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If I had to sum up my main arguments from this project, I would say that putting more emphasis on the love related mistakes and dream elements of A Midsummer Night's Dream elevate the comedy and what can be visually achieved. It did not take me very long to come up with this idea for my project, especially since my class just finished watching the 1968 adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. After watching that train-wreck, I knew that I could easily make an adaptation that was way better and stood out from all of the others, which motivated me to put many long hours of effort into this project.
I was able to think of the themes and elements that needed to be emphasized after watching the 1968 version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. When the homework for Thanksgiving Break asked about what the major theme from that adaptation was, I jokingly answered "Mistakes" because that is what most of the filmmaking choices seemed like. This gave me the idea to have my adaptation center around love related mistakes. In all of the adaptations I have seen either on screen or on stage, I never felt like they really elevated the dreaminess of the show, which is why I chose to include this in my project as well. Most of my character ideas spawned from what I characteristics and mannerisms I thought were the most comedically extreme. For example, Oberon is more of a comedically evil villain in my adaptation, than just the ruler of the fairies. To oppose this, the other male leader in the story, Theseus, is a mild mannered fellow; the complete opposite of Oberon.
Since I do make movies, this assignment wasn't too terribly difficult. The main challenge was managing my time between this project and all of my other finals. The other kind of complicated part was casting Bottom, since there were so many good choices. I was originally going to go with Paul Rudd, but I was surprised when Dr. Holt showed us another adaptation where Bottom was goofier and more extreme with his deliveries. I liked this characterization a lot better, and for a few days, I was unsure on whether I should keep Rudd or switch to Will Ferrell. Luckily, I made the right choice by picking Ferrell. Every other aspect of this project was smooth sailing.
Questions:
How did you like my project?
Would you like to see my adaptation become a real movie?
What is your favorite adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream (say anything but the 1968 version)?
Is this adaptation worthy of being a Bard text?
Would you like to check out more pages on this website?
They're from a year ago, but they're still worth checking out (except maybe the non-remixed essay pages)