ScriptGenerator - Softcover

Vasset, Philippe

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1852428627 ISBN 13: 9781852428624

Verlag: Serpent's Tail, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

To be profitable, a book, article or comic strip must have the potential to be rapidly converted into a screenplay, a video game or a television programme, which in turn would also be interchangeable: the ideal situation would be if all three could run in tandem. Each product is then submitted to a treatment made up of episodes, which can be rotated pretty quickly: sequel, series, foldback, revenge. Merchandising of course would form part of the process and would include models, clothing, gadgets, etc.
You already know all this; this is bread and butter to you. You also know, faced with an increasingly vast and sophisticated market, that current production units operate on an outdated model. The human factor is overvalued, economies of scale are non-existent, and more often than not costs cannot be compressed.
This for one reason only: the production line lacks continuity. Content is still manufactured in two distinctive stages: first, that which is generally referred to as the 'creation', the realm of the 'artist', and, second, the process of manipulating the content (manufacturing, marketing and distribution), which is your group's forte. The tool presented in this manual has been designed to put an end to this anachronism and, to introduce a completely integrated industrial process, one in which the conceptualisation of the product is but one stage in the mechanised manufacturing process. It is ridiculous to allocate millions of dollars to the 'creation' when this part of the production process can be replaced beneficially by a judicious and systematic recycling of two thousand years of narratives, maturing in libraries, archives, data bases.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Philippe Vasset is 30 years old. He edits the investigative newsletter Africa Energy Intelligence, based in Paris. He worked as a corporate detective in the US before becoming a journalist and, in 1993, won the prize of Best Young Writer awarded by the French daily Le Monde. Following his debut ScriptGenerator©®T, he has already written a second novel.

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ScriptGenerator©®T by Philippe Vasset

Leadtext: Diamond
I have been meticulously unravelling what lies beneath the surface for the last few months, before the others perforate the soil to lay down the galleries. The atmosphere is close, dust and insects fill the air.

Above the mine's crater, shafts of sunlight mingle amongst the trees creating a luminous network which emanates from the clouds of dust, a shimmering spectre of the tunnels which extend beneath the Central African jungle.



I am not the engineer responsible for this operation, far from it. I merely pieced together a geological map from samples recovered from the site. That was what I was employed to do. I was asked very few questions, and I, in turn, scaled down my requirements considerably. I am housed on site, in the sheet metal shack in which I work. I never voice my opinion on the running of the works, and limit all contact with the mine's managers as much as possible. I am no more sociable with the workers, whose language I don't even speak. I live the way I lived in prison; my one luxury is to sleep outside whenever it is not raining. My discretion is appreciated in this world obsessed with secrecy, and more than once they have alluded to other opportunities which would come my way. I don't have much choice; there is no work for me.



The comings and goings of the machines, the explosions and the subsidence unearth dust constantly. We live enveloped in the folds of a sheet of dried powder, in an intermediary world between air and matter. Fear of suffocation is ever present, both above and beneath the soil. The red cloud which hovers above the site can thicken at any moment, and immure us alive. Dispersed by the slightest wind, the dust is transformed into mud whenever it rains. It then dries in the sun. The levels rise with each shower. My shack, originally positioned on dry land, now rests in a bed of mud, sometimes hard, sometimes malleable. After the rain, small mounds, formed by whatever objects the soil has covered over, litter the site. The following day, we use a pickaxe to break down these heaps in order to recover whatever was taken, possessions which have become relics. If one does not act immediately, the next storm will submerge them further into the soil. Every inch of this terrain is significant, whether it harbours gems compressed millions of years ago or geological relief of the night before last. Little by little we become fossilized.



I was dismantling one of these mounds when I came across my predecessor's possessions. A variety of tales was told about this heap. It was sometimes referred to in hushed tones as the mausoleum in which three workmen were caught stealing stones. No one wanted anything to do with it.



On a rare occasion when I had some free time, I gathered together a fine collection of debris disfigured by the humidity and the earth; these objects were not fine merely because of the exotic materials they were made of but also because of the events they conjured up. I was too curious to be impervious to what might lie hidden beneath this ossified evidence. Only two cardboard boxes lay hidden beneath the soil, they were squashed and contained exercise books, magazines and some clothing. No one knew what had happened to the owner. He had been recruited in Guinea, had just completed a research project on metal deposits on Mount Nimbi, and wanted to stay in the area. He had worked in Sierra Leone for a while before the civil war intervened, forcing the Company to abandon the mines in the region to the rebellion, and concentrate on other licenses they held in central Africa. He must have been Swiss or Belgian and his name was Jean.



Inevitably, this vague image would soon become blurred. In Guinea, he was employed by Mano Iron, who knew him as a Canadian called Pierre. The people who employed him had left the Company and so the road trail ended there. There was no evidence of his stay in Bangui on any immigration list. The only address for him was a Box Number in Monrovia, a town which was also his financial residence.



In one of the boxes, there is a plastic folder. It contains a piece of paper printed on both sides, carefully detached from what must have been a slim manual. The paper is thick, laminated and wrinkled with creases. No illustrations; just a few black dashes, dots and indents for paragraphs which structure the content. The background is a watery green colour, through which looms a blurred photograph of some tropical undergrowth. The text is perfectly legible.



"Everything has been said." This mantra of artistic circles, you, entrepreneurs, can use to your advantage. If everything has been written, filmed, and acted, if the flow of stories has effectively come to an end, it means that narrative has finally become raw material, a commodity. Therefore its treatment can be mechanized. This manual will demonstrate how this can be done.



Initially in possession of one or two media, you now own several: newspapers, publishing houses, film studios, television channels, sports teams. Consequently, you are subjected to increasing numbers of constraints in an increasingly competitive environment. You should be launching content which can be exploited in several, if not in every one of your subsidiary companies.



To be profitable, a book, article or comic strip must have the potential to be rapidly converted into a screenplay, a video game or a television programme, which in turn would also be interchangeable: the ideal situation would be if all three could run in tandem. Each product is then submitted to a treatment made up of episodes, which can be rotated pretty quickly: sequel, series, foldback, revenge. Merchandising of course would form part of the process and would include models, clothing, gadgets etc.



You already know all this; this is bread and butter to you. You also know, faced with an increasingly vast and sophisticated market that current production units operate on an outdated model. The human factor is over valued, economies of scale are non existent, and more often than not costs cannot be compressed.



This for one reason only: the production line lacks continuity. Content is still manufactured in two distinctive stages: first, that which is generally referred to as the "creation", the realm of the "artist" , and, second the process which flows the content into the different forms (manufacturing, marketing and distribution), which is your groups' forte. The tool presented in this manual has been conceived to put an end to this anachronism and, to introduce a completely integrated industrial process, one in which the conceptualisation of the product is but one stage in the mechanized manufacturing process. It is ridiculous to allocate millions of dollars to the "creation" when this part of the production process can be replaced beneficially by a judicious and systematic recycling of two thousand years of narratives, maturing in libraries, archives, data bases.



It is time to exploit rather than succumb to this accumulation of material, which makes the creators, whom you pay so dearly, giddy.



This is the purpose of our presentation. The tool we describe, the software ScriptGenerator©®T allows the user to exploit all narrative stock rationally and generate a competitive product, which meets the needs of the market.



ScriptGenerator©®T is revolutionary in that it obliterates the "creative" process, or more specifically, it transforms the production of content into one long treatment of raw material. This new tool will finally strip the entertainment industry of its unique status; it is the only industry which still develops a product from nothing, ultimately it will be transformed into a genuine industry, one which transforms commodities. It is the story, the narrative already mature which is the raw material and not language.



ScriptGenerator©®T has not been thought up by artists, not even by "members of the Profession". We are simply entrepreneurs, graduates of the commodities market, the most ruthless school in existence. Two of us were originally petroleum engineers. Three others have worked on the Chicago Stock Exchange and another on the London Metal Exchange. As for the Chairman of our Board, he started out as a geologist before pursuing his career in cocoa futures.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Serpent's Tail
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1852428627
• ISBN 13: 9781852428624
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 112
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar