The Carol
Mandy analyses the fleeting hope offered by Neo-London's dazzling Christmas display, a stark contrast to the grim reality of corporate control and hidden horrors. A routine data exchange quickly spirals into a frantic chase, forcing her to confront a terrifying truth that threatens to shatter the city's festive illusion.
### **THE CAROL - TREATMENT**
**1. LOGLINE**
On Christmas in a dystopian Neo-London, a cynical corporate operative uncovers a horrifying conspiracy to harvest human consciousness, forcing her into a desperate race for survival against the very entity that owns her.
**2. SYNOPSIS**
In the neon-drenched, perpetually humming metropolis of Neo-London during Christmas 2025, MANDY, a disillusioned operative for the ubiquitous OmniCorp, feels a growing dissonance beneath the city's forced festive cheer. Haunted by a low-frequency hum only her augmented senses can perceive, she decides to investigate the source, believing it to be a key to the rot beneath the city's glittering facade. Her investigation leads her to a clandestine meeting with NEVEN, a paranoid informant who provides her with a high-risk data chip containing encrypted OmniCorp files. The exchange immediately triggers an alarm, and Mandy finds herself hunted by OmniCorp's elite, silent security forces. Fleeing through the city's decaying underbelly, she takes refuge in what appears to be an abandoned data facility. There, the chip reveals the horrifying truth: fragmented data showing human subjects being neurologically re-engineered, their consciousnesses harvested for an unknown, monstrous purpose. Her discovery is cut short by the arrival of a top-tier assassin drone, forcing her into a desperate, high-octane chase. Barely escaping with her life and the data, Mandy retreats to her secure bolt-hole, the terrible knowledge of OmniCorp's crime now a heavy burden. As the city outside sings its hollow carols, she is left isolated and marked for death, but armed with a truth that could bring the entire system crashing down.
**3. CHARACTER BREAKDOWN**
* **MANDY (30s):** A highly capable and resourceful field operative, augmented with OmniCorp cybernetics that give her an edge but also tether her to the corporation. She is cynical and world-weary, seeing through the corporate-sponsored hope of the city, yet she harbors a deep-seated, nearly extinguished desire for something genuine. Her skills lie in infiltration, data retrieval, and urban survival. She is a survivor, defined by a quiet, simmering rebellion.
* **NEVEN (50s):** A burnt-out information broker who lives in the shadows of the city's underbelly. His paranoia is his primary survival mechanism. Clad in anachronistic clothing and sporting unsettling yellow optic implants, Neven is a ghost in the machine, trading in secrets that are too dangerous for the main net. He is a gatekeeper to the story's central mystery, and his fear underscores the immense danger Mandy is walking into.
* **OMNICORP (Antagonist):** The dominant corporate entity of Neo-London. To the public, it is the architect of a brighter future, a benevolent provider of technology and security. In reality, it is a ruthless, totalitarian power that maintains control through surveillance, manipulation, and a lethal black-ops division. It is the faceless, all-seeing monster of the story, represented by its branding, its architecture, and its deadly security forces.
**4. SCENE BEATS**
* **OPENING IMAGE:** Mandy in her high-rise apartment, tracing condensation on the window. Below, the dazzling, overwhelming spectacle of a corporate Christmas in Neo-London. We establish the theme: a beautiful, manufactured lie hiding a grim reality.
* **THE DISCORDANT NOTE:** Mandy feels the throb of her neural implant and perceives a low, subliminal hum beneath the city's noise—a flaw in the perfect symphony of control. This is her call to action. She resolves to find the source tonight.
* **INTO THE KALEIDOSCOPE:** Mandy descends into the bustling city promenade. A sensory overload of holographic ads, algorithmic carols, and consumer crowds. She navigates the chaos with practiced ease, her internal HUD highlighting a path toward the city's grimy underbelly.
* **THE IRON VEIL:** The glitter fades. Mandy enters the industrial sector, a world of stained concrete, flickering lights, and chemical smells. This is the real Neo-London.
* **THE EXCHANGE:** Mandy meets Neven in a dark alley. The dialogue is terse, professional. He gives her the unmarked data chip. His palpable fear and urgent warning—"Go. Now."—instantly escalate the stakes.
* **THE HUNTED:** The moment she leaves, the trap is sprung. A prickle of static in her neural net. Suppressed local signals. She is being hunted by a silent, professional force. The chase begins.
* **DESCENT:** Mandy evades her unseen pursuers by ducking into a forgotten service tunnel. The atmosphere becomes claustrophobic and tense. Her HUD reveals a team of corporate black-ops closing in.
* **THE ABANDONED SANCTUARY:** She escapes upwards through a maintenance shaft into what appears to be a derelict data facility. The rhythmic, mechanical thrum she's been seeking is deafening here.
* **ECHOES IN THE MACHINE:** The data chip hums, leading her to a dormant terminal. She plugs it in. The screen explodes with fragmented, horrifying data: images of human experimentation, neural schematics, and the blood-red OmniCorp logo. **The Midpoint Revelation:** OmniCorp isn't just controlling people; it's harvesting them.
* **THE GUARDIAN:** A massive, high-end assassin drone activates, its red optical sensors locking onto her. It's the physical manifestation of OmniCorp's deadly secret.
* **SURVIVAL RUN:** A frantic chase sequence erupts. Mandy uses her wits and agility to evade the drone, darting between skeletal server racks as the machine tears through the environment with lethal force.
* **ESCAPE TO THE UNDER-CITY:** Mandy finds a service hatch and drops into the dark, labyrinthine transport tunnels below the city, a place off OmniCorp's primary grid. The drone cannot follow. She has temporarily escaped.
* **A MOMENT TO BREATHE:** She emerges into a neglected back alley. The drone is gone, but the threat remains. The distant festive lights of the city now seem alien and mocking.
* **FINAL IMAGE:** Mandy is in her small, secure apartment. The horrific data scrolls across her terminal screen. Outside her window, cheap Christmas lights blink, casting a garish, multi-coloured glow on her face, illuminating the horror she has just uncovered. She is alone, hunted, but now possesses the weapon that could expose it all.
**5. VISUAL STYLE**
* **AESTHETIC:** Cyberpunk Noir. A fusion of high-tech gloss and low-life decay. The visual language will heavily rely on the contrast between the pristine, corporate-controlled city center and its grimy, forgotten underbelly.
* **INFLUENCES:** *Blade Runner (2049)* for its scale, atmospheric density, and the melancholic beauty of its dystopia. *Ghost in the Shell* for its seamless integration of cybernetics and the philosophical questions of humanity. *Children of Men* for the gritty, handheld immediacy of its chase sequences.
* **COLOR PALETTE:** A tale of two cities. The public spaces are dominated by vibrant, hyper-saturated neons, cool corporate blues, and holographic projections of "impossible colours." The underbelly is stripped of this, rendered in desaturated tones, sickly greens from emergency lighting, rusted oranges, and deep, inky blacks.
* **LIGHTING & CAMERA:** High-contrast lighting is key. Sharp shadows, constant lens flare from neon and rain-slicked surfaces. The camera will use sweeping, majestic shots to establish the oppressive scale of OmniCorp's city, but will switch to tight, claustrophobic, and sometimes handheld shots to reflect Mandy's paranoia and the visceral nature of the chase.
* **ATMOSPHERE:** The world should feel tangible and sensory. Condensation on glass, the hiss of steam from vents, the smell of synth-wine and burning data-logs, and the ever-present, low hum of the city's machinery. The constant, oppressive presence of technology should be felt in every frame.
**1. LOGLINE**
On Christmas in a dystopian Neo-London, a cynical corporate operative uncovers a horrifying conspiracy to harvest human consciousness, forcing her into a desperate race for survival against the very entity that owns her.
**2. SYNOPSIS**
In the neon-drenched, perpetually humming metropolis of Neo-London during Christmas 2025, MANDY, a disillusioned operative for the ubiquitous OmniCorp, feels a growing dissonance beneath the city's forced festive cheer. Haunted by a low-frequency hum only her augmented senses can perceive, she decides to investigate the source, believing it to be a key to the rot beneath the city's glittering facade. Her investigation leads her to a clandestine meeting with NEVEN, a paranoid informant who provides her with a high-risk data chip containing encrypted OmniCorp files. The exchange immediately triggers an alarm, and Mandy finds herself hunted by OmniCorp's elite, silent security forces. Fleeing through the city's decaying underbelly, she takes refuge in what appears to be an abandoned data facility. There, the chip reveals the horrifying truth: fragmented data showing human subjects being neurologically re-engineered, their consciousnesses harvested for an unknown, monstrous purpose. Her discovery is cut short by the arrival of a top-tier assassin drone, forcing her into a desperate, high-octane chase. Barely escaping with her life and the data, Mandy retreats to her secure bolt-hole, the terrible knowledge of OmniCorp's crime now a heavy burden. As the city outside sings its hollow carols, she is left isolated and marked for death, but armed with a truth that could bring the entire system crashing down.
**3. CHARACTER BREAKDOWN**
* **MANDY (30s):** A highly capable and resourceful field operative, augmented with OmniCorp cybernetics that give her an edge but also tether her to the corporation. She is cynical and world-weary, seeing through the corporate-sponsored hope of the city, yet she harbors a deep-seated, nearly extinguished desire for something genuine. Her skills lie in infiltration, data retrieval, and urban survival. She is a survivor, defined by a quiet, simmering rebellion.
* **NEVEN (50s):** A burnt-out information broker who lives in the shadows of the city's underbelly. His paranoia is his primary survival mechanism. Clad in anachronistic clothing and sporting unsettling yellow optic implants, Neven is a ghost in the machine, trading in secrets that are too dangerous for the main net. He is a gatekeeper to the story's central mystery, and his fear underscores the immense danger Mandy is walking into.
* **OMNICORP (Antagonist):** The dominant corporate entity of Neo-London. To the public, it is the architect of a brighter future, a benevolent provider of technology and security. In reality, it is a ruthless, totalitarian power that maintains control through surveillance, manipulation, and a lethal black-ops division. It is the faceless, all-seeing monster of the story, represented by its branding, its architecture, and its deadly security forces.
**4. SCENE BEATS**
* **OPENING IMAGE:** Mandy in her high-rise apartment, tracing condensation on the window. Below, the dazzling, overwhelming spectacle of a corporate Christmas in Neo-London. We establish the theme: a beautiful, manufactured lie hiding a grim reality.
* **THE DISCORDANT NOTE:** Mandy feels the throb of her neural implant and perceives a low, subliminal hum beneath the city's noise—a flaw in the perfect symphony of control. This is her call to action. She resolves to find the source tonight.
* **INTO THE KALEIDOSCOPE:** Mandy descends into the bustling city promenade. A sensory overload of holographic ads, algorithmic carols, and consumer crowds. She navigates the chaos with practiced ease, her internal HUD highlighting a path toward the city's grimy underbelly.
* **THE IRON VEIL:** The glitter fades. Mandy enters the industrial sector, a world of stained concrete, flickering lights, and chemical smells. This is the real Neo-London.
* **THE EXCHANGE:** Mandy meets Neven in a dark alley. The dialogue is terse, professional. He gives her the unmarked data chip. His palpable fear and urgent warning—"Go. Now."—instantly escalate the stakes.
* **THE HUNTED:** The moment she leaves, the trap is sprung. A prickle of static in her neural net. Suppressed local signals. She is being hunted by a silent, professional force. The chase begins.
* **DESCENT:** Mandy evades her unseen pursuers by ducking into a forgotten service tunnel. The atmosphere becomes claustrophobic and tense. Her HUD reveals a team of corporate black-ops closing in.
* **THE ABANDONED SANCTUARY:** She escapes upwards through a maintenance shaft into what appears to be a derelict data facility. The rhythmic, mechanical thrum she's been seeking is deafening here.
* **ECHOES IN THE MACHINE:** The data chip hums, leading her to a dormant terminal. She plugs it in. The screen explodes with fragmented, horrifying data: images of human experimentation, neural schematics, and the blood-red OmniCorp logo. **The Midpoint Revelation:** OmniCorp isn't just controlling people; it's harvesting them.
* **THE GUARDIAN:** A massive, high-end assassin drone activates, its red optical sensors locking onto her. It's the physical manifestation of OmniCorp's deadly secret.
* **SURVIVAL RUN:** A frantic chase sequence erupts. Mandy uses her wits and agility to evade the drone, darting between skeletal server racks as the machine tears through the environment with lethal force.
* **ESCAPE TO THE UNDER-CITY:** Mandy finds a service hatch and drops into the dark, labyrinthine transport tunnels below the city, a place off OmniCorp's primary grid. The drone cannot follow. She has temporarily escaped.
* **A MOMENT TO BREATHE:** She emerges into a neglected back alley. The drone is gone, but the threat remains. The distant festive lights of the city now seem alien and mocking.
* **FINAL IMAGE:** Mandy is in her small, secure apartment. The horrific data scrolls across her terminal screen. Outside her window, cheap Christmas lights blink, casting a garish, multi-coloured glow on her face, illuminating the horror she has just uncovered. She is alone, hunted, but now possesses the weapon that could expose it all.
**5. VISUAL STYLE**
* **AESTHETIC:** Cyberpunk Noir. A fusion of high-tech gloss and low-life decay. The visual language will heavily rely on the contrast between the pristine, corporate-controlled city center and its grimy, forgotten underbelly.
* **INFLUENCES:** *Blade Runner (2049)* for its scale, atmospheric density, and the melancholic beauty of its dystopia. *Ghost in the Shell* for its seamless integration of cybernetics and the philosophical questions of humanity. *Children of Men* for the gritty, handheld immediacy of its chase sequences.
* **COLOR PALETTE:** A tale of two cities. The public spaces are dominated by vibrant, hyper-saturated neons, cool corporate blues, and holographic projections of "impossible colours." The underbelly is stripped of this, rendered in desaturated tones, sickly greens from emergency lighting, rusted oranges, and deep, inky blacks.
* **LIGHTING & CAMERA:** High-contrast lighting is key. Sharp shadows, constant lens flare from neon and rain-slicked surfaces. The camera will use sweeping, majestic shots to establish the oppressive scale of OmniCorp's city, but will switch to tight, claustrophobic, and sometimes handheld shots to reflect Mandy's paranoia and the visceral nature of the chase.
* **ATMOSPHERE:** The world should feel tangible and sensory. Condensation on glass, the hiss of steam from vents, the smell of synth-wine and burning data-logs, and the ever-present, low hum of the city's machinery. The constant, oppressive presence of technology should be felt in every frame.