Directions - Sherlock Adaptation - Idea development

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.