User:Denejvrb/sandbox/Spoils (television series)

Spoils (television series)
Spoils is a television drama series, written by Dené Janse van Rensburg for the DFK 774 course. The requirement is to write a pilot episode and seven successive episode treatments for the series, which demonstrates an understanding of the development of quality characterization, quality dialogue, character and story arcs, maintaining plot lines and finding a point between formula and originality. The series Spoiled will be submitted for marks on the 22nd of April 2016 ...

Plot
Set in the present-day, an underground community of refugees have lost their founder and leader to what most believe was old age. Heath, the late founder of the community, deserted his enforcement squad on and execution mission through the city. The squad was formed by the newly instated political party NLA (National Liberal Alliance)* and ordered to find and execute any citizen who had been found guilty of any form of racism, by the Public Censory Division. In an attempt to spare some of the falsely accused, including his daughter, Heath evacuated a group of people from the crumbling city. The group of refugees made a home in the underground parking garage of an unfinished shopping mall situated between their city and the next. The community lives in a decrepit and unforgiving environment and develop their own set of ritualized practice of cannibalism, which becomes more about the social and routine than it is about survival.

Heath's daughter, Corinn, and her partner Kamille, are instated as leaders by proxy. Corinn is not happy about her new position, but begrudgingly accepts on account of her father and Kamille. Corinn (early forties), who has been skeptical of the council for some years, has noticed that some of the community members have gone missing and intends to find out where they are disappearing to. As a result of her firm belief that the council is corrupt, she suspects their involvement in the disappearances. Kamille, who knows about Corinn's preoccupation, sees the opportunity to better the community's circumstances and accepts on behalf of her partner. Kamille's foremost desire is to start a family with Corinn, which she is aware will not happen if Corrin tries to leave and, inevitably, be killed. Kamille also knows that the community needs change in order to survive and protect themselves from the NLA, who she believes are still at work above ground.

Corinn, however, attempts to leave the community, but encounters two gatherers on their way underground. One of the gatherers is said to have been killed by an aerial shot when he traveled too far out of the designated parameters. Corinn accepts that it is not safe enough to leave the community on her own and decides to stay and mend what is broken closer to home, before venturing into the unknown cities above ground.

The first season follows Corinn and Kamille as they uncover the secrets hidden by the council, come to terms with an entire community's denial, and the disease of survival.

Happy Meal
The first episode of the season opens with the image of the storage area and two men processing meat and discussing the upcoming ceremony. Behind them are lines with meat hooks, on which meat is hanging to dry. A young man in his mid twenties enters. Giving a backward glance toward the preoccupied men behind him, he takes a piece of dried meat and hides it in his jacket pocket. We follow the boy two levels down, where he finds his little sister. He hands her a small piece of the dried meat and checks a storage container where he finds a bag with a mass of meat starting to go bad. He says goodbye to his sister and travels one level up, where he enters an area covered by hessian dividers and finds a large woman with fiery hair, who is in the middle of a meeting with two other women. He whispers into her ear, to which she nods and he leaves.

We are introduced to two athletically built women who look to be in their forties. Corinn, olive skinned and androgyne and Kamille, with dark, unblemished complexion and dread-locked hair falling to one side. Corinn is fervently fighting with the red haired woman, Robyn, about the leadership position that she should be able to decline. She mentions her father's passing and that he had never informed her that she would be obligated to take such a position. Kamille tries to calm Corinn throughout, without success.

Corinn storms out of the meeting with Kamille at her heels. In their room, Kamille further attempts to calm Corinn, who has started a fit of crying. They speak about Corinn’s father and his sudden unexplained death. A sex scene follows, inter-spliced with a conversation between Robyn and one of her lackeys, George - a broad shouldered man in his early thirties. Their conversation is about the meeting with Corinn and Kamille, after which she asks him whether he has found a man he was set out to look for.

In Corinn’s room, she leaves Kamille sleeping, and makes her way to the storage rooms. There she strikes up a conversation with the young man, Wayne, about what he had whispered to Robyn during the meeting, but he laughs it off and says that it was a private message from a lackey that passed him earlier in the day. The boy is uneasy and she asks him what he has on his mind as they walk through the crates and containers, finding crackers, tinned foods and dried fruit. The boy tells her of his mother that had gone missing some days ago, which Robyn had promised to look into, but he struggles to look after his sister while working, and he doesn’t know how to cook the meat he used to bring home to his mother.

Corinn finds Kamille playing a game of football (soccer) with some of the children in the communal recreation area. They walk home as Corinn tells Kamille about Wayne's mother, Lillian. She tells her of another, older woman, who she hasn't seen in some time. She couldn't find either of the women at the infirmary or with the processed (the bodies of the deceased).

Kamille suggests they speak to Robyn about the two women. When they find her she is closing a derelict journal and ushers them inside. Corinn explains why they have come and her concerns are met with nods. Robyn tells them that they are still looking for the boy’s mother, who was mentally unstable and is suspected to be hiding somewhere in an empty basement level. As for the older woman, Corinn is told that she had passed some days ago, but she had been very ill and her body could not be processed without the chance that others would fall ill. Gatherers had been instructed to take her body above ground and bury it with others who could not be processed.

We are introduced to Mecca and her father, Reginald, who discuss their life and her wishes to leave the community. Later, Mecca and Wayne are shown in her home being intimate and also discussing the future.

Reginald meets with rebels, Collin, June and Eddie. They are preparing for something, but we don't find out what.

George comes to Robyn to tell her about a women who isn't getting better. They leave for the basement level of the opposite underground lot. Far into the dark level they find a sectioned off tent with guards. Inside, a woman is kept in her own filth. She twitches violently and yells at Robyn when she enters. Robyn raises a buff over her mouth and nose and comes closer to the woman, who we see is chained to a concrete column. She tries to reach for Robyn with a clawing hand, demanding to see her children and threatening to kill Robyn. The latter speaks to one of the guards about the woman’s decline and symptomatic progression as if she were an unresponsive animal.

As the camera traces its way backwards from the gathering, we see Robyn stand, take a large knife from one of the men and close in on the twitching woman. As the camera distances itself, tRobyn violently thrusts the knife into the woman’s head. She is left to slump to the ground as Robyn cleans her face and the hessian dividers close as the camera exits the room.

Level outline:
Descending:

First Level (above ground)

Open Level (underground) Storage Level (underground) Business Level (underground) Housing Level (underground) Opposite parking lot:
 * Electrical room
 * Processing section
 * Storage section
 * Offices
 * Infirmary
 * Morgue
 * Homes and rooms
 * Washing rooms
 * Recreation area
 * Ceremonial area

Basement Level (underground)

Characters (pilot):

 * Heath (unseen)


 * Corinn
 * Kamille
 * Robyn
 * Wayne
 * Mecca
 * Reginald
 * Collin
 * June
 * Eddie
 * George
 * Lillian
 * Little Girl (Wayne's sister)
 * Edith (unseen)
 * Processor #1
 * Processor #2
 * Guard #1
 * Guard #2
 * Nurse
 * Old Lady
 * Man

Episodes

 * E01: Happy Meal


 * E02: Welcome
 * E03: A Meaty World
 * E04: Meat Orgy
 * E05: Kuru
 * E06: New Command
 * E07: Processing
 * E08: Hallowed Be Thy Flesh

Season Trajectory
(coming soon ...)