" Wi' tippeny, we fear nae evil;
Wi' usquabae, we'll face the devil!
The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle,
Fair play, he car'd na deils a boddle.
But Maggie stood, right sair astonish'd,
Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd,
She ventured forward on the light;
And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight"
Tam O'Shanter - Robert Burns
I'm going to write a screenplay.
About Death.
Not death, as in dying (although, that features), but as in Death, the character. You know?, old skeletal bald guy in a black robe with a scythe, playing chess on a Swedish beach? THAT guy. The Grim Reaper!
About a year ago, (probably early march 2007), as is my normal habit, I was listening to (the highly recommended) Mark Kermodes film review podcast on the long drive to work.
In that particular episode, he was discussing 'A Guide To Recognising Your Saints'. I was only half listening but picked up very vaguely what it was about and that it starred Robert Downie Junior.
Somehow, I got an image in my head (I have no idea where from) that his character would be dressed in scruffy jeans, converse and an old 2nd hand suit jacket with a hoodie underneath and he was wearing the hood up.
That night, I had a dream (you know the ones where you're watching a movie but somehow are also in it?) whereby I was in a movie that starred Robert Downie Junior exactly as I had imagined him, but he was playing Death. The hoodie was his modern spin on the robe and he was carrying a 'book of life'.
The dream had an original twist on the usual 'Death' story. One which I'm not quite ready to disclose publically yet, but it was one of those ideas where, upon awakening, I convinced myself it was too good an idea to have just been dreamed up and must already exist.
I tried to put it out my mind but it kept nagging away. Over time, I realised that it really didn't seem to be an idea I had seen elsewhere. The dream was basically the entire 5-10 minute opening scene to the film, almost exactly as it still stands in my mind a year later. At the back of my mind the story gradually evolved into a more robust structure. So I started making notes and having ideas and scribbling down the basic structure and it's reached a point now where I think there's enough to make a pretty good screenplay.
So that's you up to speed. One of my main resolutions for 2008 is to have a complete screenplay written by the end of the year and this blog will chart my progress. I intend to set more rigid deadlines soon but for now, december 31st 2008 is the absolute deadline.
I decided to blog it since, even if no one ever reads this, I'm putting it in public so someone 'might' which will maybe make me more likely to stick with it.
It will be a few weeks before I have anything new to post here but I just wanted to get the blog set up as a home for any thoughts I have. I don't intend to publish the screenplay publically for now so I don't know if there will be much to post or if this will be very interesting to read but we shall see...
