A dramatization is the creation of a dramatic performance of material depicting real or fictional events. Dramatization may occur in any media, and can play a role in education and the psychological development of children. The production of a dramatization presents potential legal issues, arising both from the use of elements of fictional works created by others, and with the depiction of real persons and events.
Dramatization may occur in many circumstances, and be presented in many forms of media:
Dramatization is the acting out of a story, real-life situation, event, feeling, or idea. There are many forms of dramatization, such as plays, puppet theater, radio theater, pantomime, pageants, processionals, parades, clowning, dance, skits, role plays, simulations, interviews, dialogue sermons, monologues, etc. The purpose of a dramatization is to enable the participants to experience, understand, and communicate, in a new and exciting manner, what is being dramatized. [1]
In television, a dramatization is "the preparation of a television drama from a work which was not previously in dramatic form, for example a prose narrative". [2] The form is often used in television commercials depicting the benefits of using an advertised product, "because dramatization is a form particularly well suited to television". [3] Although dramatization and adaptation are sometimes used interchangeably, the BBC distinguishes a dramatization from an adaptation by the criteria that an adaptation is a preparation derived from a dramatic work. When the events being dramatized are historical, this may also be considered a form of historical reenactment, and occurs within the genre of docudrama. In some cases, in conveying the lives of historical figures "dramatization is a necessity due to lack of documentation". [4]
Dramatization has been described as "a primitive instinct and very early people expressed their thoughts and emotions through this medium, or at least through that of pantomime, which is so closely connected with it". [5] In particular, "[w]hen children identify with the various characters in the story, it is natural for them to want to imitate those characters". [6] To a degree, any attempt to describe an event other than in a clinical sense requires some dramatization:
Effective storytelling leads directly to story dramatization. Story dramatization is the re-creation of part or all of a story with the emphasis on spontaneity, cognition, action, identification, dialogue and sequence of events. Greater appreciation of the literature may then occur. [6]
Children, through play, unconsciously begin to act out the dramatization of events in their lives and events of which they learn. [5] Research has shown that "with a variety of students from different grades and socioeconomic backgrounds, through expression of feelings and thoughts in story dramatization and creative drama, self concept is improved". [6]
Legally, the creation of a dramatization may infringe on the intellectual property rights of the work from which it is derived. A dramatization of real events might infringe the personalty rights of the individuals involved. However, it is also understood that the dramatization itself maybe entitled to its own intellectual property protections:
In all countries which recognize an author's rights, the right to dramatize (a novel, short story, or whatever) is held by the author as part of his copyright. The majority of countries assume that there is a point, however, where a dramatization is so remote from the original novel (for example) as to take it outside the dramatization right held by the novelist. The dramatist may be inspired by a dominant idea or theme in a novel, and produce a work which enshrines that idea but has its own set of characters and incidents. [W]hether the work is a faithful dramatization of the novel or whether it is remote and everything but theme, the playwright will enjoy the copyright protection that is given to an 'original' play. [7]
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives the creator of an original work, or another owner of the right, the exclusive, legally secured right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.
The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which involve the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Performing arts include a range of disciplines which are performed in front of a live audience, including theatre, music, and dance.
A story within a story, also referred to as an embedded narrative, is a literary device in which a character within a story becomes the narrator of a second story. Multiple layers of stories within stories are sometimes called nested stories. A play may have a brief play within it, such as in Shakespeare's play Hamlet; a film may show the characters watching a short film; or a novel may contain a short story within the novel. A story within a story can be used in all types of narration including poems, songs, and video games.
A screenplay, or script, is a written work by screenwriters for a film, television show, or video game. A screenplay written for television is also known as a teleplay. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. A screenplay is a form of narration in which the movements, actions, expressions and dialogue of the characters are described in a certain format. Visual or cinematographic cues may be given, as well as scene descriptions and scene changes.
A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional or fictional. Narratives can be presented through a sequence of written or spoken words, through still or moving images, or through any combination of these. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, which is derived from the adjective gnarus. The formal and literary process of constructing a narrative—narration—is one of the four traditional rhetorical modes of discourse, along with argumentation, description, and exposition. This is a somewhat distinct usage from narration in the narrower sense of a commentary used to convey a story. Many additional narrative techniques, particularly literary ones, are used to build and enhance any given story.
Screenwriting or scriptwriting is the art and craft of writing scripts for mass media such as feature films, television productions or video games. It is often a freelance profession.
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is a 1971 novel by Ernest J. Gaines. The story depicts the struggles of blacks as seen through the eyes of the narrator, a woman named Jane Pittman. She tells of the major events of her life from the time she was a young slave girl in the American South at the end of the Civil War.
A copyright is the legal protection extended to the owner of the rights in an original work. Original work refers to every production in the literary, scientific, and artistic domains. The Intellectual Property Office (IPOPHL) is the leading agency responsible for handling the registration and conflict resolution of intellectual property rights and to enforce the copyright laws. IPOPHL was created by virtue of Republic Act No. 8293 or the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines which took effect on January 1, 1998, under the presidency of Fidel V. Ramos.
Requiem for a Nun is a work of fiction written by William Faulkner. It is a sequel to Faulkner's early novel Sanctuary, which introduced the characters of Temple Drake, her friend Gowan Stevens, and Gowan's uncle Gavin Stevens. The events in Requiem are set in Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County and Jackson, Mississippi, in November 1937 and March 1938, eight years after the events of Sanctuary. In Requiem, Temple, now married with a child, must learn to deal with her violent, turbulent past as related in Sanctuary.
Medieval theatre encompasses theatrical performance in the period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century and the beginning of the Renaissance in approximately the 15th century. The category of "medieval theatre" is vast, covering dramatic performance in Europe over a thousand-year period. A broad spectrum of genres needs to be considered, including mystery plays, morality plays, farces and masques. The themes were almost always religious. The most famous examples are the English cycle dramas, the York Mystery Plays, the Chester Mystery Plays, the Wakefield Mystery Plays, and the N-Town Plays, as well as the morality play known as Everyman. One of the first surviving secular plays in English is The Interlude of the Student and the Girl.
The Serbian copyright act was published as the copyright act of Serbia and Montenegro on 24 December 2004, and it remains in force after the country's split under the "Declaration of Continuation by Republic of Serbia", September 19, 2006.
British television science fiction refers to programmes in the genre that have been produced by both the BBC and Britain's largest commercial channel, ITV. BBC's Doctor Who is listed in the Guinness World Records as the longest-running science fiction television show in the world as well as the "most successful" science fiction series of all time.
In copyright law, a derivative work is an expressive creation that includes major copyrightable elements of a first, previously created original work. The derivative work becomes a second, separate work independent from the first. The transformation, modification or adaptation of the work must be substantial and bear its author's personality sufficiently to be original and thus protected by copyright. Translations, cinematic adaptations and musical arrangements are common types of derivative works.
The Copyright Act of 1976 is a United States copyright law and remains the primary basis of copyright law in the United States, as amended by several later enacted copyright provisions. The Act spells out the basic rights of copyright holders, codified the doctrine of "fair use", and for most new copyrights adopted a unitary term based on the date of the author's death rather than the prior scheme of fixed initial and renewal terms. It became Public Law number 94-553 on October 19, 1976 and went into effect on January 1, 1978.
The copyright law of the United States grants monopoly protection for "original works of authorship". With the stated purpose to promote art and culture, copyright law assigns a set of exclusive rights to authors: to make and sell copies of their works, to create derivative works, and to perform or display their works publicly. These exclusive rights are subject to a time and generally expire 70 years after the author's death or 95 years after publication. In the United States, works published before January 1, 1929, are in the public domain.
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditional narrow sense, "fiction" refers to written narratives in prose – often referring specifically to novels, novellas, and short stories. More broadly, however, fiction encompasses imaginary narratives expressed in any medium, including not just writings but also live theatrical performances, films, television programs, radio dramas, comics, role-playing games, and video games.
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-genre, macro-genre, or micro-genre, such as soap opera, police crime drama, political drama, legal drama, historical drama, domestic drama, teen drama, and comedy-drama (dramedy). These terms tend to indicate a particular setting or subject matter, or they combine a drama's otherwise serious tone with elements that encourage a broader range of moods. To these ends, a primary element in a drama is the occurrence of conflict—emotional, social, or otherwise—and its resolution in the course of the storyline.
Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein is an 1823 play in three acts by Richard Brinsley Peake based on the 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. It is the first recorded theatrical adaptation of the novel and had 37 performances during its original run. It was revived at the English Opera House until at least 1850.
The basic legal instrument governing copyright law in Sri Lanka is Part II of the Intellectual Property Act, No. 36 of 2003 replacing Part II of the Code of Intellectual Property Act, No. 52 of 1979.
Kalem Co. v. Harper Bros., 222 U.S. 55 (1911), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held producing a motion picture based on a dramatic work can be copyright infringement. The producer of the motion picture is liable even they are not the exhibitor. This does not extend to a restriction of the dramatic work's ideas; it is a recognition of the author's monopoly powers granted by Congress.
