'Here be Dragons'

We open on a farmer being interviewed for a News 24 feature on the countryside, and a subtitle reads “Missing sheep in Cornwall”. The farmer is explaining how sheep have gone missing from his field at an average of two per week.

Suddenly there is an enormous roar, and the farmer looks at the sky, terrified. A huge, twenty foot red dragon swoops out of the sky, and takes off a startled sheep in its talons.

We cut to the jerky, but unmistakable footage replayed as caught by the cameraman on the scene, and we cut to the specialist reporter live on the South West coast, outside a cave which is the dragon’s lair. Eyes glint in the darkness, and there is a shadowy movement in the cave as the dragon moves around. The police are there, and have cordoned off the cave in order to keep at bay the ever-growing crowd of people. 

In the split screen, we see the producer and the News 24 team quickly, calmly and professionally filling in every aspect of the story. The producer wants to speak to a BBC wildlife expert to see what they know of these creatures. One of the team is quickly commissioned to find out the possible implications to the local tourist economy – will we now see the potential for a real life Jurassic Park?

Out on the main floor, researchers are hard at work. They dig out whatever they can on dragons from books, and off the net from the BBC-I search engine. Classic paintings of St. George slaying the dragon are pulled out for a segment on the history of these magnificent beasts. Pictures of dinosaurs and dodos are sourced to show extinct animals, as everyone had previously assumed dragons to be. A researcher digs out information on previous sightings, which are incorporated into a spinning globe by the graphics team – a skull with a horn that was found in China, and mistakenly labelled as a rare tyrannosaur; and a carcass that washed up on a beach in Faramboise, Nova Scotia in 1976, that still remains a mystery.

An expert in medieval history is seated in the studio, and the anchor asks what it is we’re dealing with. He replies that the footage shows what we’re dealing with is clearly Eudraco magnificus occidentalis – or a Western dragon. The large head, long neck, broad shoulders, thick legs, and the size of it’s tail and wings clearly distinguish it from an Oriental dragon, or Dracoserpens lung orientalis, which has a longer tail and smaller head

Suddenly the anchor interrupts to take us back to the cave where there have been further developments. In the split screen, we can see the reporter timing the point at which he comes in to perfection. He says that there has been a lot of noise coming from the cave, when suddenly…WHOOMPH! A huge jet of flame spills out of the cave from the dragon.

A production assistant goes to meet the Draconologist, who has just arrived. He is quickly seated in the studio and given a radio mic, and as the footage of the fire bursting from the cave is replayed in the split screen, the anchor asks how dragons breathe fire. The Draconologist replies that a dragon’s digestive system is not vastly different from any other creature, in that a by-product of this is methane. The dragon has a jagged nugget of iron that hangs from the roof of its mouth, and collects flint, probably from the floor of the cave. When the methane is expelled through the mouth, the flint hits the iron, causing the methane to ignite.

The producer reacts to this immediately, asking the graphics team to come up with an animated demonstration of this in action. He asks one of his assistants if there is any comment yet from Westminster…

As the piece finishes, we cut to two large black holes, belching out smoke. We crash zoom out, and see that the two holes are part of the bottom of an iron – it’s not smoke, but steam. The iron is put down onto a shirt, and we pull back to see a young man ironing his shirt, his attention fully on the television in front of him.

Other angles that could be explored in the piece (and to portray a balanced view) are an interview with the reporter on scene talking to an army general about a possible military response, and the reaction of the Dracanologist saying that it would be a crime to kill something about which we know so little. It may also be a nice touch to have a tiny embroidered dragon on the man’s shirt cuff that he irons at the end of the piece.

Notes:

It is vital in the branding of a rolling news channel to use a “feelgood”, or at least neutral, news story. Following the terrible events of September 11 last year, people are all too aware of the horrors in the world, and it showed that fact can be stranger than fiction. The tone of the piece should be professional at all times – whilst obviously a momentous news event, the news team should show no incredulity at the discovery of a dragon in the English countryside, and the commitment to bringing the full story to the public should be paramount. 

The split screen effect to be employed in the piece should also consciously mimic the editing effect currently used in the drama “24”, as this will tie in perfectly with the whole concept of 24 hour rolling television. Whilst there should be a feeling of a consistent broadcast for most of the piece, a steadicam will pick up different protagonists in the news team, and follow them as they communicate with other members of the team, giving us a feeling of speed and immediacy.

The sound mix will also be vital in communicating the efficient process of a hardworking news team. With the use of the split screen to get across the impact of everyone contributing to the story, we must draw the viewer’s ear to key points in the piece, as Mike Figgis achieved with “Timecode”.

The dragon will be created using the same technology that created the dinosaurs in the BBC series “Walking with Dinosaurs”, and although only on screen for a few seconds in the piece, will be a completely believable creation.

Despite being a feelgood story, the piece can also be seen as a metaphor for the unseen and unexpected terror that can suddenly descend on us from out of the blue, as was seen clearly last September. However, the dragon will also tie in with the current feeling of national pride – the legend of St George and the Dragon giving rise to the currently ubiquitious English cross. 

The casting should be carefully handled – the piece should be branding News 24 as a channel, and what it can offer. However, the fictional nature of the piece means that none of the actual anchors or reporters should be used, as a degree of acting would be called for. It is the BBC’s commitment to the provision of first class rolling news that should come across in the piece, and the professionalism and dedication of the entire team involved in the station.

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