Finacialgeddon

Financialgeddon

a short film
by Mike Mallory

(Opening Credits scroll up. Following the Opening Credits there is an electronic noise as though someone just changed the channel on a television set. The scene changes to a cable news desk with News Anchor seated to the left and Expert seated to the right behind a table both facing just slightly oblique to the camera. Both characters are dressed in business attire.)

NEWS ANCHOR
Can you bring our viewers up to speed with the worsening financial picture?

(The camera pulls back and it becomes apparent that the scene with the News Anchor and the Expert is taking place on a television mounted near the ceiling in a bar. The camera slowly pulls back during the following dialogue, which will bring a man, seated at the bar with his back into the shot. The man is brought into the frame on the right side of the shot. The camera still moving slowly behind the Man at the Bar will move to the his right side so that the television is now on the right side of the Man at the Bar instead of the left side. The camera, which has been higher than the head of the Man at the Bar, begins to dip to the level of the bar and it moves forward finishing camera movement with a TIGHT ON shot of the right profile of the Man at the Bar when the dialogue between News Anchor and Expert reach the word “Financialgeddon.” Once the shot focuses on the Man at the Bar, the dialogue between News Anchor and Expert becomes a Voice Over.)

EXPERT
The financial picture is beyond desperate. We are looking at a complete collapse of the entire economy.

NEWS ANCHOR
What’s left of the stock market?

EXPERT
The markets are not just down, they are done. Stocks and bonds are worthless.

NEWS ANCHOR
What are the chances that things will bounce back?

EXPERT
I really can’t imagine how that might happen at this point. The entire financial system has collapsed and I don’t believe it can be restarted. I’m afraid that any new financial structure will have to develop from scratch, perhaps based on a simple barter-exchange format.

NEWS ANCHOR
This is devastating for investors.

EXPERT
Not just investors, financial security has been lost. Retirement, 401(k) and pension accounts are all gone.

NEWS ANCHOR
What is the condition of the banking sector?

EXPERT
I don’t believe there is single bank that will be able to open its doors in the morning.

NEWS ANCHOR
What does this mean for the account holders?

EXPERT
At this point their accounts have virtually disappeared: checking, savings, CD’s, they’re all gone.

NEWS ANCHOR
Has something like this every happened before?

EXPERT
No. Even with the fall of Rome, there was a continuation of trading based on precious metals and commodities. What we are seeing here is beyond a recession or a depression. A new term had to be coined in order to describe what has happened. The name coming out of M.I.T. is Financialgeddon.

(Man at the Bar has rheumy eyes, bad teeth and stubble on his face. He looks like he has been sitting at this bar for most of his life. He is wearing a well-used baseball cap. In front of him are a glass of hard liquor and a cigarette burning in an ashtray on the bar. His expression is blankly passive.)

NEWS ANCHOR
So, the average American has been ruined.

EXPERT
All Americans have been ruined.

NEWSANCHOR
All the money people put away for the future, gone! The sacrifices people made to save for the future have been for nothing.

EXPERT
That’s right. People would be just as well off today if instead of saving and investing for their retirement, they just pissed away all their money sitting in a bar every day.
(Man at the Bar slowly breaks into a sardonic grin that holds until the end of the scene. Volume on voice over fades.)

NEWS ANCHOR
Thank you. And when we come back, I’ll be talking to the President’s Economic Advisor.

(Angle On cigarette smoke rising into the air. Everything else is out of focus. Closing Credits scroll up with smoke.)



© 2011, Mike Mallory