Adaptations of WW1 Poetry

As we have to create our own fiction adaptation of a war poem, I wanted to research to see what fiction adaptations of WW1 poetry there were.

'Dulce Et Decorum Est' by Wilfred Owen

I found a video on youtube of someone who had done an adaptation of one of Wilfred Owen's poems, 'Dulce Et Decorum Est.' This person had used animation to create an adaptation.

This adaptation is an animation of soldiers during the war. They are struggling to walk across the fields throughout the video. Throughout the video the colours change between, red, green and dark blue/black. The red is to represent the violence and gore and the dark blue/black colours represent how gloomy it was in the war. The green was used to show the gas from the gas bombs.
Throughout the video there are sound effects of bombs going off in the background as well as sound effects now and then of the soldiers walking.

The video is quite graphic as it shows someone dying, but as its an animation it doesn't come across quite as harsh. There was a part where a soldier does't put his gas mask on quick enough and starts to choke and cough up blood. For this film there was a man who voiced over the poem. His tone was the same throughout the poem, only at one point did he raise his voice and that was to copy the soldier shouting letting the others know gas bombs have been bombed.

At the end of the video it shows a father reading a book to his son, to show that he is telling him what happened in the first world war with the poem. The story told within the poem is spot on to what is shown through the animation.

I really liked this adaptation that was created in this video, it was different to see animation to be used instead of using real people. I noticed that the storyline of the animation followed the poem word by word. There was nothing added that wasn't mentioned in the poem.

'Suicide in the Trenches' by Siegfried Sassoon, read by Stephen Graham

I researched more on youtube and came across the Channel 4 page, where I found a variety of different WW1 poems that were read by celebrities. This was done to commemorate WW1 and used only poets who were famously known for their WW1 poetry, such as Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke and many more.

I watched a couple of the videos and the one that stuck out to me the most was Siegfried Sassoon's 'Suicide in the Trenches', that was read by Stephen Graham.

The video starts with a pan of the inside of the building and stops when Stephan is shown. During the pan you can hear the gun shots of the guns. The building looks old and run down, it reminds me of a type of work place women would work in during the war. When Stephen starts talking to the camera the camera changes to a close-up until the end, this was done so that it made the poem more intense and personal. when Stephen starts saying the poem, he is light and gentle but as the poem gets more descriptive, he becomes more serious and angry/aggressive. The lighting used looks natural, as there are wide windows and open space around him. When it goes into a close up of Stephen, the camera becomes a bit shaky, which shows that the camera was handheld.

This adaptation is simple but quite effective, just by adding a couple of sound effects and using an actor who can express the poem through him makes this adaptation 100x better. I don't think there could of been anything to improve it, as the poem only lasted a minute.

'The Attack' by Siegfried Sassoon

I was on the BBC website looking for more information about the First World War, and I came across a video that was an adaptation of Siegfried Sassoon's poem 'The Attack.'

Here is the website link to the video: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/siegfried-sassoon-the-attack/1245.html

The video starts off with a medium close up of a soldier on his desk, after receiving a letter of news the actor turns more aggressive and then archived footage of the war comes up.
Throughout the video it goes between the actor and the archived footage, so it doesn't become boring. The archived footage is shown in sepia where as the actor is shown in colour, this could be because the archived footage was filmed when colour wasn't invented.
You can tell that a spotlight has been used on the actor as the light is focused on a part of him. The actor is also in traditional uniform of someone who would have been in WW1.

This adaptation was different to the others as it used archived footage as well as using an actor. As it flicked between the archived footage and the actor it made it not as boring.

For each adaptation I analysed the locations used, how the actors performed the poem (if used), the lighting and camera use as well as the style and tone of the film.

Overall it was interesting to see other people's adaptations of other war poems. By looking at these adaptations of war poems it hasn't really helped me with any ideas towards my poem, as I want to do something more experimental and maybe even not about a soldier.