PrograMADic: Scenes 2, 3, 4, & 5
Welcome to Scenes 2, 3, 4 and 5 of “PrograMADic.” These scenes are mashed into a sequence.
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ACTION! 🎬
CUT TO: 2. INT. AD AGENCY - 1999 We see the nameplate of Milner Vincent Bennett McNamara Schulman on the door. A group of fat cat agency executives sit around a conference room table. They aren't actually fat. The men are wearing nice suits, no tie. The women are in grey pantsuits. CONSULTANT (V.O.) These ad agency people placed some of those first banner ads without telling clients, they figured it would be easier to explain after the fact. By the late ’90s, advertising on the Internet was big business. Websites had banner ads, which were sold by agencies, while search engines had text ads, which were sold through automated auctions. This roughly corresponded to a bicoastal divide. SMASH CUT TO: 3. INT. SWANKY L.A. OFFICE - 1999 We zoom in from above on a super cool open office in a retrofitted warehouse in Culver City. The parameter of the interior has glass wall offices. Casually dressed busy bees are buzzing about the place. CONSULTANT (V.O.) The techies on the West Coast decided it was best to charge advertiser clients when people click on ads. We end up zooming in on a young surfer dude's computer screen. If Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times and Ridgemont High was a designer, we just found him. He's designing a banner ad called "Punch the Monkey." DESIGNER (Turns toward the camera) No, seriously, dude. Back in '99, clients were all like, 'We want clicks, man!' They were so totally stoked on clicks. So we made ads that got clicks. Lots of clicks. Even if they were kinda, like, meaningless clicks. It's supply and demand, bro. Now take a hike. I'm like totally busy, dude. (Gets back to work) SMASH CUT TO: 4. INT. SWANKY NYC OFFICE - 1999 Now we're quickly hovering down Park Avenue around 20th Street in the Flatiron District. We hear traffic and horns. It's New York, could the cliché be any other way? We enter a brick interior loft office through a floor-to-ceiling window. Worker bees buzz about. Everyone is fashionably dressed. It's like they just came out of a Vogue/GQ photo shoot. CONSULTANT (V.O.) Agency madmen wrote the rules on the East Coast. They developed a different model. Typical magazine publishers like Time or Newsweek or newspapers like USA Today or The New York Times were, quote, unquote, "going digital." It was easy money everywhere. A man and a woman are looking at the same computer screen. NYT.com is on the screen. We zoom in on an office phone. We hear a voice coming through the speakerphone. VOICE Look, I can sell my ad inventory to you or someone else. Either way, I'm getting a $25 CPM. Are you in or out? WOMAN Give us a second, Bob. (hits mute button). What a dick. He's totally fucking us. MAN Because he can. Look, they told us to get the campaign booked by end of day. Fuck it. It's not our money. WOMAN (hit mute button again) OK, Bob, you gouged us, again. Fax us the insertion order. VOICE That's what I thought. It's my pleasure to serve you. WOMAN Fuck off. Just fax us the insertion order. (ends the call with a forceful click) SMASH CUT TO: 5. INT. NEW YORK TIMES SALES OFFICE - 1999 We enter a busy ad sales floor. Several sales reps are on the phone getting deals done. Bob the ad sales guy is dialing a number on a fax machine. BOB Remember these. It's called a fax machine. I sold millions of dollars of ad using this beauty. I have a boat now, it's really nice. Supply and demand baby, it's a beautiful thing. CUT!
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Disclaimer
This script and musical is a work of fiction based on real-life events. Artistic liberties have been taken to enhance the narrative and create a compelling experience. Certain sequences, dialogues, and character interactions have been fictionalized or altered for dramatic effect. While certain elements and characters might be inspired by true stories, the portrayal of events, people, and circumstances has been dramatized and fictionalized for the purposes of entertainment and does not intend to present a factual account of the events, and any resemblance to real people, places, or incidents is purely coincidental.