As a communication major with a specialization in media, I often think about what something might like in a movie or television show when reading books in class. This idea has always been something I think about because the way that a scene is written in a book is so different from the way that it is written in a script that it can often change the way that we feel about the setting, the characters, and the scene in general. This really came to mind when we were discussing Clay’s Ark. We were discussing the general idea of getting plagued with this illness that someone did not want or even ask for in the first place not wanting to continue this and affect someone else but having this desire and this need to do so. As we are reading through the story, I can understand it. I feel for these people that have this desire to further to infect others. They don’t want to do it but they feel as though they must and as silly as it sounds I want to help them (even from outside of the pages of this book). But, if you take that same idea of not wanting to hurt someone but your body needs you to is quite literally the same scope of almost all vampire movies and TV shows. Many of them were turned into vampires what seemed like against their will and they continue to have this want or even a desire for blood and this desire even if they themselves do not want to hurt others, they are compelled do to so by their own bodies.
The difference is here, as I sit down to watch Vampire Diaries and Twilight, I don’t feel bad for the characters thought, I really don’t. I feel worse for those around them that there is this vampire that wants to drink their blood or turn them into a vampire much more than I do for the one who has been a vampire for over 100 years and have not truly lived their best lives because of who they are. This really makes me think. It is the same story over again, it must be that my opinions are changed based on the writing themselves. In a book, I get to see a perspective. A glimpse into someone’s mind. In writing we get to use phrases like “her/she thought…” or “they wanted to…” but on a screen, we don’t get to do that. We don’t have the comfort of what one thinks, we only get their actions.
In my eternal strive to find and make the best television show that I can possibly make, I think that I have to come to a conclusion. There needs to be the writing and the narrative of a book with the vision and the cinematography of movies. This would have to be a show that is heavily based around added in voice overs from the “narrator” or progagonist but having this could make all of the difference. It changes the way that we think about these vampires from “poor everyone around them” to “poor them”.