Story Tree Films
SCRIPT PITCHES AND COLLABORATIONS
HARD LESSONS
PRODUCED,WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY:
LUKE GOLDEN
PROPOSAL FOR FEATURE FILM
Hard Lessons - Thriller/Horror/Coming of Age
Log line: After a mass shooting turns America’s schools into near prisons, a group of disaffected high school students battle to destroy the system that subjugates them. Little do they know, a sociopath bent on teaching them tortuous lessons turns each student’s archetype against them one by one.
Sum-up: It is a typical thriller that is not at all typical. Due to the familiar structure, (e.g.final girl and faceless masked killer) makes this film enticing and palatable for the run-of-the-mill horror fan. However, Hard Lessons explores the dangers of government overreach into fascism that break people’s humanity.
Comparables: Escape Room, The Purge, Get Out, Saw, The Breakfast Club
Mostly School Campus one location shoot: $700,000 budget
CHIMERA: SCI-FI THRILLER:
WRITTEN BY: LUKE GOLDEN
PROPOSAL FOR FEATURE FILM
Chimera - Sci-fi Thriller
Log line: In an attempt to save his dying brother, a doctor experiments with shark and amphibian DNA which starts out promising but then causes his once sick brother to transform into an untamable creature torn between his humanity and the dark animal within.
Sum-up: Modern day Frankenstein that is an homage to the old Universal horror films of the 30s and 40s with a love triangle between two brothers who love the same woman at the heart. Monster exacts vengeance with the powers of one of the X-men. Story also ties threads to classic Greek myths suggested by the title, structured like a great tragic myth. Comparables: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, The Fly, Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Wolfman
STORAGE: (TRAILER )
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY LUKE GOLDEN
RUNNING TIME: 1 MIN. 56 SECS.
Storage - Suspense Thriller (Hitchcockian)
Log line: A milquetoast professional wakes up trapped in a storage unit. He soon discovers a serial killer has been storing bodies in the unit. He’s not alone and the other man turns out to be connected to his wife. They are both connected to the killer.
Sum-up: What have you hidden away? Claustrophobia nightmare made real. The hero becomes the villain and the villain becomes the hero—fun mind-bending twist. Mostly one location Micro- budget film ($200,000 -$300, 000).
BELT – Sci-fi Action (Feature)
(TV series potential)
Log line: An athletic woman wakes amongst a group of disparate people in various locals (desert, tundra, jungle, etc.), everyone of them attached to suitcases filled with survival gear by belts and eventually they discover they are prisoners of the state on the most popular television reality show in history.
Sum-up: Social commentary: excess in reality TV, dangers of privatization of prisons, TV forming the court of public opinion e.g.) Casey Anthony is the most hated person in America. The belts are comparable to the “invisible fence”—dog collars that keep dogs on property.
Comparables: Lost, Series 7, Running Man, Cube, Demolition Man
EDUCATION – comedic social drama
(Cable TV Series or Feature)
News reporter publishes “ineffective” teacher list. One teacher commits suicide over being named and the journalist who wrote the article takes his place in the classroom. He thinks he can do a better job, but winds up learning unexpected lessons of his own.
Tonally this project will deal with serious current issues facing the American school system but be absurdly comedic with a satirical streak running through it. The truth is so absurd it can only be hilarious.
Comparables: Rescue Me, Breaking Bad, Orange is the New Black, The Big C, Teachers
Click on image above to view trailer on Vimeo.
( To view on this website, go to the sub menu for STORAGE under FRUITS: Storytree Short Films page. )
THE PASSING – Thriller (Feature)
Log line: An FBI agent with an impeccable track record and a preternatural ability to solve almost unsolvable crimes comes across a case so baffling that it can’t be solved, but the truth is that the killer is a hero and has been sent back in time to prevent the destruction of mankind by a deadly disease.
Sum-up: A new twist on the serial killer genre that entertains all the possibilities of fear and the unknown that even ventures into the supernatural and science fiction. Answers the questions: How can the killing of an innocent child be justified? Can a serial killer be a force for good?
Comparables: X-files, Silence of the Lambs, Seven, Planet of Apes, Terminator, Twilight Zone
HELL – Fantasy afterlife drama
(Cable TV Series)
A bad man redeems himself in the most unlikely of places—Hell. Each week he is thrown into different versions of Hell throughout time and space. He learns lessons about what it means to be a decent human being by living lives of others and gaining empathy.
Quantum leap in the after life. It’s about the redemption of an anti-hero. A bad man decides to make his wrongs right. Breaking Good.
Comparables: Quantum Leap, Dr Who, Lost, Twilight Zone, Dexter