ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

2 years, 9 months ago - Dean Drinkel

Hey Don - is there a particular period you're interested in ? Also is there a particular budget you had in mind ? I am a UK/FR writer and director and French history is my 'thing' so would love to throw some ideas around ?
Cheers !
Dean

2 years, 9 months ago - Bob Eckhard

Hi Don

Hope you are keeping well? Slightly confused - do you mean 'period costume' or 'cosplay costume? (see here my 2 min cosplay short - https://vimeo.com/user37410141 for clarification (if needed)

In regard to the French-English feature script, I do have a 19th C period drama about French Swiss natural historian Louis Agassiz but it is an epic. I received feedback notes back and it requires a rewrite in places but if you're interested I'll send it over but possibly you're looking for a script with contemporary fashion like 'The Devil Wears Prada?'

Whatever it is, I hope you find it.
Blessings, Bob
07985003057

2 years, 9 months ago - Philip Carr

Dear Mr Clovis,

“Mary Davies” -  96 page period feature screenplay set in 17th Century.

This true-life period epic is potentially a big money maker which has gone through seven drafts since 2004.

Historically period films can return many times their budgets:

"The Favourite" (2018) production budget $15m. Worldwide sales $95m - 6.4 times production budget.
"Pride and Prejudice" (2005) production budget $28m. Worldwide gross $121m.
“Sense and Sensibility” (1995) production budget $16m. Gross revenue $135m

About “Mary Davies”: The year is 1665, Mary, the one year-old daughter of a legal clerk, by a quirk of fate, inherits the land which will become London’s Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico. However, slowly her privileged life starts to unravel and, as a widow, she falls victim to a scandalous plot by two brothers to steal her inheritance.
Based on the 1921 biography by Charles T Gatty, ‘Mary Davies’ is the tumultous story of the woman who founded the Grosvenor Estate in London. 

Selling points:
1. In an age when women had few rights and lost control of their property and money when they married, this is a story of a strong woman who triumphed in the end, despite huge obstacles.
2. We have diversity in the figure of Mary’s long-term friend and black servant Michael.
3. Given the success of Downton Abbey in the US, there is a big appetite there for dramas about rich English aristocrats.
4. The ending is a happy and successful one.

I would be pleased to email a synopsis, treatment and/or script or can mail printed copies if you prefer.

Thankyou for your interest.

Philip Carr
(Ex BBC /writer /filmmaker)
077890 70736

2 years, 9 months ago - Mark Brown

Hi Don,

Are you looking for a feature script? I have one that has a company attached and is seeking co-production.

Thanks

Mark

2 years, 8 months ago - Philip Carr

Dear Mr Clovis,
Re ‘Mary Davies’ here is a synopsis :
London 1665
The great plague is sweeping the city and legal clerk Alexander Davies dies leaving the 500-acre estate he inherited from Hugh Audley, moneylender, to his one year old daughter, Mary.
To avoid being kidnapped and forcibly married, Mary is shut away for years, with her secret friend, Michael, a young black servant in her home.
When age 12, her mother marries her to a rich and aristocratic husband, Sir Thomas Grosvenor. Then at 16 she moves into Eaton Hall, the splendid mansion he has built for them in Cheshire.
All is happy and settled until a friend convinces Mary she should become a Catholic which Thomas and his fiercely Protestant family opposes.
Then after three stillborn daughters in a row and the early death of Thomas, Mary’s grief knows no bounds and, blaming herself for her husbands demise, decides to go on a penance to Rome with a catholic chaplin she has engaged.
His brother has taken a shine to Mary and the two of them hatch a plot to marry him to her and take her estate from her.
Staying in a hotel in Paris the priest drugs Mary and at midnight conducts a wedding ceremony in her room.
Back in London Mary launches a legal challenge and to her amazement the marriage is found valid. Her new husband tries to claim her but she flees back to Cheshire.
A new court case in the ecclesiastical court at last overrules the forced marriage but by this stage Mary has succumbed to a mental breakdown and the family decide look after her and shut her away from society.
Years later Michael, now having bought his freedom and with a small estate of his own, takes a frail Mary to London and she is overjoyed to see fine streets and beautiful squares being built on her estate in Mayfair.

Would you like to read the script?
Regards
Philip Carr

2 years, 8 months ago - Jane Stokes

Hi, Don, I am working on a script at the moment which is set in the present day but which includes some 'flashback scenes' to dance scenes in World War 2. It's not strictly a costume drama but will have some elements in costume. Any interest?
All the best
Jane

2 years, 8 months ago - Howard Lukk

Hello Don,

Here is something I've been working on. May be of interest to you.

Logline:
Trapped in a bad marriage, Maria seeks her only way out in 1800’s England; to be auctioned off at the local pub.

The year is 1840’s where we find ourselves at a pub in Leeds, England. In this region, at this time, divorce is not an option to most, due to the huge cost involved. So, the practice of auctioning off an un-loyal spouse did happen from time to time. Nailed to the wall outside of a Victorian Ole English Pub, in a small village, is a poster that advertises the sale of a wife due to her infidelity. George Forlorn has called his brother, Thomas, to come in from Manchester to help with a problem he is having at his factory with the employees. George, after having sex in the alley with the town whore, sits at a table, drunk, confiding to his brother about workers attempting to unionize at the factory he owns, and the breakdown of his marriage to his young wife Maria.

The story continues to tie in the history of the time with the beginnings of Marxism as Engels tours factories, the empowerment of a young orphaned woman to change her destiny, caught in a love triangle, and Thomas having to deal with his hidden secret love for another man.