For this week’s task we were asked to respond to the second installment of Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema which explores the History of Britain as shown through film. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000gp05/mark-kermodes-secrets-of-cinema-series-2-2-british-history-movies

We were given 5 options for this week’s task and, unsurprisingly, I chose to do the screenwriting task: Write a short film or scene featuring Robin Hood. Max 5 pages. I chose this task as it again ties into my screenwriting and also because it links nicely to the superhero task as the character of Robin Hood holds similarities to the superhero I designed, The Ascender.

The first thing I had to decide was whether to write a stand alone short film or a single scene which connects to a wider story. I decided the latter option for two main reasons. I had a lot of fun world building and character designing on the superhero task and would like to follow a similar process with this week’s task and also, due to the current social distancing laws, I am going slightly loopy and could do with a big project to keep me focused.

The next thing I had to do was to decide what characters would be in my scene, where and when it would be set, and what the narrative would be.

Characters

Thinking up my first character was, unsurprisingly, quite easy as the task states that the scene has to contain Robin Hood. The great thing about writing Robin Hood is that there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding his life from historians and many doubt whether he was even a real person. Because of this you can afford a lot of artistic licensing when writing a Robin Hood story as there are no concrete historical facts about his life.

The first thing I did was to quickly research what facts we do know about Robin Hood so I could at least make an attempt for Historical accuracy.

While the majority of this video just confirms how much doubt there is over the true life of Robin hood it did talk a bit about how the tale of Robin Hood began. The first time Robin Hood is mentioned in History is through old folk tales sang by medieval minstrels in the mid 1300s. When I first started thinking about my characters I decided I didn’t want Robin Hood to be my main character as I have always enjoyed historical films told from the perspective of a fictional main character such as Gladiator or The Last Samurai. I decided that having a minstrel be my main character would make for an interesting narrative. Of course, Disney’s take on Robin Hood in 1973 had a minstrel as the narrator but I wanted to take my story one step further and have my film be the story of the minstrel who first spread the stories of Robin Hood.

I then did a quick bit of research into medieval minstrels and discovered that there was a minstrel by the name of Alan-a-Dale who was thought to be a member of Robin Hood’s merry men. At first glance, this seemed to be the perfect character for my minstrel but I soon realised I had been beaten to the Alan idea. For example, the rooster minstrel in Disney’s Robin Hood is based of Alan-a-Dale and I believe there is also a television series which follows Alan-a-Dale. Because I yearn for originality I set my sights elsewhere and did a bit more digging. one of the first known mentions of Robin Hood was in a book of poetry written by William Langland in 1377. In of the poems, William writes of a minstrel named Piers Plowman who claimed to know the tales of Robin Hood better than he knew the Bible. I researched Piers and found he had yet to star in any hit films so decided my main character would be based after him and carry the name Piers Plowman.

Piers will begin the story as a Minstrel from the middle class who owns a nice house and a small bit of land, comfortable living for the time. But soon his fate will turn for the worst…

When it came to designing my Robin Hood I knew I had a lot of creative freedom as all depictions of Robin Hood in film and television tend to be different from one another.

Many on screen Robin Hood depictions come of as a bit pantomimy and flamboyant such as Cary Elwes’ Robin hood in Men In Tights and Kevin Costner’s Prince of Thieves.

As Entertaining as these characters are I wanted to go for a more gritty realistic character and drew most of my inspiration from Sean Connery’s portrayal from the 1976 Robin and Marian. This film shows an older Robin Hood who is past his prime and is coming to an end of his adventures. While I want my Robin to still be young I like the idea of showing his weaknesses and vulnerabilities throughout the story making him more believable.

The other characters to appear in my scene will be Little John and Will Scarlett, two of the most famous of Robin Hood’s merry men.

The majority of on-screen Little John’s follow a very similar pattern, the brawl to Robin’s brains. He is a giant of a man who is fearless and loyal only to Robin Hood. In Robin Hood: prince of thieves, Little John is the leader of The Merry Men before Robin Hood. I really love that idea so in my story, Little John will actually be the founder of the merry men and most of the core community will be made up of his family.

Other than that, nothing about the other on-screen Little John’s has really caught my attention so I will model my character’s loyalty, strength and fearlessness off of Hodor from Game of Thrones.

The final character to appear in my scene will be Will Scarlet. According to early ballads, Will Scarlett was Robin Hood’s nephew and was exiled along with Robin Hood. This struck me as a good origin story so I decided to copy it for my film as it would create a more meaningful dynamic between the two characters. Along with being Robin’s nephew, Will Scarlet will be a talented rider and a spy, the messenger of the group. He will also be a great archer like his Uncle but will rarely get to see action as Robin wants to protect him. My biggest inspiration for Scarlet’s character is Will from the Ranger’s apprentice series by John Flanagan (a book series I was obsessed with as a child). Will has to learn to be patient and control his thirst for battle in the book, something I want Will Scarlet to be going through in my film.

Setting

I was born in Nottingham and have always believed Robin Hood was accepted as originating from Nottingham as well because that is what I was always told growing up. However, during my research I discovered that Yorkshire, especially Barnsdale, believe Robin Hood belongs to them! But I will not succumb to that absolute rubbish and my Robin Hood will be a hero of Nottingham and thus my scene will take place in the great Sherwood Forest. (Also the overwhelming majority of films and television series set Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest so I really have no idea what Yorkshire is on about, I think they are just jealous).

Time

I normally wouldn’t put a lot of thought into what time my scene takes place in but I am currently reading Syd Field’s book on screenwriting and he insists that you should give it a bit of thought. So my scene will take place at dawn. This is because my scene will depict the start of a new chapter in Piers Plowman’s life and no time is a better metaphor for change and rebirth than dawn in my opinion.

Story

And now we come to the most important part of this task, the actual plot. The only thing I was completely certain about when I started brainstorming what my plot will be was that Piers Plowman, my protagonist, would be the first minstrel to tell the tales of Robin Hood, as depicted in William Langland’s poems. This meant that a key part of the story would be about Piers first discovering Robin and his merry men.

To make the story more engaging I knew I had to give Piers an end goal and desire which could only be accomplished through telling the stories of Robin Hood and that is how the first seeds of a story started to grow.

We begin in Nottingham, a town plagued by deceit and corruption, The Sheriff is taxing the rich into poverty and blowing all the town’s money on his lavish lifestyle. Like the German Gestapo, the Sheriff’s men watch over the city, crushing any early signs of rebellion and destroying any hope that lives within the people of Nottingham. Against this backdrop, we find our protagonist: Piers Plowman, a struggling minstrel. The people of Nottingham have lost their taste for music and tales and soon Piers finds himself plunging into debt. He spends his days desperately trying to write hymns and tales nothing he ever writes but cannot seem to find that special story which will put him on the map. Driven insane by her husband’s fruitless attempts at getting money, Piers’ wife and kids leave him and move away. Sinking into depression Piers gets behind on his taxes and one night his house is stormed by the Sheriff’s soldiers as compensation for his late taxes.

In short, Piers’ life has hit an all time low (I recently re-watched American Beauty which is a story about a character hits an all time low which loosely inspired the opening of my film). Piers believes the only way to get back his old life is to write the greatest story in England and that becomes his goal.

I have found many historical films center around winning back wealth or seeking revenge or redemption so I thought this goal would be quite in keeping with the genre.

Piers knows of a great minstrel in Yorkshire known as William Langland and sets off to in the hope of meeting him and impressing him enough to learn from him. But Piers’ path takes him through Sherwood Forest, a forest famous for it’s outlaws and bandits. Piers knows he has no choice and ventures into the woods, not knowing what fate awaits him…

My Scene

The scene I have chosen to write depicts Piers Plowman first meeting Robin Hood and will act as plot point one, transitioning from act one into act two and it will take place around page 25 (or at least it should do according to Syd Field’s ‘Screenplay’)

The purpose of this scene is to introduce Robin’s character and show the beginning of Piers’ transformation into an outlaw. I want my audience’s first impression of Robin to be that he is a skilled outlaw but a far cry from the hero of the people spoke of in myths and legends. To achieve this, the first time we see Robin is when he ambushes Piers, a man we know to be penniless and defenseless, the crime has no morals behind it and shows Robin to be little more than a skilled criminal. However I put in the bit at the end of the scene where he returns Piers’ money and horse to him to show that he is a good guy at heart but poverty and desperation has led him to criminal activities. I purposefully wrote it that Robin would only consider helping Piers once he sees how poor the minstrel is, a little sign that he has the potential to become the hero of the poor sung about in myth and legend. The little interactions between Robin and his men are there to show that Robin is the natural leader of the group. I also wanted to make it clear that Robin is a wanted man and I attempted to show that by having Little John and Robin immediately knowing to run away in opposite directions, suggesting they had escaped from the king’s soldiers many times before and line at the end where Robin says, “The soldiers are not here for you” is a pretty clear sign that Robin is all to aware of his wanted status.

In terms of his men, Little John and Will Scarlet, I intend to develop their characters in later scenes and for this scene I just wanted to show that John is the muscle of the group and Will is a talented and agile horse rider and also the youngest of the group.

The second main purpose of this scene, other than introducing Robin, was to begin Piers’ transformation into an outlaw. I use Piers’ horse as foreshadowing in this scene. When the scene opens Piers and his horse are in complete unison, one and the same. But once Will takes control of Piers’ horse he transforms completely into this powerful beast. This foreshadows the transformation that Piers will undergo once Robin becomes his mentor.

The part of the scene when Piers is running through the forest and his clothes are being ripped from him is modeled off an Iron man suiting up scene except it’s in reverse. Piers’ cap and cloak are quite flashy for the times but everything he wears underneath is more worn and resembles the clothes worn by Robin and his men. By losing the more expensive clothes it shows how Piers is literally running away from his old life and towards the new. Also, the fact that he is being chased by the Sheriff’s men, the medieval policemen, it symbolizes how he is leaving behind a life of abiding by the law and accepting a life of crime. I will let you decide how well this all comes across but that was my intention when I was writing that section.

On the topic of other films, the scene where Robin and Piers hide under the stump of a tree is (you guessed it) a direct copy of the scene in The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Rings where the four Hobbits are hiding from the Ring wraith.

The reason I chose to reference Iron Man and The Lord of The Rings is due to the similarities between my story and there’s. In Iron Man, Tony Stark begins as a man of wealth who grows to become a man of the people. In my story, Piers Plowman will begin as a middle class Minstrel who cares only for himself but will become the voice of the poor. In The Lord of The Rings, Frodo begins as a normal person who never thought of himself as a hero but discovers he is able to overcome some of the harshest ordeals in Middle Earth. Similarly, Piers will never think of himself as anything special and will push Robin Hood to become the hero but in the end, he too will discover what he is capable of.

I do not intend for these references to be spotted by everyone and be integral to the story, they are more like Easter eggs that I hope one or two eagle eyed viewers will pick up on.

Dialogue

Many historical films (actually the vast majority) have their characters speak a more modern dialect with a slight resemblance to the way people spoke during the time their film is set.

Others, such as Taron Egerton’s portrayal of Robin Hood go fully modern with their dialogue which often comes across sounding a bit odd. On the other hand, films such as Michael Fassbender’s Macbeth stay entirely true to the texts they are based off and, as a result, are extremely hard to follow.

With my dialogue I tried to throw a bit of old English into my dialogue but lean more on the side of modern dialect. Admittedly, I am far from an expert in old English so I’m pretty sure my dialogue sounds slightly ridiculous, but when is dialogue not laughable in draft one?

The Story Continues

I am not completely decided upon what will happen after my scene but the plan at the minute is as follows: Piers will go with Robin back to his hideout at the Major Oak and we will properly be introduced to Little John and Will Scarlet. Piers will learn how the merry men (which is more of a community than a gang of thieves) were exiled by the Sheriff and are forced to hunt and rob to survive, leading to their constant fear of being caught by the Sheriff’s men. Some members of the merry men will make Piers a new Lute and he will improvise a song about the events of the scene I wrote. Everyone loves it and Piers realises that he has found the tale that could make him famous. Getting excited, he talks to Robin and says he could become a legend amongst the poor people but Robin insists that Piers is not allowed to spread tales about him because that would slightly ruin the whole living in secret thing he and his followers have going on. This dynamic is modeled off the dynamic between Mr Glass and David Dunn in Unbreakable where Mr Glass desperately wants David to become a hero but David is having none of it.

Robin will teach Piers how to hunt, fight and move like a ghost while Piers will keep dreaming of a heroic uprising led by Robin Hood and his men and will keep writing songs about it, much to the dismay of Robin. But eventually the Sheriff’s men will discover the whereabouts of The Major Oak and will raid it, capturing a few of the Merry Men, including Will Scarlet. Due to Robin’s family connection with Will, he, John and Piers will travel to Nottingham to go Will from hanging and we will be treated to a scene very similar to this one out of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (but maybe a bit less melodramatic)

The people of Nottingham will assist Robin and his men in their escape and in his excitement Piers will proclaim Robin Hood the hero of Nottingham and get the people all excited (much to the dismay of Robin). After they have made their getaway Piers will insist Robin acts now and insights a full blown rebellion to overthrow the Sheriff. Having lost his home and nearly his Nephew, Robin begrudgingly agrees and the men prepare for battle. Piers acts as a master of propaganda, sneaking around Nottingham at night using his talents of performing to relight the fire of rebellion in the people. Eventually this will all result in a very over the top fight scene (in true Robin Hood fashion) which will see Piers Plowman undergo many of the most heroic acts and eventually win the day. Piers will then have the opportunity to reclaim his old life but instead opts to continue his life with the Merry Men, acting as the voice of the people, completing his character arc.

Overall, I want it to be a light hearted story that doesn’t take itself too seriously about how we are all capable of greatness and also about the power of the people (which I seem to be writing about a lot these days).