Literary source material (novel, play) translated to screen — visualizing internal states. Camera and editing must externalize psychology.
Anyone bringing a literary source to the screen must rethink. The internal — what is three pages of stream of consciousness in the novel — must suddenly become visible. Camera, lighting, editing rhythm must achieve what prose achieves through language. This is the real work of a drama adaptation: not to retell the story, but to think the emotional architecture of the source material in images.
On set, this means concretely: The camera is closer because we have to read the faces. A novel can describe a character; we show them through glances, through the way they enter a space. Sound becomes a second visual layer — not just dialogue, but how silence functions, where pauses occur. In the edit, it then becomes clear whether we have understood: Do you intensify the rhythm as inner tension grows? Do you slow down to deepen moments? Being able to say "Edith Piaf" is not editing craft — it's interpretation of the source material.
The classic pitfall: wanting to show everything. A good play invites projection; the viewer fills in the gaps. In film, you have to become more precise because the camera doesn't lie — it shows. But that doesn't mean articulating everything explicitly. It means choosing. A close-up on a hand instead of a face can say more than any dialogue. Lighting — warm or harsh — already structures how we emotionally understand a scene before the first line is spoken.
Good drama adaptations arise where the direction translates the grammar of the source material into cinematic means. This means: Don't ask, "What is the story?", but "How does the story feel?". An inner monologue becomes camera movement. A feeling of being trapped is built through framing and editing sequences. This distinguishes a technically sound adaptation from one that has truly understood the source material.