Major Project: Production

Preproduction

I have decided that I am doing my story on Scottish Folklore, or at least based on it. I have written the story in the structure of a folktale; in small chunks. This works well for me and my time management because it means I have formed the entire plot in to 4 bite-sized "episodes", meaning I can add the other episodes on as and when. 

Here is my premise:

An old sorcerer of the forest looks to prolong his life through unnatural means, due to the law of nature his soul is torn and he is turned into a wraith. When the unnatural wraith appears, Ghillie Dhu the forest fae appears to beacon the soul to past back into the earth. The wraith being so warped from nature it retaliates and attacks the fae, supposedly killing the creature.

The wind starts to howl and the leaves swirl of the body of the fae. Ghillie Dhu is not dead, he pulls himself up off the floor his movement is stiff and crooked, his eyes darken and skin crackles, the wind flurries through the trees making branches snap. The wraith flails in terror, Ghillie Dhu opens the earth under the wraith and it curls around it swallowing it whole, the wraiths ethereal claws get pulled through the earth, the wind dies down and where the wraith passed through grows a thistle.

REVISED EDITION, My reasoning is annotated in orange. 

First Episode:

The sorcerer, old and weary, is dying. He looks at his hourglass to find that he doesn’t have much time left and so heads to his position room for a potion to prolong his life, he drinks it and starts to rejuvenate back to a younger state, the sorcerer sees the hourglass is flowing backwards and is happy about this.

This leaves the story with a happy end, the old sorcerer lives and can continue with his magick ways. 

Second Episode:

The backwards flowing hourglass gets a crack in the glass, the youthful process is interrupted and flashes of a skull are seen within the sorcerers transformation, the sorcerer panics. He gasps for air as his hair and beard flitter away, he knocks over the remainder of the potion and collapses on the floor the room is filled with darkness, out from it eventually emerges the warped sorcerer.. He is now a wraith.

Developed further, we see that the sorcerer made a mistake and is turned into an unatural entity.  This connotates that you shouldn't stop what is inevitable. 

Third Episode:

The wraith roams the forest when Ghillie Dhu, a forest fae, crosses his path. The fae asks the wraith to return to the earth.  However the warped wraith retaliates and attacks the fae, supposedly killing the creature.

The fae is a representation of nature, and the sorcerer turned wraith is a representation of man and his power/will/greed to surpass and change natural events. 

Fourth Episode:

In a turn of events, Ghillie Dhu did not perish; he picks himself off the floor and becomes enraged. He grows more and more monstrous, he manipulated the wind to batter the wraith and then the fae opens the earth to swallow it. The wraith is pulled into the earth, the forest is restored back to its tranquillity and a thistle grows where the wraith fell. 

With the last installment the story changes again, the message becomes; no matter what you do to fight nature it wiill come back bigger and better than man, after all we are all still part of the earth.