User blog:GrimmsDePytheLover/How To Turn your Two Minute Fairytale into a two hour movie: A Guide to Movie Making

Hej peeps!

So sometimes I think to my self: How am I supposed to turn my classic little fairytail into an hour long movie? I've mastered the steps, and I want to share them with you guys! Movie/Story making is hard, and turorials are always great, right?

For this I'll be using "Diamonds and Toads", my personal favorite. I will also bring up examples from Disney Movies, to give a "canon" reason.

Step One: Who, What, Where, and When?
When you have an idea, figure out the basics: Who, what, Where, and When?

For Who, give the characters names for one thing! Some fairytales only refer to them as "the princess" and in movies thats not really what happens. You can change the names too. In Fairy Tale Sleeping Beauty, the Princess name was Briar Rose. In Disney, her orignal name was Aurora, tho it was changed to Briar Rose/Rose.

For what, this can mean Fairy Tale you choose, but that really should come a little before. What can also mean "What is the goal the Character once? What is the conflict they face? What are the other things that pase on there way?" Basicly things to add onto the stories. Sometimes you can tweak things to make them child friendly or just because you feel like it.

Where? Basicly, the setting. Figure out a few places such as "The Kingdom". Try to give them names. Disney has been a little more specfic of where the stories take place, like in Frozen, Princess and The Frog, and Big Hero 6. If it isn't that important to the story- don't name it. If the character walks past the woods, no need to bring it up.

When? What time period? You can mix it up a bit! Take Princess and The Frog, it's now in the 1920s! This is connected with "Where" because if you decide to go with lets say, ALAVON as your setting, it probably won't go with 2010.

So I would do:
 * Who? Rosetta, the kind Girl. Franny, the rude girl. Lady Cynda, the step mother. Prince Alex, the prince
 * What? Goal: To break free from her Franny and Lady Cynda. Conflict: Is forced to be the "Cinderella" of her house.
 * Where? Near fairy forest in the Kingdom of Dande
 * When? 1500

Step Two: Expanding your story
As stated in the title, most fairytale's can be told real quickly, but that doesn't make a good movie. I think The Princess and The Frog is a perfect exapmle. Yes, It is based off of a book, which in turn was based off of the Frog Prince so yeah.

Here's the discription of The Frog Prince from Wikipedia:

In the tale, a spoiled princess reluctantly befriends the Frog Prince (meeting him after dropping a gold ball into a pond), who magically transforms into a handsome prince. Although in modern versions the transformation is invariably triggered by the princess kissing the frog, in the original Grimm version of the story the frog's spell was broken when the princess threw it against a wall in disgust.[1]

In other early versions it was sufficient for the frog to spend the night on the princess' pillow.

Now, thats not nearly as close to the disney movie. What did Disney do? Well, First of all, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Also, a main thing I think they did was Tiana's love for cooking. Her determined personality adds more to the story. Plus, they changed it a bit so it wouldn't be too simple.

So what would I do for Diamonds and Toads?

What I could do is this:

Rosetta is a kind and sweet girl, but she is forced to be a servant to her Mother and Sister. When Rosetta is told to go fetch some water, her life turns upside down. When she helps a fairy in disguise, every times she talks roses and jewels falls out. Once her mother finds out about this, Rosetta is forced to run away. She finds herself on an unexpected journey to uplift her blessing. A long the away, she meets Prince Alex, who offers to help her. While she's off finding the fairy who "cursed" her, her sister was greated by the same fairy who actually did curse her. Now, her Mother is off to find Rosetta. When the two's path cross, something new comes into light: there's a secret villian working behind the scenes of this gig... But who could it be?

There we go! That could easily make a PG 90 Minute Kids movie! The Original story is still in there, but it was expanded more.