So… this script should have only taken a couple of weeks… and left to its own devices, probably would have. And then, me and Mr. Script had a difference of opinion about how this story (or this part of the story) should end.
Mr. Script wanted a down beat urban apocalypse with blood on the streets, while I wanted a note of hope, a glimmer of light at the end of a journey of dark discovery.
The script started ‘life’ as a 6 part web series (6 x 10 minutes) and was devised to allow real world events to be incorporated into the established narrative. The series (and script) are set in a world devastated by a global financial crisis. The lead character is a journalist.
The story begins after the journalist, Paul, has realised the crisis might not be quite what it seems. Both scripts go straight into the action as Paul, in conspiratorial circumstances, is forced to hide from the authorities.
We grow to understand why as we see Paul piece together key events in the unfolding (real world) crisis with seemingly connected (and very similar) past events that he’s been researching.
Paul’s been looking into ‘The Business Plot’, a 1933 Senate committee found evidence to suggest there was a conspiracy to overthrow Roosevelt and replace him with a fascist dictatorship. The plotters are alleged to include Prescott Bush (yes, that family of Bushes) along with banks and leading corporate brands.
Additional sources further allege that the crash of 1929 was engineered to provoke the right mood and circumstances to garner support for the coup. The plot failed (obviously), but no further action or investigation was taken against the suspected conspirators.
In the script, Paul then follows the fortunes of the alleged conspirators and easily learns they (or their heirs) went from strength to strength, ever increasing wealth, power and political influence through lobby and ‘think tanks’.
Paul’s investigation leads to various ‘think tanks’, including the Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderberg, the Council of Rome, Rand, Adam Smith, Fabian and many others.
Paul discovers not only how influential these organisations are when it comes to economic and political policy, but also when it comes to influencing the careers of ‘democratically’ elected politicians.
The most influential ‘think tanks’ are run by central banks, global corporations and, very importantly, mass media (which is far easier to manage when a single corporation runs multiple outlets).
In effect, Paul discovers, a select few of these ‘think tanks’ effectively pre elects, by vetting, all the senior members of all the major political parties. It really doesn’t matter who you vote for, and not because the government always wins but because the ‘think tanks’ always win.
Not only that, Paul discovers the lengths and (depraved) depths other groups (who may or may not be associated with the ‘think tanks’) go to which ensure a politician’s indebtedness and loyalty to unelected ‘secret leaders’.
Some of Paul’s discoveries come from the further reaches of conspiracy, except, that’s where things started to get difficult.
The script, as outlined during October/November 2010, was formed around a fictional chain of events, engineered by a cabal of bankers and corporations, with media collusion, that would lead to the overthrow of the Western world by a fascist ‘elite’.
The glimmer of hope in my version of the script was that, because so much of the plan/conspiracy needed engineered consent (through media manipulation), that Paul (as a journalist with symapthetic friends still in the media) was able to put a sufficiently large spanner in the works to delay proceedings.
The idea was to weave real world events into the fictional conspiracy, to effectively co-write the script with life as it happens.
However, as time passed, the parts of the script being written by ‘real life’ were either moving faster than I could keep up, or were just so far fetched they mademy fiction seem mundane… either way, ‘real life’ events made it increasingly difficult for Paul’s fictional spanner to arrive in time.
So, the plan became a re-write with a new spanner for Paul to wield in the hope that this one has greater effect… Which is about where it’s at as of now…
