“Animal Adaptations” at the Festival of Science in Warsaw
On September 27th, our team had the pleasure to present our project for the general audience as a part of Warsaw's annual Festival of Science.
We discussed the general idea behind our project and then moved on to individual case studies. Justyna Wlodarczyk talked about the use of dog actors in silent adaptations of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (dir. William Robert Daly, 1914 & dir. Harry Pollard, 1927), specifically the motivations behind adding dogs to the narrative. Kamil Chrzczonowicz discussed the ethics of handling and training elephant actors behind the scenes of Douglas Gordon's "Zenobia" (1939). Jack Harrison explored how adapting canine sound necessitated changes to the story itself in Richard Thorpe's "The Voice of Bugle Ann" (1936). Julia Wilde presented the various challenges faced during the shooting of Clarence Brown's "The Yearling" (1946) as the production had to adjust to the growth and reproduction cycles of deer, whereas Anna Potoczny talked about the making of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963) and how knowing what we know about the handling of bird actors may influence how we interpret the cinematic text.
We would like to kindly thank our audience for showing up on such a beautiful Sunday morning, and we hope to be back soon with another public talk.
