Idea development.
initial thoughts
initially I wanted to do a different scene, however that scene was disallowed due to its use in previous years' projects, my backup choice is the one I have had to use, and I believe it will be far harder to produce this one. this is due to its complexity and its heavy use of dialogue and body language.
from the get go I realized I'd have to do some quite careful thinking on the matter of how I wanted to portray the scene.. I knew that the scene I had chosen was dialogue driven, with a heavy tension that builds as the scene goes on, this meant I'd have to start with one of the most important elements, The characters. I needed to make Sherlock Holmes mine.
research
I started by examining the different variations of Sherlock Holmes, and I ended up focusing on two, modern day versions. One, the BBC show "Sherlock", and the other, by CBS, Named "Elementary".
the two shows were released around the same time, yet they both differ massively in both tone and structure.it was after examining the characterizations of the two very different portrayals of Holmes and Watson, that I made a breakthrough in how I wanted to present the characters in my scene.
My Idea
due to the nature of the scene, to not modify the characters at all would result in a clone of the original scene, this led me to the idea of reinterpreting and redeveloping the characters, maintaining their core personalities, but changing their age, gender, motivation or even accent can change the audience experience in interesting ways.
Character Re-imagining
Sherlock “Don't call
me Shirley” Holmes
Biography
Shirley Holmes was born
St Bart's Hospital, London to a patent office clerk for a father and
a computer/electronics engineer for a mother. She has one brother,
Mycroft Holmes.
Early in her life, her
family moved to St Ives, Following her Mothers profession.
Throughout their
educational careers, both Shirley and Mycroft deliberately tried to
hide their genius, however this ended at the age of 15. With the
unexpected death of their sometimes estranged paternal grandfather,
officially a knighted Civil servant, rumoured to be a senior
intelligence operative. This kick-started Shirley's natural
inquisitiveness into overdrive, however the case of the dead
grandfather, her first 'case', would eventually be put on hold due to
familial troubles, both her parents where now hitting hard times,
both unemployed as the subject of her mother's career killed the
profession of her fathers, during the early years of the new
millennium. Shirley started working as a 'consulting detective' to
help pay the bills and at the same time Mycroft disappeared for
workplace training at the “Civil service”.
Ten years later and
Mycroft is “The British government”, while Shirley, a successful
if not liked, Consulting Detective is looking for a new flat mate in
London.
Tells/mannerisms
Shirley speaks with a
slight Cornish accent, she has issues with making friends, and is
very blunt. She can also come across as an insufferable git. When she
wants to, which is fairly often.
Her eyes are constantly
moving, assessing and cataloguing her surroundings.
She comes across as
somewhat skittish, yet still insufferable.
When she's stressed,
she will twitch her left hand, caused by a now faded scar running
across her knuckles.
Shirley Smokes rolled
cigarettes and, if fatigued has been known to use “smart”
stimulants to maintain her cognitive functions, the twitch may be a
result of overuse.
compared to BBC's Sherlock
Shirley comes across as
nowhere near as “well off” as Sherlock this is a result of their
differing upbringing, Sherlock is upper middle class, Shirley is
upper lower class.
Shirley is not as
confident, or as well put together as BBC's Sherlock.
Shirley is more
emotionally active, yet no less intelligent or sociopathic.
Shirley is about ten
years younger than Sherlock, and thus not as confident.
Shirley is easier to
relate to for the audience when compared to Sherlock.
Shirley is still unsure
of herself, her deductions are more methodical and she requires more
evidence to counter her habit for second guessing herself.
Reasons for changes
there are several
reasons as to Why I needed to reimagine Sherlock's character, some of
these are emotional, some of them are to do with his character and
the final reason is due to respect.
Sherlock is such a
nuanced character, having watched every episode over the course of
this project I have noticed that there are character tells early on
in the first season that allude to moments of character building,
1-2 series' down the line. I realized that I'd have to reimagine
Sherlock's character from the ground up to even come close to
getting that kind of subtext.
I have trouble
getting into the mind of a male sociopath, I am however in close
contact with a female sociopath, and have been consulting with her
about my portrayal of Sherlock. This has helped immensely, I've
known her for years so I have a fairly reliable reference in
relation to that.
I respect the
original creators of BBC's Sherlock immensely, this makes me
hesitant to play in their sandpit, let alone with their Creations. I
had to make The characters mine before I could feel like I'm not
stepping on the feet of those that came before.
The Cabbie
Biography
Son of an old school
London Cabbie, grew up poor and violent, really very intelligent, his
dad died a few years ago due to an inheritable, fatal illness.
Inherited his dads Cab, breezed through “the knowledge” shortly
after taking receivership of the car. But he cant afford to feed his
girlfriend and her young sprog,they leave him and then on the day he received the news that
he had inherited the illness and didn't have long to live he was
approached by a unnamed group, hired to become a serial killer in
return for the financial security of his young family.
Tells/mannerisms
talks like he grew up
on an estate
intelligent eyes
calm, melodramatic and
relaxed, few if any emotional tells.
Pretends to be
psychopathic, really cares about his family.
Enjoys games of chance,
lethal games of chance.
compared to the Cabbie
in BBC Sherlock
the Cabbie in Sherlock
was an older man, his back story was very similar and their
motivations are almost perfectly aligned, the cabbie in Sherlock
spoke with an old cockney-ish accent, this version has been
down-aged, and thus his accent is more along the lines of what's
found on a modern council estate.
Reasons for changes
The actor and backup
actor I have chosen are both significantly younger than the original
character. it also creates a better symmetry to the narrative of the
scene if both characters are young. In the original scene there is a
great sense of balance between the characters, both are equal and
opposite, I don't want to loose that in my version.
)
