‘Molly’ writes: I went to the Randy Testa (Walden Media) talk tonight at Boston College entitled “Building Bridges between Books and Movies.”

It was an interesting perspective on this rather controversial practice of adapting books into movies–we all know most viewers will say, “The book was much better,” but Walden Media doesn’t see movies as handicapping the quality of the book. The crowd was mainly teachers and librarians, so much of it was focused on how children are affected by the way things are taught.

Essentially, his points were that movies reinvigorate interest in books (they always sell more in the months before and after a release), that teachers put far too much stock in reading levels and rushing kids through books so that they’ve read enough for college (instead of encouraging them to ignore reading levels and choose what they enjoy/want to reread), and fantasy is necessary for kids to grasp hold on reality. This last point was especially interesting, because he tied in some C.S. Lewis wisdom: fantasy must be grounded in reality.

All in all, a good talk, but sadly, no new Caspian footage. Testa showed some scenes from LWW and the newer behind the scenes clip as narrated by Ben Barnes. Someone in the audience asked if it was intentional that we’ve barely seen any media of the Pevensies, Miraz, etc., and Testa responded, “Completely!”

Also cute: the presentation was held in the Irish Room of Gasson Hall at Boston College, about which Testa remarked, “There’s no more perfect place to talk about C.S. Lewis. He would love it here.”

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As part of the Conversations with…Author/Illustrator Series, Randy Testa will be showing clips from Walden Media’s films as wells as preview clips from Prince Caspian. No word on what clips will be shown. This is available only to members of the Foundation of Children’s Books, however. Here are details.

Building Bridges between Books and Movies: Randy Testa of Walden Media
Tuesday, January 22, 2008 -

7:30 p.m. – NEW LOCATION–GASSON HALL, BOSTON COLLEGE
www.bc.edu/about/maps.html

Randy Testa, Vice President of Education for Walden Media, travels the country talking with educators and audiences about such films as Hoot; The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Because of Winn-Dixie; How to Eat Fried Worms; Charlotte’s Web; and Bridge to Terabithia.

Walden Media’s mission in making these movies is to create faithful, high-quality film adaptations of beloved children’s literature. Mr. Testa will help us ponder that tricky term–”faithful”–and will show clips of Walden films, including preview clips of Prince Caspian, scheduled for a May ‘08 release.

Enroll Now

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