Action / Adventure
Blue Hands
Genre: Action/Adventure, Comedy
Logline: A man determined to tell everyone on the planet what big morons they are finally antagonizes enough people to have a gang of bounty hunters sent after him.
Synopsis: Vernon Freakly's pissed because he's not happy with human "reality." Freakly decides that since he's not happy, no one else should be either.
After getting incredibly drunk, Freakly goes looking for Trouble. He's convinced that everyone he knows is a moron and feels compelled to make them aware of this. Out of love for a woman who thinks he's a tub of blabbing crap, he steals a rig full of hot cargo and accidentally runs over a guy about to deliver Hamlet's soliloquy in the middle of the highway. He also starts harassing bears at the zoo. Meanwhile, he's antagonized enough people that four bounty hunters, promised a big reward, are hot on his trail. Is Freakly a voice crying in the wilderness? Or is he getting exactly what he deserves?
Author Info: JESSE GLENN BODYAN has had several plays produced and published: Midtown Aces (Vancouver Playhouse /Theater Calgary /Theater 2000, Ottawa); Skull Riders (Tamahnous Theater/Cathoots Theater, Toronto); Hypnotized (CBC ); Crimson Ghost (Vancouver/Edmonton Fringe); Downtown Rooms, Store Detective, and Polite Society (New Play Centre).
Skull Riders/Midtown Aces have been published.
Screenplays for Blue Hands and Downtown Rooms were previously optioned.
JESSE BODYAN, Writer
36 - 1465 Lamey's Mill Road
Vancouver, BC V6H 3W1
(604) 739-5841
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The Cure For Death
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, Romance
Logline: The lives of a young African American, a white Klansman, and a young boy are all linked by their common father, Darby Turner.
Synopsis: Willis Turner wakes up one rainy night to hear someone stealing his only asset, his motorcycle, from the carport downstairs. A couple of weeks later, the police retrieve the bike in Delaney, Texas, 300 miles southeast. When Willis tells his mother Leona he's taking the bus to Delaney, she warns him to stay home and forget the bike. Delaney has changed. An African American is the sheriff, an African American woman the deputy. But racism hasn't gone away, it has merely gone underground.
Willis’s half-brother A.J. Turner is a hate-fueled cross-burner for the local KKK. Fresh out of prison for burning a black church, A.J. dreams of his role as head of the local Klan, believing he can bring on the Armageddon prophesied in the Bible. Willis’s father, Daryl Turner, a business leader in the small community, is a weak man torn between the knowledge that people are all the same under the skin, and conflicted by his need to conduct business in a community that refuses to let go of its hate.
Willis retrieves his stolen motorcycle, but the bike was damaged and needs repairs. Working on it in A.J.’s outboard repair shop, he learns of a Klan cross-burning planned for a farmer's field. Willis sneaks into the ceremony and risks his life to thwart the Klansmen’s plan to burn down a mixed-race church with everyone in it. He narrowly escapes the hooded Klansmen and their dogs pursuing him through the woods.
In town, Sheriff Jack Raine and deputy Dee Bogue, tipped off to the plot, evacuate the church and defuse the explosives. A.J. escapes, but is caught the next day in the backroads of Louisiana. Dee finds love in the arms of A.J.'s girlfriend. Willis rides off on his repaired motorcycle. And the world returns to equilibrium.
Author Info: JOHN SHINNICK was born in East Texas, educated briefly by Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. He built schools as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Gabon, operated rural development programs in Senegal, and emigrated to Canada in 1970. He studied creative writing with W.O. Mitchell at the Banff School of Fine Arts in the late Seventies, won fiction competitions in the Okanagan, and served as an editor with Pacific Yachting Magazine for 13 years. Today he operates an online used and rare-book business, freelances for various magazines and is writing his fourth spec screenplay between bouts of editing B.C. Shorelines Business Letter and Media-Wave.com, an online publication devoted to film and television.
JOHN SHINNICK, Writer
916 West Broadway, #580
Vancouver, BC V5Z 1K7
(604) 618-7086
(604) 618-9570 Fax
john@media-wave.com
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Kanada
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama
Logline: The year is 1941. The escapees are German prisoners. The country is Kanada.
Synopsis: Kanada begins in an Alberta POW camp during World War II, where Wesser, a young German fighter pilot, dreams of escaping and making his way home to his loved ones. The breakout is successful; but Wesser finds himself saddled with two unruly companions--Koenigsdorf, a bitter but worldly ideologue whose brutality caused even the SS to court-martial him, and Schussberg, a happy-go-lucky bombardier whose single goal is desertion.
Accustomed to elite combat in the clear blue sky, Wesser soon finds himself mired in a flesh-and-blood ground campaign which is anything but clean. By raft, car, train, and plane, on horseback and on foot, with the aid of unsuspecting civilians and the help of a shaky network of enemy sympathizers, he leads the trio across the prairies, leaving an ever-widening trail of violence behind him. Battling his strong-willed companions, the unforgiving harshness of the frozen landscape, the authorities in their relentless pursuit, and the deception and betrayal practiced by both ally and foe, Wesser gradually sheds his decency and his honor as his noble escape plan degenerates into a struggle to survive at any cost.
An intense drama with suspense, action, unexpected reversals, and a cast of strong characters battling for their lives, KANADA turns the roles of pursuer and quarry, enemy and ally upside down in the ultimate fugitives-on-the-lam adventure, all unfolding against the bleak, majestic winterscape of a heartland still half-wild.
Author Info: ALAN LEVIN, recipient of a 2003 Leo Award (for Best Screenwriting in a Youth or Children's Program or Series) has written episodes of the animated series Yakkity Yak, Yvon of the Yukon, What About Mimi? and D'Myna Leagues and has held two BC Film writer internships, one in the story department of the dramatic series Cold Squad. After working for several years as an aerospace engineer, he earned an MFA in Creative Writing in 1995. He has published stories and poems in numerous journals in Canada and the US, and has a selection of feature film scripts available. These include: Helen Towns - a swing-era singing sensation evolves into a civil rights campaigner; Absolutely Beat - freedom goes toe-to-toe with responsibility as aging Beatniks and their hipster disciples battle the establishment and each other; Redemption Song - a Desert Storm veteran finds it difficult to adjust to civilian life as he struggles to protect his troubled family in racially-charged Los Angeles; and Cross The Line - a young adult drama set in the world of soapbox car racing.
ALAN LEVIN, Writer
(604) 874-9402
alevin@intergate.bc.ca
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The Prince of Never Say Never
Genre: Children's, Action/Adventure
Logline: A young boy is kidnapped and taken to a bizarre magical kingdom where he’s forced to befriend its tyrannical teenage ruler.
Synopsis: Ed is twelve years old, and his life is spinning out of control. With his parents heading for divorce court, and his brother and sister openly hating him, Ed runs away only to find himself kidnapped by two misshapen creatures who take him back to the magical kingdom of Never Say Never.
Never Say Never is a land ruled over by a teenage Prince, a physically grotesque young man who, with the help of some magic ‘jawbreakers’, is in complete control of the kingdom. These candies allow the “sucker” to have anything they want. Ed is offered a place of honor and absolute power if he will do just one thing - be the Prince’s friend.
Ed is enthralled with his new home: using magic guns to shoot bullies in a schoolyard, playing with remote controlled people, being waited on hand and foot. It’s all very exciting until spies from the Prince’s arch enemies, “The Tricksters” reveal to Ed what lies beneath the veneer of magic, a Kingdom full of misery and paralyzed by the Prince’s childish whims.
In a daring escape, Ed leaves Never Say Never and seeks refuge with the Trickster King, a kindly old man who rules over an army of mechanical illusions and protects other children from Ed’s world who also escaped the Prince’s “friendship.”
Ed’s betrayal sends the Prince into a homicidal rage; he orders his deadly Skeleton Army to invade the Trickster kingdom and destroy everyone there. By a twist of fate, Ed finds himself in the terrifying position of being the only person who can actually stop the Prince. In a dramatic showdown, Ed battles the Prince for the last remaining jawbreaker. Ed is victorious and restores the kingdom to its rightful rulers, the Prince’s parents. Offered a home and place of honor in Never Say Never, Ed realizes it’s time to return to his own home and start to face the challenges there.
Author Info: ROB THOMPSON has been writing, directing and producing film and video projects for over fifteen years. As a founding member of the award winning company Winter Films he has worked on a wide variety of projects. Two of his best known productions include, Wire, an event where he offered two people $5,000 to live in a chicken cage for one week, and Journey to Little Rock, a documentary that looks at the life of Minnie Jean Brown, one of the famous Little Rock Nine.
ROB THOMPSON, Writer
winter@cyberus.ca
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Samuel Hearne: His Journey
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, Historical
Logline: The story of Samuel Hearne’s attempt to discover the ultimate meaning of existence via a journey through the Northwest Passage.
Synopsis: This is the story of Samuel Hearne and his historic, three year, three thousand mile trek, in the eighteenth century, across the North American subarctic to find the fabled Northwest Passage. Even more, it is the story of this individual's attempt to discover the ultimate meaning of existence, a discovery he believes will be realized at the furthest extreme of the unknown where West meets East. It is a journey that involves incredible hardship, violence, aching misfortune and perfidious villainy, love in all its guises-- lust, passion, and devotion-- and unsurpassed camaraderie between himself and a charismatic Native American leader. In the end, an old alchemist is instrumental in his realization of his long sought desire.
Author Info: MARK PARRY began writing Samuel Hearne after teaching theatre and film at the University of Manitoba. It developed after many months of studying Jung, Campbell, Wilber, and meditating on the conundrum..."Seer and seen, beholder and beheld are one".
P. MARK PARRY, Writer
#30-4949 Ontario Avenue
Powell River, BC V8A 5T7
604-485-3937
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The Undaunted
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama
Logline: In 1883, two men are forcibly brought from China as laborers for building the trans-Canada railway through the Fraser Canyon.
Synopsis: Wong Chi, a dispossessed farmer, and Siang Yun, an ex-convict, form an uneasy life-long bond when the latter saves the former's life. In 1883, shanghaied from China, they arrive in Yale, B.C. and are put to work building the trans-Canada railway. In spit of the harsh environment and dangerous working conditions, each is sustained by a personal agenda: Wong Chi to get rich quick and buy land in his native place, and Siang Yun, a member of a quasi-religious revolutionary movement, dreams of returning to overthrow the oppressive Manchu regime in China. The machinations of their white bosses, and the greed of their compatriot, quickly impact upon them.
Matters come to a head when Wong Chi rescues Nell, a chamber maid at a brothel, from being raped by Morgan McDermot, his racist foreman. Afterward, Morgan only recalls his attacker was a coolie with stripes across his back. Nevertheless, the incident incites a riot. The Chinese work camp catches fire and a powder magazine nearby explodes, burning down half the town. As the town struggles to get on its feet again, coolies' rage against the explosive compradore Mr. Liu boils over. They kill him and recognize Siang Yun as their leader and spokesman henceforth.
As the work force moves up the Fraser, Wong Chi is detailed to remain behind to care for injured coolies. Wong Chi encounters Nell again and they fall in love. The coolies discover the illicit affair and alter Siang Yun. Fearing repercussions, he breaks up the romance by ordering Wong up-river where the final sections of track are being laid.
Determined to complete the railway on schedule, Olson, the railway's main engineer/contractor, must work through the winter. A landslide cuts the overland supply route. Olson devises a daring plan to bring in rails and other supplies by boat. This sets off a wild bout of betting activities in Yale, with townsfolk making huge wagers against Olson. Olson wins against heavy odds by using coolies to drag a paddle-wheeler upstream through the Hell's Gate rapids.
As the last tunnel is blasted through the mountain, Morgan accidentally discovers Wong Chi is Nell's rescuer. A confrontation takes place in the tunnel as the last charges of dynamite explode. Wong is critically injured. Siang Yun takes Wong Chi through the rapids in a rowboat in a desperate attempt to seek help in Yale. However, he dies. As Morgan follows them to Yale, bent on vengeance, his past finally catches up with him; a sheriff's deputy, intending to arrest Morgan, kills him instead.
As the first train arrives in Yale, Siang Yun returns to China.
Author Info: MICHAEL DAVID KWAN was born in Beijing, China. His several careers include social worker, and broadcaster before carving a niche in the airline and travel industries. During his teaching stint in his native Beijing (1987-90) he began writing seriously.
Kwan's writing credits include, a play, The Day of the Phoenix, which was a winner in Theatre B.C.'s Canadian National Playwriting Competition, 1992. His second play, A Season in Purgatory won the Du Maurier Arts Canadian National Playwriting Competition, 1995. His memoir, Things That Must Not Be Forgotten recently won the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize, 2000 for non-fiction.
Michael David Kwan lives and works in Vancouver, B.C.
MICHAEL DAVID KWAN, Writer
Agent: Robert Mackwood
Contemporary Management
(604) 734-3663
rmackwood@ccpr.com
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