The Creation of Infamy
Infamy is a half hour televison drama telling the story of one mans desperate search to get on televison. The film was produced by Schadenfreude Productions in association with Panavision Europe. Directors Notes and Production Information can be found below.
Synopsis
Tom doesn’t really want to be famous. He would have been quite happy singing and playing the acoustic guitar in the local pub or at the station for the commuters. But when his wife Rebecca enters him for a reality TV singing contest his reaction is not what you might expect. A seed of ambition, the desire for approval and the determination you get from rejection make for a deadly combination. Once Tom realises that Television may just be the answer to the universal question ‘what are we all here for?’ his obsession takes a drastic edge.
Infamy is the tale of Tom’s innocence, stupidity and determination not to let his lack of discernible skills stand in the way of his calling to be a modern television deity.
Because if television has the answer then Tom may just be able to convince his wife to let him film them having sex so he can get it on the TV and if not his wife then perhaps his father in law.
Production Notes
Infamy began as an attempt to write a Bonnie and Clyde type story about a wide-eyed actress and a manic obsessive fame obsessed man she meets one day at an audition. She would become very impressed with him because of his ranting and would fall in love with him and follow him through his many and various attempts to get on TV. It was pointed out to Millerick by a friend that, ‘people don’t fall in love with people because they are impressed by their rants – they usually fall in love with people despite things like that’. So what had been a slightly dark comic piece lacking essential heart became a story about misguided ambition and seeking approval from those we love, and the film began to take shape.
Pre production on the project began in January 2008.
The film was filmed on Location in South London 14th-20th March.
Post production is scheduled for completion on the 19th June 2008.
Director's Notes
Infamy is a simple character piece that takes place in an exaggerated and stylized world. It is about the nature of obsession, unsatisfied and misdirected ambition, and our desire to be loved and respected.
There are two main characters in the piece Tom, a guitar playing bar manager who becomes entangled by his mis-directed ambition, and Rebecca, Tom’s patient but despairing wife.
The narrative of the piece is fractured. A framing device, in the form of two separate interviews with each of the characters, is used to allow the story to flow from the past tense into the present tense and convey the feeling of a well documented but multifaceted recollection.
The visual style of the film will mirror the fractured nature of the narrative. Using the full range of possibilities offered by the high definition format, the visual narrative will flow from a traditional cinematic frame into the sharp bright look of the reality TV programmes Tom is attempting to emulate. The visual journey the audience are taken through will reflect Tom’s appreciation of the world that surround s him as he becomes increasingly obsessed by the notion of his life as a TV programme.
It is an agreed and simple concept that an idea has the power to change the world. It is a source of some concern that this is often true of bad ideas just as regularly as it is of good ones. A really bad idea can be sold to the imagination of a poor unsuspecting soul just as easily, often times with greater ease, than a really good idea. It is an established and lamentable, that to achieve the promise of a good idea requires better judgment and harder work than getting whipped up by a bad one. This is one of the central themes of the piece.
Infamy is not and does not intend to be a social comment or a call to arms for people who don’t like reality television. I don’t have anything against reality television; I just found it provided an interesting subject for a story about an ambitious but misguided man in the midst of a personal crisis.
Panavision Genesis
In 2001 Panavision’s collaboration with Sony and Lucas Film produced the first feature film to be shoot entirely in High Definition, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.
With the introduction of the GENESIS camera system in 2004 Panavision yet again confirmed their status as a leading innovator in the field of Motion Picture Imaging.
Schadenfreude Productions are proud to announce that ‘Infamy’ has been shot exclusively using the GENESIS camera system.
Reality TV
Useful information on reality TV
One in ten young people would drop out of school to be on TV.
16% believe they will become famous.
The odds of being picked for a reality TV show and being successful afterwards are one in 30 million.
Those who take part [in reality TV] are considered odd or bizarre for wanting to do so, but they are merely products of a society that now holds fame above anything else. All cultural reference points are now rooted in being a celebrity, and not attached to having an intrinsic skill.
Professor David Wilson, who walked out as a consultant on Big Brother for ethical reasons.
Changing Rooms, presented by Carol Smillie, was the first DIY makeover reality TV show and was first broadcast in 1996.
Jennifer Lopez is the latest celebrity to sign up to star in her own reality TV series. The show will focus on her life as a working mother – how she manages with her career as a singer, actress and new mother.
Nine million people watched the final of BBC1's Any Dream Will Do – the latest in reality TV spearheaded by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Five of the most bizarre reality TV shows:
- The Big Donor Show (Netherlands) - a programme where a terminally ill woman will pick someone to receive her kidneys.
- Who wants to marry a US citizen? (US) – A dating show with a twist, immigrants compete to find a US wife and secure a US visa.
- Seriously, dude, I’m Gay (US) – This show involved two hetrosexual men trying to persuade friends, relatives and strangers that they were gay in return for a cash prize.The show was later scrapped after complaints.
- Who’s your daddy? (US)– People who had been adopted have to guess and pick who their real father was from a line-up of strangers.
- I want your child and nothing else (Netherlands) – It only lasted as a pilot show, but a Dutch network broadcast a trial episode where a woman searched for a sperm donor.
