Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Undertow by Kiri R Newton Blog Tour Guest Post




Author Kiri R. Newton has stopped by today 
with a guest post for the Undertow blog tour.

Roll credits

Any writer out there who has written a book and reckons they haven’t dreamt of it becoming a movie is a rubbish liar. Right from the first words of this book I was dreaming of seeing it on the big screen for the first time.

So, how would I like Undertow portrayed on the big screen?

Funnily enough, Mum actually asked me about this the other day and I think I surprised her when I said I wanted it to be animation, not big budget Hollywood. In the perfect world scenario, I’m still torn between Studio Ghilbi or Pixar, I love the way both studios produce their movies and honestly I would be happy with either. 

As for why not a live action movie, I’m still not so sure but I just don’t like the idea of it. I think it would be less believable, plus the advances being made with animation these days are just phenomenal. Keep 3D and give me animation any day. I also wouldn’t sell the rights to just anyone. I would rather sell it for less but have a hand in how the beast is made than sell it for a mint and not have anything more to do with its production. I would want to be the creative director or whatever the term is for the writer who cant keep her nose out of everyone’s business. I’m aware of how annoying I would be but I would want to be there for every step, every storyboard, every scribble and every little detail. And I would love it, I love seeing things come together no matter how long and arduous it is. 

I have also had it suggested to me that if Undertow does become a movie to write the script myself, in an effort to keep control of how it comes out, but honestly I have no problem with someone else writing it so long as I have the final say on it. I have never done any scriptwriting in my life and I would rather it be done well by someone else than done rubbish by me. On the same topic I would also write more into the storyline, beef out certain parts that couldn’t really be beefed out in the book and change the way a few instances happen. They wouldn’t be major changes but just little things that in a movie would make the story flow a lot better. 

Then there’s the sound track which is very important to me. One song that will be on there, no questions asked is Planets by Short Stack, better known as the song that saved me from writers block. There would also be another Short Stack song on there called Rain on her parade which is what Josiah sings to Zoe when they are sleeping out on the dormant volcano. In hand with that the actors who voice Nox and Josiah must also be singers themselves as both characters sing in the book (Nox also plays piano). 

When people ask me if I have a dream cast for the movie it’s a yes and no answer. I am aware of how fickle the entertainment industry is so realistically the chances of getting who I’d like to play said characters would be slim. I also like the idea of having an all Australia cast (or nearly all Australian) even though I would like Tom Felton (from the Harry Potter series) to play Josiah. And having Shaun Diviney (formerly of Short Stack fame) play Nox would be very cool. But the dream cast is just that, the dream cast and if fingers crossed I ever get to the stage of picking a cast then I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

But I hear you say, what about the most important character Zoe? Well truth be told I would sit through twelve hours of auditions and claim that no one was suitable simply so I could voice her. Because I mean really, who doesn't want to voice the character who is a diversion of their own personality?


Title: Undertow 
Author: Kiri R. Newton 
Publisher: Bookpal Austrailia 

Blurb: For far too long these sailor-drowning, ship-sinking sea sirens have been portrayed as happy, peaceful creatures who want nothing more than to fall in love with a prince and live happily ever after. Undertow is an unconventional twist on one of the oldest mythological creatures known to man. Buy 

Links: 
Media Links: Website



About Kiri R. Newton
Its weird right but as an author I could tell you about my characters inside out and yet when people ask me to talk about myself I go all quiet. Anyways, here I go. I am a child of ‘91 born in Jandowae, a tiny little town out past Dalby. When I was five my parents decided to pack everything up and move to Tonga in the South Pacific after Dad visited there and mum fell in love with the place after reading a book about it. So I grew up in a third world country, fluent in a second language by the time I was eight and lived amongst the locals who I was friends with. When I was thirteen my father passed away and due to the fact that the government refused to pay my mum a pension over there like they did my father, we were forced to move back to Australia. 

As for my writing career, I started writing progressively longer short stories in Grade 5 where one teacher noted on my report card that ‘I had unique ideas and an unusual talent’. By Grade 7 I had completed my first novel a post-apocalyptic fiction where cats are the highest life form and live basically as we do and follows the lives of a litter of cats, the characters based on a litter of cats belonging to my neighbour. I continued writing different things from horsey stories to Phantom of the Opera fan-fiction right through my teenage years, nothing serious, mostly just a lot of scribbling. 

In Grade 12 I realized that if I was going to be serious about being a writer I needed to finish stories, not just have a lot of random scribbles to my name. So forgoing all my assignments I finished my second book called Dynamite which is an Australiana tale about a racehorse. Two years later I went on holidays to Fiji, came home and three months later Undertow was completed. In the middle there I wrote a Tolkien-esque fantasy epic called The Dark Assassin with my now ex-boyfriend. The year after that I completed Hazardous, which will be my next published title. 

TOUR SCHEDULE:
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)