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     Projects
   
     God's Children
     Leonardo's pencil
     Subterranea
     Sports Briefs
     Road to Wembley
   
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God's Children

God’s Children is the story of a charismatic leader a charismatic leader and brilliant speaker whose rise to fame and power was swift and mercurial.

He was a man whose charity work saved tens of thousands of lives.

But because he was vain, Irish, Protestant, brash, deceitful, egotistical, temperamental, intolerant, domineering and volatile, he made a host of enemies – including other influential charity workers.

He became known as the most hated man in England - the scourge of the establishment, loathed by the smug middle classes and the envy of his small-minded rivals.

Night after night he risked his own life, descending into the foul disease-ridden slums of the East End to seek out destitute children – beggars, thieves and child prostitutes. He was frequently attacked, ending up in hospital with broken bones.

By day, he made dozens of High Court appearances and on several occasions narrowly avoided being jailed for abducting children.

Indeed, the forces against him were so strong that they nearly destroyed him.

But he persevered and overcame them. His efforts built up a huge institution and brought about major changes in the law.

By the time he died in 1905, he had rescued 60,000 homeless children from death on the streets. And at his funeral, those streets were lined by thousands of the ordinary people who adored him.

The establishment, however, shunned him to the end. Whereas his enemies were showered with knighthoods and other honours, he never received anything.

Today, the organisation that bears his name continues to help homeless, abused children.

The man is Thomas Barnardo.

   
     
     

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Leonardo’s pencil, Synopsis
Dave finds a pencil which can draw things that come true. But can he control the power?

We’d all like to transform our lives with a quick fix - win the lottery, find a fortune or wave a magic wand. The adolescent Dave DrakE stumbles upon the means to do just that.

At school, his one talent’s capturing a likeness with a few deft strokes. His art teacher MISS GAWTRY is well meaning, but he won’t be taught. He fancies TINA, who’s going out with the more affluent, mocking CHAS. His Father Ted’s a failed wheeler-dealer who dreams of making a fortune. Mother Pat’s a lottery obsessed night-club barmaid. When she gets involved with a local businessman Greg Symes, his Dad walks out and Symes moves in. Dave retreats to his room, where he’s befriended a fledgling pigeon nesting on his windowsill.

Dave meets a new neighbour Mr Hill, a blind retired gallery curator who shows him prints of Leonardo’s prophetic inventions and a pencil Leonardo used to draw things that came true. Dave swaps it for one of his own. When Symes mocks Dave, he blacks out teeth on a portrait of him with Leonardo’s pencil. Then Symes turns up minus some teeth.

So he draws himself kissing Tina, but as he offers her a seat on the bus, it brakes and he falls on top of her. Dave realises it’s not as easy as that so he tries a subtler approach - a drawing of her admiring her portrait. Then he draws Symes coming home with lipstick on his cheek and Maltby with his flies undone in front of assembly. His drawings of Tina and Maltby come true. Then when Chas annoys him, Dave draws Tina finding a nude image of another girl on his digital camera. Tina discovers it, dumps Chas and becomes friends with Dave. Symes comes round with lipstick marks and rows with Pat, but Tina gets back with Chas. Heartened by his success, he draws his parents back together, Tina on his bed, his debt ridden Father finding money and when Miss Gawtry humiliates him, he draws her and Chas being discovered having sex. When Symes kills his pet pigeon he draws his car crashing.

When Maltby’s declared senile and sports mad Spratt takes over, Dave realises controlling the future’s not that simple. He tries to make amends by drawing Maltby’s triumphant return. Ted returns to the flat, finds Symes’s money and makes off with it. Pat and Symes discover the loss and set off in Symes’s car after Ted. Dave alters the drawing so that Symes survives and his Mother uninjured, Symes crashes and is taken to hospital. Dave’s appalled to see the injuries he’s inflicted. Tina finds his prophetic drawing of the accident. Sensing his power, she tells him not to waste his gift.

Chas blunders into a school storeroom and finds Miss Gawtry changing. Spratt finds them, Miss Gawtry is arrested and Chas expelled. Symes is charged with bribery and Pat ditches him. Dave confides in his Dad who persuades him to draw him winning racing bets which rouses the suspicions of the local Bookie, CONDON. He forces the truth out of Ted and holds Dave hostage, making him sketch him amid gold bars and opulent surroundings.

When the police realise Dave’s been abducted, Pat and Ted appear on TV looking just like Dave’s drawing of them. Tina spots this and tips off the police. Dave escapes injuring his arm and hides at Mr Hill’s confessing all. He points out that Leonardo never used a graphite pencil, and so it is all probably a myth – the events are an invention of his mind. The police raid Condon’s place but he escapes.

Dave realises that he’s too human to have a god-like gift and draws out a peaceful tableau of reconciliation using his other hand. As Condon tracks him down, Tina realises where Dave is. Ted goes to the basement and Condon shoots at him, but his life is saved by Tina. Condon flees.

We end with a glimpse of the future – Condon caught, parents friends again, his Father gives up madcap schemes, his Mother gives up looking for Mr money-bags to sort life’s problems out and finds someone much better. Mr Hill gains his sight back in one eye. Dave ends up with Tina. He becomes an artist, having learnt to develop his talent and see and appreciate the things that are around him.

   
     

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Subterranea

Introduction
The Subterranean world of the Chinese Mafia spills out onto London ’s Soho streets when the daughter of a Hong Kong gang lord is dragged into a deadly chase, where the prize is ultimate power.

Story outline

Two central characters:

Gloria – the beautiful and icy cold daughter of a Triad ganglord. She is visiting London with her father who has flown over from Hong Kong to defuse a feud with a rival Triad family.

Conn – newly arrived from Ireland to gamble (and win) in Chinatown , Conn is stripped of his innocence as he is unwittingly sucked into the tumultuous vortex of the Triad feud.

Lee Woo is the ailing adversary of Gloria’s father. His son, Sammy is impatient to take control of the Woo family Triad and in his desperate greed for power, he has tried to create a union with Gloria’s family by raping her and assuming she will be honour-bound to marry him. Instead Sammy is maimed by Gloria’s aggressive retaliation and in the precarious world of Triad gangs the uneasy status quo is thrown into disarray. Power hangs in the balance.

Lee Woo has to preserve his family honour – he must kill Gloria and his own son – only this will reset the balance. But Lee is dying of cancer and Sammy sees union with Gloria as the key to ultimate power. As his father’s health fails, Sammy’s ambition gains desperate momentum.

Prevented from reaching her father, Gloria seeks refuge with Dury, Triad mediator and owner of the only non-Chinese gambling den in subterranean Chinatown . But Dury has his own motivations and embroils Conn in his plan to betray Gloria to the very people she is trying to escape.

Amidst all of this turmoil, Conn is the unlikely hero. He risks his future and even his life to defend his own, self-imposed code of honour.

The film is set over a 24-hour period, and opens with Gloria escaping the subterranean streets and the clutches of her pursuers. She bursts out into the colourful festivities of the Chinese New Year celebrations in Gerrard Street and with each step she takes into the familiar cosmopolitan London streets, we witness the creeping contamination of corruption, on the oblivious population above ground.

Setting
Beneath the streets of London ’s Chinatown lies a subterranean network of service alleyways built in the Victorian era to hide the movement of everyday life from the moneyed classes of Piccadilly and St. James. Complete with street signs and pavements, the alley ways are now merely a testament to the class structure of another era. Dark and gloomy, patches of light filter through the occasional grates in the road above and dim electric lights illuminate some doorways.

Behind one of these doors is a casino – one of many with dull, tobacco stained walls, worn drapes hanging here and there, cheap seating and harsh lighting. This is no underground Las Vegas . Here the atmosphere is rich with obsession and despair.

By contrast, Dury’s establishment is a stylish and exclusive club combining the traditions of the high class opium dens of the Orient with the attitude and elegance of an English gentleman’s club.

Above this underground world, sits Chinatown – all gaudy colours and rain splashed neo . It is a chaotic and cosmopolitan tourist trap that has become synonymous with “Cool Britannia”. The voices are American, English, German, Eastern European – and amidst the carefree hustle and bustle, no-one is aware of the volatile world that exists below.

   
     

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Sports Briefs
Sports Briefs is a series of twelve short docu-dramas about a nation’s obsessive relationship with sport.

The first of these twelve is “Real Men in Black” a 10 minute docu-drama about Sunday League football.

Real Men in Black is the story of Derek, an ordinary man, living an ordinary life - except on Sundays! From the lows of Hackney marshes to the highs of the Premiership, it takes a certain individual to fill the role of a football referee. Seen and heard through a documentary-style post-match analysis in the local pub, we are given an insight into the relentless demands this very ordinary man must overcome every Sunday - and every other day of the week. Throughout, we are drawn into his affectionate description of Sunday-league football. But as the tense scenes of his everyday working life reach a crescendo, he is ultimately revealed as the 'man in black' who has the opportunity to turn the tables, if he so desires!

The eleven remaining short films currently being developed are:

  • Racing Certainty (Race Horse Trainers)
  • The One That Got Away (Anglers)
  • Rugby
  • Boxing
  • Cycling
  • Tennis
  • Marathon running
  • Rowing
  • Snooker
  • Golf
  • Cricket
   
     


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The Road to Wembley

…An enduring phrase used time and again by soccer pundits across the country. But where did the road begin?  

It is 1850, early Victorian England. Ladies wear bonnets and gentlemen wear top hat and tails. The penny farthing has just been invented. Dickens writes of urban squalor and the Bronte sisters write of rural harshness in The North. It is a time when the aristocracy is seemingly in control but the real power resides in a new body of people; the Industrialists and Mill Owners.  

Soccer, as yet with no standard rules, has still to become a national sport and England is one hundred and sixteen years away from winning The World Cup.

Our story begins at a cotton mill in the north of England. The local mill team, The North Pendledale Shankers, has just beaten another local side by 25 goals.

That evening as Onslow Huggit, The Shankers goalkeeper cleaning the mud from his personal goal with an old newspaper, the word “Football” suddenly catches his eye. Unfolding the paper he reads of the exploits of a team from the South, they sound exceedingly good. In ‘Hugger’ Huggit's garden and in the warmth of his shed the seed of an idea is planted...a match between the two best teams in the country...for a cup trophy.  

He persuades the mill accountant and unofficial team manager to contact the Southern team, The Halitosian Old Boys, with the proposal. In the smoke filled rooms of The Gentlemen of Privilege Club in London's Mayfair the challenge is laughingly accepted.   Onslow attempts to persuade his boss to give the team a weeks leave to travel to London. After much consideration and not without certain harsh conditions being imposed their wish is granted.

Onslow decides that the only way they can afford the trip is to send somebody ahead of them to challenge any local team on the way. If the Shankers win they get free board and lodgings. And if they lose? Well…The Shankers never lose!   Meanwhile the Halitosians continue indulge in their luxuriously wealthy lifestyle. However they become increasingly concerned that they might actually have to play, as reports of the Shankers triumphs reach London. Marmaduke Tweedy, a cad and the Halitosians forward player conspires to nobble the Northerners journey.

However The Shankers are having enough bizarre and humorous adventures without the need of any interference. They encounter a team from an asylum, a team from a traveling side show and a team of nuns who have taken a vow of silence! At one lonely village, where the inhabitants look astonishingly similar to one another, they play ‘Folk Football’, a game where the entire population is divided roughly into two teams in order to kick, punch or otherwise propel a pig’s bladder (once an enemy’s head) across the village boundaries. The Shankers barely survive, but finally reach London.

The Halitosians have no choice but to play and the match is a fine example of footballing skill; full of guile, determination and infinite amounts of random violence!  

As the light fades, with the game poised at four goals each, the referee is suddenly substituted. To the amazement of Onslow and his team mates the replacement is a man from the cotton mill. All decisions begin to go in favour of the home side resulting in two penalties that decide the match. The exhausted Shankers are invited to a demeaning "Jolly good attempt Old Boy” type celebration.

From amidst The Halitosians favoured guests, appears Constantine Shufter, the mill owner. Through the contacts made by ‘his’ football team he has been able to conduct a great deal of lucrative business in the South. Shufter whispers to his team, ”Sorry lads, money’s money. You didn’t think I’d give thee five days off work for nought did thee?”  

Well, nothing much has changed in Football then!

   
     
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