MAGGIE
Maggie’s journey is an unusual one for a child protagonist. “Bad Children” in films are usually born (or reborn) evil, but Maggie becomes bad in a quiet smiling secret way, she grows more and more resentful of her place in the world and acts out her more vengeful instincts to increasing effect as the devil gains influence.
Maggie chafes at the expectations placed on her because she’s a girl. And a clear split occurs, between the face she puts on because that’s what’s expected of her and the “real” Maggie who’d rather smash that face in and dance with the devil. And her rejection of female socialisation becomes even more clear when we meet adult Maggie, who looks exactly like the devil (I will get the same actor to play both the devil and adult Maggie) and nothing like her family.
CHARACTERS FROM HELL
All of the different manifestations of hell in Little Bird represent different shadow parts of Maggie’s psyche. All the emotions she doesn’t own or understand. These hell creatures are all drawn from film, fairy tale and folk depictions.
I want to ground all of the hell characters with real performances, using sfx make-up on set enhanced by vfx in post. The one exception will be the demon, who is suggested more than shown: a titanic shadow hidden in the fog.
THE DEVIL
The devil himself is a moody Byronic figure: a man with burning eyes and goat horns, Count Dracula, a rock star in his druggie phase. He is nearly concealed in the darkest corner of the cupboard, with the dim glow from hell backlighting his chiselled features.
The cupboard acts as a confessional, Maggie brings him all her shameful secrets and he voices her worst fears and offers revenge. When Maggie is grown we can see how much she has identified with this part of herself by the way she now resembles this devil.
THE IMPS
The imps are more anarchic than evil: part flying monkeys, part gremlins. They are unruly children.
Their wildness is dangerous. And tempting. At times little Maggie joins them, finding her inner howl and dancing with abandon around the fire. But when the time comes they will also take delight in her destruction.
THE DEMON
The demon Maggie raises is pure deep earth shaking rage: Saturn eating his children, Godzilla, a natural disaster.
More deliberate than the other hell creatures, the demon is a Maggie’s conscious creation. He is her emissary. An immensely powerful force raised to enact her revenge against the pervert for preying on her.