Myopia - 'The Election'

In a future where revolution is legalised every four years in the hope of getting more people to engage with politics, a young MP Asquith hunkers down to see if he will be voted out during The Election.

The Election

Ted Wilkes 

It was the fourth year in the cycle and time for an election. Politicians were soon to be hunkered down in their offices, waiting to see if their constituents would arrive. They had all had a meal in the cafeteria together and traded stories of the last four years, knowing that most of those sat around them would not be here at the next meal that they would share. Asquith looked around the table and was able to tell those that should be worried; they had faced scandal and been known to be corrupted by the influences of power and money. It would not surprise him if there was already a mob amassing outside to begin the election proper with a lynching of one or two of those who had their hand in the till far too often. Some had known long ago that they were on the way out and decided only to exacerbate the situation by making the most of their remaining years. The papers had their favourites and would hound them relentlessly to make sure that they were first on the list to go, but it was no excuse for the behaviours that they had exposed, others were just to be unlucky.

Most at the top table would be safe as they had the backing of the party that had supplied their staff with all the weaponry and amour to survive even the most brutal attacks from any side. Asquith had seen the deliveries across the way; boxes and boxes came in convoys from their headquarters blowing huge chunks of their budgets on keeping a few grey beards that they could trust close to them. It wouldn’t matter how many decanted through to vote they would still be standing come the closing of the polls in the morning. Others had been left high and dry, the party knowing that they were to fall this time, and were left with little more than a letter opener to defend their seat. They would try their best to barricade themselves inside their offices with only one or two loyal staffers to help them. There were a few around trading half smiles with one another that hadn’t the stomach for another fight and had it in their mind to check out early so as not to give the electorate the satisfaction of the whole routine, simply leaving them a heavy effigy to do with what they will.

Asquith being young in the game and an independent knew that there would be a challenge to his seat, he had tried to do everything he could, but there was always some in his constituency that questioned his methods. He had a small arsenal locked away where his bookcase stood that he intended to lay out after dinner across his desk and wait. Should they come to vote he would be ready. The polls did not look good, but surveys didn’t know everything.

Although it seemed extreme it was the best of the systems that the country had seen before as for once it truly was the politicians that feared the people once every four years. It was said that a dangerous disease required a radical remedy, and this was the least offensive to all concerned. There was only the death of those who were hated, a version of death that was encouraged and longed for. There was no more counting papers, no more canvassing, no more postal votes, no more kissing babies and campaign trails if you wanted rid of your MP you had to carry them from their office above your head and hang their lifeless body on the railings outside Parliament. It was the most engaged the people had ever been in politics with eighty-seven percent of people actively involving themselves in politics in one way or another. The Election was the most widely watched programme across all TV networks, and for twenty-four hours households who had decided not to vote this year across the nation would sit glued to the screen to see which of their leaders they would never have to engage with again. Some might argue that the system was barbaric and that they wished for the older days of ballot cards and black boxes, but it would never return. The people had a direct say in the process and no longer had to be a lone voice that mattered not if others didn’t muster the strength to check a box on their own. Each and every resident could pull a trigger and be the one to change the course of the country without the need to line up at a local primary school.

It was a little after three fifteen when the Prime Minister stood in the chamber and announced that The Election would be called. The paper shook in his hands as he did. Even though he knew that he was safe it may be that there would be a stool at the bar that would be missing a drinking buddy, a round that might not be brought for him over the next four years; he almost mustered up a tear. As he finished there was pandemonium as the MPs sat on the familiar green benches that no longer seemed so safe leapt over one another to reach their fortresses and bunkers in the hope of seeing the sun rise.

…

There had been activity for some time in the halls around him, but so far the footsteps had rushed past Asquith’s door and onward towards another destination. Placing his feet on his desk he could hear the crowds gathering outside chanting the names of their targets to let them know that they were coming. In the corner there was a small box flickering with updates as they came in saying who had been unseated and the victors that replaced them. Asquith had not recognized names but had seen faces that he knew. Allowing himself another fleeting glance he saw a much older gentleman being pinned to the gates outside his window still wriggling with the last squirmings of life, trying to plead for those around him to hoist him down from the platform that they placed him on with promises of a different four years than they had experienced prior. Suddenly they had heard enough and began to fill his mouth with rocks jamming them in where they would fit cramming in with them the vitriol and hatred that they no doubt had been building for the time in office that they had tolerated him. His lips and teeth bled as throughout the onslaught he was still trying to get them to listen to his talking points, but no longer did they need to politely nod and absorb his false assurances and wild claims of reform. His eyes widened as the end came with the blow of a shell to the head, now limp his term was over. To his side strung up around him were friends and colleagues on either side of the isle that he never reached across to. Each had similar fates befalling them depending upon the viciousness of their electorate. They kicked out with the last energies of life before falling flaccid as trophies to the new system.

Turning the box to darkness Asquith sighed and readied himself as he once again heard the stampede down the corridor outside his room. He had piled bookcases against the door but that would not stop them for long. Taking his rifle from the desk he overturned his old instrument of politics and slid to be covered by it. This was where deals for his version of a better world were hatched, leaders of foreign lands were met and constituents bartered with. Now it was simply the last obstacle before his demise that offered him no more than a few seconds more to breathe. With the crash the door flew open and the hordes poured in. The numbers were in and Asquith too had lost his seat.

Myopia - 'All the King's Horses'

I know that I haven't been very good at this blogging as of late, but I saw the other day that some other up and comers are using their blogs to showcase a little of their work, and I thought that I might as well look to do the same!

Here's a short story that I'm one day hoping will be joined by others in a collection called Myopia - it's only a little ditty, but if you don't like this one you might like one of the others!

All the King's Horses

Ted Wilkes

The facts were there and could no longer be ignored by those who had them constantly thrust under their nose, but directed the reports and folders to be placed under a rug away from prying eyes of intrigue. Candy Land had run out of sugar, and this was bad. Without the sweet stuff there would be nothing for the munchkins to eat, and with nothing to eat the munchkins would starve which would look bad on the Candy Cane King. It wouldn’t be such a problem except they had started to notice that their sugary drinks were a little sour, their candy bars lacked that taste they liked and their sherbet no longer was as lickable as it once was.

They thought about rationing the sugar lumps so that each and everyone would have to have one lump not two, but then it would be a problem for the dentists who made their living on those munchkins who had eaten too much and came to them with rotting teeth. The Candy Cane King had to have a respect for the dentists, as without them there would be no place to go so that he might hide his own bad teeth. There was also the terrible problem that those close to the Candy Cane King also liked the taste of the sticky white powder, and had become plump from gorging themselves on it, and they intended to keep their waistlines at capacity.

Having a dilemma was not in the King’s plan. It was against the image that he had built for himself, and meant that he would have to explain and apologise to the munchkins, a race that he did so dislike with their sticky fingers and jittery eyes that came from having the right amount of sugar that did not make them fat and lethargic, but have them racing around looking for where they might find their next lump, hoping that it might be bigger than the last. Before most of them had no time for the King as they only had eyes for their own little pile of white powder rather than looking at where it came from, and the king liked it that way. After all if they ever stared too closely at the King they might discover that he was made of the very thing that they coveted.

The solution came in the egg. The poor dim witted egg that they had perched on the wall just overlooking the town of the munchkins. She had been a star, and the people loved her rolling around on the streets flashing her winning smile, the sweet heart of Candy Land. Her time to be of use had come.

It was simple to push her with promises of a new life beyond her rolling and smiling that she was tired of. It was made clear that all she had to do was fall; on the other side of the wall would be everything that she wanted, and in doing so she would leave the shape of her last life behind. The munchkins would respect her for the decision to no longer be that egg, and buy into this new path that she was forging for herself way into the distance.

Though it ended in tears as she leapt from the wall, she shattered into three pieces exposing her yoke for all to see. Some of the munchkins liked it too much baying for more, enjoying this new shape that she had fashioned herself into fawning over the pictures of her that appeared in the Daily Cane, dribbling at the insides that she had shown. Others debated the depravity with which she exposed herself, and how their might have been tinnier munchkins who were yet to find a voice that might be influenced to jump from walls in an attempt to fashion themselves into the thing that she had become.

In the end the king’s men and all their horses were unable to put her back together again. It was no matter; she was left on the sidewalk she ended up on to become what she would become. Though in the eyes of the king it was a success, people were talking about eggs when they should really be taking about sugar.

A Sunny Day

Two blogs in a day?! What are you unwell?

Probably, but: 1) I couldn't wait to get this out there and 2) I'm avoiding starting any real work at the moment.

So basically Sundown; First Light has been on the back burner for a while but now it's back with vengeance. I've got a really talented artist involved (Rael Pastorino) who has produced some amazing work for the project. Check it out below:

It's got DARK in the Sundown world but I think that I like it even more now. It's amazing to think that when I first wrote the screenplay that I was seeing it as a western version of Pirates of the Caribean but has now morphed into something that I think is more fitting for its themes and message.

Keep on the look out for more things coming up soon on Sundown we're hoping to get something out there as early as February/March weather that be through a publisher or Kickstarter - this is going to happen!!

Reverse TV

A while ago I wrote about the idea of ‘the long sofa’ – where whilst now viewing the tele we are no longer a passive viewer, we share our experience with every other tweep in the country that has a diploma in advanced social networking or is brave enough to use a hashtag that the flickering box in the corner instructed us to. It seems though that Channel 4 have gone one further for us and now given a bunch of us the opportunity to have cameras set up in our homes to record our reactions to the TV events of the week as they happen.

Are Steph and Dom hastening the end of the world?

Gogglebox is rapidly becoming one of my favourite shows on TV. Sitting watching people watching TV sounds a little like one of the signs of the coming apocalypse, but it actually makes for some compelling viewing with the channel having found the right mixture of kookiness and character. The “stars” of the show display equal parts informative dialogue about the “issues” of the week (seeing Leon and June Bernicoff on the warpath against Cameron one week was a particular highlight, or the conservative “leaning” father on the L shaped sofa walking out on Paxman’s interview with Russell Brand uttering incantations that my own dad might mutter over the same cauldron when the “comedian” appears on screen) and comedic and tender moments where we see the friendships and relationships of those on their couches.

The show seems to be out of touch with the norm of “reality TV” with the people on screen seemingly having the discussion that will be going on up and down the country at the moment in question whether that be who is being voted off this weeks X-Factor or the dispute over the parentage of Prince Harry as his face flashes up on the news. Channel 4 are keen to stress that they wanted: “to get people who are real, not desperate to be reality TV stars” though with some of the “cast” deserving their own spin off it would be a crime if the organization didn’t look into the possibility of catapulting a few of them to fame, or at least look into a second series.

However, for the return of Gogglebox in 2014 I would like to make a request to Channel 4. Instead of showing multicultural Britain on screen in the corner reacting to a screen in the corner can they take our television to some of the more remote places in the world to see what the third world really think about the images that flash past our eyes at dinner time in one of the greatest reverse anthropological studies of our time. I think that the results would be astonishing. 

The Gadget Show

In the slums of Beijing the workers from a nearby factory learn the true value of the Ipods that they have been making for the first time. Looking down at their paycheque for the day (a bowl of rice) one stands and hurls it to the floor throwing his fist in the air with defiance demanding a workers revolution in true communist spirit. In minutes the CCP march in and turn off the camera.

X-Factor

The sob stories and “hardships” faced by the contestants don’t move the audience on the Masai-Mara to tears. Most of the children are in bed halfway through so miss their favourite act Sam Bailey as they have to be up at the crack of dawn to fetch water from the nearest well seven miles away, then go to school (fourteen miles away) and then return to the village to see if their parents have managed to kill anything for them to eat tonight. 

Made in Chelsea

Playing in the caves of Afghanistan and the tribal regions of Pakistan the structured E4 reality show has now become the new recruitment video for Al-Quead: “Look my children at the decadent West in all her glory, these ‘toffs’ arguing amongst themselves about who shall sleep with one another. It has not been the same since the Mackintosh infidel left. She is the only one to be spared on your trip to paradise.”

Newsnight

As Brand makes his assertion that voting is meaningless as Paxman sits back getting all a quiver about the ratings that this will receive and the attention that will be thrown upon his facial hair again (did you know he was the first person to invent ‘the beard’ as he is calling it?!) an elderly man in the Ural mountains lets a lone tear roll down his face. He remembers the downfall of communism when he was finally allowed his democratic right to elect his leaders and a McDonalds nearly one thousand miles away as his district turns out 101% approval ratings for Putin.

Little Miss... Bad Grampa. A review of 'Jackass Presents: Bad Grampa'

I grew up watching the Jackass crew doing things to their bodies, and each others, that equally petrified and fascinated me. Nothing it seems was off limits for the boys who regularly dared one another to do the most ludicrous things all in the name of making each other laugh. It included some of the more sensitive areas of the male anatomy that made me wince, bizarre contraptions invented solely for the reason of causing pain and going fast and putting stuff in, and then taking it out, of places that objects should never really be for an extended period of time. What was so strange though that it was oddly compelling and funny - appealing to the most basic instincts I had that make me also enjoy: UFC, eating my body weight in cheese and Michael Bay films. I cared about the cast (Johnny Knocksville, Ryan Dunn and Steveo) they seemed like well meaning guys who had found their calling, and it just happened to be falling over for my amusement.

When a wheelchair just won't do for the old man.

Ultimately the internet, and more specifically Youtube, killed off the small screen version of Jackass (and proved Darwin wrong) with an endless supply of idiots willing to do things that endanger their health on demand twenty-four hours a day and without the need to pay for cable TV. However, undeterred Jackass evolved, rolling with the times, and became Bad Grampa. It's still walking around on four legs, but at least it's out of the sea and no longer has its eyes on the side of its head but it's making an attempt to get itself upright.

In Bad Grampa 86 year-old Irving Zisman (Johnny Knocksville) is on a journey across America with the most unlikely companion, his 8 year-old Grandson Billy (Jackson Nicoll). The pair are brilliant on screen bouncing off one another like the best of buddy cops on a stake out. They have a chemistry that suggests that the pair really did get on during their little road trip, the cameras just happened to be around them and at the end they thought that they might as well cut a film out of the footage just for the hell of it. Nicoll is simply brilliant as the snotty little pre-teen who is equal amounts cheeky and charming in the right places. I predict that after returning from filming he was an absolute nightmare for his parents after being allowed to truly be a little shit for the duration of filming every day for the shoot!

Just to get this out of the way Bad Grampa is not a film. It's a series of stunts that are loosely tied together by a journey that the two are on. If you ever went into the screening hoping to see something other than a film about farting in crowded places or Knocksville falling over you're going to be disappointed, but if that is what you expected Bad Grampa delivers and then some. In another universe the film could have been a heartwarming indie comedy that would have made it big at Sundance. There are some moments when the pair are alone in the car, at the diner, or playing HORSE on a basketball court with one another where I genuinely thought that they were going to ditch the gags and let me enjoy an affectionate moment. But then someone decided that that was too much sentiment and needed another fart noise to keep things going. The one moment at the diner though had me in hysterics for some time though and the reaction from the old man sitting across from them is worth the price of admission alone.

Trying to read into the subtext of Bad Grampa a little (and if you look hard enough there is some) you are struck by just how nice people really are. No matter where they go, or even what they say to people, the general public seem to be inherently good always wanting to help what they just must see as a kooky old man and his grandson. It's not as if they are hanging around in middle class areas either, some of the places that they go look to be destitute, even a little seedy, where the threat of possible violence is very real. However, there's always a good samaritan on stand by that will either help the pair negotiate the situation they have got themselves in or resolve it for them. It also has to be said that Knocksville is fearless as Zisman, no matter where they are or who he is talking to there is never a flutter of his eyes that show he is scared. There is one bit in a bike bar, and another in a male strip club that had the potential to go south very, very rapidly but I'll leave those for you to squirm through yourself. The film leaves its final punches for the end of the film at the beauty pageant that must have been set up for the film itself delivering a damming verdict of American parenting with clever cut aways at the right time. 

It should have made me more angry than it did that the road trip storyline is basically a rip off of one of my favourite films Little Miss Sunshine but at the end I was willing to accept Bad Grampa for what it is - a great film to watch with friends that everyone doesn't take too seriously. Its also proved to me again that Knocksville has this built in charm that he's unable to switch off and I hope that he gets more serious acting work in the future. I can see him playing a very good 'Bottom' in Mid Summer Nights Dream. Your move RSC.

NFTS - Documentary to Drama course

I'm panicking, I've got five minutes left to finish what I'm shooting, not nearly enough time to get everything done that I wanted to and onto of that I've still got this nagging thought in my head that the last take of the previous set up isn't really working for me but it's still the one that I really think that I want to use in the edit and on top of all of that I've just remembered the idea that I had for another shot late last night is never going to happen! It's only a tiny taste of what it means to direct drama but I'm already hooked!

Last week I had the pleasure of going on the NFTS Documentary to Drama directing course run by Dan Reed and the NFTS short course department. The week long course was five days aimed at converting documentary filmmakers into drama directors for the small (and big) screen. It was great to hear how things really are rather than the methodical approach of how you should make a TV show, this was actually how things got made and the sacrifices and decisions that you had to make. Using the skills of taping racist protestors, kicking footballs over the back wall of the North Korean embassy and chasing Chuck Norris making the small docs that I've done I was hoping that converting to producing a drama short would be easy where there weren't so many variables to think about and there wasn't the possibility of ending up in a gulag. How wrong I was.

After the first two days of intense seminars with Dan and other visiting guests (Stuart Harris - Cinematography, Elaine MacKenzie - 1st AD and Karen Lindsay-Stewart - Casting director) I had a solid idea about what my task ahead would be. From Monday 7th October to Tuesday 8th I had learnt more about what it means to be a director that I had in the rest of my life. I was deconstructing everything that I watched (Why is Walter White framed like that? How come Rick is doing that? Why does Jess have to be shown to be looking at that?) All of a sudden I was thinking about everything not just as a loving representation of a script but as a process in itself. Just as a script can't have any "dead weight" hanging off it, the same is true of the actual finished product. The camera has to be involved with the telling of the story, helping the viewer work out the relationships between characters and the subtexts of each scene.

I had a lot to think about on day three when I was given my assignment, to produce a scene from The Changeling as I saw fit. I was given a scene where Christine confronts Jones about how the boy that they have given him isn't her son. I wanted to play it differently from the original just to try something new and see if I could do it so I made it so that Jones is trying to close this case anyway that he can - fully knowing that the boys isn't hers but seeing the "job" as a personal and professional success. He tries to get Christine to accept the situation anyway that he can eventually threatening her that if she continues to look for Walter that he will make her the prime suspect. On the other side Christine realises that Jones is trying to fob her off and wants to get him to keep looking. I didn't want her to be this hysterical stock female character who weeps and begs Jones to keep trying to find him so I made her strong and cold to him knowing that he hasn't done his job properly and fully certain that her boy is still alive. To try and make it more apparent that Jones hasn't done the job to Christine's satisfaction I had her "straightening" his office out during the conversation that they have so that when he gets back to work on it everything will be in the right place. The actors that I got for the scene were brilliant (Paul and Abi) and really helped me out realising that I was new to the game, steering me through the process whilst picking up on how I was trying to direct them perfectly delivering great performances.

Filming was tough - we had two and a bit hours to get three minutes done. Although this sounds like a long time when you're new to this it flies by and before you know it you're wrapped and you can't remember exactly what you did but you're hoping that your well prepared plan was executed - but it might not have been. I wanted to experiment with stuff to see what would work and what wouldn't, I knew that the main objective had to be to make something that I was proud of but as a task on the course I could take a few risks with the set ups.

In the edit suite after breathing a sigh of relief realising that everything was there (and if I can say looked and sounded remarkably good thanks to the team of students and ex students who worked on it with me! Thank you again to Susi, Matthew, Nik and Isobella) I worked on getting the final (rough) cut together with another ex student (Nicolas) who after only needing a short conversation understood exactly what I wanted out of the scene and with what seemed a few movements of his hands across the keyboard he had cut together exactly what I wanted. It has cemented in my mind that editors are indeed magicians and do not get the praise that they deserve!

At the end of the course we all screened our films in the student cinema and had them deconstructed by Dan. I was happy with my feedback and it was nice to talk about why I did certain things with someone who has to make these kind of decisions for a living. The minute or so that we spent analysing just the one ten second shot that I had put in over another more conventional one is something that will stick with me - it really allowed me to better understand the decision making process for a director and is one that I hope to replicate when/if I'm trusted behind the lens of a camera again!

Anyhow - the video is attached to the blog - let me know what you think of it! Now it's just to try and get myself a gig directing Doctors or if I wish really, really hard the next season of The Walking Dead!!

Update - How to Write a movie in 21 Days

So... I've decided to do it - I'm going to take on the challenge of writing a first draft of a movie in just 21 days using a book by Viki King called, you guessed it; How to Write a Movie in 21 Days.

It sounds like a fun challenge and gives me a time frame to actually get something down on paper rather than stressing about this being right, or that sounding authentic or even basic stuff like character arcs and tropes - you just write what you're feeling at the time and hope that everything comes together at the end. It's called the Inner Movie Method - basically you "watch" the film unfolding in your head and write it down as you think that you see it on the screen. All the tweaking, character description, malarky that goes into actually writing a polished screenplay comes later in a second or third draft.

So I did a little work before I started so that I didn't entirely have the fear of the great white page and came up with a couple of ideas before settling on what I was going to write. In the end I settled on an action/comedy that I've had kicking around for a while and seems the most formulated in my mind. It's called The Deck and was the result of too long spent on CNN late at night. I found out that there was a crazy/genius guy who at the height of the hunt for Bin Laden decided that he could do with the reward for his capture and set off into the hills of Pakistan with little or no knowledge of what on earth he was doing to bring the worlds most notorious terrorist to justice and collect his pay check!

I decided that I wanted to make the piece a little more comedic and write it as if myself and my friends had one day thought that it would be a good idea to go after one of the "deck" of most wanted terrorists as put out by the CIA after the latest Iraq war. Unable to relate to the hunting of terrorist all that well and for obvious reasons not being able to find all that much about how one goes about doing it online I thought that the closest experience to actually being involved in a fire fight was playing on COD. So The Deck became a bunch of avid computer games players out looking for what they considered a "soft" terrorist in the hope of picking up some easy money using the "skills" that they leant when they were behind the sticks.

Obviously it needed a little more and I crafted the lead character Stu into a recently unemployed investment broker who is now unable to pay for his fathers medical bills and after realising that he's never going to make it onto the pro-circuit with his "team" of gammers who are unable to work together to win a qualifying spot he decides to convince them to turn their attention to heading out to the middle east. Though Stu might be hiding something from the group that will shake them all and could mean an end to even their current tenuous partnership.

On day 1 you have to write pages 1-10 (or the ordinary world - establishing where the hero was/is before they set off on their adventure. It has to show the overall tone or theme of the piece and set up the questions that will be answered during the film). I started the group playing for a spot in the finals of the MLG Call of Hero's tournament in Vegas each at their respective homes. It all goes horribly wrong where none of the guys are willing to work with each other and eventually the other team win and the gang falls out for the first time.

Stu then heads off to an interview at Happy Burger where he is turned down for the job because he is over qualified and the paranoid manager thinks that because he turned up in a suit he must be from head office being sent as a spy. He then leaves for the hospital to see his dad who, with no medical care to pay his bills, is looking to be turfed out of the hospital.

It's as far as I've got and it's only a first draft but I'm happy with how things are going so far and I'm enjoying discovering what I want to do with the characters so far on the fly making me learn new things about them with each new scene that I put in.

Anyhow keep up-to-date with the blog to find out where The Deck goes!! Once it's finished I'll be more than happy to have people read it - just give me another 20 days!!

peace,

- Ted