Sorry, to start a new thread but I could do with some help with my story of filming 'The Decameron'. As you probably know 'The Decameron' has a wrapper around its tales and I am narrating outside the wrapper. Outside the wrapper, I use the actor's names (say Janet and John), inside the wrapper I use their character names say (Amelia and Enzo) but the problem occurs because the actors then take the roles of the characters within the story. So I have the following options: 1. use the actor's name We cut to a road where a monk (John) spies a farmer’s daughter (Janet) working in a field with her dress hitched up. He creeps closer behind a wall and sees her bare arse as she repeatedly bends over to which he jerks off. John decides to approach Janet and talks her into coming to the monastery with him. 2. keep it generic, referencing the actor once We cut to a road where a monk (John) spies a farmer’s daughter (Janet) working in a field with her dress hitched up. He creeps closer behind a wall and sees her bare arse as she repeatedly bends over to which he jerks off. The monk decides to approach the girl and talks her into coming to the monastery with him. 3. use the wrapper name We cut to a road where a monk (Enzo) spies a farmer’s daughter (Amelia) working in a field with her dress hitched up. He creeps closer behind a wall and sees her bare arse as she repeatedly bends over to which he jerks off. Enzo decides to approach Amelia and talks her into coming to the monastery with him. 4. use the name in the story We cut to a road where a monk, Mario (John), spies a farmer’s daughter, Angelina (Janet), working in a field with her dress hitched up. He creeps closer behind a wall and sees her bare arse as she repeatedly bends over to which he jerks off. Mario decides to approach Angelina and talks her into coming to the monastery with him. I favour the first because it builds a better picture rather than having to look back who plays who, but does it work and do any of the other options work better?
Given the conceit of both a story with characters and a telecast where there are named actors playing each role, I've had a heck of a time keeping the actors in Pride and Prejudice and Middlemarch straight with the characters. Particularly so when they are future-famous people that I don't have an automatic referent for. (Though exploiting Markdown's ability to link images could help build an image of the "actors" and "actresses" posited in Love Party BBC Britain). Using the character's names keeps each story coherent within itself, particularly when we're going through many stories where the same actors play different characters. So I would favo(u)r using the character names within a story and introducing the cast at the beginning of the scene (with director's comments at the end of the scene, perhaps). That would be Option 4, as you suggest. It might be possible to do a more artful linkage of actor, storytellers-playing-story-roles, and story characters. The Decameron will sometimes need more male actors than the three male storytellers. However, there are three manservants and four maids who might step into roles as story characters. Dioneo's manservant: Parmeno (seneschal and chief servant) Panfilo's manservant: Sirisco (treasurer) Filostrato's manservant: Tindaro (men's chambers) Pampineia's maid, Misia, and Filomena's maid, Licisca: (cooks) Lauretta's maid, Chimera, and Fiammetta's maid, Stratilia (ladies' chambers) Each day appears to start with all the storytellers spending the morning out of doors. Day 7 even describes beds set out allowing napping (and other diversions!) after the breakfast al fresco. For example, 8.8, Fiammetta's tale of Spinellocchio and Zeppa and their wives might be introduced thus: The Decameron, Eighth Day, the Queenship of Lauretta Stories upon the Theme: Tricks Husbands Play on their Wives Lauretta (Laura Dern) indicates that it is Fiammetta's turn (Diana Rigg) to provide a story. Fiammetta describes Spinellocchio and Zeppa, young married men of Siena, best of friends, and living in adjoining houses. We see Zeppa (Arthur Ramsay) kissing his wife (Diana Rigg) and proceeding off to work, calling out to his best friend Spinellocchio (Salmon P. Chase) and Spinellocchio's wife (Laura Dern) as they return his greeting from their front window. Montage: All four of them laughing and having dinner together; Zeppa's wife directing Spinellocchio and Zeppa in hanging a picture and arranging furniture; Spinellocchio's wife sending her husband over to Zeppa's house to borrow a roasting pan; the couples dancing together at a street festival and exchanging partners; Spinellocchio laughing with Zeppa's wife as Zeppa goes out on an errand, showing increasing familiarity between Spinellocchio and Zeppa's wife with each shot. Director's note: It took a while to get Diana to warm up to Salmon and make the affair look realistic. We actually sent all the actors off to salsa dancing lessons to get them to open up their movements. You'd think by Day 8 that the "Brigata" of storytellers would have gotten comfortable with each other, but this was one of the earlier stories that we shot. All the scenes with the outdoors -- running around, dancing, the animals, the orgies under the trees and by the lake -- were actually shot after we had nearly all the stories in the can. So the chemistry in the interaction of the storytellers actually came out of the stories, rather than the other way around.
Thanks very much for your entertaining advice,so. SERIES 1 EPISODE1 DAY 1 We introduce the scenario as we pan around the Brigata sitting down on rugs on top of a hill in Tuscany. Pampinea introduces the women from oldest to youngest and Dione introduces the men likewise. Pampinea declares that Filomena shall tell the first tale. We cut to a road where a monk, Mario (John), spies a farmer’s daughter, Angelina (Janet), working in a field with her dress hitched up. He creeps closer behind a wall and sees her bare arse as she repeatedly bends over to which he jerks off. Mario decides to approach Angelina and talks her into coming to the monastery with him. I could additionally add the actor's name next to the Brigata name, although that is referenced when declaring the cast. Apart from the added layer of abstraction, what makes 'The Decameron' different is that almost all the sex scenes are already in. The translations I read when planning this out were very verbose especially when characters were performing multi-paragraph speeches which could be boiled down to a sentence. And two of the sources continued different archaic English which meant a lot of figuring out. For instance their was a phrase something liked "naked with a hanger" which I eventually worked out was having his sword drawn but given the amount of euphemisms in the story it could easily be mistaken for other things. Actually your story sounds better than mine, except of course I've got to keep the description level down otherwise I would have no room for the sex. When I write my own Georgian/Regency story then I can bang in more atmospheric period detail. It might be a bit OCD but I always like to explain things in my own mind so the format of the story is: Chapter 1: A meeting between Tom's wife Jane Pearce (commissioning editor for the BBC) and Ivor. Chapter 2: An explanation of what follows including the cast Chapters 3-32: The episodes, 3 series of 10 eventually made sense Chapter 33: Closing Concerning the actors playing the Brigata: similarly to previous stories these are all based on current people, the names should not be hard to work out. I agree with you that pictures would help - I guess I'm a bit nervous about copyright etc. and if you link then those links could go. I could put the pictures here if you like. There are a couple of special guest appearances from the 'Middlemarch' actresses and I did think about Tom for playing the abbot in my first story 1.4, but eventually went for my oldest Brigata instead. I am still considering that. The first 2 episodes of Series 2 (4.3) mean that I have to cast for a Duke, although I don't want to get carried away with naming too many extras. As usual there are some controversial scenes especially in Episode 2 but the filming is for the European market so what the hell and controversy always sells, especially in the UK. That's good to know because I am sure I read somewhere about them telling tales in the evening (probably Wikipedia, that'll teach me!) but I had already decided that most of the stories would be outside in the sunshine. The filming is April to June in Italy so it might be a bit nippy early on - although in reality we can film these scenes any time the weather is nice.
