today i’m sending my screenplay Rain Dogs out into the world – “interesting times” – you can learn more about the screenplay HERE
however, if you want to know how the story came about, just keep reading
INSPIRATION
when I was a kid, probably not much older than Casey is in this story, i had a dream – it was short – just an image, really, but for some reason it has stuck with me all these years
in the dream, me and a few mates are out in the street on one of those dark, shapeless, Melbourne-winter days – there was no one else around – no other kids – no adults – no cars – silent
the branches of the plane trees lining the street were bare … and hanging over a branch in one of these trees, we saw a limp, black, Hairy Corpse
we looked at the other trees – some of them had corpses too
i don’t remember being particularly terrified – weirded out, sure – but not panicky … well, not yet
but that was it – dream over
DEVELOPMENT
years later, i still remember it – and so, when i was casting about for a subject for a video short, the Hairy Corpse was there amongst the other ideas, jostling to be noticed
and noticed it was – and immediately there were issues – budget, logistics, aesthetics, story logic and more – they all weighed in with their demands
to answer them, i started changing things – for example, the suburban Melbourne location was swapped for a farmlet on the outskirts of small township, tucked away in a remote mountain range
i wrote the short – an estranged father and his young daughter discover a Hairy Corpse – BUT! – they learn there is another, and this one ISN’T DEAD!
i liked it (the basic scene still appears in the finished screenplay) but it was not a short – instead, it read like an excerpt from a larger story
and so i went searching for the larger story – probably because i thought that that would be easier than getting the short made … yeah, I know
despite my flawed reasoning, i DID find a larger story – and the story grew from a simple, little family survival tale to something a bit ... bigger (in fact, it kept getting SO BIG and that i had to constantly keep hacking it back, in an effort to keep it manageable)
but, as much as things changed and evolved, the one thing i always tried to keep, is that original FEELING the dream gave me – that strange uneasiness we experience when confronted with something inexplicably WEIRD
Rain Dogs is available to read at:
• Script Revolution
• or you can contact me via the contact form.