World and Characters

Notes from the first "Writers Room" meeting this afternoon.

THE CITY

• Chicago?
• New industrial center in the middle of an agrarian region
• Some new corn-based industrial material?
• Nation undergoes a civil war -- Capitalists vs Communists?
• City & surrounding region is on the losing (Communist?) side
• New political leadership / tight control imposed on the city
• Surrounding (rural) areas still have rebellious sympathies
• A city surrounded -- like West Berlin
• Industry is centralized & can be controlled, but new media (radio) is decentralized
• New establishment has political / military authority, not popular support
• Pre-war establishment becomes post-war crime world -- still part of the system
• "Underground" rebellious movement led by new, tech-savvy generation -- anti-system
• Radio is ephemeral (difficult to record) but pervasive
• Public spaces with state-sponsored radio broadcasts
• Grafitti "tagging" public radio feed
• Covered city? High-society up top, criminal element rules below?
• Good excuse for noir lighting!
• Gadgets: Dictation typewriter, radio earbuds, signal jammers
• Technology paranoia
• Weaponized radio -- Pain Ray
• Secret frequencies, codes
• Anonymization
• Ownership issues -- Remix Culture
• Who creates news? Who controls information? Who control access?

RICK WARD

• Grew up on pulp comics about soldiers
• Came from the upper echelon, but has internally fallen
• Served in the big civil war.
• Spy that went undercover and had to betray the other side, even though they treated him better.
• Professional contacts in the establishment; personal contacts in the underworld.
• Hero for something that he didn't believe in.
• Hardened and disillusioned.
• Out of war, became a PI -- still wants the idea of the pulp comics "heroism"
• Interesting relationship with violence.
• MO: aggressive
• Flaw: Inability to follow through on his ideals.
• Afraid of the potential of weaponized radio technology.

MILLS LAWSON

• Newspaper princess
• Younger -- the underground radio generation
• Given name: Mildred -- very Victorian background / upbringing
• Comes from wealth, class; emotionally distant parents
• Epitome of the generational gap
• Grew up listening to radio plays about detectives
• Personal rebellion (vs parents) parallels political rebellion
• Who owns newspapers? Who controls information?
• Radio is a way to express this independence
• Underground radio reporter -- the Wikileaks of radio
• MO: charming, "trustworthy," sets conversational traps
• Quietly outsmarts everyone
• Stealth (Jade from BG&E)
• Introduced to radicalism in college
• Started to become big BUT wasn't prepared for the consequences
• Lost her radio equipment; must stay anonymous
• Unwilling to start over completely, thus retains "Mills"
• Back in college, went by a different handle
• Play-on-audio? Analagous to play-on-text handles

TOGETHER THEY FIGHT CRIME

• Backstory: Rick was hired to find her -- dangerous radical element
• This time, he doesn't turn her over
• Compromise: burn down her radio equipment, she goes into hiding
• They team up -- he can't take action in her world
• He sees in her something he wanted to be
• Acting for peace / social change through non-violence
• She represents his idealized version of "heroism"
• He can teach her to be a detective