
For an illustrated story how do those illustrations help you understand the author's tone? And do you agree with those choices? Is the author's interpretation of the story the same as yours. For a TV show or a movie or a play, in addition to all the decisions made by actors about how to use their voices, shape their faces, or hold their bodies, how does the set tell the story?
How do costumes tell the story? How does lighting or special effects impact the tone? For TV and film how does the camera impact the way the story is told? The way a piece of film text is edited, its cuts, its angles, its rhythms, can help shape the way you as a viewer, as a reader of visual text understand it.
And if you can learn that, then you can learn anything. David, out.
Video © Khan Academy, used under CC BY-NC-SA. Watch on Khan Academy. Puzzicle is not affiliated with Khan Academy.