Helena , Kate & Max

Helena , Kate & Max

Saturday, 2 March 2013

Commemorate synopsis. WARNING: I got a bit carried away...By MAX HILBOURNE


Commemorate

A young Olive Collins is late for school one morning; she gets a lift in and walks into school.  When walking in she’s stopped by his friend, Liam (whose father is the history teacher), and they hide in a corner, a gunman walks past them and walk into the assembly hall.  The sound of gunshots and panic emerges from the hall.
A few years later, the school finally reopens and Olive struggles when she goes back to school after her father has had her home schooled since the incident and sent her to a Psychiatrist, whom she tells everything to.  She’s still friends with Liam, but they keep their distance because they remind each other too much of what happened.  She’s still tormented by flashbacks of what happened, one flashback is of her and Oliver walking into the assembly hall, which is filled with bodies of their friends, but no teachers.  She follows the path of a Photographer and takes pictures wherever she goes.  She takes photos of a school production called “And so it ends”, it uses strobe lights in the main hall, she helps the actors put the props in the school cellar, including a pair of crutches, which happens to be the props room as well.  Then she stumbles into the security room and takes photos of the controls for her project, but the Gatekeeper finds her and shouts for her to leave.  Olive remembers him being there at the incident, she then becomes obsessed with the idea that the Gatekeeper was the key antagonist.   She starts following the gatekeeper and takes pictures of everything he does.

She collects what she thinks is a substantial amount of evidence in a large folder, such as old newspaper reports about the school dating all the way back to the First World War. One article about a teacher whom had committed suicide and a teacher driven mad and killed his students. She eventually tells her Psychiatrist everything and he does his best at telling her that it’s just not true and it’s all in her head.  But Olive is still convinced and goes to the Gatekeepers house to find evidence; she gets caught by the Gatekeeper, who calls the police on her.  Olive escapes but gets chased by the police, when she gets caught by a police officer (the officer who actually was at the incident after it happened and looked after Olive and Liam) they remember each other and the Police Officer lets her off with a warning.

She goes to school as normal the next day, when she’s in History she starts thinking more in depth about the incident and realises something. The History teacher is Liam’s father.  Where was he when the incident occurred?  After the lesson she confronts the History teacher at his office, the history teacher tells him that he was on holiday with the family.  BUT WHY WASN’T LIAM WITH HIM ON HOLIDAY?! She asks herself.
 
She confronts Liam, asking where his father was when the incident occurred.  Liam says he can’t tell her.  They are interrupted by the Gatekeeper who shouts at them to get to class, when they get to class, Olive gives a note to Liam saying to meet her at the School Cellar’s after school, there Oliver plans to interrogate him.

The Police Officer is having a meeting with Olive’s Psychiatrist, who shows the folder Olive gave to the Psychiatrist.  Whilst looking through the folder starts remembering stuff that actually happened at the incident.  He starts connecting dots, starts remembering seeing the teachers all alive and well after the incident, he starts to get convinced that Olive is on to something.

At the School Cellars, Olive tries to forcefully get information from Liam, the stress has got to her and she has a tantrum.  The History teacher walks into the cellar, he has a gun.  He shoots Olive in the leg and leaves her to bleed out, the headmaster calls him on the radio and asks if he’s ready for stage one; the history teacher then takes Liam and locks the doors.

The Police Officer starts driving to the school to pick up Olive, to see what else he thinks she knows. 
The Headmaster calls for a school assembly and the teachers start loading their guns in the changing rooms.  The halls are flooded with schoolchildren who are dreading another boring assembly, the teachers then lock all entrances to the school.

Olive lies down in a pool of blood, she slowly reaches in her pocket and starts playing music on her phone hoping someone will hear it and also as comfort as she lies in pain in pitch black.

The Police Officer gets to the school and walks to the Main entrance, it’s locked and the French teacher guarding the hall sees him through the windows.  The Police Officer starts running towards the Police car to call for back up.  But two teachers are standing by the car with guns.  He hides behind the corner and thinks of running through the field to escape and call for help.  But he hears music coming from the Cellar and opens it to see Olive lying down in a pool of blood.  She’s lost a lot of blood.

The whole school is listening to the headmaster; he’s giving a long boring, ceremonial type speech people.
The police officer covers Olive’s wounds and tells her to stay there whilst he goes to try and escape to call for back up.  Olive remembers the first time she went into the control room; she crawls over towards her bag and gets her camera out, the picture of the controls in the control room.  A switch that automatically opens up the electronic doors, sees the theatre strobe light switch and gets an idea.  She looks next to her, the crutches she put in there.

The Police Officer runs across the field and escapes.

The headmaster is still continuing with the long speech, Olive just about makes it to the control room and looks out towards the hall.  She’s shocked when she sees that the teachers pull out the Gatekeeper for their first sacrifice.  She’s frozen in fear and the teachers kill the Gatekeeper.  There are screams from all the students.  Olive opens all the doors with the flick of a switch, turns the lights off and turns on the strobe lights to confuse the teachers.  She shouts in the microphone “Run”.

(Long Montage, the teachers kill as many students as they can but most get away.  Police cars drive to the school with guns, a few teachers run to the control room to kill Olive, Officers with guns storm the school, a teacher sees Olive, an officer fires a gun.  A poster of the play fades in and IT ALL ENDS.

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