Last Gasp - Script

Inspired by the BBC Documentary -
‘Under Poisoned Skies’

Raad Karim (Waleed Elgadi) has come from Rumaila Iraq with a mission.
His daughter Fatima has leukaemia caused by the toxic air from oil field flaring of methane.
Raad and his brother have tracked down wealthy oil businessman Robert Harper (Sir David Suchet) and his daughter Julianna (Martha Maloney). At first our thriller looks like a kidnap story. But all schoolteacher Raad wants is for Harper to persuade his fellow oil shareholders to stop the flares and help his pupils.
As she learns the truth about her family wealth, Julianna is turning against her father.
Two clocks are ticking - Armed police are on their way and the shareholders meeting is about to start. Which will play out first…

  • TOM CHOLMONDELEY
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Short Script
  • Number of Pages:
    15
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Writer Biography - TOM CHOLMONDELEY

Tom’s Life so far –
Act 1 single adventurous journalist writing about Beirut, Soweto then Newsnight.
Act 2 history documentary director and Dad of three boys.
Now, I’m hitting Act 3 two boys have left home and I’m seeking a fresh direction.
Across my career people have told me I write well. Execs said I am a ‘particularly skilled writer’ and called my scripts ‘witty and sharp.’ So time to test that out.
Two types of drama really appeal. There’s the Peter Kosminsky type of dramatizing real events. And the other is letting my science fiction imagination race.

Add Writer Biography
Writer Statement

Creative Vision
What is your creative vision for this film?
Anger at injustice drove me to write this script. A close friend was struggling with leukaemia. I took that dangerous step of searching Google for her prognosis. To my surprise up popped a BBC World Service film about Iraq gas flaring. Children were getting leukaemia from breathing filthy air released as oil companies burn off (flare) excess natural gas. The film was made by a brave young man Ali Julood suffering the same disease. In enraged me that oil companies could so callously give children the same horrific deadly disease my friend was suffering from.
I hope through drama to turn my rage into audience rage.

Why now?
Our film dramatizes the human damage caused by flaring - burning off natural gas when oil drilling. Worldwide momentum is building around the world to cut flaring. Incredibly, flaring worldwide creates equivalent greenhouse gas emissions to the entire UK.
In May Avaaz reached 300,000 signatures calling for BP to stop the practice. The World Bank have a global initiative driving for Zero Routine Flaring by 2030. Catching this momentum we hope our film will be part of an influential part of campaign to stop this terrible practice.

How do you want the film to feel and look?
This film will be a taught gritty naturalistic thriller. A father and daughter are convinced they are being taken hostage. It is important to me that the audience to feel like a third hostage. They will then share the daughter’s surprise discovering their ‘kidnapper’s’ intent is just to talk and persuade.

I was lucky enough to have a day at Hampton Court Palace shadowing Peter Kosminsky on the final part of Wolf Hall. He shared his belief that to wear Thomas Cromwell’s shoes the audience must never see anything Cromwell can’t. He sacrifices arty Palace shots in favour of handheld realism. Similarly, my vision is that my camera should never see anything a hostage could not.

As the tension increases, the handheld camera comes uncomfortably close. I aim to keep our Director of Photography in the dark as to who will be talking when. The camera’s view will catch up the action giving a stifling staccato film.

Lighting and Colour
Our opening scene in a kitchen starts bathed in a warm light. But posing as British Gas workers the ‘kidnappers’ cut the power to the flat. The warm light disappears replaced by brutal daylight hard shadows just as their cover is blown. Our location is a basement kitchen with steel pillars and dark granite. I hope to give a claustrophobic prison feel. I would like to subtly use light through a venetian blind to cast prison bars shadows in the background.

Our four actors will be dressed in colours that hint at their moral stance – Robert Harper our cold businessman will be in greys, our ‘kidnappers’ who become unlikely heroes wear British Gas neutral blue and the daughter, Julianna Harper, wears creams symbolising her innocence.