Treatment

 "The World Within The Flame" is a story about beauty.....about the way beauty is desired. lusted after, bought and ultimately destroyed.

The film's main character Paul is the possessor of this beauty, a rent boy, half of a pair of heavenly twins, who found himself separated from his sibling as a child, and bought up in a religious community, which taught him how to access another World, a kind of sixth sense, a Nirvana called "The World Within the Flame".

Then as an adult, exiled from the community because of his sexuality, Paul finds a new way to access his gift, through sex. Now, like his sister, Sarah he sleeps with a variety of strangers, clients, letting them glimpse his gift, so that in return he can enter this fugue state, where he sees great happiness, but also catches glimpses of his sister which he hopes will lead him to her and enable them to be re-united.

But a shadow looms on the horizon in the form of Drake, a serial killer who knows about Sarah's beauty and pursues her for it. Paul watches this pursuit, helpless. All he can hope is that he will find her before Drake does.

This is the point in the story where the film starts.

Meanwhile, Paul is also being pursued by Peploe, another serial killer (who it later transpires is working with Drake). Peploe has tasted the World Within the Flame and now wishes to close the circle. The only way he can enter the fugue state for good is to find Paul. This he does, murdering Paul's fellow Rent Boys using the information he gleans from them to get nearer to Paul.

Paul's fellow rent boys don't understand why Paul sells his gift and during the course of the film two of them, Griffin and Pan compete for his affections. But Paul is indifferent to their desires. For him sex and love have never been able to go together and he has never been able to have a conventional relationship. His ability to fall in love, and to feel easy and guilt free about starting a proper relationship is the character arc he travels in the course of the film.

Meanwhile, Paul's selfishness and his pig headedness will lead to the death of Griffin and the pursuit of Paul and Pan through the back streets of East London, as they race to stay out of Peploe's clutches and to reach Sarah.

In this they are aided by Baxter a Gay Pornographer who has long wanted to film Paul and who has his ear to the ground, and thus is in a good position to hear of Sarah's whereabouts. After murdering Griffin, Peploe finds Baxter's number and uses him to set up a meeting with Paul.

Baxter will make one last special film with Paul. In return Peploe will bring Sarah.

Paul realises that this is a trap and plots with Baxter and Pan to use the occasion to defeat Peploe. But unknown to Paul, before the meeting can take place, sensing that Baxter is now superfluous, Peploe kills him.

Paul and Pan will be up against Peploe alone.

In reuniting Paul and Sarah, Peploe and Drake plan to use their immense power to their own ends. The stage is set for an interesting confrontation.

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"The World Within the Flame" is set in a grimy, slightly unreal world of Prostitutes and their clients, that is designed to isolate the characters and to be shootable on a low budget. As with gay Pornography, the film isolates and celebrates the beauty of the main character....and it is a beauty that has a talismanic property and in some way protects Paul from harm. The film is in many ways a modern day fairy tale.

The film is in its way highly political. Where as many gay themed films downplay Gay sex, "flame" celebrates it in a Laurentian way....showing sex as something beautiful and transcendental.

In many ways the characters of Baxter and Peploe show different sides of the same instinct. Both are attracted to Paul's beauty and both seek to use it but in different ways.

Gay culture in many ways celebrates youth and youthful beauty...but when does such a celebration become exploitation and how do those who are fawned over feel about the attention? Baxter sees himself as a Michealangelo, celebrating beauty, but the moral majority element of straight society would probably see him in a very different way. The film takes an unusual course, portraying him as a sympathetic character, although acknowledging that he operates in a grey area and that what he is doing can easily be misused.

Peploe also celebrates beauty but his intentions are even more corrosive. Like most serial killers he is a failed lover. Someone who can only truly possess someone by killing them. If Baxter steals someone's soul by photographing them in the most intimate way, when they are in some sense vulnerable....Peploe's instinct is to see the "light of life" and then capture it by killing its possessor.

The majority of the film will be shot on colour film (16 mm) In many ways I would have preferred to use black and white, but is not commercially viable (lack of TV Sales) The creation of "The World Within The Flame" premonition/dream sequences will be via digital video and computer effects.

In many ways this film is a return to my routes. It shares many of the themes that were in my first jointly written project, a $5 Million horror movie called "Changer" which was optioned by Vestron in 1987, but which was dropped after two years. In those days, I wasn't 'out' and the themes were submerged in a conventional horror movie which was about "the Monster as beautiful outsider".

Since that time, having had various movies developed to various degrees, I have honed what I write so that it is at a scale that is achievable.

I have made several short films and part of a feature in the intervening years. My first short "Lonely Hearts", a moody, ten minute, B/W horror film was well reviewed by "Time Out" and was chosen by Palace Pictures to play with their feature "Dust Devil" for its London first run. (Not bad for a short that had cost £5K to make)

Since then, I have shot the wrap around story for a feature length omnibus thriller ("Virtual Terror") in the tradition of Tales from the Crypt, which was financed by a sales company. This did not achieve great sales, but we managed to achieve a polished 35mm look on a low budget and to shoot 20 mins of story in two days.

"The World Within The Flame" is by contrast very much the film I want to make, and which I feel very passionate.

I believe in film making that is iconoclastic and full of startling and resonant images. I have done a lot of research into the economics of gay films as a genre. It would seem that they are not great money spinners, but I believe my fellow gay men are a sector of the audience that hasn’t been well served and that this in itself justifies the making of gay themed features. After all what is film making, if it isn't about self expression.

I don't know of any other films that are Gay/fantasy/horror crossbreeds, but it could be said that Clive Barker is working largely in this area (although until recent books his sexuality has not been explicitly discussed).

I think my grounding in shorts ( the last of which was completed on 16mm B/W with the help of friends, for a budget of £400) has given me the ability to take a practical approach to film making and to know what can be achieved for a low budget.

I think "The World Within the Flame" is unusual and ambitious because of the stance it takes towards its subject matter. it is a celebration of homosexuality and rapture and I can't really think of a British film that has covered the same territory.

I have completed the second draft of "The World Within The Flame" and am currently preparing it for production later in 2002.