A documentary film maker has just 24 hours to impose an arbitrary deadline on his programme - or he could risk losing everything, including a narrative, a dramatic atmosphere for his crap documentary and ultimately, his license to make a fortune making dull programmes for his mate who happens to be a commissioning editor at Channel 4.
As we speak, just over there, an invisible sword of damocles hangs over the programme manager. If he doesn't inject a sense of urgency into his badly research, ill judged documentary, there could be a catastrophe, the scale of which is best left to your imagination.
But first, he will have to shoot endless scenes of shaky camera footage, which is the next best thing to action. But there's a problem. The cameraman is exhausted, and says his arms have got cramp. It looks like he can't shake his camera through another scene. His arms are knackered. But in the absence of genuine action shots, shaky camera scenes are the only hope for rescuing a non-eventful documentary. To heighten the tension, we won't find out what happens until after the break.
Coming up after the break - repeated replays of the bit where the camera man has a strop, and refuses to shake his camera through another stupid manufactured 'event'. The researcher gets offered a job on another production. And the celebrity doing the voice over wants his fee doubled.
'When Extreme Documentaries Go Bad' will be aired in Spring and is being nominated for a Golden Rose of Montreaux Documentary prize.
