I am a big fan of adaptation, in art and in life. Big Fish was my first experience with the artistic kind, and that was an excellent experience in every way. John August writes about the process of all that on his site, and he does it really well, so I don’t feel like I need to go into it here. But ever since that movie happened I’ve been eager to work with other people in making new things out of my old things.
I thought it would be fun to present the entire life-cycle of some of these projects here. In the case of the first two, the life-cycle includes the original story, the script, and the short film that was made from it.
A Full Boat, Two-Legged Rat Bastards, My Father’s Leg
My brother-in-law, the estimable Rob Anderson, introduced me to director Scott Weintrob in 2011. Scott had been doing a lot of work with MTV, and making some wonderful commercials as well. But he wanted to do make a short film, and hoped I had a story that might interest him. I sent him six or seven short stories to read and he picked this one, “A Full Boat.” Rob, Scott and I wrote the script.
The life of this adaptation may not be over yet. I’ve written a feature called My Father’s Leg, based on the same basic idea: man loses leg in a card game. What started as a seven page-long short story published in The Greensboro Review may grow up to become an actual movie.
A Family of Clowns
In 2012, Radhika Chaudhari and Kunal Rajan read this short story in the airline magazine where it was published, contacted me, and we worked together for the next year or so putting it together. I think they did a wonderful job. It premiered at the New York City International Film Festival in 2013.
O Great Rosenfeld!
Many years ago, I wrote and illustrated a book called O Great Rosenfeld! My son-in-law, the novelist Nic Brown, was, in a former life, a professional drummer. He had the manuscript with him when he was in New York City and playing with the band Falcon. The rest of the band read it and they wrote some songs inspired by Rosenfeld. I still love those songs so much. O Great Rosenfeld! went on to be published in Korea and France, but, as of yet, not in America, in book-form at least. Amazon “published” it in a short-lived program called Amazon Shorts a lifetime ago. Here is half of that book, and one of the songs the book inspired. There are at least two other songs. But this one is my favorite.
Raytrospective
“It was the summer of 2009 when I was student at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow, and I had to decide on a story for my diploma movie. I read many scripts, deep into the Institute’s archive, but nothing attracted me. I wanted to shoot a movie with many interesting, colorful characters, a story with unsuspected turns. Then I thought of movies that made a great impression on me. One of these is Big Fish, by Tim Burton. “What story was the film based on?” I asked myself. This is how I found the book Big Fish. I wondered if Daniel Wallace had written anything else, so I went to the bookstore and saw Ray in Reverse. From the very first chapter I loved it. When I found that nobody had shot a movie about Ray’s adventures, I was really happy! It’s just what I need, I thought. I sent an e-mail to Daniel Wallace and asked permission for making the movie. And a miracle happened: he answered me, and said yes. I think it’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship 🙂
—Gregory Butlitsky, Moscow
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Marianne LaFleur, from Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician
The remarkable Katherine Sandoz painted this picture of Marianne LaFleur, a character from MSATNM who can die and come back to life. One eye open, one eye closed. Love this so much. This is exactly how I imagined her.
The Old Ceremony – Blood and Oil
After seeing the film adaptation of Big Fish (and then, yes, reading it), I wrote the song “Blood and Oil,” based on the subplot of Jenny and her “affair” with Edward Bloom. Roughly ten years later, Daniel and I collaborated on a “Story and Song” two-man show in which he wrote a flash fiction response to my song, based on his novel (and the subsequent movie adaptation). It was heavy meta. Sadly the story is lost to time. As far as we know.
— Django Haskins (The Old Ceremony)
Listen to the full song.
Pearl Jam – Man of the Hour
I’m cheating a little bit by including this song on this page. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t inspired by my book; it was written for the end credits of the movie. I can claim a kinship with it, I suppose, but I’m pretty sure no one in Pearl Jam read Big Fish. I love it, though, and I don’t think enough people have heard it.