Executive producer Alison Owen discusses ‘The Giver’

Photo by Katherine Rountree

Written by Abby Thomas

Yesterday, “The Giver,” a film based on Lois Lowry’s famous novel of the same name, screened at the SCAD Museum of Art for the Savannah Film Festival.

The movie is about a community in the future that seems perfect. Their beliefs are based on the ideas that everyone should be the same and that there should be no option for people to choose their own paths in life.

Jonas, played by Brenton Thwaites, is chosen to be the Receiver of Memory. He discovers that there is more to life than the one they’ve been given and goes about trying to bring society back to the way it was.

After the showing, there was a Q&A with the executive producer, Alison Owen, a familiar name and face to the Savannah Film Festival. She came last year to talk about her experience as the producer of “Saving Mr. Banks.” She has also produced “Shaun of the Dead,” “Jane Eyre” (2011) and “The Other Boleyn Girl.”

She told audiences that when she was brought in as an executive producer, a lot of the pre-production decisions had already been made. She said she had become Nicole “Nikki” Silver, the main producer’s, person for advice, and she “wanted to make sure to help Nikki have as much confidence as possible,” because Silver wasn’t very experienced.

She talked a great deal about the budget for the film, saying the team wanted to give the movie the feel of major features based on young adult novels such as “The Hunger Games,” but with only a third of the budget.

The biggest job of a producer is determining the cost and deciding what to do with it. She said, “You want to get at least double back what your budget was.” Their marketing strategy was to reach out to schools.

There were many questions about the process of translating the book into a movie. Originally the movie was in full color, which outraged the fans because the society in the book sees in black and white. The team decided to take the color out of the start of the movie. Owen was happy, because she didn’t approve of it being in color in the first place. She wanted to give the movie a classic feel.

The character of Jonas was also controversial because the movie made him 17 while in the book he’s much younger, but they did so to add in the romantic interest. Lois Lowry was not on set during the production, but they did consult her about all of their decisions before doing it.

Owen said, “She was very happy with the final production. She seemed to just be happy that they were doing it.”