THE D

ESCEN

T:CAVED IN

I’m going to adapt the 2005 Adventure-Horror Movie The Descent directed by Neil Marshall into a feature length TV Series.

The title of my show will be The Descent: Caved In. The reason behind this is because of the storyline being about the 6 women who got stuck in a cave when a particular bit of it collapses around them and then they are fighting for survival against those crawlers whiles trying to find any sort of escape route.The series is an Adventure-Horror; the Adventure coming from the the fact that the film is based within a cave and it takes some effort to get into a caving system; any cave let alone a group of them. The Horror aspect comes in when the cave gives way in one section of the movie and that’s when the girls realise they have a fight on, to survive with all directions surrounded with those nasty Crawlers.

As each episode will be shown on the BBC and that the broadcaster has no advertisement breaks, the 6 episodes will have a 30 minute running time; 28 minutes of the programme and 1 minute on either side for continuity announcements.

The plot will be the same from the movie that lasted 100 Minutes plus added extra’s that shall be make the episodes 28 Minutes each. That means around 16 minutes, 37 seconds from the movie will be remade and used within the series exactly the way it was acted out within the film and the other 12 minutes, 23 seconds will be new bits added to the plot. There will be 2 big things within each episode; one from the film script and the other from within the new bits.

Primary Audience: Horror Fans-the reasons are stated above and have more detail in LO1B

Secondary Audience: Adventure & Extreme Sports Fans-the reasons are stated above and have more detail in LO1B

A suitable Age range for the series will have to be 18+. This is simply for the amount of gore, violence and strong language that is involved for the film and will be transferred into the TV episodes.

The core Primary audience for the series will be women. This is because of the lead characters of the movie were female and not to stick to that would have a bad impact on the viewers. A male Audience would be the main Secondary Audience as most of the crawlers are played by men and also Caving is something Males do like.

The interests that both main audiences have are the aspects of adventure, horror and extreme sports; these being the main three. All of these aspects are key to how the movie panned out in the end and continuing to use them within the TV Series will keep both these groups viewing every week.

Why the Medium is suitable for Adaption

The Descent’s Narrative is cyclical as there are several parts in the movie that just when the women in the caves think things are beginning to look on the up, something extremely negative occurs spectacularly which results in shocking circumstances for the group. For example the scene art the end where it shows Sarah getting out and driving away from the area was done to give a false impression of what actually happened that Sarah was about to be eaten by those weird creatures, like the rest of her friends were.

The locations of the film shouldn’t be a problem for a TV series adaptation as long permission is given to record a series in those locations and it is properly budgeted. Most of the filming was done within a frequently re-constructed cave set within Pinewood Studio’s, London. The director Neil Marshall stated it was too risky for the film to be recorded in an actual cave, although scenes for the outside were recorded not far from caves within the Buckinghamshire countryside to make it look more real. For a TV series, major parts of the film, to keep within the dramatic theme of the narrative will end each episode.

In terms of roles, major roles such as Sarah and the other ladies who accompanied her through the caves will be needed with the producers looking to get some high profile actors to keep a significant interest in the franchise going. These actors will need to be happy to demonstrate true pain!

Some of the characters though will not be able to take their place on a TV series which is thanks to a vast amount of rules on what can and can’t be shown on TV at particular times of the day; the Watershed which prevents series with strong language, violence, sex and many other aspects until after 9pm.

The main narrative will be the same of the movie: a group of female friends who on a caving adventure and never come back out thanks to unseen mysterious creatures which rip them to pieces in an extreme amount of gore-all of this for Sarah comes after her daughter Jessica and husband Paul are both killed in a road traffic accident with her surviving. This narrative was one of the underlining reasons why The Descent was such a huge success.

Three key scenes

1. Sarah waking up after the car crash that killed her daughter and then running down the hospital corridor to be stopped by close friend Beth who has to give her the bad news. This had the biggest affect possible on Sarah before the even madder things beneath the surface began.

2. Holly falling down a big hole and as a result breaking her leg which affect the whole team. The main reason for this was the fact that the incident happened within such a strange environment which can hardly her reached meaning despite the tiredness they all had at this point, the other 5 of them had to assist her along.

3. The moment when the group of six are surrounded by the crawlers in all directions which is the start of the real trouble within the cave. This is a huge bit within the film as they have to do their best and try to pull together to fend them off which as we say, they fail to.

The pictures are scanned versions of an extract of 8 panels of the storyboard creations for the adaptation in question.

Of the 24 panels I created, these 8 are the first within a few minute scene which form the finale of an episode.

The drawings of mine are attempting to replicate what would precisely be seen within the adaptation itself along with the probable camera shots that would set the scene even greater.

As a result of those camera shots, the footage will provide viewers as good as understanding of what’s going on straight away.

New opportunities available to you to make this adaptation a valuable new version of the original, paying attention to…

• A movement to or from interactive narrative• The use of 3D• The available standard of CGI• The development of legal and/or ethical standards over time that allow you

to portray something that couldn’t have been portrayed in this way before

The new opportunities for newer bits to enhance a film is now bigger than ever thanks mainly to the huge advances in technology over the last decade and a half. Movement from or to a Interactive Narrative is even easier to do so as a result. 3D is something I’ve thought about but to ensure that fans don’t get receptive about the changes, my adaption won’t have that option, although it would be something to think about in the future, if a trial occurred and was a success. CGI Standards within the period stated has also got massively better so therefore to really increase the probable drama of the series it will be used. Legal & Ethical wise will always be taken into account in a series like this.

Thanks to the Adaptation and a good chance that it will be a ratings hit, further adaptations may be made and therefore give the watching public a chance to get involved further.

The main constraint will be down to the gory violence which prevents the series being shown before the 9pm Watershed and as a result of what is going to be shown, the announcer will have to say something on the lines of “Including Scenes of Substantial Violence” to inform the viewer what to expect from an episode when the gory bits time to be shown comes around.

Technological Issues that may arise in the Adaptation

There will be issues on things such as budgeting and technology which mainly depends on which company takes the rights to make the TV series. If a British business got the rights, then Neil Marshall will be licking his lips at the prospect of taking it on, for his first TV based series thanks to him being the man in charge of the two films, with the help of an experienced of a drama based director. If however an American Production business took the crown & its jewels, then you’ll never quite know what gets changed around; this down to the major budgets they have and the greater advanced technology “Across The Pond”.

As earlier stated above, locational wise would be fine if they filmed within a cave set at a studio like Pinewood. However, the budgets that have in the USA could cause issues if a studio’s over there wanted to make the TV Series as there ideas may cause some anguish among big fans. An example could be that the series being in 3D probably wouldn’t be liked about for another few years, due to the nature of the narrative. A sizeable amount of money being in place though would be a good step to ensure any mistakes aren’t made.

Technological wise and as mentioned in the above paragraph, there could be issues in turning what wasn’t even a HD Film straight to a 3D TV Series. Firstly, the process has never been done I don’t think, secondly the expense of doing so would be the main issue when it comes to something on this scale and third and finally, an idea like this would get substantial opposition from cinema goers.

The series is certainly not about recreating the movie which is differed to the movie itself, but to follow the film and break the story down even further so each episode probably concentrates on just a few aspects with all them eventually leading to a spectacular finale.