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1A word that has become very loaded, especially when it comes to television.
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3* Its basic definition is, essentially, "staging of a story." It isn't just creating a story but expressing it, presenting it to the audience in an art form. Even if the story is true, it has to be presented like a fictional account, such as depicting the exact words spoken in a conversation where no one possess a transcript of it.
4* When a story is RippedFromTheHeadlines or InspiredBy a true story, this word means "we changed a bunch of stuff to make it less boring." Or else it's something whose publication in gory detail can be tolerated only if the creators can say it did happen in RealLife. Or both.
5* As a [[AdvertisingTropes commercial disclaimer,]] it means, "We used special effects to make this commercial, so [[DontTryThisAtHome don't expect our product to actually do this stuff]]." Applied to a lot of truck ads. (See DoNotAttempt). Also applied to "endorsements" by "ordinary people", who are in fact actors reading scripts. (This latter meaning has been subverted by: a series of ads for satellite TV in which famous actors do readings of ordinary people's letters to the satellite TV company; a series of car-insurance commercials featuring an actual celebrity seated with an actual customer, attempting to make their stories more gripping, usually by poking fun of their own image.)
6* Accompanies less-than-accurate CrimeReconstruction scenes on "TrueCrime" shows like ''Series/AmericasMostWanted.''
7* In marketing copy for audiobooks, "dramatized" usually means that different people perform the voices of different characters when they're speaking.
8* A NarrativeDrivenNatureDocumentary may use the term because they depict the animals in an anthropomorphic manner and sometimes selectively edit scenes.
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10!!Examples:
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14[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]
15* ''Manga/GundamSousei'' is what happens when you tell the story of how Gundam was conceived and exaggerate it.
16* ''Anime/MacrossDoYouRememberLove'' is the film adaptation of the original ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'' TV series. It was later retconned to be an in-universe movie dramatization.
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19[[folder: Fan Works ]]
20* The ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'' story, ''Fanfic/CourtneyAndTheViolinOfDespair'' is built around three incidents based on real life incidents that the author either witnessed or heard about from the person who endured it.
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23[[folder: Film ]]
24* ''[[Film/ThreeHundred 300]]'' is basically a {{Dramatization}} InspiredBy the conflict it represents, and makes no secret of this. As someone aptly summed-up, "This isn't the way it happened. This is much cooler."
25* ''Film/AmericanAnimals'': The film begins with a message "This is not based on a true story," but then turns this on its head when words drop out to leave "This is a true story." The plot is mostly a dramatization of real-life events, but this is occasionally intercut with talking-head commentary from the real people being portrayed. In several instances, the real people appear in the dramatized scenes ,watching or interacting with the events.
26* ''Film/AmericanSplendor'': Harvey Pekar's story, much of it taken directly from his comics, is dramatized through actors, who sometimes interact with stock footage of real events and the actual people they're playing.
27* ''Film/{{Apollo 13}}'' is based very closely off the real events of the actual spaceflight. Most of the scenes are very accurate ([[ShownTheirWork the filmmakers really wanted to get it right]]), and a good deal of the dialogue in Mission Control and in the spacecraft is based directly off the original recordings and transcripts. There is some dramatic license taken (such as an argument aboard the lunar module that never actually happened on the real flight), but the important points of the film stay very true to the actual events in real life.
28* 1945 documentary film ''Film/TheBattleOfSanPietro'' used dramatizations for all the combat scenes of the eponymous battle. However, the extensive use of JitterCam and the very sophisticated production skills of director Creator/JohnHuston and his crew made the combat scenes look so realistic that for decades after, people thought that they were real.
29* ''[[Film/TheCourier2021 The Courier (2021)]]'' is a dramatization of the real actions of Greville Wynne and Oleg Penkovsky. Some historical roles were condensed or expanded, the timeline of some events adjusted, some guesses were made, and some gray areas polished up for the sake of a clear, unambiguous narrative.
30* ''Film/DumbMoney'' is based on the true story of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameStop_short_squeeze 2021 GameStop short squeeze]]. Keith Gill and his family, Gabe Plotkin and his family, Ken Griffin, Vlad Tenev, and Baiju Bhatt are all {{Historical Domain Character}}s. The remainder of the cast consist of several original characters meant to represent the individual "retail investors" who took part, plus StockFootage of [[HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee various members of Congress]].
31* ''Film/{{Everest|2015}}'' is based on the events of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Mount_Everest_disaster 1996 Everest disaster]].
32* ''Film/TheFleshAndTheFiends'' is based on the true case of Burke and Hare, who murdered at least 16 people in 1828 Edinburgh, Scotland and sold their bodies for anatomical research.
33* A title card at the beginning of 1931 documentary ''Film/TheForgottenFrontier'', a film about nurses in the mountains of Appalachia, admits that most of what follows is a series of dramatizations made by documentarian Mary Marvin Breckinridge with the cooperation of the locals. They were RealLife incidents, however--the twins shown being given to the nurses to take care of grew up and got married.
34* ''Film/GodsAndMonsters'' is the dramatization of director James Whale's final days. That is to say almost the whole thing is made up.
35* ''Film/TheGreatStLouisBankRobbery'' is based on the actual robbery of the Southwest Bank in St. Louis in 1953. Many of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police officers and bank employees play themselves doing what they did during the actual robbery.
36* While the film ''Film/{{Hoffa}}'' itself was largely VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory the exchange between Hoffa and Robert Kennedy at a Congressional hearing was virtually taken word for word from official transcripts of the actual hearing.
37* ''Film/IShotJesseJames'' features an InUniverse example, as Robert Ford participates in a stage show that demonstrates how he killed UsefulNotes/JesseJames [[TruthInTelevision (the real Robert Ford did actually do this)]]. The film itself is more akin to VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory, as only the broad strokes of the tale are certifiably true (like Jesse James's death and Robert Ford's moving to Creede, Colorado).
38* ''Film/{{Jungle}}'' is based on Yossi Ghinsberg memoir recounting his ordeal of survival of being lost in the Bolivian jungle for several weeks. Most of the changes are for the sake of pacing, and several events were actually cut out of the narrative.
39* ''Film/TheKillerThatStalkedNewYork'' (1950). Instead of just telling the story of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_New_York_City_smallpox_outbreak 1947 smallpox outbreak in New York City]], the film also adds a more typical FilmNoir subplot with diamond smuggling, infidelity, and revenge.
40* ''Film/KingOfThieves'' is based on the Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary of 2015, and sticks fairly closely to the events as they are known.
41* ''WesternAnimation/LeMans1955'' is a short dramatization of the 1955 Le Mans disaster, which killed 84 people.
42* ''Film/LorenzosOil'' is based on the story of Augusto Odone, a man with no medical background who through self-study helped discover a treatment for adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), a rare disease his son Lorenzo had contracted.
43* ''Film/MargaritaWithAStraw'': Director Shonali Bose based the plot on her cousin Malini Chib's life (who is now a writer and disability rights activist) after having a conversation with her about wanting a normal sex life.
44* ''Film/TheMercy'' is about [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Crowhurst Donald Crowhurst]], an amateur sailor who entered the ''Sunday Times'' Golden Globe Race of 1968, which involved circumnavigating the globe, without a crew, and without stopping at any ports. While the film is mostly accurate, it skips over some of the details of the early struggles he had even before launch. Due to the nature of what happened to him, it's impossible to fully portray exactly what he went through aside from what's in his journal.
45* ''Film/MouthToMouth'' is based on the director's experiences upon running away from home and joining a cult.
46* ''Film/NotLikeEveryoneElse'': It's based on the real case of Brandi Blackbear, though the events are compressed since this actually took place over four years.
47* ''Film/PointOfOrigin'' is about serial arsonist and convicted killer John L. Orr—who was also a chief fire investigator.
48* ''Film/PumpingIron'' is not an entirely factual documentary, some subplots and details were made up to add more drama to the film. For instance, while Ferrigno was an amazing bodybuilder, it was widely accepted that he did not have a serious shot at beating Arnold for Mr. Olympia. Arnold and the producers also added the bit about the missing towel to make Arnold come off as more of a ManipulativeBastard; they just took some footage of a bodybuilder who misplaced his towel and then added a ConfessionCam where Arnold (falsely) claims that he will use such methods to {{gaslight|ing}} his competition.
49* ''Film/Rush2013'' is a dramatization of the UsefulNotes/FormulaOne rivalry of British playboy James Hunt and Austrian precision driver UsefulNotes/NikiLauda. There are several artistic liberties taken to streamline the story, such as combining two fatal F1 accidents into one and tweaking relationships to better tell a story in the limited runtime of a film.
50* ''Film/TheSessions'' largely hews to the facts of how Mark O'Brien, polio survivor, had his first sexual encounter courtesy of a ProfessionalSexEd therapist.
51* ''Film/ShatteredGlass'' is based on a ''Vanity Fair'' article [[https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1998/09/bissinger199809 of the same name]], about Stephen Glass's fall from grace.
52* ''Film/SignatureMove'': The plot is closely based on actress Fawzia Mirza's life and her relationship with her former Mexican girlfriend, although all names have been changed (including hers).
53* ''Film/SoulSurfer'' is based on a novel of the same name by Bethany Hamilton (portrayed by Creator/AnnaSophiaRobb) whose right arm got bitten off by a Tiger Shark while out surfing in a shark-infested water with her friends but her loss turns into a miracle, causing her to surf again.
54* ''Film/{{Spotlight}}'': Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe Spotlight team investigation of the systemic child sex abuse caused by a number of Roman Catholic Priests.
55* ''Film/Utoya22Juli'', by Erik Poppe is a reenactment of the Breivik Massacre (which happened [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin on the island Utøya on 22. July 2011]]) from the perspective of the victims. Out of respect for the victims, the film features fictional characters instead of people actually being there. Multiple stories are merged into single character, and some of the survivor's stories are [[DeathByAdaptation attributed to those who die]] - understandable, since the dead couldn't tell their stories otherwise.
56* ''{{Film/Zoo}}'' is built mostly around dramatizations of the events surrounding Kenneth Pinyan's death.
57* ''Film/TheWildChild'' is about the education of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_of_Aveyron Victor of Aveyron]], a feral child captured in the late 1700s.
58* ''Film/TheWonder'': This story is apparently based on the true story of a Welsh "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting_girl Fasting girl]]" named Sarah Jacob, who was brought under medical supervision to investigate her claims. In real life, [[spoiler:Sarah died of starvation once she was no longer able to eat in secret. Like the film, her parents were complicit in the illusion and refused to admit it at the risk of their daughter's life]].
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61[[folder: Literature ]]
62* "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote is the dramatisation of a real life murder.
63* ''Literature/KillTimeOrDieTrying'' by Neil T Stacey and Christopher Dean is a dramatisation of their time at the University of the Witwatersrand.
64* 2nd Maccabees from the apocryphal [[Literature/BooksOfMaccabees books of the Maccabees]] is a dramatic retelling of the events from the first several chapters of 1st Maccabees, which the writer [[CompressedAdaptation condensed from a five-volume work]], for the purpose of encouraging its readers to celebrate the Feast of Dedication. In the retelling of events, 2nd Maccabees shows where God performed supernatural deliverances for His people Israel.
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67[[folder: Live Action TV ]]
68* The Investigation Discovery channel lives on this trope. Sometimes it gets borderline pornographic, since they often recreate scenes of people having torrid affairs in extreme detail.
69* ''Series/TheUntouchables'' is based on the autobiography of Eliot Ness (co-written by journalist Oscar Fraley) with some events per episode changed or invented.
70* ''Series/SexSentMeToTheER'': Since the events were not filmed, they are recreated, usually in a humorous fashion.
71* ''Series/WaltDisneyPresents'': At least a couple of times, host Creator/WaltDisney participated in dramatizations of moments from his studio's early history.
72** The episode "Cavalcade of Songs" contains a flashback to when Walt and his artists came up with the idea for ''WesternAnimation/TheThreeLittlePigs'' and the studio's first hit song, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?". He even advises the viewer not to mind of they don't succeed in looking as young as they did back in 1933.
73** "The Fourth Anniversary Show" has Walt flashing back to a 1938 meeting between him and Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, which would inspire his cartoon adaptation of ''[[WesternAnimation/MakeMineMusic Peter and the Wolf]]''.
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76[[folder:Music]]
77* Gordon Lightfoot has several songs of this nature. "Ballad of Yarmouth Castle" and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" are based on real-life nautical disasters, while "Black Day in July" is based on the 1967 Detroit race riot.
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80[[folder: Pinball ]]
81* [[WordOfGod According to the designer Steve Ritchie,]] ''Pinball/HighSpeed'' was based on a RealLife car chase, where he was caught driving at 146 mph in his 1979 Porsche 928.
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84[[folder: Radio ]]
85* ''Radio/DimensionX'''s "[[Recap/DimensionX50Nightfall Nightfall]]": The third-person omniscient [[{{Narrator}} narration]] is severely decreased to emphasize the dialogue between characters, who were assigned to specific actors. Music and sound effects were also added to take advantage of {{Radio}}'s aural medium.
86* ''Radio/TheFoundationTrilogy'': As a {{Radio}} broadcast, the third-person narration was removed, and some of the dialogue was changed [[NarratingTheObvious to include characters talking about their actions]], such as who is entering/leaving the room.
87* ''Radio/XMinusOne'':
88** "[[Recap/XMinusOneE028Nightfall Nightfall]]": The third-person omniscient [[{{Narrator}} narration]] is severely decreased to emphasize the dialogue between characters, who were assigned to specific actors. Music and sound effects were also added to take advantage of {{Radio}}'s aural medium.
89** "[[Recap/XMinusOneE037TheCChute The C-Chute]]": Music and sound effects were also added to take advantage of {{Radio}}'s aural medium. The RedAlert at the start is especially dramatic, as such ship-wide alerts and combat noises were glossed over in the original medium.
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92[[folder: Theater]]
93* ''Theatre/{{Oslo}}'' is a dramatization of the secretive 1993 peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization that took place in the clandestine "Oslo Channel" (facilitated by by Norwegian diplomat Mona Juul and her husband, social scientist Terje Rød-Larsen), which paved the way for the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_I_Accord Oslo I Accord]].
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96[[folder: Video Games ]]
97* [[RecursiveCanon In-universe]], the first two ''Franchise/MassEffect'' novels are dramatizations of the actual events they portray.
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100[[folder: Web Comics ]]
101* Played with (of course) by xkcd [[http://xkcd.com/820/ here]]. A "The following is a dramatization of real events" disclaimer precedes a panel showing Cueball making a sandwich [[MundaneMadeAwesome while screaming that he's making a sandwich.]]
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