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 <strong>10</strong> writers formed the backbone, led by action-nuts Neil Baker and Richard Moir. Within 7 days, 60% of the script was done. On day <strong>10</strong>, 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 <strong>10</strong>0 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 £<strong>10</strong> in the movie by signing up online to make a payment and receiving a certificate for <strong>10</strong> shares in the company by return. If the movie made a 2:1 return (i.e. made £<strong>10</strong>0,000 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
August/September 2009 OffScreen
Change language