Possible images: female representation in Guida from her artist's notebook

Due to the visual and narrative richness of illustrated children's books, the possibility of film adaptations through animation is tempting. In each case, the director strives to offer an audiovisual approximation to the written work, appealing to the palette of cinematographic resources, the results of which should be reviewed. In the case of the short film El Pájarocubo, the adaptation of the illustrated book by the writer Marcos Mas was made through stopmotion animation. Adaptive work was addressed under key questions such as why make an adaptation? What elements are immovable? What does the audiovisual format contribute? The review of theoretical (McFarlane, 1996) and audiovisual references on the film adaptation allowed the first decisions to be made. These references allowed to base the adaptation of the Pájarocubo; which is a story about a bird that lives locked in a cage but dreams of its freedom. The text is narrated in verse and the images illustrate the most important moments of the story.

The adaptation process began with the identification of the narrator's tone, rhythm, and outstanding scenes, based on the response of the children who read the story. From the script and the storyboard, decisions were made for the transposition of one language into another: the off-screen narration was kept with the original verses and a deep adult voice was chosen to evoke the storyteller. The voice-over allowed games to be played by varying the correspondences between what is seen in the image and what the narrator says (Rosero, 2010) .

On the other hand, the verse provided rhythm to the short film, key when making the final cut. The art proposal allowed to recreate a three-dimensional world, thanks to the stopmotion technique. The appearance of the characters took off from the reference in the illustrated book. In terms of sound, a clear advantage was obtained over the illustrated story. The adaptation experience shows the importance of adapting narratives from one language to another, because it provides new channels, sensations and elements that enhance the artistic value of a work and allows it to reach a broader audience.

Author: Maria Constanza Curatitoli.