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[agoodmanisdead]

The kangaroo generation prototype

By Lou Padi

We don’t know his name. He just calls himself“HIM”. I showed his video to my cousins and they liked him. They said his name is from that 2000s cartoon “The Powerpuff Girls”.

There’s a character with this same name and both are very, very similar. Then I thought, it makes sense, he is the live action version of this guy. The problem is: this guy isin his late 30s, not a 12 years old teenager.

HIM acts like an animated character, in a very exotic way, and mistrusts (spoileralert!) Winston’s reputation. Why would such a creature be invited to a tribute in memoriam of Winston? Oh, I forgot, he is the“entertainment strategy”! A round of applause for the Box225 showrunner! (I really have to control myself all the time while writing these articles.)

Well, HIM doesn’t look like he left his parents’home yet. He is not bad, he is just a pop culture addict who mixes reality, popcorn films and flat-earthers philosophy: a very dangerous mix. He looks like he has something important to tell us, but his credibility goes flushing down the toilet every time he laughs like a Disney villain.

At least, he is sincere and has an “exotic” flavor: he loves a good funeral. What else can we expect from HIM?

[agoodmanisdead]

Stop overacting!

By Lou Padi

She uses her voice in a very smart way to look like she is empathetic with Winston’s death. She says things to lead people to think that, one day, she was a serious politician. Believe me when I tell you, she is anything but serious. The audience is not dumb, my darling, and they can google your name anytime to find out what’s real (if it is) or fake about you.

Laura Mully was a deputy in a Brazilian conservative party that claimed they would restore the moral and good ways and “save the country from corruption”. She would perfectly suit the team of the current disastrous Brazilian president (himself executes this role with excellence, no allies needed).

Now, Laura is somewhat unable to mention aname (wtf?) and thinks she is again on the pulpit. No darling, you definitely are not in the parliamentand the role you’re performing is a true shame (I’m not ina good moodtoday, my dog is sick, my last Tinder trial ended up in ghosting and I’m still paying the statements of that shit red bag I bought on Saint Laurent).

So, I don’t have more words to say about this “lady”. I just have to say that theending of her speechis verystrange.

It is impossible to know if they did this on purpose, but surely “lady Laura” (spoiler alert) didn’t appreciate her cathartic speech being shortenedthatway.

Less drama, my darling. The show you are part of isnot a Brazilian 8 months soap-opera. Gather with Jane and start dancing at the TikTok.

[agoodmanisdead]

Poor Benjamin!

By Lou Padi

Is there anyone “normal” in the middle of these eccentrics? Yes, there is, and her name is Benjamin, Winston’s sister.

While Simone, his widow, is more interested incriticizing and revolutionizingthe social structures in order to get a warm chair at the University, Benjamin is the only one who is (at least apparently) truly sad about her brother’s farewell.

She is an aspiring scriptwriter, though. She says her brother’s history could be a book, which is true, as he was always travelling and getting awards for hisexotic pictures. However, it would be naive to say she is not worried abouther public portrayal.

In this show, we can expect anything from these ones, but they all want some minutes of fame, even thoughBox225 may not be ableto give them that notoriety.

Benjamin is just a mother of two children who is tired of being the only one looking after them, while the father is rarely athome, just like her brother used to do. Benjamin can be tagged as someone who is, in fact, sensible about the death of a good man.

Good luck in your adventures, Benjamin (don’t thanksme, I’m just in a good mood today.)

[agoodmanisdead]

Lights, camera… flop!

By Lou Padi

She starts her horror circus confidently singing a “particular” version of the Jay Livingston and Ray Evans classic “Que sera, sera”. (She says “will will”, I think I hear that).

In her mind, she is singing the lyrics correctly, with a smile at the end. Who is she? She is Jane, directly from “What ever happened to Baby Jane”, but without the talent of Davis and Crawford.

After a little research on her social media profiles (full of clichéd self-help quotes and boring selfies), we discover that Jane “Fuego” (nothing like a charming surname/nickname) has made, so far, only student short-films and, of course, looooads of extrawork(Don’t worry Jane, you’re famous, we noticed your foot in the crowd in that30 seconds bubble gum ad).

Ok, I’m being too harshon her. She had an affair with Oscar, a model, and she claims the merit for his career inthe modelling world. Shealso claims to have helped Winston to become the great photographer he was. I’ve never seen, in my whole life, such a humble, ethical and modest person like “Fuego”.

She is entertaining, I have to admit it.

We can laugh ather face while she begs her millions of fans around the world in order to get a main role in a film. For now, Jane, invest your creativity and energy on TikTok funny videos and stay happy with the bubble gum ads.

I love chewing bubblegum when I’m stressed.

[agoodmanisdead]

There’s something about Oscar

By Lou Padi

Charming and charismatic. Finally someone interesting I can say a fewgood things about. Oscar is a transgender model: this couldn’t be a spoiler. This detail is not to be used as bombasticinformation. If we talk about gender this way, the prejudgement will remain, and that’s not our objective here.

Compared toother participants, Oscar is an example of someone who is brave enough to say: “I’m not perfect and I’m not here because of Winston; I’m here because I want fame and notoriety, and I don’t care what you think about this”.

We couldn’t think otherwise: he is telling the truth. In the middle of the speech, his spontaneity is very oblivious. He just wants a fewminutes in front of the audience to say that “I’ve always been a man”.

I won’t say anything more about him. Enjoy and don’t forget to tell me your impressions (but Istill don’t like this show, okay? I can say good things about this, but this is just an extra job I’m enrolling in order to pay that red bag I bought last year at Saint Lourent).

[agoodmanisdead]

When nonsense is a sense

By Lou Padi

Take Frank Sinatra. Actually no, that’s too much. Take someone way less talented, and put himin a mixer with a car wash noise. Then, pour the productinto a cheap plastic cup. The result? This man called Dorian, an aspiring singer that thinks one day he’ll be able to pay his bills with his voice.Well, for now he is a bartender (or waiter? whatever, it really doesn’t matter)... poor clients!

In the show, he says that he “speaks the language of angels and demons...” Oh-my-god.

From which hell or heaven are those creatures from? He is so arrogant he keeps sayinggood things about himself thinking this way he will get hisbigchance in the showbusiness.

But he(very muchlike the others) totally forgets he is taking part in a funeral. When he finally remembers, he also remembers that it iselegant to say one or two good words about Winston, and his mask flies away, like an angel, or better, like a devil.

Instead of being pitch perfect, he presents us his most perfect, splendid, titanic, sonorous disaster.

Nonsense and out of reality. That’s what he is, a delusional guythat needs- urgently!- medical support in order to bring him back from the teletubbies world in his head.

At least, he is a bit entertaining: reader, you can show his video to your mother-in-law, if you don’t have any consideration for her mental health and want her far from your home.

[agoodmanisdead]

The “intellectual” (but not really).

By Lou Padi

There areno true intellectuals nowadays as there were inthe past. They’re now on the internet sharing memes and trying to be cool and pop. Nothing against that, we’re all humans.

But here I’m not referring to a normal person havingsome fun on the web. I’m talking about the people who proclaim themselves “intellectuals” and “academics” just because they have a degree in Literature.

Adiploma, definitely, is not a reliable proof of intellect(hello Talent Hunters!)

A Tribute To Winston, a low budget reality show streamed on BOX225, showsthat some contemporary “thinkers” are not veryworried about researching the next article to be published. This is the case of Simone Capitu, one of the participants. Actually, she is not working in any university.

She is fighting to get a chair in these sacred temples of reason and uses the reality show to get some public attention – in a very bad way. (You should go to Big Brother instead, dear “Sisi”).

I don’t want to spoil her revelation even though I amso tempted to and spareyou.

I just wish good luck to this poor woman, who is trying so hard by pitching her “private” life to the wrong audience.

She is an “intellectual", but doesn’t get that far.

[agoodmanisdead]

Cold eyes and a “forced” coincidence

By Lou Padi

The show is onair and we need to know what it is all about. How about a good host, charismatic, appealing and seductive? They wouldn’t go that far. Creativity is expensive and they don’t have that budget. To present the Tribute,they put a hotel receptionist to read a teleprompter and talk like a bot. This is Wendy (terrible “coincidence”with Stephen’s King’s The Shining).

The best momentof the boring first minutes is when thankfully things go wrong live during her speech. That’s the time when we wake up from this institutional presentation and, finally, watch a show.

I don’t want to accuse anyone, but there’s something weird about this long meditative staythey’re promoting… What would it take for someone to be in a hotel surrounded by snow for a couple of months? Where in Earth is this Sweet Cats Hotel? Mars?

What do they want to achieve by offering this “product” tothe viewers? What weknow so far is that the hotel is loadedwithWinston’s photographs, but there’s not a visible reason why. Why would ahotel pay this special, audiovisual tribute tohim?

We can’t see the connections yet, but everything is too forced to be believable.

[agoodmanisdead]

Don’t watch this show

By Lou Padi

There’s an explosion of streaming happening right now, in front of our still pandemic eyes, and the brave new ones who are aiming to go to this war certainly will need a minimum of market and marketing strategy or, at least, creativity.

Our eyes are being catch for all sort of series, films and reality shows. What’s next, so?

Well, we could certainly say this would be the “next”. The next step to the ground. Welcome to the world of the most perfect and trashy emptiness. Norrefreshing or challenging. It addsnothing at all to your life.

I’m still being polite here. At this right moment, I could just say: this is a joke, don’t waste your time watching this”, or things like that. Well… I just said. =)

What I’m talking about, therefore? If your plans are to watch “A Tribute to Winston”, let me save your precious time right now. I frankly believe I’m helping humankind this way.

It’s on a thing called “Box 225”. (a worsename for a channel couldn’t exist). They promise “a new world ofstreaming and independent content. Nice, creative, unusual”.

They need to use these adjectives themselves because it is clear that no one else would say that. To capture the attention of the audience, they’re using the death of the awarded photographer Winston Lumiére andtheplot is a kind of bizarre reality show where people are invited to pay a tribute to him. Just like that!

Sources close to Box225 say they simply received a grotesque email asking to participate. Just that! One of the participants was his wife, the academic Simone Capitu, who naively agreed toconnect to the event, trusting this could be a respectful, seriousevent in memoriam. An aspiring professor of a renownedFrench university in a reality show whose enrolling processwas just an email?

Other participants look like they just stepped foot on planet Earth and we’re going to talk about them in detail in the next articles. If you like bizarre things, take it. At least, it’s“for free”, so far. You won’t need to invest your money on such a “NatGeo”or “People and Arts”poor imitation.

I imagine how curious the next generations will be when they start studying this time of madness we’re living. How muchtime of our life we wasted, and brain cells we burnt, watching things like this.

Do yourself a favour: don’t watch it.

But if you do, tell me your opinion.

[agoodmanisdead]

At the wake, they talk about themselves

A Good Man is Dead, an international web series recorded by Zoom in the middle of the pandemic, features a group of eccentrics at an online funeral

The world's most famous, award-winning, beloved and idolisedphotographer, Winston Premiére, has just passed away and the circumstances of his death are still uncertain, as is his own burial. To honourthe artist, a group of people were invited to say a few words by the newest streaming service recently launched on the market, Box225.

The program “A Tribute to Winston” brings a series of testimonies about the photographer, and includes appearances by the widow, the aspiring university professor Simone (Anja Schilles) and her sister, the procrastinating writer Benjamin (Florencia Rios).

Beyond them is Jane (Anavi Ruiz), a decadent actress who claims to be responsible for taking the photographer's name to stardom; the waiter Dorian, who calls himself a singer-songwriter and with whom Simone had an affair in the past; Oscar (Evaldas Knezevicius), a trans model who is successful on social media; the eccentric and outsider HIM (Marcello Fidelis), someone who seems to live more in the deep web than in the outside world; and also Laura (Monique Angeli), an ex-politician who denounces being a victim of persecution.

The premiere program features Wendy (Valeria Rizzato), the troubled PR manager ofthe Sweet Cats Hotel, one of the establishments the photographer would have passed through during his wanderings.

backstage

Entirely recorded through Zoom, the webseries is a co-production of Brazil, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Lithuania, Ireland and Germany. Filming began in the midst of the 2020 pandemic and its creation process is being documented through Tumblr and Instagram. In addition to the episodes, available on YouTube, the production has transmedia content from Analitica News, a sensationalist tabloid that delivers acid and good-humouredcriticism about the showand where the public will find more details about the story and characters.

The seasons of the webseries bring different forms of interaction between the characters, as in the first, through monologues with direct and indirect external references; in the second, with dialogues in pairs, and in the following, with dialogues in groups. With a good dose of humour, “A Good Man is Dead”is the result of the effort and collective work of a group of artists separated by physical distance but united by digital conference tools.

“We wanted to overcome the barriers of proximity and remain creatively and artistically active, despite the limitations imposed by the isolation of 2020. The webseries uses nonsense and comedy to talk about topics such as freedom of expression, invasion of privacy and gender equality. Although the starting point and the development of the plot are in the pandemic, not even this name is mentioned. We talk about the pandemic without saying that we are in the pandemic”, points out Fausto Muniz, creator of the show.

“The protagonist of every web series is the late Winston himself. When I watched Hitchcock's original version of Rebecca, I was fascinated by the mystery and tension generated around a character who wasn't there, physically, but floated like a ghost every time her name was mentioned. From that point on, the characters were born with their own biographies, despite the relationship between them. They can exist without needing each other, because our purpose was to bring characters to life, regardless of the plot they were in.”

WATCH THE TRAILER!

[agoodmanisdead]

Every film has a soundtrack! A Good Man also

LAURA

The Womb

Sex Tape (2015) Remaster

HIM

Our Lady of the Flowers of the Red Night

Sypha Nadon

Disko of Shadows

OSCAR

R Stevie Moore

Tra la la la Phooey!

7. Why am I Here

JANE

Utopïa

La Flor del Otro

1. Las cosas más grandes

DORIAN

4. Olim lacus colueram

Dr. Phibes and The Ten Plagues of Egypt,

Carmina Burana

BENJAMIN

Boom crash crash

Big City Orchestra

12. fearless

SIMONE

Boom crash crash

Big City Orchestra

5. dembones

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"Everything is connected".

[agoodmanisdead]

The Winston's story (loads of spoilers ahead!)

Winston, a normal, ordinary photographer, became wordly famous when he started taking pictures of normal people in extraordinary ways.

He pictured Dorian, the struggling artist that worked as waiter for a cheap pricing restaurant; Oscar, the transmale model, introduced by Jane, her admirer and also model.

Winston was always travelling to get closer more and more of powerful and influential people around the globe.

He got awards, notoriety, getting attention from powerful ones who put an eye on his talents not only photographer and artist, but someone with human connections, as he was naturally skilled to get in touch with different people, letting them open to his lenses and words.

One of these guys worked for Jeff Bezos, at that time, the Amazon president. He was a dissident of Bezos investments and had the ambitious to be the next man of the most important brand in the world.

Of course, he wanted to have his own brand. Regardless his talents to businesses, this dissident lacked on human relationships.

When he met Winston, they became “friends” and soon he invited to work in a very, and dangerous, project, that he was engaged much before he left Amazon.

As this man had an extremely knowledge of marketing research, artificial intelligence and technology, he knew that, to start his impossible project, he needed the most important thing in the world: data, personal data.

He created the Cookies and Donuts, a beta project for what would be a kind of “marketing research company”, the first step on his quest to generate his own Amazon. This project, HIM, an "outsider", with connections to hackers and crackers in the deep web world, entitled “The Monster”.

Unhappy with his lonely, adventurous life, Winston accepted to be part of this initiative, but the invitation, to be reasonable, needed more than a simple “Yes”.

(!)

In order to vanish from the world, the photographer would need to pretend to be dead and work as a ghost, so he could get more privacy to steal illegal data, useful to sell for other companies at the criminal market.

After Cookies and Donuts, they founded the Sweet Cats Hotel, a silly name for a social laboratory able to gather costumers data and create people experiences to improve this goal.

They also created the Box225, a streaming service that would be offered “for free” and with different contents, not only fiction or documentaries. One of this contents was the online funeral, an experience personally developed by Winston in order to start his plans of social manipulation and private data stealing.

Winston decided to choose eight people to be part of this first episode. Some of them were personally related to him: his wife and his sister. The first one, the academic Simone, he lived with for a couple of years, but he was always travelling and he could never be present on her life properly.

The second, the curious and creative Benjamin, the older sibling, he had a deep and lovely connection with. For both women, he felt he could give them a chance to speak up their dreams to the whole world. And both women were great female representatives, good contemporary archetypes for his project.

Dorian, the artist, could be a good comic relief for the show and a charismatic figure with potential to catch audiences attention with his daydreaming and naive way of life’s perception.

Laura, the politician, could be a good smoke screen to his politics connections. Jane, one of his first famous client, could be a good representative for women in the 40s at the show.

He felt enchanted by Oscar, the young, consequentness male transgender model, that would be a good character to speak up about this subject and gather even more audience.

He needed a host and the young Wendy, just graduated public relations, could be a good one to work for him - with no questioning, of course. And last, but not least, HIM, the controversial, that would be a big deal that could work on the internet forums and social discussions, though unpredictable and anarchical.

All those characters would work well together as charismatic archetypes with inner dreams and voices, able to resonate worldwide. The more people watching, the more data to create new content and more precise digital and personal cookies to sell.

As they think they’re talking by themselves, they’re actually not. There’s a script for their talks, written by Box225, and that they need to follow, though the script is not clear: is unconscious, an experiment for the Cookies and Donuts algorithms.

The experiment, of course, would be out of control as HIM, despite having a lunatic and unpredictable personality, shows he was able to break the system and speak up the truth, by his ways, and Laura, the ex-politician, is attacked by a ghost that menaces Wendy about her past and her current engagement with this game.

[agoodmanisdead]

Chapter 3: Casting, professionalism and… some backstage stories

At the beginning of any journey, whereas you are an experienced on what you’re proposed to do or not, there’s load of uncertainty and unpredictability.

As I was just starting the project, everything was possible, specially not good surprises on the way. The moment I shared in the group that we would need help with things like digital marketing, production, edition and so on, things started to become different.

We had two actors out of the project. Both said they wouldn’t able to make it, as they had a busy life, with their jobs and personal stuff.

Then I talked with Valeria (Rizzato): "ok, we all have personal questions to do, and they are our priorities in our lives, we need to survive, pay the bills etc, but… we need to do what is needed to do! I mean, if we want to take our artistic careers seriously, we have to find time to develop it".

At this time, I was starting to be part of a Brazilian group called Integral Artist Community (Portuguese: Comunidade do Artista Integral, see how similar are these Latin originally words!) and one point that our mentor, Marcela, said is that we need to see our jobs, as artists, not like the other ones.

If we choose to be artists, professional ones, that want to make a living from that, we need to understand that our journey is quite different from the other ones.

In other words, we need to be entrepreneurs of ourselves, otherwise, the chances we live by our artistic careers would be close to zero, as we’d depend on selections, auditions, other people hire us (and for unknown, this is even harder, we all know that).

This way, we kept the track and tried to figure out how to solve this. Even the characters were created specially for these actors, things like that can happen at any production, and now I understand why other scriptwriters advise to not create a character for an actor (or exclusively for a specific one).

Thankfully, the new faces were right on the road, closer than anything and with a special touch: a spontaneous touch of comedy on their acting.

Anavi Ruiz, Spanish, I met during an Extra job in Ireland, when we exchange contacts and kept talk in the posterity. Marcello Fidelis (picture), Brazilian, I met during a stand up gig also in Dublin: my first and, so far, unique stand up comedy in English (or, at least, a trial). He was on the audience and did a good job on the stage.

I invited both and they were really open-minded to be part of the project.

Recently, I heard from an experienced producer, writer and actor, that the key to invite people for your artistic project (despite no budgeted) is to show professionalism. Today (10-08-21), as I was listening to the Stearable podcast at Spotify, I got even more confident about how reasonable is this.

Instead of just invite them to be part, I sent them the series bible. At that time, I had a document telling the AGID objective. Every series has one.

They read it and see that, even if they were investing their time with no money evolved, they were part of a serious project, not just an idea in the air. As they said YES, we booked a meeting and the process kept the track.

Baby Jane

After a few days, Anavi told me she was, unfortunately, unable to be part of it, as her parents were seriously ill and she had to stay closer to give support.

Note: I have to say that this project really changed myself not only professionally, but mainly personally. I don’t remember loads of experiences in my life where I had enough courage to command a group.

When the process started seriously, I had to be a leader. I had the ideas on my mind and everyone needed to be clear about them. I researche and this series would be my project for the master. There were no options. I had to move on.

So I just said to her: "Ana, really sorry about your situation, I totally understand; just think a little bit more about your decision. We won’t take loads of hours of your life. We can handle it easily, no pressure".

She apologized and left.

I started to look for another actress to Jane’s role.

A few days later, she texted me asking to be part again.

She still on the project and her performance, as Jane, is outstanding. She is naturally funny, expressive and flexible to hear directions. A talented, intellectual and professional artist. The egocentric and feeling hurt Jane is on good hands.

Jane’s character is directly an inspiration from Robert Aldrich’s 1962 classic “What ever happened to Baby Jane”, which shows a falling actress who fights to not accept her career ending.

Jane's character not only aims to be an aesthetics inspiration from the film and its respective psycho-biddy genre, but herself has a very own voice: she claims about film industry prejudice against mature actors.

Backstory

In A Good Man Is Dead, Jane, in the past, lived her golden years in theatre and low-budget films, but her egocentric personality took her to be evolved with controversial stories in the backstage of the productions she was evolved.

She met the photographer Winston Lumiere still on his earlier professional years. Not experienced, he took loads of pictures of her with almost no payment. In exchange, she introduced him to other people.

Because of this, she claims she was “responsible” for his rise in the artistic world and that he left her after his take off (she talks this during her monologue in the “zero” episode / pilot).

Years later, to survive, Jane has to work as an Extra. Her connection with “Dorian” (my character) starts when she meets him in a cheap restaurant in Dublin, where both live.

Dorian (I’ll talk about him in other chapter) works as waiter and sings jingles for almost each client who pops up to have a meal on his place. He creates old-fashioned-styled songs for people with a little or any patience to listen, as they are hungry. One of this is Jane, that eats on his restaurant only because of the prices.

Jane also is connected to Oscar, a transmale model (deserves a special chapter). She falls in love with him and, just like Winston, introduces him in her social circle. He rises in his career and they break off as soon as he gets notoriety. The story repeats and she complains about his narcissistic personality all the time (as if herself wouldn’t be a narcissus one).

Jane is naturally funny and a complex character. Whoever I showed the 1st season trailer, people were really delighted by Ana’s performance. Jane/Ana is a promising character with a huge potential to get laughs from audience (even I’m thinking to reserve her some dramatic moments, in a way to give her a balance on the comedic tone).

A new Laura

When I thought that finally we could begin, we had one more rock on the road. The actress who would perform Laura, the mysterious, noir-styled politician, was totally mute on the group. She rarely said one word on the whatsapp. For myself, she took days to answer and I had to insist constantly to have her response.

At that time, the monologues were already shared between all the components. Time was going by and I didn’t want it to take longer than necessary.

So I was talking directly with each one, giving them support on their questions, actively. This actress silence took me to have a little word with her and say a see you soon.

I told her she could be part on the project in another moment (as we have one more female character to be part in the last season). She didn’t say anything, as usually. Goodbye, little princess.

Laura’s role was now looking for another woman. It had to be an actress with some sex-appeal, as the reference for Laura was born from the noir crime films.

In my mind, one more friend: Monique Angeli. Brazilian, I met her during an acting workshop placed in a Dublin’s bar underground (The Dublin Actors Workshop).

A few months later, we were sharing an apartment with other mates, between Brazilians and Mexicans (my entrance on this house is a film itself. I need write personal memories urgently).

Though Monique had a not long formation on acting, she was naturally funny, sarcastic, like if with a spontaneous theatrical mood/personality. That was the most important.

I offered the role. Nervous and Anxiously, she agreed, and a few days after, she promptly record Laura’s monologue, in a very good shape. And she is still with the group and loving the crazy surprises we’re creating for the story and her character.

After Ana, Monique and Marcello’s integration, we could carry on.

And in the next chapter I’ll talk about the adventure of not only be an actor and writer, but the experience of being a director. The actors needed someone to help them to explore the nuances and internal characteristics of the persons they were acting.

The role to do this was up to me (but Valeria Rizzato helped me substantially on this goal, and she deserves a special chapter as well, with her “Weirdo Wendy” and her participation on all the steps of A Good Man Is Dead”).

SEE YOU SOON!

AND, OF COURSE: TO BE CONTINUED

(let's keep this vintage charming sentence).

[agoodmanisdead]

Chapter 2: We have a synopsis! (really?)

Anything new you want to start in your life, demands even more energy. And, believe me, it’ll to demands even more. The difference later is that you know a little bit more where and when you need to put your energy harder.

The moment I started writing the project, we had just the intention of keeping us busy and artistic creative during a catastrophic moment in the humankind. Artists, definitely and specially the performative/dramatic ones, suffered a lot from all the social restrictions. Actors were incredibly impacted by all this prison. Actors need a stage, no exceptions.

Without this possibility, we had to move ourselves to a “new” stage. The online stage. But our idea, at first, wasn’t to create a play to be performed on camera. We thought that we could create a series of videos where everyone in the group might perform. As I was studying cinematographic genres, I was really interested in the film diversity.

So, these were the three first drafts of plots that we might perform:

COMEDY- 8 actors who want to make a desktop movie and have no idea of how to do it. They wrote their own scripts – monologues – with one premiss: they have to be based on each other impressions. When they start the rehearsals, they feel themselves exposed through their scripts and conflicts installs.

DRAMA– A jury has to decide the destiny of two children in the middle of a couple divorce. One group supports the father and the other one the mother. As the discussions gets warmer and warmer, they lost the civility and start arguing not more about the case, but about each other’spolitical and social judgements.

THRILLER\MYSTERY - An indoor online funeral in the middle of the pandemia. 8 people, between parents and friends, share their stories about the person who is just dead. Throughout the relates, they start suspect that the person can be not the same. Can it be a strange?

I can’t remember exactly why did we like more of the third one. The third one looked like easier to share the roles between everyone. The moment they choose this one, I started working deeper on a plot. So, one more time, the moment I’m writing this diary (tired, lack of sleep, like many adults between 25 and 60), I can’t remember how I ended up on this project, that follows (update: 23/07):

A good man is dead

START: A COFFIN… 8 PEOPLE RELATED TO THE DEAD… AN ONLINE FUNERAL… A STRANGE ULTIMATE STREAMING SERVICE OFFERED BY A VIDEO PRODUCTIONS COMPANY.

Synopsis

WinstonLumiére (George Orwels’ 1984)is gone. Nobody knows the reason, but most people think is related to the coronavirus outbreak. He was only 36 and afamous Englishphotographer who travelled around the world taking pictures of normal and famous people.

He was in love by the human nature and its variety, unpredictability and idiosyncrasies. With only 31, he won his first photography award, and this became a sequence of other ones in a row, year after year.

Besides, Winston was a journalist devoted to talk to strangers, create unusual friendships and trip into different and contrasting social levels. He went into the poorest one to the high stakes of society, in a charming, lovely and charismatic way. This exciting and free way of living allowed him to meet loads of people.

On the other side, it had its price. On this funeral, 8 people were invited to pay a tribute to him on a live recording. However, they have no idea who is behind of this invitation and which company is this.

The background story of each character is a story itself, in a particular way. I wanted to explore and use different personal, cultural and intellectual references in each one’s development and personality. Thereafter, as the project has been growing, obviously, I had to change some points on each one’s biographies, but, essentially, they remain the same so far.

The reason from most characters are Irish is that most of the cast met themselves in Dublin and are currently living there, though, afterwards, this territoriality was an unnecessary point.

Plotline:

Eight people are invited to pay a tribute in an online funeral to Winston, a young famous photographer, when they suspect this is a plan to get their personal informations.

Hiswife just discovered she istwo month pregnant. Simone Capitu (de Beauvoir, French, Capitu, the Brazilian Machado de Assis’ most famous character)met Winston when he was travelling to France.

They met during a contest in the middle of the Paris streets. He took pictures of her and then they started to date. He felt in love for her strong support to the feminist ideas, her passion for a cause, for human rights and against poverty.

She loved his adventure and wild way of living, his sensibility and always empathetic perception. She had no time to say about the pregnancy,regarding is unsure who the child father actually is.

She wonder if the father is Dorian (Gray), an Irish bohemian buskering singer that she met during a terrible performance of him at the Dublin’s Grafton Street. Dorian’sdream is to be a professional singer and make a living onthis. To get some money, he works calling people to eat in the restaurant where he works.

Dorian wants to be the father of Simone’s baby as a strategy to get public notoriety, but he is confused about the ethical problematic about that. At the end, he will regret of his pursuit and start studying on an arts school in order to improve his artistic skills, when finally he’ll figure out his path to the fame. (this subtext is still being developed – update: 23/07)

One of this mates was Jane(Baby Jane), a frustrated musical actress who feels miserable to be forced to have a meal in a popular restaurant. She was portrayed by Winston and feel sorry about his dead, evenshe complains about his preference for other famous actress that avoids to mention hername.

Jane is in love for Oscar (Wilde), who was portrayed by Winston as well. He is a young transgender bisexual male model, who is just starting his career at the fashion business. He uses his personal charm and sex appeal with the objective to go further into this industry, and has no reserve in talking openly about what he got used to refer as his “flexible” ethics.

Oscar is divided between the love of Jane and the love of Wendy (Torrance), a weirdo hotel director who promised him to get in touch with the most celebrated models agency in the world. Wendy uses a strange technology that allows him to watch inside all his guests room, in order to satisfy his voyeur desires and get personal details to theultra-secret company where he works to.

This corporation sells algorithms to other companies in order to manipulate populations consume and emotional trends and was Wendy who offered this “online funeral service” looking to get private informations.

One of Jack’s guest was Laura (Mulvey), a provocative Brazilian ex-politician, that moved to Europe after a disastrous career and started to get evolved withexcused business. She is hidden on the hotel, as she met him before his death, running from a dangerous mafia that was using her to get favours from its targets with lobby, extortions and similar crimes.

She is tired of having to "use her body" to manipulate men and reach what the mafia wants, but wants to use public notoriety to her self benefit. As the hotel is a phantasmagoric place, she got possessed by a spirit that is trying to dissuade Wendy from her connection to Winston’s businesses, but actually desires her sexually. Wendy will be murdered on the last episode and crime will be expose 225Flix and Cookies and Donuts into an ending crisis.

In the middle of those impossible connections, there is Benjamin (Private Benjamin), simply the sister of Wiston, who has no idea what all those people are doing on this online funeral and why she accepted the strange invitation to do it, despite she knows her brother’s notoriety.

She is a school secretary and an auspicious scriptwriter with two children that dream to be Youtubers and live the adventures as his dead uncle used to live. She uses her epic imagination to distract them with adventures while complains about her husband absence and incapacity to be a father.

And last, but not least, we have HIM, a negationist, who clams to have dangerous informations about Winston. Slasher films addicted, he is a reactionary fanatic that wants to prove that Earth is flat, the History is wrong, and everyone is just manipulated by external and fantastic forces. He lives with his parents, is addicted to the Powerpuff Girls and uses this nickname because of the homonymous villain.

Is there and end to this “story”? The correct answer is: we don’t know. There are short stories directly or indirectly related to the same guy. We have an ending with all the characters singing together and showing the process of making a film this way. (about this, we changed, as the story, as any other, needs an end; so, even the end might not be the “final” end, is an end “for a while”_update: 23/07)

As you can see, the plot is mixed with different influences that don’t have a clear or logical connection. As I mentioned, I wanted to use the academic knowledge in a practical way. I wanted to “transform” the discussions and classes in an entertainment product. And that’s the result so far. References keep growing and changing and I'll explain better each one in the next chapters.

With this plot, at least, we had a story. Not “perfect”, but we had a starting point. Amateur or not, we could, again, TO ACT.

TO BE CONTINUED

[agoodmanisdead]

The Story of the Story

Heeellooo!!!

My name is Fausto Muniz. I’m a Brazilian scriptwriter and actor at the webseries A Good Man is Dead, which is being developed with a group of 8 out-of-mind people from different countries: Brasil, Italy, Spain, Germany and Lithuania (so far...).

I’m sincerely thankful for the patience, hard-work and personal engagement of each one: Valeria Rizzato (Director Assistant/Actor), Anja Schille (Actor), Anavi Ruiz (Actor), Evaldas Knezevicius (Actor), Monique Angeli (Actor), Florencia Ríos (Actor), Marcello Fidelis (Actor) and Tata Lobo (Director of Photography/Editor). During this diary, I’ll talk about all these talented and promising stars.

(PS.: sorry for some mistakes in English or expressions that can sound nonsense: this is not my native language and sometimes I can think in Portuguese and write in English and not always I’ll have the help of a reviewer...).

Anyway, this is the first article of a diary that I’m developing showing the creative and personal process in the production of this webseries.

Here, I hope to register the ups and downs, ideas, mistakes and all the stories behind the creation of this story.

First of all, before of everything, A Good Man Is Dead is being more than an adventure: is a process of personal growth, much harder that I thought that could be since the first day where I started writing the initial lines for what was born just like a series of funny videos in the middle of pandemic.

There’s so much stories to tell… but, let’s start from the very beginning… in a time where everyone in the world was surrendered by an invisible monster. A monster that still on the air and changed human relations with unlimited consequences…

Chapter 1:

The end of the world

Alone in a student republic placed in a very-very small city in the countryside of Portugal, "Covilhã", I was looking the world being eaten by an invisible monster never ever heard or seen.

Coronavirus pandemic forced everyone to stop in their houses while scientists were still looking for answer about what the shit was that. My stage play was over. Friends were coming back to Brazil and I had no good expectations about almost anything.

As many people, I was almost getting depressed, despite I was fighting everyday, inside me, to keep myself sane, mentally healthy, creative and minimally balanced.

I had a master to carry on, exams, articles to study, so much stuff to be dedicated. However, I still had no project to show.

There was nothing in my path as an interesting subject to hardly work for a long as my final project. One more thing: no money, at all, just some bucks on the bank to help me be alive for the next months, as there were no jobs anywhere. Crazy, madness, insane, hopeless times (I love my dramatic verve…)

In the middle of this storm, in a not so grey day (this makes sense in English?), my group of theatre from my last course, at the Gaiety School of Acting (Ireland), a Dubliner school of drama, were talking some shit I can’t remember.

Impulsively, I just said: “hey guys, I’m a scriptwriter as well. If you want, I can write something to us perform in our homes.

At least, we’ll have fun and get some practice and stop this negativity keeping ourselves busy” (not really, I didn’t say all those positive and uplifting things; I just said the second sentence, I think).

I wasn’t expecting anything. After some minutes, almost everyone said YES. And I said, OH, MY, GOD. I always felt the “eccentric” guy of this group.

I had always an inferiority complex because I felt myself less than they, as the only Latin American, Brazilian, with not that good English, not so confident.

(I remember, before every class, I used to feel really anxious, because I knew I was going to be exposed, otherwise, I have ADHD – Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, which means that I’ll understand the things only by the half, what can be funny sometimes, but I’m hard working on that today...).

At least, I’m impulsive. I use to jump myself in some places even I don’t know if there’s a ground over there to keep myself safe.

The guys said yes and I started working minutes after…

TO BE CONTINUED...

[agoodmanisdead]

Box225: the newest streaming service of entertainment is on and it first show is... A Tribute to Winston, where a group of 8 people talk about this great photographer, dead in ambiguous circumstances. But there's something unclear: how could people enjoy a reality show just through a mediocre email? Who is the owner of this company? Where do they from? Who is behind this message? Lou Padi and her Analitica News articles, in the Entertainment section, will try to understand these strange questions.

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