Adapting Edith Wharton’s 1917 classic for the screen is an extraordinary opportunity.
Realizing the emotional and visual scope of the novel will require careful planning and the closest attention to physical and financial details.

Principal photography will start in Summer 2012. The main locations are centered in
Tyringham, Massachusetts – including the neighboring towns of Lenox, Lee and Stockbridge. Some larger period exteriors will shoot in Pittsfield and North Adams. Two or three days’ work are planned at transportation museums in Connecticut.

New digital camera technology will be used to capture realistic, immediate images with minimal grip and lighting requirements. Labor, time and equipment savings will permit a relatively expansive schedule, providing the creative space needed to develop compelling characters and settings. Further economies will be realized by employing first-rate local crew and talent.

By relying on extensive preparation and keeping the crew very small, a more intimate and flexible shooting style becomes possible. This is not incompatible with creating superior
production values. World-class CGI expertise available in the Berkshires will also be essential to successfully and economically meeting the challenges of period work.

The three principal roles are career milestones for any actor. The budget will not compromise the artistic merit or prestige of participating in this project, and the actual time commitments for the two male leads are in fact, quite modest. Especially with minimal resources, treating cast and crew well is a first priority for this production.

New England unions have already been approached about the project, and have indicated that an accommodating contract can be arranged. A deal will also need to be negotiated with SAG, and letters of agreement may be required with other guilds to allow participation for certain key crew members. Financing will be arranged by offering private equity stakes, working with one of several potential independent production partners.

Distribution is the most difficult step for any independent film project. For low budget
independents there are no guarantees. In its favor Summer already has the cachet of
Edith Wharton – one of America’s greatest writers and the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize. The novel itself is a discovery – a century-old treasure still hot to the touch.

Attached is a study of comparable literary adaptations and period films over the last ten years. Audience for this kind of romantic period work is not small, but it is distinctly underserved. While well-promoted studio projects dominate the top of the box office, smaller genre films regularly get theatrical release and turn a profit. Since this project first started, Summer has attracted interest from many unexpected directions. The development website has actually received inquiries about purchasing DVDs. No matter who stars in the film or what its budget, it is clear that there are many people who will buy tickets to see Summer.

Project status 2012

Summer is one of Edith Wharton’s most original and successful works. It has been adapted for television, theatre, and opera, but never for film. Plans to produce Summer as a feature in the 1930s fell apart because the material was seen as “too immoral”, although Wharton herself saw how the visual and dramatic elements in Summer would lend themselves to film.

An overlooked classic by one of the great American novelists, Summer has instant appeal to the overlooked audience which recently pushed The Help, The King’s Speech, and Atonement to the top of the box office.

Carl Sprague, film designer and veteran of several Wharton screen and theatre adaptations (The Buccaneers, The Age of Innocence) was inspired to adapt Summer as a movie while preparing an exhibit for The Mount – Wharton’s estate in Lenox, Massachusetts. The screenplay attracted immediate interest. Over $100,000 in development funding has been raised. Preliminary cast lists, schedule and budget have been prepared. Principal photography is planned for eight weeks starting in 2012. A majority of locations have already been identified.

Summer is told entirely from the point of view of its young lead – Charity Royall. The novel’s structure and subject matter are unique: a bitter May-September compromise brackets an explosive summer romance. These are great roles which will attract great actors.

A wealth of talent and production value is available in Massachusetts. The production concept is to create maximum visual impact with minimal physical expenditure. The aim in producing Summer is to show a new way forward for the adaptation of American classics.

Here’s Wharton writing to her friend Gaillard Lapsley in the darkest days of the First World War, Paris, December 21, 1916:

“I have written a book in the last six months – a shortish novel […} known to its author and her familiars as the Hot Ethan, the scene being laid in the neighborhood of Windsor Mountain, and the time being Summer, which is also the title of the book. There’s a Fourth of July at Pittsfield that few people but you and I are capable of appreciating! I don’t know how on earth the thing got itself written in the scramble and scuffle of my present life, but it did, and I think you’ll like it.”

These are stills from the production trailer. Shot over two very short days the trailer revealed the depth and heart of the story in vivid ways to the participants, as well as the robust and accessible locations and resources here in the Berkshires.

Summer, by Edith Wharton. Short trailer for feature in progress directed by Carl Sprague. Principal Imaging by Kevin Sprague. Featuring Ardis Barrow and Tom Frelinghuysen. ©2009 Kevin Sprague