Scripts for Option

Harm's way

Genre: Thriller

Logline: A man searches for his runaway daughter in the dead of night and digs up the ghosts of his own past.

Synopsis: An introverted college professor moves his family to the country where he takes up astronomy as a hobby. When his troubled sixteen year-old daughter runs away with a gun-toting local boy events spin out of control. As his fragile marriage reaches a breaking point and as his unsettled past returns to haunt him, the man goes looking for his daughter with shocking results. Harm’s Way is a disturbing story, one that lays bare the moral and emotional turmoil people experience when assaulted by circumstances beyond their normal control. It looks into the reasons behind the tragic deaths of two youths and how their families are implicated in those deaths.

The story takes place in a sleepy foothills town about an hour’s drive from the city where Bill Cooper and Beth Berry both teach in the English Department of a college. Both were in failing marriages when they met, and Robyn, as she puts it, is the product of their desperate, hot affair. They’ve only been living in this town since July; it’s now October. For reasons that are never made completely clear Bill has had a breakdown and is presently on a leave of absence. He has difficulty leaving the acreage, driving, talking to strangers. Beth is overburdened and unhappy. They have moved from the city to the country to try to save their marriage. Fresh air, new beginnings. Bill grew up in this small town and knows the parents of Robyn’s volatile boyfriend, Donovan Sikora, very well, or he used to: Jerry was once his best friend and Candy his high school lover.

In the telling of this story we weave between four separate through-lines. There’s Bill’s search for Robyn, which takes place between 9 pm at night and 3 am in the morning. The clues of her disappearance lead him to several locations, including the home of Robyn’s school counselor, the nearby Husky service centre where Donovan and Robyn hang out, and the Sikora residence itself where he confronts Jerry about the event from their past that haunts them both. During those same hours we will intermittently sit with Beth and Candy on Bill’s acreage. Candy has had a fight with Jerry and has come to be consoled by Bill. She finds Beth instead. Two women from opposite sides of the tracks who have children missing, who love the same man, wait the night out together. Tonight we will also monitor the antics of Clayton Sikora, Donovan’s older brother, a felon, who has recently taken something that doesn’t belong to him. It’s Clayton’s gun that Donovan has stolen. Clayton needs to find the teenagers before the police do because the gun is hot.

The story also tracks Donovan and Robyn between the hours of 4 pm and 9 pm, beginning with Robyn’s altercation with her counselor and moving with them to their hiding place. The juxtaposition of daylight and evening scenes in the recent past and the current nighttime scenes persist until the climax at which point the story jumps to the morning of the following day and to the tragic outcome.

The story shows how the past has a ripple effect on the present, without prejudice, and there’s no escaping it. Like the fog this night, the past rolls forward in time to levy its toll. Bill and Jerry ultimately find themselves at each other’s throats, Beth and Candy fail at finding compassion and trust in each other and Clayton meets his fate at the hands of his own avenger. Donovan and Robyn, while hiding in an abandoned farmhouse, die in each other’s arms. 

Bio: Gordon Pengilly is a ten-time winner of national and international writing competitions. His stage plays have been produced across Canada, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, the Netherlands and Japan. His radio dramas have been broadcast by the CBC, on BBC World Service, on Satellite XM (U.S.) and in Australia. Drumheller Or Dangerous Times won the WGC's Jim Burt Prize for Screenwriting in 2003 and was workshopped at Praxis in 2004. Seeing In The Dark won the 2008 Canadian Short Screenplay Competition and was produced in Regina by Year Of The Skunk Productions. Harm’s Way was a runner-up in the Hollywood Scriptapalooza Competition was workshopped by Praxis in 2005. 

Gordon Pengilly, writer

gpengilly@nucleus.com

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His Cake

Genre(s): Comedy, Drama

Logline:
Mal, a queer party animal with a heart of ice awakens one day with a sudden realization: he must reproduce.

Synopsis:
Coming of age with a twist. No nubile teens exploring sexual identity; we're talking club kids hitting the harsh reality of thirty in an unforgiving urban landscape, and wondering what they'll be when (and if) they ever grow up.

Mal provides the 'His' in His Cake. Cute, still able to pass as twenty-something, working sporadically in a low-rent portrait studio, Mal finds that even living for the moment requires a bit too much commitment. He'd call himself gay, but that might imply he wants a relationship. Let's just say: he fucks guys. The 'Cake' is what puts sweetness in life - finding out where it is and what to do with it takes Mal on a funny, poignant (and sometimes frightening) journey.

The story: Mal and his straight friend Rob are inseparable. They hang out, drink heavy, and play hard - leaving a trail of dumped lovers in their wake. Hey, it's their thing: but then something happens. One day, while consoling a sobbing, camera-shy child, Mal finds himself close to tears. His 'biological clock' has sounded, shattering his cool, well-insulated world. He needs to have his own kid - now! After all, how hard can it be? A bit of slippery interaction, a few months waiting, and presto, one beautiful baby to love and protect forever.

But nothing's ever as easy as it sounds. Of course there's always longtime friend Julia, who keeps saying she wants kids but not marriage. They've talked about it, but it's always been a boozy, late night, let's-play-house kind of chat. Now he’s serious, but Julia’s busy, fed up with his Peter Pan act, about to leave town. How to convince Julia that he has what it takes, dad-wise?

His latest gesture - 'forgetting' to drive her to the airport - doesn't make Julia any more receptive. In her view, 'babies don't raise babies'; and charming, witty, selfish Mal, who's drunk every night and has never had a boyfriend for more than a day, won't be getting her vote for Father of the Year. She offers him a few insights, and by the time she boards her plane, it's pretty clear - despite her affection for Mal, they won't be starting a child together any time soon.

But Mal's had an epiphany, and he's not giving up. With Julia gone, he turns to Rob, seeking support for his quest and the changes it demands. Support, however, isn't Rob's strong suit. A career slacker, he plays the artiste, but never puts brush to canvas, his 'vocation' a ploy to get women into bed. 'Til now he and Mal have been on the same page: drinking, partying, helping each other seduce the gullible. They've spent years mirroring each other, one gay, one straight, but in other ways almost indistinguishable. So what's with the sobriety and faithfulness shtick; what does this abrupt rejection of their shared lifestyle really say? The new Mal is a personal insult, a threat - Rob will do whatever he can to derail him.

Enter Pascal, twelve, a textbook 'child at risk,' living in the neighbourhood with his drug-hazed mom. Just your average lying, homophobic, manipulative youth, he conceals his need for attention so tidily that he appears untouchable. His first, chance encounters with Mal are edgy, tinged with violence. Sure Pascal's bright - he can also be obnoxious, devious, and downright scary. Yet somehow there's a connection, and as Mal slowly gets to know the kid better, a new imperative appears. It's like he has to reach Pascal; not just as some arbitrary 'test' of fathering potential, but because this kid, his future, his unique, quirky humanity, is important.

Meanwhile, Rob's started painting again, has even smarmed his way into a gallery show; and he seems to have forgiven Mal's desertion of their old way of life. Things are looking up everywhere. Pascal has found a real friend in Mal. And Mal has sobered up, he's got a 'real boyfriend' and a new sense of direction. He sees his virtuous efforts paying off at last.

Then everything - loyalty, love, Mal's dreams of fatherhood - falls apart, all on the day of Rob's big opening. Suddenly Rob's acting weird, sending Mal an all-new vibe, like they're more than just friends - or could be more. But Rob's straight, and Mal's committed now, isn't he? That same night, Mal sees an (even) darker side of Pascal, who has now teamed up with Doug, Mal's suspicious and maybe violent rival for Pascal's attention. And that's when Julia, the lodestar in Mal's life, returns, not to make it all better, but to unveil a secret that changes everything.

One rainy, dangerous night, Mal must face questions about the nature of love, truth, and commitment, and choose: between what's real and what's just one more slice... of His Cake.

Author Info:
BYRON FAST has published film, theatre and other media reviews for the Georgia Straight, Xtra West, Taxi Magazine and various sites on the internet. He wrote and produced At the Watercooler, a held-over hit at Vancouver's Fringe Festival in 1994. He also wrote, produced and appeared in Queer Things I Hate About You: a short video which premiered at Out On Screen in Summer 2000. Next he will be serving as co-writer and performer in Lorn: a collaborative video, produced and directed by Andrew Power and featuring Marlene Madison. His second screenplay, Things to do Today, is a very Canadian look at the "I want it all" generation.

BYRON FAST, Writer

Heaven’s Light

Genre: mystery

Logline: When a city detective is sent to investigate the murder of a teenage Hutterite girl on the same colony in which she herself grew up, she must confront the pain of her estrangement from that insular community as she tracks the murderer.

Synopsis: Detective Anna Stahl (35) balks when she is seconded to a rural RCMP detachment to investigate the case of Krysta Hofer, a fifteen year-old girl missing from the Heaven’s Light Hutterite colony.  What her Staff Sergeant doesn’t know is Anna grew up on that colony, ran away as a teenager, and has never returned.

The reception Anna receives on the colony is cool if not hostile when she and her partner, Ben Provost (30s), begin the investigation. Anna soon finds out Krysta is the daughter of Joseph Hofer, Anna’s first love.  After eighteen years, the sparks of attraction still fly between Anna and Joseph which doesn’t go unnoticed by Joseph’s wife, Freda. Anna forms a friendship with Joseph’s younger daughter, Marta (10) and suspects Marta may know something about Krysta’s disappearance .

After a full ground search, Krysta’s body is found not far from the colony.  Suspects from the nearby town are interrogated, but it is soon clear the murderer is from the colony.  The deeper Anna delves into the investigation, the more tortured she becomes trying to reconcile her own conflicted feelings about the colony and her job as detective on the case.

Based on new evidence, Anna confirms that Marta witnessed Krysta’s murder. Anna returns to Heaven’s Light and puts her own life at risk to prevent Marta meeting the same fate as Krysta

Bio: Leanne Baugh’s interest in film and television began in 1996 writing, directing and co-producing a documentary, Rethinking Health that won a Canadian Television Association award for best documentary.  Leanne then switched to writing dramatic screenplays including Sanctuary, chosen for the NSI Writer’s Roundtable and then went on to win third prize at the Television and Film Institute Screenwriting Competition.  In 2002, CTV awarded Leanne a development contract to co-write a TV Movie, Tokyo Nights.  She also received a writing grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts in 2003 to write an outline and first draft of her feature film, Chasing the Stars. Leanne is a member of the Writers Guild of Canada and has been an active member of Women in Film and Television.

Writer, Leanne Baugh-Peterson 

leannebp@shaw.ca

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Horse Apples

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy

Logline:
With the eminent closure of its turn-of-the-century ice rink, the community of Shinny Saskatchewan must band together not only to save hockey, but also the town itself.

Synopsis:
Who would have thought that beer, manure and Anne Murray memorabilia could be such a potent mixture!

Like most 12-year-old boys growing up on the Canadian Prairies, Espo Beckerjeck dreams of one day playing in the NHL. He has all the talent. The problem is that he just might not have the ice, as Shinny, Saskatchewan’s turn-of-the-century rink, is about to be forcibly shut down. Much more is at stake than the end of organized hockey though, as like so many small prairie communities, the end of the rink more often than not means the end of the town itself. Suddenly this group of a few hundred finds itself with less than a year to raise half a million dollars.

Who will save the day?

Could it be Mr. Zamboni, the French Canadian bingo caller? Perhaps Paul Hendrickson, the expatriate American Dead Head? What about Gretzky, the hockey playing canine? Maybe even Buzz Busby, the town’s stereotypical beer drinking hoser?

Horse Apples follows this quirky community’s attempt at survival as it explores the imagination and dreams embedded in the mystical side of the Canadian national pastime.

Author Info:
JAMES PHILLIPS has completed 6 feature film scripts. He's recently been writing for various local television drama including Stargate SG-1 and Cold Squad, which he is currently the story editor. He graduated from Simon Fraser University with a degree in Business Administration.


JAMES PHILLIPS, Writer
#31 - 1175 East Road
Anmore, BC   V3H SB4
(604) 461-2229
jtphillip@hotmail.com

Agent: Brent Sherman
Characters Talent Agency
(416) 964-8522

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