Crime fiction film pitches

In the Year 9 English subject ‘Crime and Detectives’ the students created concepts for a crime fiction film, which they had to imagine they were pitching to a film executive for funding. They wrote a synopsis and an extract and supported their writing with a visual mood board to convey the look and feel of the story world. Below are some of the exemplary pitches.

Sightseer by Ani Cook

A supernatural human with the ability to see snippets of a person's memories slowly discovers that he has committed the crime he is trying to solve.

SYNOPSIS:

The year is 2509. New York is a chaotic, dystopian metropolis, plagued with crime. To help remove trial time and determine who has committed a crime, high police forces employ genetically enhanced humans called 'Sightseers' who possess the supernatural ability to view glimpses of a person's past, at the cost of losing portions of their memory. When a catastrophic explosion kills hundreds including some of the highest police officers and government officials, 23-year-old Sightseer Cal Hill is put on the case. However, the clues don't line up, and in a chilling memory Cal finds out that he himself is the one responsible for committing the crime.

EXTRACT:

When the normal interrogation had finished, procedure called for him, and he slowly entered the dimly lit room, polished shoes clacking on the cracked white concrete. As Cal walked over to the suspect, he could sense the cold metallic stare of many cameras turn their piercing gaze towards him.

The man sitting at the interrogation table was small and bald, with a short coating of stubble covering his frightened face. Wide brown eyes met Cals narrowed purple ones, and the man noticeably recoiled, likely realising what was about to happen to him.

Cal reached his fingers out towards the small man, pressing them against the side of his temple, then silently extended his mind toward the shivering soul. With a sudden burst of epileptic colour, his mental state connected with the suspects, and shimmering glimpses of the man’s past flew by at a breakneck speed.

When he found the memory he was looking for he slammed the flashbacks to a halt, and the chilling night breeze of the 4th of May materialized around him. The artificial plane of reality was limited to what the suspect could see at the time, resembling a wedge of tangled alleyways carved into an inky black void. Cal checked his watch. 11:42 pm. Approximately 3 minutes before the catastrophic explosion that had killed hundreds. In front of him, a ghostly recreation of the small man materialised, and stumbled into a panicked sprint.

Cal followed suit, suspiciously noting that they were rather close to the location of the building. The police force must have been right, this man was almost certainly involved somehow.

But as they rounded a sharp corner the man began screaming at someone to stop. Though the darkness Cal could make out the shape of a lone figure planting and arming explosives next to a gas line on the side of the aforementioned police building. A jolt ran through Cal. This was it, whoever this man was the criminal! However, the excitement he felt quickly dissipated as the criminal revealed himself. His jaw went slack, and his blood turned to ice. Cal was staring face to face with himself.

Bones of Deceit by Maddy Montesano-Sloan and Amelie Murphy

SYNOPSIS

In the heart of London, a conservator by the name Jamie Krane is dedicated to preserving the historical artifacts at the British Museum, unknowingly becomes entangled in a gruesome mystery. When an intricately carved clay skeleton, believed to be an ancient relic, is discovered in the museum’s collection, Jamie is tasked with its restoration. Little does he know that this seemingly routine job will show a dark and twisted tale. As Jamie meticulously works on the skeleton, he stumbles upon a shocking revelation - the bones are not the ancient remains they appear to be. Someone broke into the museum and has replaced the artificial bones with real human skeletal remains, setting the stage for a crime that defies explanation. Determined to uncover the truth, Jamie sets out to find who committed this crime but as the investigation progresses, Jamie's own past is thrust into the spotlight. A startling twist reveals that the real culprit behind this grotesque crime is none other than his own mother, a seemingly sweet woman with a horrifying secret. Unbeknownst to Jamie, she is a cannibal who has meticulously orchestrated this heinous act to immortalise her insatiable cravings within the confines of the museum.  

EXTRACT

Strolling through the beautifully sculpted archways and passages of the British museum, dreaming of what the Romans must’ve been thinking as they invaded Celtic Britain. Suddenly Jamie snapped back into reality as he heard glass shatter and echo through the halls. Being the devoted and curious conservator that he was, he jumped at the chance to investigate. His footsteps sounded like drums as he sprinted through the museum urgently; his boss had taught him that if there was a loud noise in another part of the museum it’s most likely a robbery. When Jamie arrived at the scene of the crime, it was clear someone had tried to steal the clay skeleton exhibit. “How odd” Jamie muttered to himself, for it was odd… what would a person want with some bone shaped clay? There were much more valuable and rare artifacts all over the building. On closer inspection he realised that these ivory yet browned bones were new. And real. Who was he to go to? Instead of going to the police, which any average person would do, Jamie decided to call the person he trusted with his life, the person who protected him from the bullies at work, the person who always welcomed him to a new day with some chamomile tea and a perfectly sweet apple pie each morning. The phone was ringing, he waited with anticipation in hopes that she would pick up. “Hey mum… I need some help.”

Murder Ahoy by Freya Rossouw and Alex Wright

SYNOPSIS

When journalism student Ellery Harper signs up to be a lifeguard on board a cruise ship, she could never have imagined the tragic events that await her. As the lifeguard on duty, she is the only one who could possibly be responsible for the death of one of the passengers, university basketball player Aku Laine, who drowns while swimming drunk at night. However, as she is coming to terms with the burden of her mistakes, things soon begin to go missing around the ship – silverware, soap, and even a series of amateur paintings by a passenger's late husband. These events seem to be unrelated at first, but as Ellery starts to investigate – with the help of best friend Morgan and her cousin Luka – she notices that something seems off. There were wet footprints by the pool. Aku's death was a murder, and only one person could have committed it.

As the investigation progresses, a plethora of suspects are revealed – for both the murder and the thefts: a jilted lover; an ex-teammate; a kleptomaniac; a jealous younger brother; the art dealer’s wife’s alienated sister. Aku’s estranged ex-teammate Hayden Cassidy, whose old drug addiction caused him to quit basketball, has a motive for murder: Aku was the one who exposed his addiction to the team and ruined his basketball career. A search of Hayden's room yields surprising results: the pages of a mystery novel with an interesting motive… the final clue to the thefts. The missing paintings, set in antique miniature frames, conceal valuable stolen portraits, illegally traded by the art dealer they originally belonged to and taken by Hayden to pay off his university fees. There’s proof of the murder, too: whiskey glasses, one empty and one full, with the chapstick Hayden is in the habit of wearing on the rim of the full glass. He got Aku drunk before taking him for a swim, holding him under the water so he drowned to make the death look like an accident. It was nearly the perfect murder.

EXTRACT ONE

The pool has a unique glisten to it at this hour, as if the sapphire waters are a living entity, inhaling and exhaling as one with the sea around it. Sadly, it seems that I am the only one who has discovered this, as it is currently as uninhabited as the Sahara desert. In my eight days' experience working on the Alexandra, I have never seen anyone enter this part of the ship past 9 pm, so it's as if this pool is only mine, each glint of the sun’s dwindling light just for me. But the peaceful moment doesn’t last long. Before I even have time to take in the silence around me, my phone is blown up with over-the-top announcements, containing the one thing that mattered to me before I stepped foot on this ship: the results of my journalism final. I quickly contemplate leaving my post, before second-guessing myself. I know that I shouldn’t, but this is my future. And who the hell goes in a pool if they can’t swim anyway?

Checking my result will only take two minutes, but I know that I can’t do it here. The reception is absolutely atrocious, and I would run out of data in a nanosecond. I double-check that there is no-one even close to the pool, then sneak into a storage cupboard close enough to my post that if my

boss decides to check on me, I will see him coming. I quickly open my results. As expected, they take forever and a day to load, building an unexpected air of anticipation. Finally, they appear.

87. Seriously? I actually thought I did well on that exam. I guess an unexpected benefit of opening the results alone is that I won't be scolded for my perfectionist attitudes. This is one exam. I will eventually get over it. More importantly, I need to get back to saving lives--rather, earning money by standing around and occasionally blowing my whistle. The deck seems overly quiet as I am walking back to the pool, I can hear every creak of the boards, making me cringe every time I take a step. The salt air seems especially pungent. Maybe it's just my disappointment manifesting in different ways, skewing my perception of the world to fit my mood.

As I near the edge of the pool, to my horror, I see someone swimming it. I start to speak to them, stammering my empty excuses about where I was, and pointing to the sign clearly stating how they cannot be in the pool without the supervision of a lifeguard, but then I realize it is after hours anyway. I must have lost track of time, dwelling on what I can't change. "Hey, you! Out of the pool, it's after hours. I was just about to lock up," I say, slightly louder this time. Why is this person ignoring me? What did I ever do to them?

"Out, now, or I will call security!" I scream. But as I near the pool, I realise that the person in the pool is not a person anymore. It's a body.

EXTRACT TWO

“When are we going to search Hayden’s room?” Luka asks, his brown eyes wide and concerned. “We don’t know when he’s going to come back from dinner, and we can’t get caught.”

I chew my lip, reaching for an answer, but none comes. The guests are all at dinner now, but it’s the buffet tonight, so they could leave at any time. As if in response to my indecision, Morgan speaks up in a gleeful whisper, grinning around her words. “I’m a maid, remember? I can search his room and pretend to be cleaning if he comes back.”

Luka nods enthusiastically. “That way, I can watch him at dinner. Look out for any suspicious behaviour.” His excited tone makes it sound like a storybook investigation, as if one of his Christies has been pulled right from the page and onto the Alexandra. I remember the sallow hue of Aku’s body when I pulled him from the water, the limp way he’d sprawled on the pool deck, a puddle of water darkening the boards around him like blood. Even as I went through the automatic motions of checking for response, opening the airways, looking for blockages, I knew it was futile. Aku’s glassy, half-lidded eyes had said it all. He was gone, and it was far too real to be taken this lightly. Like it or not, we’re not in a detective novel, sure to catch the culprit in the last twenty pages. This is a real murder, a real person who has died, and I have very real – albeit metaphorical – blood on my hands

Art Club

Performing Arts Centre work in progress