‘The Quiet Land’ is a film screenplay loosely based on real events surrounding a reward offered by the Australian magazine, ‘The Bulletin’, back in 2005 for the capture of an extinct Australian carnivorous marsupial - the infamous ‘Tasmanian tiger’.

Many of the characters in the film are based on real-life people who wade into the controversy including hunters, conservationists, scientists and prominent figures in the media. The two leads, Ruby Purcell (paranormal investigator) and Mike Cassavetes (ranger with Tasmania’s Parks and Wildlife), are two such people who were drawn into the debate about the competition to capture a tiger back in 2005.  In this script, they pit their knowledge and quest for the truth up against a range of antagonists that include rogue hunters bent on collecting on the reward, an embittered scientist wanting retribution, even militant eco-warriors bent on locking everyone out of their precious wilderness.

The script explores why people, of all persuasions, are obsessed with the tiger and what it is about the animal which continues to frustrate and intrigue.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cryptozoology (from Greek, kryptos, "hidden" + zoology; literally, "study of hidden animals") is a pseudoscience involving the search for animals whose existence has not been proven due to the lack of evidence. The animals cryptozoologists study are often referred to as cryptids a term coined by John Wall in 1983. This includes looking for living examples of animals that are considered extinct, such as non-avian dinosaurs; animals whose existence lacks physical evidence but which appear in myths, legends, or are reported, such as Bigfoot and Lock Ness Monster; and wild animals dramatically outside their normal geographic ranges, such as phantom cats (also known as Alien Big Cats).

Cryptozoology is not a recognized branch of  zoology or a discipline of science. It is an example of pseudoscience because it relies heavily upon anecdotal evidence, stories and alleged sightings.

INT. AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM - SYDNEY. LATE AFTERNOON

An electronic bell and muffled announcement over the loud speaker signifies that it is closing time at the Australian Museum in Sydney. THE PUBLIC start to drift away from the exhibits and the museum empties out into the grand marble foyer.

A MUSEUM GUARD wanders from room to room, gently reminding patrons of the time.

The massive bronze doors of the Australian Museum wheeze shut. Banks of overhead lights are shut down and the dimly lit museum falls into silence. 

INT. AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. NIGHT

The eerie half-light throws the museum's long corridors and exhibits into shadowy relief. Stiff fur, frozen snarls and vacant, glass eyes of rare, endangered or extinct animals stare back at us. A light flickers in a darkened room at the end of the long corridor. 

At the end of the corridor a flickering image comes into view - a grainy and scratched black and white film is being projected on a wall - the footage is of a wolf-like creature pacing up and down a narrow cage.  The animal is unusual; its blunt, dog-like head is in dramatic contrast to its long snout; the movement of its hindquarters, marked with dark stripes, seems stiff and awkward; its tail is rigid, more like a kangaroo's than a dog's.  Then the animal unexpectedly yawns - the jaw opens like an oversized beak, threatening to split the face in two, revealing two rows of razor-sharp teeth. Then the jaw snaps closed - the image of the wild predator vanishes.  The film loops and begins again. 

The museum guard leans over to flick a switch - to turn the projector off - but is suddenly confronted by the image of a human face distorted behind a large glass jar.  Inside the jar, suspended in alcohol, is the waxy foetus of a dead thylacine pup. The guard startles. The face moves from behind the jar.  A late-middle aged man in a pristine lab coat, PROFESSOR LANCASTER, emerges from behind the exhibit carrying a file box stacked with papers and laboratory equipment.

MUSEUM GUARD:

Oh, Professor Lancaster, I didn't see you there. Can I help you with that?

The museum guard goes to take the box but Professor Lancaster pulls away.

PROFESSOR LANCASTER:

No!

A glass petri dishes slides off the top of the file box and falls - shattering on the ground.  The museum guard drops to his knees and starts to pick up shards of glass.

PROFESSOR LANCASTER:

Leave it! You'll contaminate the sample.

The guard winces; he has cut himself. Professor Lancaster watches dispassionately as blood spills onto the parquetry floor.   

PROFESSOR LANCASTER:

That's all we would have needed - just a couple of drops of blood.

The museum guard looks up at the Professor.

PROFESSOR LANCASTER:

It's there in the pup.  In its bones - the DNA. We just have to put the puzzle back together again. 

The museum guard gets up from the floor; blood trickles down his forearm from his cut hand.  Professor Lancaster seems either not to notice, or not to care.

PROFESSOR LANCASTER:

I'll just have to find another institution that appreciates the significance of my work. 

Professor Lancaster turns on his heel, pushes open a wooden panel and disappears behind the wall.

TITLE SEQUENCE: NW TASMANIA. DAY

EXT. ST CLAIR NATIONAL PARK

A young BUSHWALKER treks alone through the vast and magnificent wilderness area of St. Claire National Park in NW Tasmania, taking a series of photos of different locations.  The tiny figure of the bushwalker is dwarfed by the majestic and wild landscape.  

CRADLE MOUNTAIN

The bushwalker stands on top of a rock looking up at Cradle Mountain.  The dawn light strikes the summit illuminating the mountain in a tangerine glow. There is a dusting of snow on the upper ridges.

The surrounding forest is still covered with a thick blanket of cloud and fog; as it slowly lifts, gnarled and ancient trees emerge, like specters.  

The bushwalker takes a digital photograph of the mountain then the camera cranes down to see the mountain's mirror image reflected in a pristine lake.

ALPINE PLATEAU

The bushwalker navigates a maze of meandering streams that snake across the marshy plateau which is dotted with tarns or glacial pools.  The tarns are ringed by Pencil Pines, trees over 2000 years old. Their crooked forms tilt like old men leaning on canes. 

OLD GROWTH FOREST

The bushwalker heads down a slippery path.  He is surrounded by tall trees, some standing over 100 metres tall. The view of the valley below is of a wild and primordial place. Despite the cold and the fading light, the bushwalker takes his digital camera out of his backpack and takes a number of shots.  Clouds close in again; the bushwalker turns away. Then he sees something, out of the corner of his eye, run across the path.  Startled, he approaches cautiously, making an adjustment to the aperture and shutter speed of his camera.

The bushwalker hears something again, this time to one side of the track.  He thinks he sees something move.  He leans forward into the dense scrub and then suddenly something lunges at him, runs right over him.  An animal?  He stumbles backwards, snapping photos as he falls.

EXT.  SYDNEY'S TARONGA ZOO.  DAY

A gaunt MODEL dressed in a animal print bikini and safari jacket poses in front of the snow leopard enclosure at Sydney's Taronga Zoo. The photographer, RUBY PURCELL, gazes down the lens of her camera. She notices a small detail and makes an adjustment to the model's pose, indicating to her assistant, GEOFFREY, to move a light. Then Ruby returns to the camera and takes a series of photographs of the model posed in front of the animal enclosure, the leopard pacing behind. 

RUBY PURCELL:

I think we have it.

There is a smattering of applause from the models and editorial assistants standing by.  The crew pull on their coats and begin to disperse. 

Ruby takes the camera off the tripod and watches the leopard move restlessly around the enclosure.  She takes one measured photograph after another of the magnificent beast. 

GEOFFREY:

The truck's packed.

RUBY PURCELL:

Thanks Geoffrey. 

GEOFFREY:

Some of us are heading over to the Burdekin later.  Thought you might like to join...

Geoffrey is interrupted by an officious young woman, GRACE, a fashionista armed with a clipboard and hands-free phone.   Grace covers the phone mouth piece and delivers her message in a hushed, urgent tone.  

GRACE:

Johanna wants to speak with you about Monday's deadline. Yes?

Grace turns her back on Ruby and Geoffrey to answer the call. Ruby takes advantage of the distraction, waves a silent goodbye to Geoffrey, and with a lingering look over her shoulder at the leopard, leaves the enclosure.

INT. TRAIN CARRIAGE.  NIGHT

Ruby, her head resting up against the window, is asleep in the empty carriage. The squeal of the braking train wakes her.  She stretches and wearily pulls herself up.  

EXT.  COUNTRY TRAIN STATION.  NIGHT

Ruby steps out onto the platform; her breath fogs in the cold night air. The few remaining passengers scurry off to waiting cars.  Ruby walks past the train guard, and disappears into the night.  

EXT.  UNSEALED ROAD. MOUNTAINS. NIGHT

The night sky is a dome of brilliant stars. Wind shakes the tall eucalyptus overhead, sending down the occasional icy shower from their slick leaves.  Ruby trudges along a lonely path with her jacket-hood pulled up over her head.   

She reaches the top of the hill and stops at a makeshift letter box. She stops and pulls out a large wad of sodden letters and one stubborn parcel, the size of a shoebox, which she eventually manages to wrench free.   

INT. RUBY'S HOME.  MOUNTAINS. NIGHT

Ruby drops the letters and parcels on a side table.  She quickly sorts through the damp mail, deftly filing some letters in a neat pile and dropping others into a waste paper basket.

INT. RUBY'S HOME. MOUNTAINS. NIGHT

Ruby enters a cosy loungeroom-come-makeshift-home-office. She drops the mail and parcel on her desk and begins then to sort through a deluge of e-mail downloaded onto her computer. A corkboard above her desk is covered in amateur photographs, indistinct and blurred, of what could be a large cat or dog, roaming the Australian bush.

Tired now, Ruby picks up a bottle of red wine from a cluttered Art Deco drinks cabinet, pours herself a glass and muses on the Victorian sketches and etchings of mythical animals that hang off the wall, creatures like a giant squid, sea monsters and shadowy apparitions, framed around an ornate bevelled mirror. Ruby takes another sip of wine, studies her reflection in the glass but then her eyes are drawn again to the package sitting on her desk.  

Standing by her desk, Ruby considers the parcel and finally decides to open it. A half dozen DVD discs spill out. She picks up one disc and reads the scrawl on the cover.

Ruby slots the disc into the recorder, turns on the television with the remote and settles into an old armchair.

The disc reveals amateur hand-held footage of a late-middle aged man in an Akubra hat, possibly a farmer, gesturing to some hills in the distance.  The camera zooms in and pans the hills, then zooms out again and follows the man as he walks through the long grass, pointing in the direction of some trees in the distance. Ruby takes another sip of her wine and makes a note in a large ledger, she has balanced on the arm of her lounge chair.  She marks a tick in the first column with a red pen.