Issue 10 - Offscreen Magazine

014 STORYBOARD
Michaels
Resignation
We follow producer ALEX CAMERON as he
begins the journey of making ‘Michael's
Resignation’, a unique film project inspired
by and flying in the face of the credit crunch
“MICHAEL'S RESIGNATION” started as a
simple musing over email by
writer/producer Alex Cameron. Alex had
floated the idea of writing a drama around
the “credit crunch”, to which a friend, Rob
Fisher, flippantly suggested the “worker
slaughters his colleagues” storyline. It was
also mentioned that it was time for a good,
well produced camcorder-style flick to
appear again. When you put 2 creative
movie-obsessed visionaries in the same
room, it’s just a matter of time before a
mission presents itself.
Email replies went backwards and
forwards suggesting ideas, and a character
started to develop around the story. By the
end of the day, Michael Jones was born. An
ex-soldier recently returned from his tour of
duty in Afghanistan who completely loses it
and goes on a killing rampage in his office.
He would film it himself on a camcorder, and
the “real” footage would be sent around as a
marketing viral to promote it.
By the end of the second day, Alex had
written a full treatment (summary) of the
story divided into the typical 3-Act structure.
Michael had found his obnoxious fiancée
with his boss, and would get the gun from an
old army friend in East London. He was in
love with a girl at work, and the complication
would be that she wasn’t supposed to be at
work that day. The carnage resolution would
be unbelievably extreme.
It would be up to viewers to decide why
Michael did what he did: “His kill switch has
flipped and that’s it.” Reason was irrelevant.
Within 3 days, Alex had approached
several screenwriting communities on the
social networking site Facebook (as well as
contacting over 20 UK universities), and
created a new group of 60+ young writers
to write the script together online on the
website PlotBot.com. The response was
phenomenal as people flooded in, inspired by
the idea and hungry for an opportunity to get
OffScreen August/September 2009
a leg up into such a small world. A subsection
of around 10 writers formed the
backbone, led by action-nuts Neil Baker and
Richard Moir.
Within 7 days, 60% of the script was
done. On day 10, the whole thing was
complete and signed off by everyone
involved. The script was a mixture of
extreme action, fast-moving witty dialogue
and ranting monologue. At the end of
September 2008, in just a few weeks, one
of the most innovative and compelling
psychological thrillers of our age was ready
to be filmed.
More and more people became
fascinated with the project and started
reporting their own interpretations and
vision of the movie. It was clear that with the
right number of cameras to achieve wide
shot coverage, a professional Hollywoodstyle
production was possible on a very
small budget. The script-writing had set a
new tone for the project - not only should it
be to give new writers a leg up into the
world, but it should also be extended to
include actors, soundtrack artists and
production staff as well.
A week of roughly analysing the financial
and production requirements of the movie
led to an initial budget of £50,000 GBP
(revised to £18,500 in April 2009) 90% of
the costs were ruled out simply because
there was a way to get them for free - by
begging, borrowing or stealing, tweaking the
details (for example, borrowing a working
office and shooting on the weekend, hiring a
helicopter for £200), or simply just asking
people to believe in the film and get involved.
With Alex’s fundraising background, the
movie went onto the investment trail. First
up was an application to the Uk Film
Council’s New Cinema Fund for the cash,
and for certification for UK Film Tax Relief.
Several business angel groups, venture
capital companies and private financiers
were contacted. The screenwriters set out
to find “Michael” and put together audition
space, with the manager of the Italia Conti
drama school in London feeling utterly
bemused as no-one had approached him
with an idea like it before.
In the meantime, Neil Baker was loving
the idea of doing a sequel that was the
complete opposite to Michael - a girl who
went on a rampage of good, as “it would
demonstrate our range”. Alex wrote the
next in the series (“Salvation For April”), and
the writing group was approaching 100
regulars. 2 films became a series of 7, all
based around the credit crunch, and
tentatively titled “Multivalence” because of
their communal theme of exploring the
breakdown of false meaning in each
character’s life.
But in December, everything changed.
The approach to fundraising had to change
and follow the earlier precedent of
openness. Instead of asking a small number
of investors to part with an individual sum of
money, the film would go against the grain
and be opened up to the general public to
invest in (NOT donate to one-way) and make
them money when they were losing it
everywhere because of the credit crunch.
The response was incredible, with a long
flow of emails from people supporting the
“amazing” and “inspirational” idea.
Anyone could invest as little as £10 in the
movie by signing up online to make a
payment and receiving a certificate for 10
shares in the company by return. If the
movie made a 2:1 return (i.e. made
£100,000 in distribution), then they would
receive a cheque for £20 back in the post.
The project would give ordinary people a way
to make money as well as showing their
support.
Within 48hrs, Alex set up
MichaelsResignation.com with 30+ pages
and a back-office of online collaborative tools
to accomodate a few dozen people working
on it every day to promote the fundraising
with extensive industry databases. Through
integration with Google Checkout, the site
was able to receive investments in a matter
of days after the bank account was opened
in January 2009.
The future, and what happens now, is up
to you, the person reading this.
The funding, filming and distribution of
a unique movie (UK)
0845 862 3777
mrprodteam@gmail.com
www.michaelsresignation.co.uk