Adaptation B: What I am going to Adapt...

For my project I have decided to adapt a book that was a favourite of mine when I was younger. The book is called 'Point Blanc', a novel that is second in the series of the 'Alex Rider Books' written by Anthony Horrowitz. The books are about a 14 year old spy and his missions that he has been given by Britian's MI6 division. Alex lives the double life of ordinary school boy and secret agent spy. 

The first book 'Stormbreaker' was actually adapted into a feature length movie in 2006 but no more have been made since then.

Book Cover

The blurb of Point Blanc - 

Investigations into the “accidental” deaths of two of the world's most powerful men have revealed just one link: both had a son attending Point Blanc Academy, a school for rebellious rich kids run by the sinister Dr Grief and set high in the French Alps. Armed with a new collection of gadgets, Alex must infiltrate the academy as a pupil and establish the truth about what is really happening there.

Plot (Spoilers) -

As the blurb suggests; Alex Rider must infiltrate the academy undercover as a rich rebellious school boy posing as the son of billionaire, Sir David Friend. At the Academy Alex makes friends with one of the boys named James who seems an ordinary rebellious youngster, unlike the rest of the teenagers who are obedient, well mannered and unusual for rebellious rich kids. 

The school is run by the principal, Dr. Hugo Grief and his right hand woman Mrs. Eva Stellenbosch who are the only teachers at the Academy. The entire building is surrounded by armed guards making it impossible to escape, but Alex and his new friend James plan to find a way out of the prison school. Just as their plan starts to fall into place James is taken away at night into the secret part of the building. In the morning Alex notices that James is not quite himself and has completely forgotten about any plans to escape.

Alex uses the changes in James' behaviour to lead to the discovery of Dr. Grief's plan: 'The Gemini Project'. Grief is a biological scientist who had been cloning himself and had been replacing the boys in the school one by one. His clones had been watching the students every move on a duplicated floor with cameras and replicating their image through plastic surgery. Grief wanted to send his clones to the most powerful parts of the world through the students families and in effect take over the world. This is why the school is only open for the children of rich and powerful families with a limited number of spaces accounting for the amount of Grief's clones.

My Project -

I intend to design a 3D digital set of one or more of the rooms inside the school. The challenge of this will be making it seem ordinary but at the same time uncanny, as though there is something not quite right about the atmosphere. This will be achieved by strategic lighting and object placement. 

Another feature that appeals to me is the idea of the never ending image. In the plot I mentioned the duplicated floor with cameras, this is wear the clones stayed and watched the students through the cameras in each room. With this in mind I plan on having the shot with a small tv screen somewhere with the exact same shot in it that will then create the illusion of the never ending image and a somewhat creepy feature of the shot.

As Grief's plan is called The Gemini Project it is named after the star sign of May 21 - June 20 which is the symbol of the 2 twins, hence the clones. With this I plan to use the symbol of Gemini to create the logo of the academy and have it somewhere on a book or other objects in the shot as well as on my design templates. The symbol works well as it could be seen as bars that symbolize the idea of the rebellious teenagers being trapped in a school high in the mountains.

I would also like to do concept art of the academy exterior and possibly even a concept of the stern Principal, Dr Hugo Grief.