Based On True Events

The above might be the first thing you see when watching scAIRcrows. In a way, it's a reaction to just about every film beginning with that sentence these days - does it hold any meaning anymore? But also, I want to put it there because people will probably laugh it off without realising, it is actually a true statement.

The film is very much based on true events and I'll explain why. I mentioned in a previous blog that scAIRcrows basically originated from the title and that really, I just wanted to see flying scarecrows depicted onscreen. The only problem with that was, what do I actually do with them? There (don't laugh) needed to be some sort of story, something to give me an excuse to throw around some scarecrows. And believe it or not, I did do research.

I forget how much of this may have already been said but on deciding to do this I watched as many scarecrow films as I could find, including resorting to buying a VHS on eBay! I'd only seen one killer scarecrow film before coming up with this idea - there aren't many in the sub genre - I can tell you that having scoured IMDB etc looking for them. But yeah, in the last two or three months I've watched Scarecrow, Scarecrow Slayer, Scarecrow Goes Wild, Messengers 2 - The Scarecrow, Rise Of the Scarecrows, Dark Night Of The Scarecrow, Night Of The Scarecrow, Scarecrows & Urban Harvest 3 - The Scarecrow to name as many as I can recall right now... Most of them are indie affairs, some I would say are more enjoyable than others. I can happily say though that within the killer scarecrow sub genre, scAIRcrows is fairly unique.

Point is, I immersed myself in all things scarecrow - bought books on how to make them, books on their history (that's how we came up with the names for the scAIRcrows). And, in doing this research, I somehow came across the one link that dictated to me what the story of scAIRcrows would be.

The links to the story:

http://www.ashbournenewstelegraph.co.uk/News/Arson-attack-on-scarecrows.htm
http://www.ashbournenewstelegraph.co.uk/News/Our-scarecrows-go-up-in-smoke.htm

Now, I won't give anything away here by saying this but that news story is what I knew would pull together my script and give me the skeleton that I'd build upon. Is it an act of revenge against scarecrows? Is it the final straw that makes the scarecrows snap? These are the questions I asked myself whilst trying to build the framework of the story. How this factors into the story won't be much of a surprise - it's revealed in the opening scene (not yet shot). I'd say that discovering that news story greatly informed the final product - without it certain scenes and even entire characters would not exist.

And however it factors into the script, it did influence the story so it is absolutely no lie when I claim that a film about killer flying scarecrows was based on true events...