The Outline

The City of Coventry, home to many things such the Coventry Skydome, a place where its inhabitants live in peace and harmony, rarely ever will there be violence. It is also home to The University of Coventry, the place of work of one Darius Silkenburg. Lecturer of thirteen years Darius Silkenburg is a respected professional and loved by his students, he also has a family consisting of his wife of six years and his two children of the ages of ten and eight. Darius Silkenburg German born but has lived in England since he was four. He is a lecturer of Physics and believes science is the answer to everything; therefore he is atheist and strongly believes the spirit world does not exist.

After a long day at work Darius resigns to his office in the basement to set up course trips for his first year students and to mark their essays. While attending to his tasks he hears several loud bangs and all the electrical appliances in his office turn on and off for five minutes. Suddenly, there is a knock on the door from one his first year students, James Johnson. James is seemingly distressed and panicked as he explains to Darius he must leave now due to several disappearances of his friends while they were studying together. They then make their way upstairs investigate the loud bangs and the electrics of other appliances in the building.  But, James knows more than he is letting on about why strange things are happening in the building. James and his friends crafted an elaborate plan to change Darius’s way of think with regards to spirits and religion. James constantly tells Darius which route to take in exploring the building, this causes plenty of friction between the two causing several arguments and because of James’s power of persuasion they always chose his route where him and his friends have set up different sorts of tricks designed to scare Darius. But when one of the tricks go wrong Darius suspects he is being taken for a fool and decides to go his own way and exit the building, James, so adamant to make Darius change his mind goes his own way knowing he has failed. But, the next day James doesn’t turn up at to lectures and is never seen again.

The Pitch

Working late at night in his office, Mr. Silkenburg is forced to stop abruptly after all the electrical appliances in his office suddenly turn off and on for five minutes. He gets up and see’s a student of his at the door, breathless and disheveled. The student explains Mr. Silkenburg should leave the building due to strange things happening in the building, possibly due to the presence of poltergeist, but Mr. Silkenburg doesn’t believe him, is the student lying? Why would he chose to lie?

Strange Occurrences – The Script

Stange Occurrences

The Treatment

Darius Silkenburg is seen in what appears to be his office at 9.21pm on Thursday 21^st January 2012 night muttering to himself whilst calculating expenses for his planned course trip to Egypt for his first year students as an end of year trip after what will be a long year of hard work and success. Darius Silkenburg, his full name, a German-born Physics lecturer at the University of Coventry moved to England when he was eight, he is now thirty years of age. While calculating the expenses for his trip he notices the lights beginning to flicker on and off, his calculator then starts acting up, swiftly followed by his laptop turning off on it’s own. Within five minutes all the electrical appliances in his office stop functioning correctly. A hard knock on his door which Darius wasn’t expecting further adds to his distraction and he then realises that he will not be getting any work done tonight, this frustrates him and puts him a slightly bad mood because he wanted to complete all that he needed to do so he could have Friday night to himself. Darius reluctantly opens the door to find the person knocking is James John, a first year student of his.

James Johnson is an eighteen-year-old male from London and is student of Darius Silkenburg. After greeting each other in the customary student-teacher relationship way, James then hurriedly explains why he has come to Darius’s office so late at night. James explains that the building isn’t ‘safe’ and that he thinks it would be wise that Darius left. Darius worryingly asks why but then regrets asking why when James says that he thinks there is poltergeist or some sort of unnatural presence in the building. Darius being a physicist giggles and asks Darius if he remembers what he has talked about in lectures; his own thoughts and ideas on religion and spirituality which are: he doesn’t believe in God or ghosts, everything can be explained using science. This is because he lost both of his parents in a fatal car accident when he was seven; there was only one survivor in that accident, himself. That is the reason he doesn’t believe in God and doesn’t follow a religion, he always thinks “What kind of God would allow me to lose my parents at such a young age”. On the other hand, young James is a strong believer in God and follows the religion of Christianity. James is a white male whose parents are born in French. James was brought up in the London Borough of Islington, an inner city area of London.

Darius and James quickly leave the room to search the building to see if anyone else is around and if the electrics have been tampered. Little does Darius know that it was James who was tampering with the electrics of the building and that he and some friends set up multiple contraptions to fool Darius into believing ghosts and spirits do exist, thus changing his views on religion too. They walk around the building, following James’s planned route so that he can trick Darius with the help of his contraptions. But, for some reason James’s contraptions didn’t work and his plan of scaring Darius failed completely. Darius, now very annoyed at James for disturbing him and not allowing him to complete his work told James “Ghosts do not exist” and swiftly exited the building, James couldn’t agree because he believes they do exist and is so adamant to make Darius follow him he goes his own way, knowing the building isn’t haunted. The next day James has a scheduled meeting with Darius, not ghost and spirit related, but James doesn’t turn up. A few months later it transpires that James never returned on the night of the 21^st January 2012. In the end James does successfully challenge Darius’s beliefs, but at the expense of his own life.