The first thing I would like to say is that I wasn’t excited about this project; I mean, what’s fun about learning about a super-old Shakespeare that I don’t care about? But this project was a little bit different we sadly still had to read the book but the end result was creating our Romeo and Juliet film but putting a twist on it. But before I just show you our film I’m going to show how we got here.
Driving Question
“How has William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet remained relevant to contemporary storytelling?”
We started this project looking at the Romeo and Juliet play and reading all 5 acts. As the we read through the play we filled out a theme book, This themebook had five sections for each act in the play, with individual columns dedicated to the details of a chosen scene from the act, how I interpreted it, and a connection to an adaptation I have seen.
Before I show you my theme book I’ll explain the Romeo and Juliet movie adaptations we watched while reading the play. In “Warm Bodies,” a zombie named R falls in love with a human girl named Julie, and their connection starts changing him and the world of zombies around him. “Gnomeo and Juliet” is an animated movie about two garden gnomes, Gnomeo and Juliet, who come from families that don’t get along. They face challenges and work together to bring their communities together, all while adding a fun and funny twist to the famous love story.
You can view my theme book here
The reason we watched the adaptations was so we could compare and find connects between the original play to the adaptations, and create our final project which was our own take on the play. This was such a short project I’ve already gone over pretty much the whole project, which was just 3 assignments.
How can I organize my understanding of theme as it relates to Romeo and Juliet? ( starting the themebook, and deciphering the meaning, symbolism, and context behind the given act and/or scene. )
How has Shakespeare influenced modern storytelling? ( watching and taking notes in the themebook about various adaptations of Romeo and Juliet. )
Romeo and Juliet transposed. ( creating an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. )
We were finally on the last and most fun part of this project crating the video. This was easily the most enjoyable part of the project as I quite like making videos. The first thing we did was make a storyboard for the video, which wasn’t amazing, but it did the job.
Alright. In my opinion, Romeo and Juliet is often called the greatest love story ever and it probably inspired the theme of forbidden love in other stories. We can see its relevance by looking at the movies Gnomeo and Juliet and Warm Bodies. Why would these movies be made if Romeo and Juliet wasn’t still important? They became successful because they are based on the most famous love story of all time. Many other works like Avatar, Titanic, West Side Story, and countless plays, films, and artworks have borrowed from Shakespeare’s story, sometimes changing it a bit, and shared it with the world. Some people have made a lot of money from these adaptations. So, despite being unoriginal, I would argue that Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is still relevant.