The Savage Desert - Part One

SCENE 1. EXT. CHURCH

A WEDDING IN ENGLAND. THE COUPLE HAVE JUST COME OUT OF CHURCH. BELLS RINGING. CONFETTI IN AIR. CROWD NOISE. CAMERA SLOWLY PANS TO TERRY WHO IS RECORDING THE EVENT WITH VERY PROFESSIONAL-LOOKING DIGITAL MOVIE EQUIPMENT. HE GRINS AT CAMERA.

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CLOSE UP OF ZEPH, THE BRIDEGROOM. HE IS DRESSED IN FORMAL WEDDING CLOTHES.

REPORTER: (O.O.V)
Congratulations, Zeph.

ZEPH:
Thank you.

REPORTER:
What a year you’ve just had.

ZEPH:
I know. I was there.

REPORTER:
Back at the top of the charts with your new CD – The Desert Symphony. And now a new wife.

ZEPH:
Fantastic isn’t it?

REPORTER:
So where are you going for your honeymoon?

ZEPH:
I think you can guess.

CUT TO:SCENE 2. EXT. THE DESERT.
PANORAMIC VIEWS OF DESERT LANDSCAPE.
SOUNDTRACK PLAYS INDIGINEOUS AUSTRALIAN MUSIC. WITH DIDGERIDOO.
OPENING CREDITS: FOLLOWED BY – TITLE:
The Nwangi Desert, West Africa

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SCENE 3. EXT. DESERT.

TITLE: One year ago

CAPTAIN DICK TROY IS SITTING ON THE TOP OF A BURNT-OUT LANDROVER IN BRIGHT SUNSHINE SURROUNDED BY DESERT.

C.D.T:
It was 1987. A Land Rover unexpectedly and spontaneously burst into flames. It was this Land Rover. The one upon which I am perching. It was subsequently abandoned by its party of retired school teachers from Wadhurst and left here, a casualty of the extreme heat of the Nwangi Desert, one of the most inhospitable and merciless places on Earth.
My name is Captain Richard Troy and I am an expert in desert survival. Over the next eleven days I will be leading a group of ordinary, and in some cases very ordinary, people across this vast and featureless landscape.
My task, my very job, if you like, is to train these ordinary people. To build them into a team. To make real men, and in some cases real women, out of them. To take them on a journey. A journey on which they will grow. Not physically but mentally. Not on the outside. But on the inside.
You too are invited, from the comfort of your sofa, to join them and me on that journey. A journey that will take them, me and now you across this vast, uninhabited wasteland that the people who live here call The Sands of Hell.

To be continued...