A Short Film About the Future of the Idol Franchise by risa
[A young girl narrates over long shot moving into a not-too-futuristic city. The shot comes up along an urban ave, like McGill College in Montreal, or maybe Bay St. in Toronto, and on the sides of all the buildings are screens like in Bill Gates' house. It's a bright, sunny day, and the hot dog and ice cream vendors are out]
“We didn’t know then how quickly it would happen. The big change that was coming was right in front of our eyes, I guess, when 6 billion people voted for World Idol that year, and the Arab Idol and Isreali Idol were asked to sing Avril’s “Complicated” by their hundred million fans.”
[they sing, and they start to get really into it, and people watching it on TV laugh and laugh, and so do the Idols and judges]
“We gossiped in the thousands on blogs and forums, we chatted with our phones secretly concealed. All the technology was in place for a major kid-coordinated revolution, but it was only when a mysterious challenge was sent around calling for a pillow fight flash mob to say ‘kids should get to vote’ that we started to see what we could do.”
[flash mob pillow fights]
“These things were happening all over the world.
And some kids said- lets try and write a whole new global constitution! Organize committees out of who wants to help, and donate our teen-powered, discretionary income only to good plans. We should do it while we’re teenagers and still know everything.
And we did lots of group work in school so it didn’t seem that hard.”
[A young teen girl with cue cards and bristol board finishing an oral presentation:]
“And that’s how we think OPEC countries could resolve political tensions and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I’d like to thank the members of my group, Tisha and Bobby from 3B, and the 3 hundred and sixty four people who gave us advice on our website.”
[The back of a classroom is a giant screen where home-schooled students in Australia, and several world leaders in business suits, applaud and nod pensively, taking notes.]
[The camera pulls out and back onto the street where someone else is watching the presentation- maybe my grandma with her shopping bags? She picks up a phone attached to the street screen and speaks her advice into the forums below.]
[We the first young girl's voice as the camera continues down the busy street]
“How many of us would it take, we wondered, how many people with how many different skill sets and perspectives and questions to fix health care, or end hunger? What if we just worked first on hunger here? (Start small, as they say.) Take a program like Table to Table that is already connecting the dots between banquets and soup kitchens, and connect it to Meals on Wheels, and to web forums and blogs and taxi companies and car pools. And make the results quickly visible because we have short attention spans.”
“And you know who’ll get to advertise on the top and sides of those cars and websites now? Who ever pays for gas, and which of all the mega grocery corps. donates their one percent of food.
“Loblaws? Chrysler? Air Canada? want to convince us of your ‘commitment to communities’?” (said the small group with a smile.)
“We only want to shop at stores that save the world, we said.”
“And then things stared to happen really fast- 5 World Idols decided to meet the challenge, and they came together to become ambassadors of the new plan. And they did what no world leaders would do- they agreed to live their lives on TV. And that’s how they got us hooked on policy and diplomacy.”
[Pulling into the Idols' control-room, living space]
[TV announcer, whispers dramatically:]
“Cameras follow them from morning to to night, and every evening editors put together a forty minute show about their day for prime time, and the rest of the footage is available on the website where people discuss international strategy, and idol fashion, and who’s dating who. Some super fans get recognized for their good ideas in there, and others become the moderators. They read through it all and pull the best ideas to the top. So when a teen idol goes in for international diplomacy he or she’s ready.
Let’s listen in!”
Idol: “Mr. President, we, and our contributors, and our advertisers, and our 6.3 billion viewers Thank You! Yeah!”
[Takes off his headset and gives the Indian Idol girl next to him a big high five, and they all burst into a stirring rendition of "Celebrate."]
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