The 10 filmmaking and storytelling lessons I learned when I adapted my favorite poem into a short film:

Intro

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;

That’s the opening to one of my favorite poems. It was penned by Edgar Allan Poe shortly before his untimely death. Many storytellers cite Poe as an inspiration, but I took this to another level: I adapted “Annabel Lee” into an award-winning short film.

I was twenty years old, and a senior in film school tasked with writing and directing my undergraduate thesis. I later went on to grad school and I’ve made many shorts since, but this adaptation is still my most popular film:

The short, shot in 2012 and released in 2013, played at a myriad of small to medium film festivals in the US and abroad. What’s the secret to my success? Why are some poem adaptations drop-dead boring and others are engaging? Here are the lessons I learned that you should be aware of when you set out to adapt a poem into a short film.

Tone vs. Narrative

Not all poem adaptations are created equal. In addition to the middle school genre of simply narrating a poem with random images overlaid as a slideshow, there are two main categories of cinematic adaptations of poems. They are the “tone poem” style and the “narrative journey” style. What are the differences?

Tone Poem:

Little to no story element
Montage-based
Evokes a feeling
Poem narration is optional

Narrative Journey:

A story forms the structure of the film
More cinematic
Evokes a theme
Usually relies on narration

This list is not exhaustive; it’s merely a framework to get you thinking about which type you think your poem fits. I was inspired by a particular tone poem style adaptation of an Alfred Tennyson poem by John X. Carey called “Be Near Me,” but my adaptation was a narrative style short film, albeit without dialogue. Pick the style that fits your story.

Plus, you may have noticed that these adaptations also mirror the various types of music videos that exist. That’s because poem adaptations have much in common with music videos; instead of visualizing a song, you’re portraying a poem, sans the performance-based element. This leads me to my next guideline:

Don’t Show the Narrator

Just like I caution you not to “save the cat,” I likewise urge you not to have a storyteller or narrator character in your poem — unless it’s part of the poem itself. Poems and stories might be fun to share around the campfire, but don’t have your poem read by an old storyteller to a group around a campfire! If you want your audience to be immersed in the film, a narrator character shown on screen “performing” the poem will be quite distracting. Full disclosure: I’m the narrator of “Annabel Lee,” but I do not appear on screen!

Photo by Francisco Perez Carrasco on Unsplash

This ain’t spoken word — this is cinema.

Explore the Imagery

A mistake I see often in beginning filmmakers — whether they adapt a short story or a poem — is their reliance on wooden literalism when transcribing the page to the silver screen. This reminds me of those bibliophiles who complain when a novel adaptation does precisely capture the contents of the book. They’re two different mediums! Of course they won’t be the same. Likewise, a cinematic adaptation should express the feelings of the poem, not merely its literal words.

This reason — in addition to general creativity — is why I encourage you to explore the potential imagery in the poem you’re adapting. Most poems reference some known facet of life or other pieces of literature. Poetry, like all writing, is inherently symbolic. This gives you a much larger creative playground to explore when crafting your film adaptation of said prose.

In fact, fellow filmmaker (and biased best friend, seeing how he edited the film) Blake Cortright characterized the idea thusly:

“It works as an adaptation because it doesn’t do the ‘obvious’ choices, but takes some creative risks to infuse the story with the screenwriter’s own interpretation of vague details in the original poem.”

For example, in “Annabel Lee,” Poe states that “I was a child and she was a child.” I interpreted this to be metaphorical rather than literal. They were young loves, or newlyweds, rather than childhood crushes. Honestly, that made more sense given the level of passion the lovers felt for one another. If your ardent love for your spouse makes supernatural beings jealous, you’re probably not six years old anymore. By exploring the images of youth and love hinted at by Poe, I discovered new emotional layers to the story and a more grounded way to portray my protagonists. Feel free to do the same.

Expand Beyond the Stanzas

The end of the poem is not the end of your story. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. The same is true for the beginning, too. As an adaptation, you as the storyteller should endeavor to remain faithful to the source material. However, that doesn’t mean that you’re bound by it.

This concept was a great boon for me when creating “Annabel Lee.” While the poem ends with the narrator seeing his dead wife every night, I felt the story ended on a cliffhanger without proper resolution. So, I expanded the narrative beyond what Poe wrote while still keeping with the same themes he’d written. In my ending, the husband protagonist continues to visit the grave of his wife well into old age until at last, he finds the tomb to be empty. Inspired by the ending of Robert Redford’s The Legend of Bagger Vance, Annabel greets her husband and ushers him to death by her side.

Again, Cortright provides some color to this concept:

“The writer/director’s decision to introduce an element of eucatastrophe to the ending is intriguing. The redemptive element of life-after-death and reuniting with those we have lost is extremely powerful and is well-earned in the film. The music, visuals, and emotional core of the story soar at the finale in a stunning, hope-filled moment.
The director’s juxtaposition of the dark, stinging hopelessness of death with the light, exuberant, hopefulness of life after death is a fantastic reinterpretation of the original poem, and it helps bring his own voice to the adaptation.”

That’s why adaptation should include your creative influences guided by the attitude and themes of the original text. As an artist, you’re bound to do so anyway! Why not have fun with it?

Build a World

I’ve written before on worldbuilding; this oft-overlooked element of storytelling is essential to the world of film, not just novels. Also, depending on the type of poem you’re adapting, you may find that a specific world is needed to make your story not just complete but possible. That was the case with my short “Annabel Lee,” as Cortright illustrates:

The short film works as an adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s famous poem because it captures the macabre spirit of the poem while also embracing the fantastical aspects of it in a visually interesting way.

Photo by Coffee Shops Athens on Unsplash

Even though Poe is considered a master of Gothic horror, I decided to make my film a fantasy adaptation in keeping with the supernatural elements of the poem. This opened up a whole new dimension for the story for me to explore. I chose to draw on two main concepts to augment the fantasy aspect to make the film more immersive: Jewish/Biblical imagery and the 19th-century milieu in which Poe wrote his tragic story.

Here are just some of the worldbuilding and fantasy elements I mixed into my short:

In the beginning, Annabel washes up on the shore, rather like a shipwreck victim or even…a mermaid.
Set near Charleston in the 1870s, the protagonist is a Jewish Confederate, part of a real but often overlooked minority within American Civil War history.
Continuing the Jewish themes, the couple gets married under a chuppah.
Within this “grounded” historical fantasy, the fallen angels are often unseen and menacing rather than shining or winged.
To make the heavenly realm seem alien, we lined the floor with reflective polyethylene and filled the room with fog.
When judging the fallen angels, God on His throne wears a Jewish tallit (prayer shawl) and bears the marks of crucifixion.
The antagonist falls to earth in a flaming orb like a meteor.
The film ends with the Mourner’s Kaddish, the Hebrew song to honor God at times of mourning.

Some have called this unusual amalgamation confusing, but the film continues to resonate with viewers. Just wait — the plot thickens:

Poe’s Worldview

Unknown to me until recently, my unique perspective on the work unknowingly tapped into Poe’s Biblical inspiration for the poem itself! In his fascinating exploration of the philosophy and theology underpinning’s Poes work titled Evermore, Poe’s relative Dr. Harry Lee Poe makes the connections plain:

“In ‘Annabel Lee’ written after Eureka during the last year of Poe’s life, Poe relies on the basis of Hebrew poetry to carry the verse. …The phrase ‘kingdom by the sea’ is repeated too much for modern verse, but it is in keeping with Hebrew poetry. …We find that in the King James Version of the Bible that Poe would have known, the New Testament accounts of the resurrection of Jesus use the term ‘sepulchre’ for the tomb where Jesus was laid. Matthew, the most Hebrew of the four gospels, uses both ‘tomb’ and ‘sepulchre’ in parallel form to describe the burial of Jesus.
“Given the other imagery, the image of ‘the sea’ takes on particular significance. In the visions of eternity and the throne of God among Hebrew prophets, the image of the sea has a striking place. …Among the Hebrews, water was a favorite metaphor for the Spirit of God and the gift of life he brings.
“This passage [at the end of the poem] bears a striking similarity to the Apostle Paul’s equally dogmatic statement about the surety of eternal continuity based on the love of God (Romans 8:38–39). …The allusion seems unmistakable. The poem does not celebrate necrophilia; it celebrates hope in the eternal power of Love to prevail over death.”

— From Evermore: Edgar Allan Poe and the Mystery of the Universe by Harry Lee Poe. Copyright © 2012 by Baylor University Press. Reprinted by arrangement with Baylor University Press. All rights reserved

I discovered more than expected by adding these Jewish and fantasy elements to my adaptation of “Annabel Lee!” Still, your poem doesn’t have to fit a particular “genre” to necessitate specific world creation. Just make your vision of the storyworld unique and personal to you. As Korean writer and director Bong Joon-ho stated, “The most personal is the most creative.”

Write an Actual Script

You have the poem. You have images in your mind. Why bother writing a script? The poet already did that for you!

Wrong.

You do need a script. Poems are not screenplays.

Even if there’s no dialogue (more on that in a moment). Just like any other film production, you need to have a blueprint for the cast and crew to follow. That’s what screenplay formatting is all about.

Besides, writing the script is your chance to put your vision on paper in a concrete fashion. The way you write the script will guide your filmmaking process, especially if you’re a writer-director like me. For some inspiration, here are some of my hand-drawn storyboards I made for the film:

Shoot MOS

“Annabel Lee” has no dialogue. After all, the focus of the film is the poem itself. If my characters had spoken aloud during my film, it would have broken the semiotic spell [] woven by Poe. Without realizing it, this choice to avoid dialogue in my screenplay saved my film before the cameras rolled because it meant we didn’t have to record sound on set.

Shooting MOS — which stands for “Mute On Sound” — means filming without recording audio. This is where the similarities to the music video form work to your advantage. If your story works without dialogue, then you can get away without recording sound, which makes your crew smaller and more nimble.

Without shooting the entire movie MOS, it wouldn’t have even been possible. Part of this was due to the windy beach setting, but there’s a bigger reason:

Hurricane Sandy.

Bend, Don’t Break

If you live near the East Coast of the United States, you may recall a large hurricane blowing through and wrecking large parts of the South and New England in the fall of 2012. The fated weekend it came through was the same weekend my senior thesis was shooting! Talk about bad timing.

Hurricane Sandy put a myriad of elements at risk:

Our night exterior scenes, which were pivotal to the plot and supernatural elements, had to be changed drastically. We had to shoot Day-For-Night.
This also meant that the electric generator (or genny) order had to be canceled for the night exteriors on the beach. This also meant that a story element that depended on a lighting cue near the end of the film had to be cut. Quoth the Raven, nevermore.
We had to scramble the day of the hurricane to shoot as much as we could before the storm hit; three “company moves” (location changes) at least. Talk about rapid-fire filmmaking.
Our actors and actress had to give up a second weekend to complete filming; this was especially tough for them since they were all graduate students.
My cinematographer — an alumnus of my University — had flown in from Georgia to shoot the film. He had to be flown up to Virginia a second time to finish the film.
The large crew from the first weekend evaporated. The rest of the film was shot with a skeleton crew of only four or five people.
Finally, all of the other logistics, such as equipment, meals, transportation, and costumes, had to be re-orchestrated on an already small budget.

Now, these types of issues are common in the filmmaking world, even without a massive hurricane in the middle of the shoot. I tell you about all these mishaps not to discourage you, but to remind you to be like the willow tree or bamboo: bend, don’t break.

If you can adapt to unexpected changes and roll with the punches, your film will be more likely to be completed and reach fruition in front of a captive audience.

Engage with the Community

This is an area I wish I’d done better. Edgar Allan Poe has a ton of fans around the world, and try as I might, I didn’t do very well engaging the millions of Poe fans out there before the film was made or while it was touring festivals. It’s reached a much wider audience now that it’s been on YouTube for years, but I should have leveraged the literary weight that Poe’s work has to my advantage when I was fundraising and advertising the film. Thankfully, my short still did well in festivals and even got distribution with Gaia. I got my first royalty check at age twenty! I was so proud of that $0.24.

If the poem you’ve picked to adapt is in the public domain (a must unless you get explicit legal permission from the author), there’s a good chance that his or her work is famous to some degree. It may be a niche audience compared to Edgar Allan Poe, but it’s still a built-in audience for your film. Find those people, engage with them, and share your passion for the work of the poet you’ve picked! They’re likely to be your strongest allies in the tough world of commercial art.

Connecting with other fans of Poe enabled me and a friend to create another Poe adaptation shortly thereafter. I didn’t direct, but instead was the director of photography and co-producer for my colleague James Cotton’s adaptation of Poe’s short story The Tell-Tale Heart:

Target Specific Festivals

Film festivals are the holy grail of aspiring filmmakers everywhere. I’ve written an entire article already about film festivals.

Simply put, find and submit to festivals that play films related to your chosen genre. Since my film was a fantasy film, I submitted to sci-fi and fantasy festivals. However, I had more success when I targeted romance, inspirational, and historical genre categories. Had I picked horrific Poe prose, I would have easily been eligible for the many horror festivals that exist around the world.

Awards and festivals “Annabel Lee” screened at.

Likewise, consider location: Your location and the location of the poet. Poe is known for being from Virginia and for spending much time in Baltimore. So, fests in Virginia were more receptive to the film, especially since I’d shot in the state. Had there been a Poe-oriented festival in Maryland, it may have done well there. Unfortunately, I had little luck in my home state of North Carolina. Usually, it’s a good strategy to target festivals where you live; but alas, it was not to be for my film.

Conclusion

Here’s a summary of what we covered:

Tone vs. Narrative Styles
Don’t Show the Narrator
Explore the Imagery
Expand Beyond the Poem
Build a World
Write a Script
Shoot MOS
Bend, Don’t Break
Engage with the Poet’s Community
Target Specific Festivals

If you follow these tips, you’ll be much more prepared than I was for your first poem-to-film adaptation. It’s fun! You may learn and discover more than you expect. Embrace the creative challenges and enjoy the process of turning your favorite poem into a visual work of art.

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How to Adapt a Poem Into a Short Film