ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

10 years, 2 months ago - Edward Learman

Hi,

I was looking for experienced writers and filmmakers that could help me develop and pitch the completed draft of my screenplay to production companies, or to raise funds for in order to make. I've already contacted a few companies and agents but they don't accept unsolicited material



GALAPAGOS
A crime drama

Logline:
A film graduate returns home to a quiet suburb of Hampshire after a year travelling in Australia. When he learns about an import of valuable cargo at a local airport, he is persuaded by his new friends to commit a heist which has terrible consequences.

Main characters:
In 2009, as news about the economic recession grows, ADAM, unemployed and frustrated arrives home in the UK to live with his family. His luck changes when he meets JANE, a trainee teacher, who is kind and someone he feels he can talk to. She introduces him to SEBASTIAN, a close friend from an affluent background, and who also seems interested in gaining Adam’s friendship.

Synopsis:
On a rainy night two cars drive in a high speed chase along a country road. One car loses control and crashes down an embankment. MIGUEL, Adam’s best friend, tries to escape but is killed by Sebastian’s men who retrieve the stolen bag of valuables and kidnap Jane. Adam is left for dead, but survives, and goes to find a locker containing a gun and a bag which Miguel had stolen.

At a manor house hotel in the country, owned by Sebastian’s parents, Adam tries to rescue Jane, and confronts Sebastian. Outside the restaurant, shots are fired just before Adam stumbles out the door and collapses.

In a flashback to the past, long before he’d met Sebastian or Jane, Adam is in Australia with Miguel, where he meets a girl at a party. When he suspects that she might also be seeing Miguel he decides to return home and find a career. He tells Miguel that a doctor diagnosed him with depression, and which he believes is because of his debts and difficulty finding a job. When Adam does return home he becomes furious after he discovers that his father took out a loan to pay off his debts.

In the present, Adam is under arrest and interviewed by police about the shootings at the hotel. The detective asks him questions to determine what happened, but the investigation is complicated with the part he’d taken in the robbery, as it seems there must be something that he’s not telling them. Adam only asks to see Jane, but the officer explains that this is prohibited since both of them are being treated as suspects.

In a flashback to Adam’s return home, he and Miguel both have difficulty finding work as they attend job interviews. While working at a music festival, Adam meets Jane and Sebastian, and is invited to a party at Sebastian’s at the hotel where he learns more about their relationships, and falls for Jane.

Adam finds a job as a bartender at the airport restaurant, and then by chance talks to a businessman who tells him about a transport of valuables from Dubai. A short while later, Sebastian reveals his plan to commit a robbery with the help of Miguel and a Romanian man called ‘VLAD’. Adam has difficulty believing what they say, and leaves the same day to visit his sister DEIDRE in London, and to take part in a paid medical trial.
While Adam undergoes tests at a hospital in Croydon, and one evening witnesses the London riots, Miguel and Vlad steal the security access codes to the airport terminal, and then prepare by delaying the cargo flight before it departs from Dubai airport.

During the robbery, Sebastian and his gang must kill the guards when they’re interrupted by a member of staff. Afterwards, Sebastian becomes paranoid when he finds that some of valuables are missing from the stolen cargo, so he abducts and interrogates Adam, Jane and Miguel. The story reaches the climax from the beginning car chase, and is followed with a flashback to the subsequent shootings, where Adam shoots Sebastian.

Several months after the court trial, after Adam had been cleared of the charges, he meets with Jane to reconcile their relationship. In a final twist, as Adam boards a flight back to Australia, Jane and his father receive delivered packages containing the stolen valuables Miguel had taken from Sebastian.