Leukaemia An Original Story by Sammy Butler Written by Sammy Butler

Logline: An educational animation for Key Stage 3 children informing on how leukaemia develops in the body, how this affects the way it functions and how it is then treated. Premise: What happens to the body during leukaemia and how is it treated?

3 Act Structure: Act 1: The process of how blood cells are made and how cancer cells come about. Act 2: The body is then infected with a virus. Due to the low amount of functioning white blood cells the body in unable to fight the infection and becomes ill. Act 3: The process of chemotherapy is shown and the body returns to normal.

Step Outline: Step 1: A boy is standing in white space. His silhouette is used to show the inside of the body. Step 2: The camera is taken to inside his body, through the arm, into a micro world. Step 3: Blood Cells are seen flying through the bone marrow tunnels. Step 4: A stem cell expands and contracts then becomes a new, young white blood cell. Step 5: The wall of the bone marrow is seen covered in the stem cells, all making the different blood cells. Step 6: A young white blood cell then matures into a fully grown white blood cell. Step 7: Another stem cell is seen again in the process of making a new cell, however, the new cell that is released is a cancerous cell. Step 8: The cancer cell then divides making two cancer cells. Step 9: Now several of these cells are seen dividing. Step 10: The wall of stem cells is seen again but this time not in production. The stem cells are all deflated. Step 11: The cancer cells have divided rapidly producing many copies of itself. Step 12: The cancer cells then enter the blood stream. Step 13: A virus enters the body through a cut. Step 14: The cancer cells cant fight the infection Step 15: The virus begins to spread.

Step 16: The body becomes sick Step 17: The chemotherapy drug, plastic, is introduced into the bloodstream and spreads. Step 18: The drug attacks the cancer cells and kills them. Step 19: A stem cell is seen making a healthy white blood cell. Step 20: The wall of stem cells are making blood cells again. Step 21: The camera returns to the white space where the boy skips away.

Final Draft 24/05/12 Leukaemia FADE IN: SCENE 1 INT: WHITE SPACE EFFECT: 2D ANIMATION A young boy is sitting in the centre of white space. He stands up, facing forwards and looks puzzled at the questions asked in the voice over. He is then put into silhouette and a body map appears over him. Blood cells then appear, moving around the blood system. Then the camera zooms in on the arm. VOICE-OVER: Leukaemia is a type of cancer. It is cancer of the blood cells in the bone marrow. But how does it all happen? What happens to the body when it has leukaemia? To find out, we must travel into the body itself, entering the micro world of the cells. The body performs thousands of different processes. These processes are carried out and controlled by workers called cells. One of the most important cell groups are the blood cells. These blood cells are made in the bone marrow, which is where our journey begins. SCENE 2 INT: BONE MARROW CAMERA: FAST ZOOM INTO ARM The camera is transported to the micro world of the bodys inner-space; the camera zooms into the bone marrow. It then moves through the tunnels of bone marrow passing the different blood cells. VOICE-OVER: The body needs to make billions of blood cells a day; because of this the bone marrow has to operate quickly and efficiently. It makes White Blood Cells the bodys doctors, Red Blood Cells the oxygen carriers and Platelets which are like internal plasters. A single stem cell is centre frame. It expands and contracts till the core of the cell becomes a young WHITE BLOOD CELL (WBC). It leaves the stem cells outer membrane and exits the screen. VOICE-OVER: All the different blood cells are grown from stem cells. The wall of the bone marrow is covered in stem cells. They all expand and contract till a blood cell is released.

A young WBC then centres in frame. It grows into a fully mature WBC and leaves the frame VOICE-OVER: The cells then mature in the marrow and are released into the bloodstream to take their part in the running of the body. Another stem cell is working, making a new cell. The cell that comes out is a cancerous cell. VOICE-OVER: Sometimes a defective blood cell is created. The cell cannot perform its vital role efficiently. Usually a signal would tell the cell to destroy itself. The cancerous cell divides into two. More cancer cells divide into two. Then the camera zooms back through a close grouping of hundreds of the cancerous cells. VOICE-OVER: However, this cell ignores the bodys instructions and begins a process called mitosis. It divides itself in two making an exact copy. Each new cell does the same, rapidly reproducing the same defective cell. These defective cells are called cancer cells. The stem cells on the wall have deflated. VOICE-OVER: The bone marrow becomes filled with the cancerous cells. It thinks that it has created enough blood cells and the production of new blood cells is halted. SCENE 3 INT: BLOOD VESSEL The different cells are seen flowing through the blood vessel including the cancerous cells. VOICE-OVER: The cancerous cells enter into the bloodstream and spread through the body. A tear in the side of a blood vessel lets VIRUS cells into the blood stream. A cancerous cell comes across a virus spore but, unable to fight it, it floats away. VOICE-OVER: If a virus or harmful bacteria enters the body the white blood cells are sent to fight the foreign cells before they can reproduce but the cancerous white blood cells are immature and do not have the correct information on how to combat these infections.

The virus begins to divide in to two and then one attaches itself to the wall of the blood vessel and grows. VOICE-OVER: The foreign cells divide and spread throughout the body making the body sick. SCENE 4 INT: BLOOD VESSEL A needle pierces through the wall of the blood vessel and releases the ANTINEOPLASTIC DRUG into the vessel. VOICE-OVER: Cancer can be treated with Chemotherapy. This is when a medicine called the antineoplastic drug is introduced into the bloodstream. This drug is toxic to rapidly reproducing cells like the cancer cells. INT: BONE MARROW Several cancer cells are floating in the bone marrow when the drug cells attach themselves to the cancer cells. VOICE-OVER: It latches on to the cancer cells and kills them. A stem cell produces a healthy, young WBC. Then the wall of stem cells is seen back in production, making healthy cells VOICE-OVER: The bone marrow then receives a signal to make new blood cells. White blood cells can then mature and combat any infections the body may have returning it to a fully functioning life machine. SCENE 5 INT: WHITE SPACE CAMERA: ZOOMS OUT The camera then retreats back out of the arm and back into the white space where the boy stands happily. FADE OUT. THE END