Photograph adaptation created by Alisha Bennett on March 11th 2025
Scene – “They’re Coming to get you Barbara” from Night of the Living Dead.
When creating this photographic sketch, I explored the themes of artistic value and audience engagement in the context of adaptation. In the modern age of adaptation and media, Hutcheon (2012) discusses how adaptation has evolved from a historically framed lens into a more dynamic storytelling through “transmedia”. Unlike traditional adaptations where we focus on a historical lens, transmedia prioritizes world building over fixed narratives, allowing for exploration of the themes of a text and allowing further questions about the underlying values.
Through class discussions and readings, I have gained insight into how we adapt art from texts, how they inspire us and how we identify objects that respond to their themes. From the scene “They’re Coming for you Barbara” from Night of the Living Dead, translating it to a photographic sketch has challenged me to think about the objects that symbolize key themes and subtle messages. Since transmedia explores world building and thematic exploration, my approach to this sketch was to brainstorm symbolic objects that represent death, character traits and significant actions within the scene.
I am pleased with the final result, with the use of flowers to highlight fragility of life with water meaning to sustain them contrasting with their decay. I also incorporated symbols and objects from the scene, such as Ben’s glasses, a brick and the car keys. Moving forward and improving on this sketch, I would like to refine my work to focus on a single character rather than multiple elements from the scene. Instead of capturing the graveyard, Ben and Barbara simultaneously, I would like to concentrate on one frame or perspective such as Barbara with her strength from the sequence.
REFERENCES
Hutcheon, L. (2012). A theory of adaptation. Taylor & Francis Group. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=1016075
Romero G (Director). (1968). Night of the Living Dead [Film] Image Ten, Market Square Productions, Off Color Films, Laurel.