Presentation Video
In English, we created a world either by ourselves or contributed with other passionate Freestyle students. For Here is a video of the presentation my partners (Lindsey P. and Jacqueline L.) and I did for our narrative treatment!
Narrative Treatment
TITLE: UNMASKED
LOGLINE: A 30-year-old man discovers that he is the murderer of a well-known scientist and must unlock the secrets of his past life to survive the revenge of the scientist’s younger brother.
CHARACTERS:
Virion Blackwood / Sam Barkley – Protagonist: Sam Barkley and Virion Blackwood are the same person. Sam Barkley is a 30-year-old office worker with a noticeable scar on his face uncharacteristic of someone who is quiet, reserved, and complacent with his monotonous work in his cubicle, getting along fairly with his co-workers. He is tall, fit, dressed conservatively in a pressed white shirt every day, like a man of habit. He lives alone and has no close friends. Virion Blackwood is the past identity of Sam. He is a murderer and the leader of “Crim”, a group of criminals.
Azima Hiram – Antagonist: Azima is a 30-year-old hacker who is the younger brother of the scientist Ateet. He is angry and wants revenge for his brother’s death, but he is smart like his brother, and has many layers to his approach towards revenge. He is reserved and quiet, not very tall nor fit, and would have befriended Sam Barkley under different circumstances. Azima always looked up to his brilliant brother Ateet.
Ateet Hiram – Secondary Character: A 38-year-old scientist who discovers a cure/vaccine for a virus called Diacron which is a new strain of Covid-19. He is the older brother of Azima Hiram, the hacker. Ever since he was a child, Ateet was the creative and brilliant one in the family. He was a bookworm, wearing thick glasses, thin and nerdy. He always cared for his younger brother Azima who followed him around listening to all his latest research topics.
Jareb – Secondary Character: Jareb is a 34-year-old ambitious, second-in-charge of “Crim”. He is strictly by the book, following orders and looking to become rich with Crim. He knows that he does not have the charisma needed to lead Crim, but he is willing to destroy anything that gets in the way of Crim becoming the most powerful gang. He respects Virion until Virion becomes a threat to Crim’s success. He is crafty, cunning and greedy and his followers know that.
Crim – Secondary Group: A group of criminals that kill and steal for money. They take in Blackwood and he soon becomes their leader.
Story Overview
It is the year 2086. Huge increase in crimes lead to overcrowded prisons and the society came up with a solution to humanely deal with all the prisoners. Through the help of Litron, a company unknown to the public, the government decided to erase the memories of the prisoners and relocate them. This way, criminals can start a new life as they are given this second chance and they would not pose a threat to society. With their new identities and memories, they can function as contributing citizens. Around this time, Diacron, a new, more potent strain of the Covid virus has surfaced; this virus is killing millions of people because there is no known cure.
Sam is a quiet, reserved office worker, living an ordinary life. Suddenly he is attacked by a masked person, Azima. Through this incident, Sam discovers that he is not who he seemed to be. As he uncovers his real past, he realizes that his tumultuous childhood had led him to a life of crime. Sam learns that he is the leader of a gang called Crim. Azima’s brother, a scientist who had discovered a cure to Diacron, was killed by Crim. Azima was trying to get revenge for his brother’s death.
Sam’s old gang finds him. The gang, having failed to acquire the cure, now wants to capture the scientist’s brother, Azima, whom they believe has the cure. Sam goes through a character arch and decides not to go back to the life of crime. He must figure out how to handle the gang because he does not want to kill Azima nor have the gang acquire the cure.
The gang blackmails Azima to come to the gang’s lair, where they prepare to capture him. Sam decides to pay the ultimate price to protect Azima by blowing himself up along with the entire gang before Azima arrives. Thus, all of humanity is saved because the cure is now safe from getting into the hands of the evil gang.
Act – By – Act Description
Act 1:
Sam awakens, drenched in sweat and struggling for air as he sits up from his bed. His fingers brush across the scar on his face. He does not remember how he had gotten the scar. These episodes of intense dreams began at the start of the year, and have been occurring more regularly lately. It was a nightmare of vivid and violent killings. He is unsure of what these dreams mean and attempts his best to ignore them. Sam gets ready for another day at work and puts on his pressed white shirt. He looks at a polaroid of his new cubicle where his office mates had celebrated his 30th birthday. His life is complacent.
Then suddenly a shadow appears behind him and he sees a reflection in the kitchen window of an attacker coming at him with a knife. Sam dodges the attacker with finesse. And to his surprise, Sam easily subdues the attacker with his strength and speed. Sam unmasks the attacker.
“Who are you? What do you want?” Sam wasn’t particularly angry, but rather confused as to why anyone would want to kill him.
“You don’t recognize me? You have threatened us for months and then killed my brother.”
“I’ve never seen you before.”
Confused even more, Sam demands an explanation.
“If you dare to find out about your true identity, you can look at this.” The attacker hands him a flash drive.
The flash drive has confidential files that were obviously retrieved from hacking into the government’s database of criminal records. Sam opened a folder named “Exterminated Criminals.” In that folder was a file named Virion Blackwood. From reading the file, Sam discovered that the attacker’s name is Azima Hiram, whose brother was Ateet, a scientist who had found a cure for Diacron, a new more potent version of the Covid-19 virus. Ateet was killed by Virion Blackwood, whom Azima claimed was Sam. Overflowing with so much information, Sam couldn’t stand Azima anymore. This stranger just broke into his house trying to kill him, and then accused Sam of being Virion, the man who murdered Azima’s brother. Sam threatens to call the police but decides to let Azima leave his house.
For the next few days, Sam has nightmares of scenes of murder and familiar faces covered in blood, which all seems so vivid, like they had actually happened. Sam, half wanting to bury all this, half wanting to uncover the truth, finally decides to do his research when he receives a package in the mail from Azima. The note in the package read, “Face the truth. You have a second chance to set things right.” Sam finds a photo with the name “Virion Blackwood” printed in the back. Not only did the person in the photo look like a younger version of himself but also had the same scar on his face. It was the same scar that he didn’t remember how he had gotten. He also reads about a group of criminals called Crim, led by Virion, his supposed past self. Virion further finds out that he had a horrible childhood with an abusive father and that he had once had a sister who passed away. Sam, after running away from his father, joined Crim. Sam acknowledged that Virion was indeed him, in his distant past. Sam decides that he was given a second chance to live a normal life and tries to let go of his past.
Act 2:
Several weeks have passed since Sam had found out about his real past. Sam is back at work trying to go back to his routine in order to live a normal, peaceful life. Sam is walking home from working late one evening. A group of thugs follow him. Sam feels threatened and tries to escape their pursuit and starts running but he is soon blocked by a man suddenly appearing before him. Just when Sam thinks that his life is over, the man calls out to him. “Boss!” Quickly regaining his bearings, Sam realizes that these thugs weren’t chasing him to kill him, but rather they were looking for their leader, whom they had lost. Sam recalls the details of Virion Blackwood that he had read about in the criminal file. Blackwood was a ruthless murderer and the leader of Crim. He was admired by Jareb who was second in command after Virion. Sam decides to play along and follows the men back to their secret lair. Sam knows that he will not be able to go back to being Sam without handling Blackwood’s powerful group, Crim. Sam works to deceive Jareb and the rest of Crim while contemplating on an escape plan.
Entering the secret lair, Sam begins to understand just how powerful Crim is. Crim has control over many other criminal activities, such as money laundering, drugs, human trafficking, and even politics. Sam is shaken but he quickly adapts to the new environment, even tempted by his new power. He wonders if he should use his new found power, as the leader of Crim, to lash out towards society that had allowed such abuse by his father. He still has remnants of anger from his past life. Jareb feeds Sam’s anger by provoking Sam with greed and lavish desires. Sam goes through an internal struggle whether or not to remain as Blackwood forever.
Sam learns of Crim’s plot to capture Azima in order to try once again to steal the cure for Diacron. If the cure got into the hands of Crim, then the world would eventually be destroyed by the few elites who had control of the cure. Sam, during one of his nightmare episodes, remembers how he had gotten the scar on his face. He was trying to protect his sister from his drunken father’s rage when the father had given Sam the scar. Sam’s mother was one of the earlier victims of Diacron. Sam’s father became abusive after the death of Sam’s mother. In order to protect his sister from the abusive father, Sam took his sister and ran away only to lose her through Diacron shortly after. Sam, realizing the detrimental effects of Diacron, vows to prevent Crim from stealing the cure and thus block this pandemic before more people die and produce more angry people like his father and himself. Sam realizes that getting reinstated into being the leader of Crim is actually a second chance for him to redeem himself from his past sins. Sam plots to stop Crim from capturing Azima. Sam slides into the weapons room and steals one of the bombs.
Act 3:
Crim lures Azima into Crim’s lair with a threat to destroy Azima’s entire family. With a simple condition of bringing the research papers of the cure, Azima’s kidnapped family would be released. Sam knew that Jareb already plans on breaking the deal and killing both Azima and his family because keeping them alive would only inconvenience Crim. Sam rescues Azima’s family by leading them to escape but Azima does not get the message on time that his family is safe. Azima approaches the lair with the research papers. Their meeting time was midnight on Thursday. Sam tries to warn Azima through text messages but Azima is frantically trying to save his family. Jareb discovers that Azima’s family had escaped and begins suspecting Blackwood, who had been acting strangely for some time.
Azima reaches the lair’s parking lot and Sam is informed. The time is 11:50 and Azima is just on time. Sam knew that once the research papers reach the lair, he won’t be able to protect Azima nor block the cure from getting into the wrong hands.
Through the loud speaker, Sam makes an announcement.
“Azima, stop! Your family is safe! Don’t come any closer.”
By this time, Jareb realizes that Blackwood is the one who had rescued Azima’s family. Jareb quickly commands the Crim members to search for Blackwood and to capture Azima. Azima, hearing the warning, stops walking. As Blackwood is surrounded by Crim and more men rush towards Azima, Sam makes a final announcement.
“Azima, it is up to you. Take the cure and save everyone. Fulfill your brother’s efforts.”
Sam detonates the bomb. The building explodes and the walls crumble, killing Sam, Jareb and all of Crim. Azima is thrown back by the blast but he is not injured.
Azima reunites with his family. He publishes the formula for the cure which gets spread to the rest of the world. With the making of the cure on its way, the audience knows that humanity is saved.