Texts to Movies: Does Adaptation Limit or Liberate Meaning?

. There is a debate over the measure of a successful literary work adaptation. One party argues that a successful adaptation follows the originality of the story so the viewers will not label the adaptation as “unfaithful” to the original work. However, the other party suggests that an adaptation should not follow the original story and that it should become a new version of the original work. These debates indirectly discuss whether an adaptation should limit the interpretation of the original story when adapting or giving freedom when interpreting the meaning of the original work to the adapted work. Following the debate, this research aims to explore the process of a short story adaptation to a short movie to reveal the changes of meaning as portrayed by the text and the movie by using semiotics theory. Observation and interview were used to gather data from the producers of both text and short film during the production of the short film to understand the author’s and the adapters’ interpretation of the story. The result of this research shows that turning the colours mentioned in the written work into visual was one of the major changes that took place in the short film production and in the written work. This research concludes that an adaptation liberates the meaning of a story by turning a single mode story into a multimodal story that represents rich interpretations and visual representations.


Introduction
Stories come in the forms of drama, songs, and films, live actions or even animation.Before the emergence of films, stories were told largely in the written forms, which subsequently adapted.An adapted work receives more recognition and broader audience.The existence of Adaptation is important because they allow to the story to be shown in a new way, making it possible for more people to know about the story and appreciate the original work [1] Adaptation can be either successful or be the exact opposite of it.For an adaptation to be considered successful, it should not deviate too much from the original literary work which it is adapted from and unless this is not the case, it is likely that the viewers label the adaptation as "unfaithful" to the original work [2].It means that an adapted work should not make too much of a difference from the original work, to not be called as "unfaithful" an adapted work should not change the plot, character, or the theme of the story too much.
However, other party stated that the heart of the adaptive act is a question of essence: how to create a second version of a first thing, such as a book, a film, a poem, or yourself, that is successfully its own, new thing while retaining the essence, spirit, and soul of the first thing [3].According to Jones, you must have a deep respect for 'the voice,' but you also must think like a detective to bring it to the screen.'Keep in mind that you can never ruin a book.'The book stands on its own.' [3].
One of recognizable adaptation work is a film or a short film, there are many novels that are being adapted into a film.A film is never solely based on one source text, other factors such as popular culture and "social climate" influence filmmaking.Similarly, Deborah Cartmell and Imelda Whelehan observe that literary scholars typically prefer the original text and that this bias skew analyses of adaptations.They argue that evaluating adaptations in other forms of media using the original text "homogenizes the identities and desires of both film and fiction consumers who experience narrative pleasures differently."[4].
Novels tell stories through literary devices such as metaphor, tone, hyperbole, and other techniques.While in the world of films, they used cinematic techniques such as lighting, camera angle, actor placement, and other cinematic techniques.These literary devices and cinematic techniques are very different and have distinct strengths and weaknesses [5].An example of adaptation would be Natsume Souseki's work, "I Am a Cat" which was written in 1906 and got adapted into a film in 1936, exactly 30 years after the written work was being released.The other example is Josee, The Tiger and The Fish, which published as a novel in 1984.This work got adapted into two live action drama, one is a Japanese drama and the second one is Korean drama.Josee, The Tiger and The Fish also being adapted into an animated film which was released in 2021.
Films show, whereas novels tell; in fact, films must show to keep the audience invested in the characters and the story.Mantel also emphasizes "show, don't tell," arguing that an audience's intelligence and ability to pick up on subtler story cues is important [5].With this different emphasizing, differences will be occurred.From the way the story being delivered, the elements being used in each media, and the meaning might also be different when we compare a novel and a film.
This research is going to focus on the comparison of an adapted work that takes form of a short film that was created by the students of English major in a private university of Indonesia and the original work itself was also written by a student of English major in a private university of Indonesia.This short film is titled, "Nameless", the author of "Nameless" and the adapters are not native speakers of English.
"Nameless" is a story about a boy with no identity who becomes trapped in his own room and eventually goes insane with his only friend, his own shadow.
The short film "Nameless" is the result of an adaptation of a short story.The content itself also focuses on a different area; for example, while the short story focuses on narrative, the short film focuses on visual play that will catch the attention of viewers.The adapters took inspiration from the original work and created a short film with a different intended meaning.Some monologue and narrative from the original work were not used due to the author and adapters' differing perspectives on the story.
The comparison for this research focused on the differences of the text production and the interpretation of each sign used in the short film seen by the adapters and the authors.The semiotics theory by Daniel Chandrel as the theory to elaborate the issue.
Semiotics is the study of signs; it is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign [7].These signs do not only refer to visual signs such as symbols on the map or the colour of red in traffic light.But it is also including sounds.So, signs in Semiotics includes words, images, sounds, gestures, and objects [8].
Semiotics is a part of the study of communication, this study includes visual arts, graphic design, and basic visual literacy.People that worked or study in a field that is related to art and visual communication must consider how symbols, signs, and colour affect the interpretation of their works.For example, a logo does not only need to be eye-catching and remarkable but also needs to communicate the impression the company intends to make [9].
This research focus on the meaning of the adapted work "Nameless" and find out whether adapting a short story into a short film limit the meaning of the story or rather liberating the meaning of the story.

Literature Review
Scholars and laypeople who have attempted to comprehend and explain oral, written, or visual texts and their meanings, with whatever aim, have always been the focus of discussions regarding text analysis and/or text interpretation.One theory that relates this meaning interpretation is Hermeneutics.
Hermeneutics is the study of how to understand cultural manifestations, particularly texts in a way that ensures the accuracy and sufficiency of their interpretation and associated comprehension processes.This art, in its purest form, does not call for or rely on any kind of systematic description, classification, or examination of form and content, text and setting, or language employed [6].
Additionally, the idea of the hermeneutic circle applies to the interpretation of textual meanings because a part's meaning can only be grasped in the context of the whole, and the meaning of the whole can only be accessed through its components [6].
As the meaning is being interpreted from short story to a short film, a theory called semiotics is needed in order to analyse the interpreted meaning in the short film.
Semiotics is the study of signs; it is interested in everything that may be interpreted as a sign [7].These indications do not just relate to visual cues such as map symbols or the colour red in traffic lights.However, it also includes noises.In Semiotics, signs include words, pictures, sounds, gestures, and objects [8].
In the book Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design written by Gunther Kress and Theo Van Leuween, 'Sign' is the central idea in any semiotics.Our book is about signs, or, as we prefer to say, about producing signs.We will talk about the forms (also known as "signifiers") that are utilized to create meanings (also known as "signifieds") in the creation of signs, such as colour, perspective, and line.This tells that Semiotics plays an important role in Multimodality [10].
According to Gunther Kress, multimodality is about how people learn, communicate, and convey information using different forms of media [11].One simple example could be adapting written work into short film or drama, or comic to game.The concept of modes revolves around multimodality, mode in multimodality refers to the organized use of material resources for purposes of making [11].Simply put, the example of mode is an image, language, music, etc.
Many modes are used in connection with other modes to create a meaning because it is unable to standby itself.Colours, for example, are used in typography, graphic design, image making, architecture, dress, and so on [11].In some of Gunther Kress definition, mode is a socially shaped and culturally given semiotic resource for making meaning [11].
Images represent the spatially organized recollection of the visually encountered world, whereas text represents the temporally organized recollection of the actionally experienced world [10].Kress believes that images can express the relationship between visual elements in ways that text cannot [12].
Pictures are not only easier to recognize and process than words, but they are also easier to remember.When words are stored in long-term memory, they are encoded with a single code.Pictures, on the other hand, have two codes: one visual and one verbal, which are stored in different parts of the brain [13].
Whether the adapted work of "Nameless" gives freedom for viewers to imagine the meaning interpreted in the story (Liberating) or only giving one interpreted meaning (Limiting), Multimodality helps to answer this research question.

Research Design
The study was begun by a few research questions, is the meaning of the short film "Nameless" being limited or rather liberating and how the meaning was being interpreted in the adapted work.This study is an ethnography study following a six month involvement of the writer in an adaptation project done in the English department student at a private university in Jakarta.The original story and the adapted work itself were created by the students at a private university in Jakarta majoring in English Literature.

Data Collection
The data for this research was gathered from the analysis of the moving images of the short film and the short story.First, we compared the original text of the story with the scenes from the short film.Second, we then identified the changes of the literary elements used by the short film and the short story, for example, the development of the characters and the plot.
We also observed the progress of the production of the short film.Starting from selecting the suitable story that can be made into a short film from a group of stories that have been written by the students up to the recording session.
We also did an interview to the original authors of the story to get deeper insight about the story according to the author herself.Aside gathering the data from interviewing the author and observation, we also interviewed the screenplay writer and the adapters of the short film.

Data Analysis
After gathering up all data we have gotten for the research, we compiled all of it in one table which in the table, we divided our data into three parts.One is the original written work where we find interesting to be researched on, the second part is the screenplay line which came from the original written work but has been fully adapted into screenplay format, the third part is a screenshot of the short film.
Below the tables, we put the intended meaning of the authors and the reason why the adapters and screenplay writer decided to omit some of the lines existed in the original work.
To understand the differences of the meaning between the author and the adapters when making story, we used one method which is called as Ethnography which helped me a lot during the progress of my data gathering.Interviewobserved the progress of the film making and did an open-ended interview to the author and the adapters.
According to Dr. Sushil Baral et al, Ethnography, is the systematic study of people and cultures.It is intended to investigate cultural phenomena by having the researcher observe society from the perspective of the subject of the study [14].
Ethnography is also a qualitative methodology which lends itself to the study of beliefs, social interactions, behaviors of small societies, involving participations and observation over a period, and the interpretation of the data collected.
Ethnography also developed as a tool of social science, it involved the social scientific observer, the observed, the research report as text, and the audience to which the text is presented [15].

Results
"Nameless" is a short story written by a student of English major in a private school of Indonesia, it is a story about a boy that has no identity being trapped in his own room and eventually reached insanity with his only friend which is his own shadow.
There were a lot of information we gathered throughout the observation and open-ended interviews.Differences also found in the original story, screenplay, and the short film.The reason then became clear when we asked the author and adapters about their own interpretation of the meaning behind the story.

Story
The touch would probably be soothing if it was not for the fact that the boy's nail started to stab the surface.

Screenplay
He puts his left hand on the cover of the book, feeling it (his fingernails scratch along.SFX nail scratch).

Signified
The feeling of anger Table 1 and 3 showed the slight change of the sentence which the meaning of the sentence being limited into a simple sentence, a pointer also being used in the table 1 which is "his fingernails scratch along.SFX nail scratch".Table 2 and 4 showed the signifier and the signifier of figure 1 and 2.
In figure 1 & table 1 and figure 2 & table 3. The protagonist of this story appeared to be scratching the book and gripped the pen tightly, these two shots represent the frustration of the boy, which was said by the author that the boy felt the feeling of frustration and anger inside of him.In the Table 5 there was a difference spotted in the screenplay, one more expression is being added to the protagonist's face which is "scrunched".Table 6 showed the signifier and signified that can be found during the scene.
The next scene is where the boy turned his head to the window to see the children playing, the author explained the reason behind the ugly smile of the boy.The smile the boy put was a jealous smile but also blaming himself on becoming jealous to the children.

The boy knows that he shouldn't blame the children, yet he still being jealous.
There was a reason on why the short film didn't show the children despite being mentioned in the short story and the editing staff also put a voice of children playing in the short film.But their recording environment did not support them to record from the window and they also don't have any children actors/ actresses to be involved in their short film.
Because of that, the adapters can only rely to the sound of children playing to imply that there are children playing at the time of the scene being played.
The adapters paid attention to the lighting for the short film carefully, they believed that lighting could affect the mood and feeling of the story.The idea of the usage of lighting then was being agreed immediately by the original author of the story.
While the effects of sound and colour are so clear when it comes to narrative, Russell wishes to question the practice of marginalizing the role of light in existing semiotic studies.As Russell notes, light has a special place in the worlds of photography and film: Light directs the translation of the profilmic into the filmic and is crucial in the transmission of all filmic codes for narrative in cinema because it helps create pictures, convey them into a camera, and display them on a screen [16].Table 8 showed the signifier and the signified of the scene where the boy tapped his pen to the desk followed by the sound of tapping and the sudden appearing voices became louder and louder.This scene was not originally coming from the original work nor the screenplay.It was in the story board for the short film "Nameless".It can be seen from Table 7 that there was no description written in the story nor the screenplay.The adapters wanted to make the story to look even more appealing and came up with the idea of adding details that were not in the original story.One of them was a scene of the boy furiously tapping his pen to the table, the incoherent voices began to appear, and the sound of the tapping became louder.The adapters discussed his idea with the author which the author agreed to add a few more shots to give out more details of how the protagonist feel at the time.

Story
The shadow was laughing at him at every chance it was provided.

Screenplay
The shadow moves by itself.Turning its head as if to mock him before going back to its original pose   10 showed the description of the screenplay and story of a certain scene written in the story but did not make its appearance in the short film.
The short film "Nameless" did not completely follow the original work due to various reason.some scenes in the short story did not make it to the short film because it was repetitive, for example, table 9 and table 10.It is called as repetitive because there has already a certain shot that includes the lines written in the short story.One example of it was when the protagonist let out anguish tears and refusing to fall to the black matter on his feet, there was already a shot of it in the short film, so they decided not to use it.
One character which is the shadow of the boy has a change of the role when being adapted into the short film.This can be seen when the author mentioned that the shadow is laughing and mocking the protagonist, but in the adaptation, the shadow did not laugh nor mocked the protagonist at all.Rather, he was seen as somewhat emotionless character whose only role was to attack the protagonist at the climax.13 shows the boy's terror and fright, the shadow became larger, and the ink covered the boy's palm which made the boy became panicked and screamed.The adapters proposed this idea and discussed it with the author of this story which she agreed, she also gave an idea which to use black ink so that the ink can be the representation of the boy's shadow appeared to be attacking him physically.Thus, giving the boy the feeling of uncomfortableness and anxiousness.The author of this story also like this idea because it is visually better and can attract the audience even more.Table 11 and 13 showed the added details in order to show more meaning in the short film, while as table 12 and 14 showed the signified and signifier of figure 5 and  6.
There are various visual characteristics that may be employed to pique the audience's interest while crafting a piece of psychological horror.such as dim lighting, sharp contrast, light from windows and other openings penetrating through cones, pale and unsaturated colours like blue and red, and so on [17].
Differences can be spotted in table 15, there was one color being excluded in the screenplay, which is the color blue.Table 16 showed the signifier and signified of figure 7. The adapters covered every source of light but the red light, resulting a shot where the viewer can see nothing but red and black.The author herself stated that the red, black, and blue represents the boy's emotion.The red represents the boy's anger combined with the black colour which represents the confusion of the boy and then followed with blue colour which represents the sadness of the boy for being to confuse in expressing his own anger.
Despite blue being mentioned in the original story, the adapters decided not to use blue because he was only using the original text as his reference for the short film.He stated that blue does not match with the theme of the story in his point of view and so he only used red and black for the short film.His own interpretation of red and black was to give the viewers the uneasiness just by watching the scene.He was planning to make the short film into psychological horror and so he wants to give out the disturbing scene to the viewer.
Kress mentioned that when a colour becomes more saturated, we perceive it to be exaggerated, 'more than real,' and excessive.We judge it as 'less than real', 'ethereal,' or 'ghostly' when it is less saturated.Blue has been described as 'depressing and sad' as well as 'calm pleasure' [10].
The adapters of this story also mentioned that the colour blue expressed sadness while he wanted the boy in this short film full of anger, that is also the reason why they did not use the colour blue for the short story.
The colour red itself is an aggressive, life-giving, and energy-producing hue, yet it also directly conveys aggression and strengthens feelings of terror [17].
Turning the colours mentioned in the written work into visual was one of the major changes took place in the short film production and in the written work.
Blue, cyan, teal, and orange, as well as the blockbuster look and red, are frequently employed in horror films.The director of cinematography chooses the colour palette and establishes the colour tone for the entire film as well as for each scene [17].
For Storaro, the foundation of the light spectrum is a universe of symbols and feelings.He creates a voyage across colours in each movie he makes, and that journey is always an incident for the human spirit toward selfdiscovery.He takes the special meaning of a hue or a set of colours and adds it to various regions of the cinematic plot [17].
Together, colours and their meanings make up the sign that creates emotions in the viewer's mind.Colours are signifiers, and their meanings are the signified.The use of the colour duality (signifier) in the movie alters the meaning of the sign (signified) in a perceptible way depending on its shade [17].

Signified
The boy who loses his identity Table 17 has a drastic change of meaning, both description of story and screenplay lead to a different sentence yet the same meaning.While the original story focuses on the description of the boy, the screenplay focuses on the description of the book with the label written "Name: " and a pen.Table 18 showed the signifier and signified of figure 8.
The last scene showed a book with a label written "Name:" yet there's no name next to it.According to the author, the boy has lost his identity and thus he is nameless.This shot also represented that the boy did not know who he was anymore.
The author spent 6 days to complete the short story "Nameless".She put herself in the protagonist position to understand what the protagonist felt at the time such as anger, sadness, emptiness.She also relied on 5 senses to make the story felt alive and more relatable to the readers.While it took two months to complete the short film "Nameless," from writing the script to turning it into a short film and posting it on YouTube.

Conclusion
The short film "Nameless" is the result of adaptation that was based on a short story of the same title.The short story version focuses on one modal to represent its story, while the short film focuses on the multimodal representations of the story.The adapters used the original work as a reference and created the short film with different interpretation.Due to the different interpretation between the author and the adapters, some monologue and narrative in the original work were not used.
In the eyes of the author, the man character in this story is someone who had lost his identity, full of confusion and anger.The author used combination of descriptive words and colours to show the man character's emotion.
Although there is different view of the story, the adapters and screenplay writer still involve the original author in the progress of the short film making.Every objection from the author herself was conveyed to the adapters and the screenplay writer and so there wasn't any miscommunication between the adapters and the author.
In this case, the adapters did not tell the viewer the meaning behind the story itself, the viewer being given the freedom to think on what happen to the boy and the explanation behind the ending of the "Nameless".Meaning, the short film "Nameless" liberates the meaning of the story.
We found that the adapters were working hard transferring the essence, spirit, and soul of the short story.It can be seen from the frequent discussion between the adapters and the author.
This research can be used for future researchers to learn more about adaptation theoretically and its application.It is also meant for the adapters to know more about the possibilities of what can happen when they are adapting a literary work.

Fig. 4 .
Fig. 4. voices and the sound of the pen tapping became louder scene.

Fig. 5 .
Fig. 5. Shadow appearing scene Figure 5 & table 11 and figure 6 & table13shows the boy's terror and fright, the shadow became larger, and the ink covered the boy's palm which made the boy became panicked and screamed.The adapters proposed

Table . 2
. The signifier and signified in the scene of scratching the book

Table . 3
. Description of holding the pen on story and screenplay

Table . 7
. Description of voices and the sound of the pen tapping became louder on story and screenplay

Table .
10. Description of Anguish tears forming on story and screenplay.StoryAnguish tears formed in his eyes, refusing to fall to the black matter on his feet.Screenplay -

Table .
13. Description of ink appearing on the boy's palm on story and screenplayStory -ScreenplayInk spews out to his hand, freaking him out even more.Table.14. Signifier and signified in the scene of ink appearing on the boy's palm Signifier Red light and black colour dominated the scene Signified The shadow is attacking the boy physically.