Scorched tv

SCORCHED & THE CROSS PLATFORM WORLD

Hanging onto Channel Nine like a monkey on an elephant, 'Scorched' is the first domestic cross-media project in Australia that could pull the punters in the mainstream media zoo . The new Television drama coming out on Australia's Nine Netwrok is ready to show the world a new way to tell its story with one of Australia's first Cross Platform Drama.

SYNOPSIS

Sydney. Five years from now. There has been no rain in the catchments for 247 days. Warragamba Dam, Sydney’s main source of water, is at its lowest levels in recorded history. The state government has built a 250 megalitre desalination plant to “drought-proof” the city. At least, that was the promise…

David Langmore is the State Operations Commander for the National Fire Service (NFS). He rises on Christmas Eve to find that a combination of sustained drought, extreme weather conditions and lightning strikes has created a nightmare scenario - the worst bushfire conditions imaginable. Even with his years of experience, he is unprepared for what is about to unfold…and he knows that what goes down today will rest firmly on his shoulders.

Susan Shapiro (RACHEL CARPANI), a TV news journalist, has sensed that this day was coming. She has been trying to get to the heart of Sydney’s water crisis for months. But like David Langmore, she could never have imagined how the day’s events would involve her personally, nor how she would be caught up in the revelation of secret deals underpinning Sydney’s water management and electricity supplies.

Michael Francia , a doctor in Accident and Emergency, is also feeling the heat from very early in the day. The air in the city’s West is thick with smoke and he is struggling to keep on top of the growing number of respiratory admissions. If Michael thought going to work would deliver some breathing space from the tension at home, he was mistaken. Dealing with Emily (KATHRYN BECK), his teenage daughter from a previous marriage, is a breeze compared to the crises that comes pouring through the hospital doors.

By midday on Christmas Eve, the entire city is ringed by huge bushfires burning out of control. Mother Nature is on the warpath. It’s Armageddon. A state of emergency is declared.

The Premier, Angela Boardman , is a woman whose career - like the city itself - is teetering on the brink of disaster. It depends on the successful management of the bushfire crisis. But this is made increasingly difficult as secret deals she has done, and bad decisions she has made, begin to emerge.

Despite calls for calm, panic rises. More and more suburbs succumb to the flames. The city’s infrastructure groans under the pressure. Power lines melt. Communications go down. Hospitals are running on generators with limited fuel - and there is barely any water in the fire hoses to fight the fires. In the wash-up, hundreds of people have lost their lives and thousands have lost their homes. And the laying of responsibility provides no comfort for those who have lost loved ones and everything they owned.

Casting.

“The quiet strength and maturity that now has, was important for us for the David Langmore character. He’s a man in charge, but I really felt like I wanted to see not a naturally heroic kind of guy, or a naturally athletic sort of guy, but a kind of ‘everyman’ caught in a extraordinary situation and then seeing him cope with that. has brought some lovely nuances to that role,” Tony Tilse says.

was always first choice for the role of Michael Francia, the accident and emergency doctor. “On the page, Michael is mostly seen in one location, the hospital,” Kylie Du Fresne explains, “but at the same time, he is a loving family man and something of an action hero. That’s hard to do. We needed an actor with the energy and impact to not be constrained by the hospital environment. Vince always feels like a leading man, he’s bigger than the screen, if you like.”

Michael Francia’s wife, Lizzie, is played by Libby Tanner. “All casting starts with your wish list of who you would like in the roles, then you need to consider who is available, so you end up waiting on combinations of people. Part of casting is a kind of constant evaluating process,” Tony Tilse says. “Interestingly, with the Lizzie character, we weren’t sure about where that character was going to go, then we were talking to the casting agent and Libby Tanner’s name came up. I love Libby, I think she’s great. But the casting agent thought there might be a problem because Libby was six months pregnant. And it was just like, wow, that’s the missing ingredient for that character - she needed to be pregnant.”

The challenge in casting the role of CPN news reporter Susan Shapiro was to find an actress capable of news reporter delivery, as well as the emotionally charged moments in her story.

“You might think that being able to deliver like a news reader is simple, but it is actually one of the hardest things to ask actors to do,” Kylie Du Fresne says. “We had several amazing actresses audition, but then Rachael came in and read and there was kind of an innocence or naivety about her, that we hadn’t necessarily thought of. And she was absolutely the stand out for us, there was no-one else, there was no B choice or C choice it was Rachael and that was it.”

One of the last storylines to be developed was a major plot twist involving the Premier of New South Wales. , keen to take on a very different role at this stage of her career, immediately said yes when offered the part.

These lead actors are joined by a fine Australian ensemble cast including Les Hill, Kathryn Beck, Ally Fowler, Bob Morley, Brittany Byrnes, Ben Oxenbould, Anita Hegh, Nathan Page and Russell Dykstra.

SCORCHED - THE ONLINE WORLD

As well as the cast of the telemovie, the extended world of Scorched, via the on-line drama at , features up-coming actors Kate Bell and Zachary Garred. The on-line episodes will begin several weeks ahead of the television broadcast and will continue afterwards.

“Once you enter , you can follow a serialised drama (60 minutes of 2-3 minute webisodes) which unfolds on a daily basis. The prequel drama takes you, the viewer, right up to the very first scene of the telemovie. You can correspond and receive emails back from characters who exist in the future and watch faux news reports which involve all of our telemovie cast,” Marcus explains

“Web enthusiasts will be able to participate in an interactive conspiracy style investigation which will arm them with bonus material to enjoy one of the unfolding storylines in the telemovie.

“After the broadcast the drama continues with the sequel to the online story and continuing news reports. What happened on the fateful day? Why did it happen? What will happen to our main characters Cassie and Jade?

“The audience can then participate in forums to discuss how realistic the scenarios being presented to them were. Throughout the whole engagement with our audience can at any time use the site as a portal to other sites and forums where the themes and topics such as global warming, environmental sustainability, water scarcity etc are discussed.”

Producer Ellenor Cox describes the production process: “We linked these two aspects of Scorched - the television drama and the on-line component - incredibly well so that when we were shooting the telemovie, we would also have opportunities to film our cast for the online experience. Likewise, we were able to get cameos from some of our online characters in the telemovie as well. It’s a very ambitious and completely integrated project and that’s very exciting.”

Scorched, the tele-feature, and online experience, was produced with the assistance of the Nine Network Australia, the Film Finance Corporation Australia, the New South Wales Film and Television Office, Granada International, Sunday Night Movies and the Australian Film Commission.

Overview

To complement the broadcast on the Nine Network of Scorched, the tele-feature, the producers of have created the most sophisticated and innovative online drama experience yet devised for an Australian drama.

In the weeks leading up to the broadcast of Scorched and in the month after, audiences are invited into this future world without water through

Several weeks prior to the telemovie broadcast, www.scorched.tv will be launched. The main portal is CPN News, a futuristic 24-hour live news station broadcasting stories from 2012. Our CPN news anchors guide the audience through the headline stories of the week focusing attention on how the ongoing drought and water scarcity across Australia has permeated all aspects of life as we know it. CPN’s main reporter is Susan Shapiro who features in the tele-feature. Many of Susan’s interviews are with characters who we also meet again in the film.

CPN encourages the audience to send in stories and videos of what life is like for them in these hard times. These videos and postings are a featured part of the website and provide a novel way for the online community to interact with the future and to see their offerings posted on a high-profile website.

As the tele-feature credits roll a ‘to be continued online’ prompt appears. CPN News is reeling from the disaster that has struck Sydney and Cassie and Jade realise that they hold crucial evidence that implicate people at the highest levels. Over the next week or so Cassie’s story continues with dramatic twists in the tele-feature further detailed and resolved.

Tele-feature and Cross Platform Cross Over

Several key characters from the tele-feature including , Rachael Carpani, , Georgie Parker and Brittany Brynes appear in the online drama. The two main characters from Cassie Hoffman (played by Kate Bell) and Jade Hall (played by Zacharry Garred) also have cameo roles in two pivotal moments in the telemovie.

The faux news station in CPN (i.e. Cross Platform News) features strongly in the telemovie with its star investigative journalist Susan Shapiro (Rachael Carpani) appearing in both.

Nine news reader Mark Ferguson and Weatherman Mike Bailey also are involved in the project as the CPN anchors.

Goal & Aims

Scorched TV and its online portal aimed to show the major effects of Climate Change. Your typical "what if" movie. Along side this it show how the privatization of local commodities can effect its community on a grand scale

References

Citied 13-08-08

Citied 13-08-08

Citied 13-08-08

Citied 13-08-08

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