WHAT ARE THE CRITERIA FOR DECIDING IF A BOOK WILL MAKE A GOOD FILM?
The relationship between illustrations and text is the real key to whether a picture book can be successfully translated into the audiovisual medium. The illustrations and text must fully support each other; any important character, action, mood or object described in the text should be represented somewhere in the illustrations, and vice versa. In terms of balance, there should generally be at least one illustration for every 25-60 words of text. Ideally, there should be enough detail within each illustration to accommodate two or three separate “shots” on each illustration. In some cases where there are too few illustrations to support the text, a picture book can still be translated into film if the original illustrator is available and agrees to create additional pictures for the film adaptation. Ultimately, a good picture book will not necessarily make a good film (and, conversely, some books come across better in the film medium than they do on the printed page!). The question of
