ZOOMERS
concept in development
web/TV series
James Ricketson
INTRODUCTORY NOTES:
“Zoomers” will be shot in such a way that the eight central characters (the actors who play them), along with skeleton crews, never have to be in the same room at the same time, thus adhering to government edict in relation to ‘social distancing’ and ensuring that there is zero possibility of any member of the cast or crew transmitting Coronavirus to each other.
Whilst ZOOMERS is being developed in response to the current Coronavirus pandemic, it is also being written as a series that will not be rendered out-of-date when this particular pandemic has passed. The word ‘coronavirus’ will never be used in it.
IN BRIEF
An ethnically and gender diverse group of eight Gen Z (Zoomer) men and women (18 – 30) , confined to their bedrooms during a pandemic, seek refuge in each other’s company, online. They become friends, ‘frenemies’, quarrel, argue, debate, plot, scheme, betray secrets, play music together, fall in and out of love, seek meaning and solace in their new ‘social distancing’ lives, as they use the Zoom to create a mutually supportive ‘cyber-tribe’. When one dies under mysterious circumstances, others in the ‘tribe’ are implicated in the death of their friend. With a second Zoomer death, the plot thickens!
CENTRAL PLOT
ZOOMERS has several plots, the central of which concerns an investigation into a (probable) murder: “Who killed Cammie O’Reilly?” And why? The prime suspects are 7 of her closest Facebook and Instagram ‘friends’- her fellow ‘Zoomers’ – all of whom had reasons (good and bad) to wish her dead.
THEME
On a thematic level, ZOOMERS is an investigation into how a group of 18 – 30 year old men and women (Generation Z) deals with, responds to, a worldwide pandemic that has radically transformed their lives; forced them outside of their comfort zones, into an unknown and scary future.
YOUNG SCREENWRITERS
ZOOMERS will benefit enormously from the input of other writers with different points of view to my own; from the contributions made by young screenwriters in particular who know and understand the world of Generation Z in such a way that the series will be credible to its primary target audience. Authentic. Young audiences must be able to relate; to be able to say: “Yes, this is our world. These are the issues in our lives that concern us in the 2020s. These are the things we talk about, and this is the language we use to communicate with each other.”
My advertisement in Screen Hub has resulted in some wonderful feedback from young screenwriters, with ideas for ZOOMERS that would not occur to me, an ageing Baby Boomer. These young screenwriters know the world that they are a part of in a way that I cannot. They also understand digital media in a way that I do not. My skills and experience, (40 + years and counting) combined with their knowledge of the world ZOOMERS is set in, is an exciting marriage made in heaven. Indeed, I think that collaborations between young and older screenwriters should be encouraged by Screen Australia and other film funding bodies at this critical pandemic juncture during which cinemas are closed but we all have access to digital forms of story-telling.
It has always been my wish that each new (and preferably young) screenwriter who joins the ZOOMER team, would take ‘control’ of a character of their own creation – especially in the case of characters whose families come from cultures elsewhere in the world that are very different from mainstream Anglo Saxon Australian culture.
Older screenwriters such as myself will benefit from the input of younger ones. Young screenwriters will benefit from working with older ones who have honed their craft skills over decades.
PRODUCTION TEAM
The production team for ZOOMERS will be made up, primarily, of young people who understand new digital technologies in a way that ageing Baby Boomers such as myself do not; young men and women who understand the audio-visual language that young audiences are familiar with and expect in the entertainment that appeals to them.
My own scriptwriting and filmmaking experiences, over more than four decades, have limited me, for the most part, to one storyline taking place onscreen at a time. Young audiences today are accustomed to multiple ‘windows’ open on their computer monitors at one time, whilst simultaneously receiving text messages, emails, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Tik Tok updates.
I am not sure how to format a screenplay to take all this into account. Young screenwriters do. Their input will be vital to the success of ZOOMERS. The same applies to talented young video editors. With so many ‘windows’, inputs, to work with, unconstrained by linear story-telling, they will be able to add a dimension to ZOOMERS that would not come naturally to filmmakers over the age of forty.
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that there could, at times, in ZOOMERS, be four narrative threads taking place simultaneously onscreen, intercut; as well as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Tik Tok updates.
Whilst the use of music has only been hinted at in these early drafts of episodes #1 & #2, the combination of music and images will play a significant role in the series. There are already many wonderful examples of such collaborations happening online, during this particular pandemic, with music and dance married together on Zoom broadcasts.
ZOOMERS will provide wonderful opportunities for online musical collaborations organised by Gabriel.
I believe video editors and musicians should be involved in the script development process.
‘CORONAVIRUS’ A DIRTY WORD!
The word ‘Coronavirus’ will never be used in ZOOMERS. In the event that a vaccine is found soon(ish), any story that revolves around, or even mentions, ‘Coronavirus’ will become immediately dated. This ‘thing’, as the Zoomers refer to it, could be the current pandemic or a future one. It is a fictional pandemic; one that is a little more dangerous and life-threatening than the one we are experiencing in Australia right now. The reality it depicts is more akin to what young men and women, in mid-2020, are experiencing in the US and UK – two potential markets for ZOOMERS. At some point in the not-too-distant future we may be hit with another virus that is worse than Coronavirus. There is no reason why ZOOMERS cannot be developed to make it relevant to audiences tiks year, next year and beyond.
STORY
Towards a series ‘bible’.
Cammie, 19 years old, has an idea for a Reality TV show, to be broadcast on her online channel: “Zoomers TV”.
She needs to find just the right combination of Gen Z women and men to ‘star’ in it, without their realizing that they have been carefully selected as participants. Why? Are Cammie’s motives noble? Or is her agenda driven by self-interest?
The ‘cast’ of Zoomers that Cammie assembles come from diverse ethnic, cultural, gender and socio-economic backgrounds. (We meet some of them in Eps# 1 & # 2) They have all been forced into isolation by a pandemic that Cammie refers to as ‘the thing’; their government enforced ‘social distancing’ leaving them with no choice but to conduct their social (and sexual) lives online. Zoom is their preferred form of online communication.
NOTE: With 3 central characters yet to be conceived, these notes will be subject to change when these characters come into being. The introduction of a young man whose family is from an African nation, and of a young woman of Aboriginal descent, (to be conceived by young African-Australian and Aboriginal screenwriters) will have an impact on the dynamics of all the relationships and the kinds of discussions and relationships they have with each other.
The multi-cultural and gender diverse make-up of the central cast is not token. All have been chosen by the central protagonist, Cammie, quite deliberately, though it is not clear for some time precisely why she has chosen this particular mix of young women and men to be part of her ‘Zoomer family’.
As far as its eight initial 7 new members are concerned, the Zoomers is a self-selecting online ‘family’, in which new members must be voted in by a majority of the other members, and can be voted out by the same majority; not unlike a Reality TV show. In reality, Cammie is the puppet-master (at least at the outset), pulling strings; manipulating her fellow Zoomers without them realizing it.
Is Cammie really who she appears to be at the outset: a single-child in her final year of home-schooling during a pandemic, whose mother is a doctor working in a hospital with infected victims? Or is she a highly intelligent and manipulative con artist who plays at being a ‘blonde bimbo’, ‘little girl lost’, ‘gender warrior’ and a variety of other roles when it suits her agenda? Is Cammie suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), perhaps? Or is DID yet another identity she has created for herself?
Cammie’s name is actually Olivia. Cammie is short for ‘chameleon’, the nickname her (now deceased) father, Dan O’Reilly, gave her as a child. Living in her own dream-world, with a vivid imagination, young Olivia revealed a talent for story-telling, impersonation and playing fast and loose with the truth so convincingly that she could easily manipulate her mother and father into letting her have her own way by the age of five. Her dad, Dan, referred to her, affectionately, as “my little chameleon”, eventually shortened to Cammie. Olivia has been true to her chameleon persona ever since. She is not as she appears to be to her fellow Zoomers. Or to the TV audience, as will become apparent as the story unfolds.
Cammie’s father, whom she saw only rarely as she was growing up, worked for ‘the government’, after a 20 year career in the army. This is all he ever told her; all he would or could reveal to Cammie’s mother, Linda, after their separation and divorce when Cammie was only 7. The reason why her mother and father split up, very suddenly, is one of a few mysteries that Cammie is trying to unravel as the story unfolds.
Dan, an accomplished fiddle player, died under mysterious circumstances – an apparent suicide from a self-inflicted gun wound that left many questions unanswered. Dan left behind a video diary containing cryptic clues as why he could, as a ‘whistle-blower’ be ‘terminated’. The thumb drive containing this diary has only recently come into Cammie’s possession. Snooping around in her mother’s cupboards and drawers, she found it hidden. Cammie stole it. Her mother does not realise this as the story begins. When she discovers that Cammie has not only stolen the USB but watched Dan’s video diary, an impassioned (and at times physical) confrontation between Cammie and her mother ensues as family skeletons are revealed – both her mother’s and her father’s.
The question arises: Is what Dan reveals in his video diary an unlikely concatenation of paranoid conspiracy theories, or was he privy to government secrets that people in high places did not want to see the light of day? Did certain events in his life drive him ‘mad’ or was it mental illness that led him to believe the unbelievable? It is Cammie’s mission in life (one of many) to find out why her dad died a few years earlier under the circumstances he did. And if he was murdered, why? And by whom?
NOTE: “Who killed Laura Palmer?” David Lynch kept this a secret for decades. It was the key question that drove “Twin Peaks” for many years. If we, the audience, had known at the outset who killed her, would we have kept watching? Maybe not. Lynch produced “Twin Peaks” at a time when social media did not exist. It was possible for him to keep Laura Palmer’s murderer a secret. Today, whatever I write here now can be communicated electronically to a million people in a matter of seconds. The revelation of certain elements of the plot (like, “Who killed Cammie O’Reilly?”), if made public, could and probably would have a deleterious impact on the ratings of ZOOMERS. If some plot questions remain unanswered here it is because I do not want some key elements of the series to become public knowledge until it suits the production.
One consequence of her father’s death is that Cammie, who learned play the violin from Dan, has been unable to play since the day his decayed body was discovered in the bush. She suffers from the musician’s equivalent of ‘writer’s block’. Perhaps, as a form of self-therapy, she can overcome her ‘musician’s block’ by associating herself with fellow musicians? Perhaps this is one of the reasons why she has chosen the 7 Zoomers she has – all but one of them musicians?
Cammie’s dream at the outset, we learn early in the series, is to create a web series unlike anything broadcast online before; a series that challenges the conventional wisdom of what can (and can’t) be broadcast, in content, form and style. “No rules,” she declares to her ‘personal video diary’. She wants, she declares to herself, to sail as close to the wind as she can, in terms of censorship, in exploring the sexual desires, frustrations and practices of her generation as they grapple with forming intimate relationships without physical contact.
Other than wishing to overcome her ‘musician’s block’, Cammie’s other possible motives for gathering together the members of this ‘tribe’ include.
Loneliness. Cammie is an only child. Her mother and father divorced when she was very young. She has never known what it is like to be part of a family and wants to create an ideal family for herself. “The family of my dreams,” she confides one night to a fellow Zoomer.
Anthropological research. When she finishes school, and if the pandemic ends, Cammie wants to study anthropology. So she says! She is not so much interested in primitive cultures as in the various ‘tribes’ that make up the Australian culture of which she is a part. What better way than to create a ‘tribe’ from scratch and observe how it grows in her ‘anthropological petri-dish’. A cult, of sorts.
Fame and fortune. If ‘Zoomers TV’ takes off as a web series, goes viral, she can make a lot of money and become famous.
Whatever Cammies motivations might be at the outset, she and her 7 fellow Zoomers all revel in the new online connections they have made as a result of Cammie’s efforts. They enjoy being part of an alternative ‘family’ or ‘tribe’ and perhaps (just perhaps?) this is what Cammie hoped for all along?
When Cammie does share with her fellow Zoomers her ideas about their collaborating in a production of Reality TV web series, reactions are mixed. The idea is voted down, much to Cammie’s disappointment. The Zoomers agree, in a vote, that all their interactions with each other are private; not to be either recorded or shared with others. Do they all abide by this pact? Or is one (perhaps more than one) recording….everything? Clues that this might be the case gradually emerge.
It eventually becomes apparent to all the Zoomers that all of their Zoom conversations have been recorded; that shared intimacies they thought to be private are, potentially, in the public domain; leaving many of them open to a form of blackmail: “Do as I say or the most private and intimate details of your life will be posted on the internet – including your online sexual encounters.”
This implied threat gives enormous power to whichever of the Zoomers is responsible for recording their interactions. Cammie is the prime suspect, but she insists that she is not guilty. Is she telling the truth? By her own admission she is a liar, though she now insists that she was lying when she said she was a liar.
It could be that the person recording is not one of the Zoomers but an anonymous hacker. A ‘Troll’. If so, who is it? And who has installed a tiny CCTV camera in Cammie’s bedroom and is monitoring all that goes on in it without Cammie’s knowledge? Her mother? Someone whom she has angered with her online and Dark Web investigations into her father’s death? Or is there another explanation? And who is in control of the tiny drone that is spying on, harassing, Cammie? Li Na?
The breach of the Zoomer’s agreed upon privacy rules comes to a head when edited versions of their Zoom interactions start to appear online under the banner: ‘Zoomers Uncut’ – an online Reality Web series that attracts only a small online audience at first.
It is not just the privacy breaches that give rise to panic amongst the eight ‘Zoomers’, but the way in which their intimate online Zoom interactions have been edited together to change the context (and hence the meaning) of what has actually transpired between them.
Whoever is in control of ‘Zoomers Uncut’ has not only appropriated all of the Zoom interactions between the eight, but has hacked into their computers and vacuumed up all information about them stored there, and in the Cloud – their private diaries, family photos, personal emails, shared sexts, sex videos, visits to porn sites, encounters with police… everything. This has a huge (and damaging) impact on the lives of them all, whilst at the same time turning them all into internet celebrities. Some enjoy being celebrities; some do not. Rifts between them appear: “Should we be outraged by this invasion of our privacy? Or should we welcome it with open arms, now that we are famous?”
Just who is in control of the ‘Zoomers Uncut’ web series (again, Cammie is the prime suspect) becomes increasingly important as the ‘series’ goes viral and it becomes clear that whoever is producing ‘Zoomers Uncut’ with pirated personal material is now making money through paid advertising. The Zoomers attempts to have ‘Zoomers Uncut’ removed from the internet only serve to make it even more of a ‘must-see’ web series.
‘Zoomers Uncut’ seems (and the operative word is ‘seems’) to be in sync with Cammie’s original plan to create an online web ‘Reality TV’ series that would, as she told her fellow Zoomers, “Go viral”. But is she responsible for ‘Zoomers Uncut’? Or is it one of the other Zoomers? Or a random hacker (Troll?) from anywhere in the world who has stumbled upon the ‘Zoomers’ and saw a way to exploit and monetize their shared intimacies?
The weight of evidence points to Cammie as being responsible for the recording and ‘Zoomer Uncut’ and provides a few of her fellow Zoomers with ample reasons to kill her. If, indeed, she has been killed?
Nothing in ‘Zoomers’ is quite what it seems to be, however. (Think “Twin Peaks”). Multiple plot twists and turns will keep the audience uncertain, from episode to episode, as to what is real and what has been staged by Cammie including, perhaps, her own ‘death’. Is the body we see in Episode One actually Cammie’s? All the circumstantial evidence suggests that it is, but might she have ‘faked’ it? If so, why? Or is the body real, but not Cammie’s? And who is monitoring all that takes place in Cammie’s bedroom through a tiny CCTV camera installed in the ceiling? And why?
Has her mother installed the tiny camera to keep an eye on her errant daughter? If so, has the footage fallen into the hands of someone who has good reason to want to monitor all that Cammie is up to in her life? Has Cammie, in her investigations into the Dark Web, in search of clues as to why her father died as he did, opened up a hornet’s nest and led her father’s enemies, who may be responsible for his death, to fear that Cammie is getting too close for comfort to discovering the truth; a truth that many people in high places do not want to be revealed.
Underlying the murder-mystery and thriller plot element of ‘Zoomers’ (with no apologies for the mixing and melding of genres) the series is intended to be challenging, thought-provoking, provocative and to both give members of Generation Z a voice and a form of entertainment that speaks to the world they lived in before the pandemic and the one that they must adjust to for months, or possibly years, to come.
There are many subplots in ZOOMERS. These relate primarily to the shifting relationships between the 8 central characters and to their relationships to the people close to them in their lives – her mother, Linda, in the case of Cammie; her grandmother Nai Nai, in the case of Li Na; her relationship with her extended family in the case of Fatima.
NOTE: The number of Zoomers could well be increased during the next stage of development, when young screenwriters join the production team.
THEMES
What the young Zoomers have in common is that they have all recently been confronted by harsh realities of life that have hitherto eluded them. They all know someone they love, someone they have made love with, a friend, who has contracted ‘the thing’; someone who has died. They are all worried, scared and/or terrified of what the future holds for them. Is there any future for them if no vaccine for the virus is found? They must all deal, for the first time in their young lives, with the existential questions arising from the possibility that they too could die in the cruel indiscriminate ‘death lottery’ that they have no choice but to have been given tickets in. How resilient are they in the face of hardship? How resilient must they become to survive emotionally and psychologically as weeks of isolation extend into months, with no end in sight?
Cammie, Sandy, Li Na, Gabriel and Fatima, (all of whom we meet in Episodes One & Two), along with three others yet to be created, (a diverse, multi-cultural group) each ‘imprisoned’ in their bedroom, chat intimately, animatedly (and with generous doses of black humour) about ‘meaning of life’ questions. As lucky beneficiaries of 21st C safety-netted Australian consumerism, they have largely, until lately, been able to live carefree, responsibility-free, pleasure-driven lives in which ‘likes’ on social media, Tik Tok, playing Fortnite and the posting of ‘selfies’ have been highlights. They have no choice now but to question their priorities; to question everything in their lives that they have taken for granted.
Denied the chance to kiss, to cuddle, to touch, to be in the same room with each other, the Zoomers have no choice but to conduct their emotional and sexual relationships online. They learn that whilst online romance is difficult (to say the least!), and while cyber sex may be safe, it is no substitute for the joys of kissing, cuddling a warm partner; for making love. (Trying to replicate physical intimacy in the privacy of their bedrooms gives rise to a good deal of humour and, as one Zoomer discovers when his mother walks in during an R-rated cyber sex session, being able to lock your door from the inside becomes an issue for young men and women who crave privacy.)
The world these young Zoomers have grown up in no longer exists. It was a world in which there were few constraints (financial or cultural) on what they were allowed to do. Parents and grandparents, more concerned with protecting them from harm (physical and emotional), nurturing their self-esteem, with being ‘friends’ to their kids and grandkids and making them ‘happy’, have not equipped these young adults with the resilience they need to deal with hardship, uncertainty and the possibility that they could catch ‘the thing’. Their obsession with individual ‘rights’ is challenged in a way that it has never been before as they have no choice but to live without so much they have taken for granted and learn to live within boundaries imposed by government edict. Questions of gender identity and sexual orientation, so important until just recently, now seem so much less relevant now that the big questions they face have to do with: “How can I pay my rent? How can I complete my university degree? Will I ever have a job?” And, of course, “Might I die alone, in a hospital, with not even the opportunity to say goodbye to my mum, my dad, my brothers and sisters.” Or, in the case of Fatima, her grandmother, Nai Nai.
The culture that has nurtured the Zoomers into young adulthood, obsessed with consumerism, celebrity worship and questions of gender and identity, (to name but a few influences) has taught them next to nothing about how to identify themselves as members of the planetary tribe that is the human race.
The Zoomers, also known as members of ‘Generation Snowflake’, must learn fast how not to melt as the world they have grown up in, that is so familiar to them, that they have taken for granted, crashes and burns around them.
As with the kids stranded on an island in “Lord of the Flies” the Zoomers, stranded in cyberspace on ‘Zoomer Island’ (as one member describes it) are faced with the challenge of re-inventing an online tribe that fulfils their emotional needs in a way that the increasingly discredited and fraying mainstream culture of which they are a part cannot; a tribe that inculcates its members with the new set of values and priorities that see the health and continuity of the tribe as more important than the rights of each individual member. All this in theory, of course. In practice it’s a different matter!
As the world grinds to a halt the Zoomers are on a sharp learning curve; their emotional, social and economic survival depending, more than ever before in their lives, on focusing less on their individual rights and questions of identity, than on caring and sharing with other members of their ‘Zoomer tribe’ and the larger Australian and world ‘tribes’ that they must now acknowledge they belong to. As their relationships with each other deepen and become more complex, this is how they come to see themselves – as members of a tribe that is not all that different from tribes in ancient times, other than the size of the tribe.
Just as their ancestors, in pre-historic times, sat around actual fires, (warm, with flickering flames and hot coals) these young Zoomers sit with their warm laptops, their iPads and smart phones in their bedrooms, dealing with existential angst as they confront an unknown (and unknowable) future, and the very real possibility that one or more of them may not survive the pandemic.
NEW CHARACTERS
Whilst ZOOMERS is, at present, focused on a group of young men and women, it will branch out to include the families of the central characters. All of these individuals, from young children to the elderly, must confront, in their own way, the new world that they have been thrust into by the virus.
CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR
Some characters arrive in the imagination of screenwriters fully formed. Some arrive with two dimensions only and a screenwriter waits for them to declare themselves; to reveal their 3rd dimension.
Fatima, for instance, has arrived in my imagination as a lesbian whose love affair with Abby (Jewish) has been brought to an end not just by ‘the thing’ but because there is no way that her family, or Abby’s, will countenance their sexual relationship continuing. This I know. I have never been a lesbian or a Muslim so the way in which I imagine Fatima as a character is limited. Can I bring her to life? Can I give her a much needed 3rd dimension? Yes. If need be. I would much prefer, however, to find a young writer from the world that Fatima inhabits to bring her to life. I have not, as yet.
NEW STORYLINES & ETHICAL QUESTIONS
When Cammie’s mum, Linda, loses her sense of taste and smell, develops a cough and is quarantined at home, how will Cammie respond? If it transpires that Linda is infected with virus and must stay at home, who will care for her? Cammie? Who else? If Linda is struck down by ‘the thing’, she and Cammie will need to confront, in a very real way, the dilemma: should Cammie risk her own life to care for her mother? And if Nai Nai refuses to die, as she wants to, before she can say goodbye to Li Na in person, should Li Na break the law by going to visit her grandma?
ZOOMERS must (and will) deal with ethical questions such as these that characters have never before had to confront.
A similar dilemma could well confront two of the young Zoomers. They have met as a result of Cammie’s setting up of this ‘tribe’. They have fallen in love online. Perhaps they have had sex online? Now they want, desperately, to meet each other – to touch, to be touched. Should they risk meeting? If the young woman, is living with her sister and her sister’s children (out of economic necessity) and her sister says to her: “If you meet this young man, you cannot come back to my house and risk infecting my children,” what does the young lover do?
These are questions that I do not have narrative answers to just now. These need to be worked out in conjunction with my fellow (young) screenwriters.
PANDEMIC OPPORTUNITIES FOR FILMMAKERS
In May 2020, the world over, writers, producers, production companies bent on survival, committed to the telling of contemporary stories, despite the limitations placed on us all by Coronavirus, are looking for stories that can be produced which speak to the prevailing Zeitgeist. The first series that is deeply embedded in the realities we are all living through now could attract a large audience worldwide. If it is entertaining. If it is heart-wrenching. If it is bold, in every sense of the word.
With the right production team assembled I would have no qualms about going into pre-production in a few weeks. Of course, the quality of the team, the commitment to the central idea that informs ZOOMERS is essential. I see my own role in this as being mainly that of a catalyst – setting a ball in motion and helping to keep it rolling. I have no desire to direct this series. Nor do I have a desire to write it all. I will quite happily hand over the bulk of the writing to young screenwriters and be on hand to offer whatever feedback and assistance I can provide.
IF THE PANDEMIC ENDS AS QUICKLY AS IT BEGAN?
Of necessity, ZOOMERS must, if filmed during the current pandemic, be limited in its locations to the living spaces in which the central characters live and to a few outdoor locations where filming can occur without breaching ‘social distancing’ regulations. If, between now and the time of filming, ‘social distancing’ rules are relaxed it is possible (though not inevitable) that the story can be opened up a little in terms of the spaces in which it takes place.
ZOOMERS is also being developed in such a way that the story will remain relevant even if the pandemic were to end next week and we were able to return to our normal lives and normal ways of producing TV drama.
NEW FORMS OF DRAMA
Whilst Coronavirus presents us with seemingly insurmountable production problems, it also presents us also with creative challenges which, when met, could give rise to very exciting drama. There are many precedents:
LOCKE, a feature film written and directed by Stephen Knight in 2013, with Tom Hardy in 2013, had only one character in a car talking on his mobile phone. Gripping drama. MY DINER WITH ANDRE had but two characters talking over dinner. Erich Rohmer made many wonderful dialogue-heavy films in limited locations -CLAIRE’S KNEE, MY MIGHT WITH MAUDE. As did Abbas Kiarosami (TASTE OF CHERRY) and many others.
If we see this pandemic as an opportunity, and not merely as one fraught with difficult-to-solve production problems, we could be on the brink of a golden age for screenwriters, who now have the opportunity to develop characters in depth, caught as they are in a kind of cultural aspic; in social isolation, with digital communication as their primary way of remining close to those they love.
I can think of half a dozen films made along similar lines to LOCKE, with just one or two central characters, though with the addition to Zoom to include other characters, that could provide a template for a new kind of low-budget drama in which Australia could be the leader, worldwide.
BINGE TV & THE INTERNATIONAL MARKETPLACE
ZOOMERS is a series which, for a comparatively modest budget, could be in pre-production within the next few weeks - making it thoroughly contemporary in terms of subject matter. If of high quality, and dealing in a fast-moving and entertaining way with the realities we are all living through right now, I believe that ZOOMERS (if first cab off the rank) could be ‘binge TV’ during the Australian winter. For it to be so requires a team of writers, directors and producers who can work fast; who can adapt to the changed circumstances in which we all now must work.
The development of ZOOMERS, to this point, has taken me five weeks. It will inevitably undergo many changes in subsequent drafts, when new writers join the team and when new characters come into being as a result.
IN CONCLUSION
Fast-moving, entertaining, challenging, confronting, outrageous, dangerous and often frivolous drama though ‘Zoomers’ will be (think “Twin Peaks”), beneath the surface there is a seriousness of intent. These kids, a microcosm of their generation, are asking the same questions, facing the same challenges we all face as we look to an uncertain future. The questions they ask are not that different from the questions all cultures have asked of themselves since time immemorial, and neither are the answers.
James Ricketson
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