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2.1. READING
Ex.1.You are going to read a magazine article about four ordinary people who have taken part in Reality TV programmes. Look at the questions below. For each question, you have to choose one of the people A – D.
Which person
1 gave away the money they won on the show? …….
2 received money to make up for the harm done by the programme…….
3 shared the first place in the competition with another person?…….
4 was immediately successful in their career after the programme?…….
5 does not understand the reasons for their success?…….
6 says the programme gave an untrue picture of them? …….
7 found their personal relationships were badly affected by the programme …….
8 feels their success is not just due to personal qualities? …….
9 had a musical career that turned out to be disappointing? …….
10 feels they are different from the general public? …….
11 finds family life more stressful than giving a public performance?…….
12 feels the other participants were sorry they left?…….
REALITY TV – THE ROAD TO SUCCESS
A Ron Copsey was one of a group of contestants who agreed to live for a year on a desert island, with cameras following their attempts to survive together. He left the island after five months, and later accused the producers of the show of misrepresenting him, claiming they had edited the film to make it look as if he was throwing a chair in the face of one of the women. ‘I’m not an argumentative, aggressive, nasty piece of work. It was shocking,’ he told a journalist later. ‘The producer led the public to believe that the other contestants were glad to see the back of me but it wasn’t true.’ After returning home from the island, Nr. Copsey said he was unable to continue with his college course as other students wouldn’t talk to him, and he had to take antidepressant pills. The television company has agreed to pay him $16.000 compensation.
B Craig Phillips was the winner of one of the first Reality TV programmes to be shown in England, called Big Brother. Craig was originally a builder, and comes from Liverpool. After the series ended he admitted: ‘I do not know why I won – you’ll have to ask all those people that voted for me.’ Crag donated his $70.000 prize money to teenage friend Jo Harris, to help pay for a heart and lung operation in America. ‘She is a unique young lady and it is wonderful to be in the position to help her,’ he said at the time. Crag later had a five-album deal with a record company but he was dropped after his first single. However, he has continued to raise money for charities as well as appearing regularly on daytime television show.
C Denise Leigh won joint first prize in a TV contest called Operatunity, in which ordinary people had the chance to be transformed into opera singers. But there is nothing ordinary about Denise. She is a blind woman of amazing determination who had succeeded against all the odds. She had always dreamed of a musical career, but this was prevented by the births of her children. Being a blind mother of three is a challenge. ‘It’s the hardest job in the world,’ she says. ‘Keeping them safe is definitely more worrying than anything that can happen to do on stage.’ Now the children are all at school, she is free to pursue her dream, and after Operatunity she is better placed than she could ever had hoped for. ‘Now I have sung on stage at the London Coliseum I am a different person,’ she said the morning after her triumph. ‘Winning the contest has changed my life.’
D Will Young shot to success when he won the TV competition Pop Idol of over a thousand contenders, and was offered a contract with a major record company. He is modest about his success. ‘I don’t think it’s me myself they are voting for, it’s the TV contestant, and in that context I feel very flattered by it all,’ he said. His first single, Evergreen, became the fastest-selling single of all time. It sold over a million copies in its first week. Will thinks that being a pop idol isn’t only a matter of having a good voice – there are generally other factors involved. ‘Performers over the ages have always given off a kind of energy. I think it’s about a whole image – the look, the clothes, the music – which puts a distance between you and other people.’
Ex. 2. You are going to read an article written by a novelist. For questions 1 – 7 choose the answer (A,B,C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.
I have noticed that after I published a book people inevitably ask: ‘Is there going to be a film?’ They ask this question in tones of great excitement, with a slight widening of the eyes. I am left with the suspicion that most people think that a film is far more wondrous than a novel; that a novel is, perhaps, just a hopeful step in the celluloid direction, and that if there is no film, then the author has partially failed. It is as if ‘the film’ confers a mysterious super-legitimacy upon the writer’s work.
Objectively speaking, a film’s relationship to a novel is as a charcoal sketch to an oil painting, and no writer I know would actually agree that ‘the film’ is the ultimate aspiration. Certainly, any literary novelist who deliberately tried to write something tailor-made to filmmakers would fail to produce a good book, because the fact is that books are only filmic by accident.
It is, in any case, a long journey from page to screen, because the first stage involves ‘selling the option’, where by, in return for the modest sum, and for a limited time, the producer retains the right to be the first to have a bash at making the film, should he get round to it. It is theoretically possible to go to decades having the option renewed, with no film being made at any time at all. This is money for jam, of course, but the sums are not big enough to be truly conducive to contentment. My first novel had the option renewed several times, and then finally it was dropped. This is, alas, a common fate, and many a novelist remembers those little bursts of hope with a wry smile.
In the case of my second novel, however, the book eventually made it over the real hurdle, which is the ‘exercising of the option’. This is the point where a more substantial fistful of cash changes hands, but regrettably even this is not enough to meet the expectations of loved ones and acquaintances, who strangely assume that you are imminently to the stinking rich for ever. More importantly, here begins the battle that takes place in author’s psyche thereafter. The hard fact is, that it is no longer your own book. Although, unusually, I was asked if I would like to do the script myself, no doubt both producer and director were mightily relieved when I declined.
Novelists, you see, rarely make good scriptwriters, and in any case I couldn’t have taken the job on without being a hypocrite – I had ever told off my best friend for wasting her literary energy by turning her novels into scripts when she should have been writing more novels. She has had the experience of doing numerous drafts, and then finding that her scripts still have not used. I wasn’t going to put up with that, because I have the natural arrogance of most literary writers, which she unaccountably lacks.
As far as I am concerned, once I have written something, then that is the way it must be; it is perfect and no one is going to make me change it. Scriptwriters have to be humble creatures who will change things, and even knowingly make them worse, a thousand times and thousand times again, promptly, and upon demand. I would rather be boiled in oil.
It is no longer your own book. The director has the right to make any changes that he fancies, and so your carefully crafted novel about family life in London can end up being set in Los Angeles, involving a car chase, a roof-top shoot-out and abduction by aliens. This, from the writer’s point of view, is the real horror of film.
When my book was eventually filmed, I did get the visit to the set, however. I cannot count the number of people I met there who a propos possible changes to the story, repeated to me in a serious tone that, ‘Of course, film is a completely different medium’. This mantra is solemnly repeated so that film-makers are self-absolved from any irritation that may be set up by altering the characters or the story. I think that it is the cliché that is really either untrue or too vague to be meaningful. There could not be anything simpler than extracting salient points of the main narrative, and making a faithful film, which is what our readers and writers would actually prefer.
My theory is that film-makers are hell-bent on a bit of territorial marketing, and each time one can only hope that they have sufficient genius to do it with flair. There are a few films that really are better than the book.
1. What do people do when the writer publishes a new book?
A They make wrong assumptions about his aims.
B They draw wrong conclusions from his comments.
C They make unfair criticisms of his writing.
D They gain a false impression of his attitude.
2. The writer compares writing with the visual arts to support the view that
A related art forms benefit from indirect comparisons.
B ideas are easily translated from one medium to another.
C an artist has no idea how an idea may develop.
D each art form should be judged on its own merits.
3. Which phrase best reveals how the writer regards the attitude of film producers in the ‘option’ system?
A ‘have a bash’ (line 23)
B ‘go round to it’ (lines 23 – 24)
C ‘money for jam’ (line 26)
D ‘a common fate’ (line 30)
4. What problem does the author of a literary work usually face once the film option has been ‘exercised’?
A financial disappointment
B pressure to produce a script
C loss of authorial control
D lack of support from film-makers
5. According to the writer, a good scriptwriter needs, above all, to
A adopt a flexible approach towards the work.
B ignore the arrogance of literary writers.
C resists the unreasonable demands for changes.
D be sensitive to the literary merits of the original work.
6. Which word best describes the attitude of the people on the film set towards the author?
A intolerant
B defensive
C indifferent
D aggressive
7. In the final analysis, the writer accepts that the film version of his literary work may be
A a lucrative sideline to his writing.
B an opportunity to learn new skills
C a chance to improve on the original.
D a way of attracting new readers.
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