The Comic Tragedy of Tristan and Yseut - A Screenplay

Dear readers,

It's February, and that reminds me of two things:

1 In 2015 I spent the month of February writing my first feature-length screenplay, an adaptation of the story of Tristan and Isolde (a.k.a. Yseut).

and,

2 My 4-month script listing on InkTip, where I listed the above screenplay for sale in October last year, has just expired without anyone buying it.

So I have decided to do something that is a huge no-no in the world of screenwriting:

I'm going to put my screenplay on the Internet.

I'm going to share it with you, my readers on Steemit.

Everyone knows that you're not supposed to do this, ever. Screenplays are top-secret material. If they get "leaked" before or during production, it can cause a huge scandal.

But here's the thing: times, they are a-changin.' The birth of the digital age has changed paradigms such as video-on-demand (Netflix, iTunes, Hulu) and a recent phenomenon whereby producers actually admit they are more likely to back a film project idea that has a huge social media following than one that has won a prize at a festival!

So I decided to stop sticking to the safe and sure but ever mysterious protocols of how you are supposed to break into Hollywood and do something I haven't seen before: make my script public so it can develop its own following.

See, I figure that if a decent amount of people follow the installments of my screenplay, engage with the content through feedback, and enjoy it enough to upvote and share it around, the buzz may be enough to inspire faith in someone with the clout to option or buy it.

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So let me tell you a little about my script.

I picked up the book The Romance of Tristan out of a bargain barrel outside a bookshop for €2. I really wasn't expecting much from it. Medieval literature can be dull and boring.

So I was very surprised when I started reading it how often I found myself laughing!

Part of it was just the ridiculous, nonsensical conclusions the characters came to based on their available information. Before the Age of Enlightenment, so much was based on superstition and magical thinking that it really comes across as funny to us today.

But it was more than that. It was supposed to be funny. And that surprised me. So many movies, works of music, and other adaptations have been made of this story, and they're all, as far as I know, deathly serious. It is a tragedy after all.

But it's an insanely funny one. So I decided to adapt it as a comedy.

I was in film school at the time. I had just put in the production proposal for my student film, Jasmine, and had to wait an agonizing month to know whether it would be accepted or not. I'd been wanting to put all the stuff I'd been learning about screenwriting to use in an actual, full-length screenplay (as opposed to just short scripts). And I had just finished reading the book, so I took it on as my February project.

I worked on the script for a few hours every day, and I'm happy to say I finished writing it in one month, as was my goal. Later I sent it to my teacher and he read it through and discussed it with me. He said it might work better as a TV series than a movie, and suggested I develop it by writing a pilot.

I agreed with him in his theory, but as it happened, my student film did get accepted for production, and that became my focus, and so I never got around to developing the Tristan and Yseut script for a television format.

Fast forward a few years. I was still writing and directing short films, but this script was just sitting on my computer doing nothing. I wasn't particularly interested in producing or directing it myself--I had other projects that were much higher on my personal list.

But the Game of Thrones phenomenon had taken the world by storm, and I believed there could be interest in a series set in the Dark Ages of Europe. But a funny version. Like Game of Thrones, but with a Men in Tights / Monty Python and the Holy Grail twist.

So, I did what a lot of writers who don't have contacts in Hollywood do: I put it on InkTip. InkTip is a website where you can list scripts and producers can browse them. It cost $60 for 4 months, and believe me that was not small beans for me at the time, but I believed it was worth the sacrifice if it meant getting found.

Four months later, my listing was expiring with a total of 20 views. And some of those were multiples, so in reality I had only 13 unique views, which was very disappointing. Now don't get me wrong, I know there are writers whose scripts have found homes and been produced through InkTip. I was hoping mine would be one of them, but that didn't end up happening.

In the meantime, I'd heard about this idea of developing a social media following to attract producers' trust, and I'd found and started my journey on Steemit, so I began toying with the idea of releasing the script here in installments, sort of previews of what an episode would look like. And I decided to try it.

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So what's the story about? Here's the logline:

A young knight is sent across the sea to bring back a bride for his king, but the situation gets tangled when he and the girl accidentally drink a love potion, causing the two to spend the next few years of their lives outwitting the king, his lords, and a sneaky dwarf.

I stuck to the original story pretty closely. I changed a few things; for example, the oldest version of the story that we have in writing (the one that I read, by Béroul) was written in the late 1100s, and like much of the literature of that time that recounts old legends, it was dutifully Christianized.

I chose to go back to "how it really would have been" during the days of King Mark, that is, pagan, Anglo-Saxon, in the pre-castle, pre-feudal days of mead halls and gold givers.

Other things I chose not to change. This is a story about adultery, and just to be clear, in real life I believe adultery to be completely wrong, but instead of moralizing and trying to make the characters more likable, I let them be what they were, and leave the audience to draw their own conclusions. Spoiler alert: they don't get away with it in the end anyway. ;)

So, without further ado, I present to you my script! I'll post a new scene every few days. I hope you'll enjoy reading them! Feel free to give constructive criticism in the comments.

And if you feel this telling of the story is something you'd like to see onscreen, support it by giving it an upvote and resteem! This is a very real action you can take to bring attention to the project and attract the people who could produce it.

The Comic Tragedy of Tristan and Yseut - Part One - Backstory

(That's not my address or phone number anymore, but my email address is still the same.)