He Pō Hei Maumahara (A Night To Remember)

Christchurch Convention Centre. It’s a beautiful part of town, much changed, but still the cultural centre of this podunk white trash New Zealand city.

Te Pae: Christchurch Convention Centre © Te Pae Christchurch. All Rights Reserved. Armageddon Expo. A large panel -- Angels and Demons: The Original Cast.

Angels and Demons: DVD Box Set. Cover Art. Property of Infinity Studios. ©️ ******************************************************************************************************************************** A surprisingly jock-like fan. This is a franchise that lots of people are into... ‘You know that season where your half-vampire son fucked your ex, then they raided that hell on earth dimension for mystical artefacts while your wife was conveniently trapped on the space station with the Olympian, all the while you were entombed at the bottom of the ocean by the Atlanteans, and then there was that lame deus ex machina?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘What was up with that?’ A pregnant pause. The actor pauses: a silver fox oozing with charm. ‘The producers wanted to fire Chelsea for being pregnant, so they decided they’d write her something awful to get her to quit. Hence that regrettable storyline where she fucked Sebastian to get back at me for taking her mystic visions. It worked: she was gone by season 5 episode 12.' - Suave, British.

Uneasy laughs in the room. None of the women are laughing. There’s quite a few of them: this is one of those chick shows. 'Mr. Conven?’ - a quiet voice. 'Yes.’ ‘Those scenes where you and Beverly Saint-Jones made love were so raw. I thought that the acting usually came in second to the scenery during the later seasons, but those scenes felt so raw!’ - A fully mature nerd: mid-30s, slightly overweight with eyes that gleam extra-bright.

'Your question, Ms…’ - waiting for her name. ‘Penelope.’ A half-smile. He knew he’d score tonight. ‘Alright then, Miss Penelope. What’s your question?’ - Suave. This is the poncy voice of his character: Julian Bromley Guttersnipe. ‘Were you really together off-screen, or was that just a rumour?’ - Penelope. ‘My dear, that’s consigned to the annals of time. If I answered that, then I’d lose my air of mystique and phosphorescent charm. A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.' - Julian. ‘My liege, I never said I thought you were a gentleman.’ - Penelope. A dirty smile. *********************************************************************************************************************** Their eyes meet. An intense stare: Mr. Conven made Miss Penelope feel as if she were the hottest woman on earth, and she in turn had made the old lecher feel surprisingly virile. He guessed he wouldn’t need those blue pills if things went as well as he thought. 😉 ***************************************************************************************************************************** It had been a paycheque gig for him. Nothing more, nothing less. He’d forgotten his lines long ago, tanning his hide on those sunkissed California beaches. That role belonged to another person. One that didn’t own a beachfront mansion, and alimony to several belligerent ex-wives.

The look on miss hot-to-trot’s face was unsettling: a mixture of desperation and relief. She was kanohi ki te kanohi with the embodiment of all her most lurid dreams. Penelope was 15 when Angels and Demons was first on TV, and had treasured her DVD box sets ever since. This was her fantasy. *

‘Camilla, you can’t stop them alone.’ ‘Yes I can, Mr. Guttersnipe.’ ‘The Council will not forgive you.’ 'I don’t give a damn.’ 'That’s what I’ve always loved about you.’ Mr. Conven grabs Penelope Braithwate into a tight embrace. Very erotic. 'Julian, we can’t. You’re my Overseer; you’ll lose your magic!’ ‘Yes, we can, Penelope; you’ve got magic enough for the both of us.’ They’re poised. About to kiss… then Conven giggles. ‘Line!’ ‘What?’ ‘What the fuck was that? That’s not what I said in the show.’ * The two of them break character. There are scripts lazily strewn on the hotel bed, with some chains and whips carefully laid out on a nearby chair. Penelope is clad in a leather domme outfit with the same dark makeup as Camilla, the demon slayer protagonist of Angels and Demons.

‘Yes, it’s based on a fanfic that I wrote. In my version, you're two half-cousins bound by the same dark magic the Atlanteans used to possess Agent Drake in the sixth season.’ 'How does that explain the whips?’ ‘It doesn’t; I’m just kinky.’ ‘And you presumed I’d be down with that?’ ‘Well, I’m paying you $3000 not to judge me.’ ‘True enough.’ The two of them study their scripts again. Mr. Conven sniggers (again).

‘You Australian fangirls are always so pushy!’ - His accent slips. Thick Californian. ‘Always?’ ‘American girls, they mostly want a good fuck. They’d rather have a temporary doll than a real, fleshy, man, but you sick freaks want me to actually be the character from the show.’

‘Oh? All of us Australians?’ - she says sarcastically... ‘Did you think you were the first to ask me to perform their erotic fan fiction, Miss Penelope?' She nods. He laughs wryly. 'There's always someone at each convention, particularly in Australia.’ 🗺️ Penelope looks slightly crestfallen. She wasn’t aware it was such a popular request. 'This is New Zealand.' 🖤🔲 'Same difference: you're all freaks down under!'

Angels and Demons: DVD Box Set. Cover Art. Property of Infinity Studios. ©️ ****************************************************************************************************************************** ‘Look, honey, I’m here; I wouldn’t take the money if I didn’t think I could satisfy you.’ - Julian. He puts a hand on her shoulder. She goes to sit down on the bed. A long pause… ‘Why are we all so obsessed with these silly old shows anyway!??’ - Penelope begins, removing her Camilla outfit: he’s spoiled the illusion, and she’s rather upset. She throws the scripts to the floor. Takes off her corset. ‘Because lonely people need things to dream about, particularly fucked-up things. That’s why we all got into showbusiness to start with: I thought Hollywood was a dream factory. Turns out I was half-right.’ - Deen. ‘Is it? I've never been.'

Conven scoffs. He goes to the mini-bar and grabs a drink. ‘LA is one of the most unequal cities in the world. It’s built on a desert, it’s half-Mexican and riddled with crime. It’s corrupt as fuck and I doubt you Kiwis have a clue how horrible postmodern American life truly is. We're going backwards while you're going forwards: the future belongs to the Global South. Yet, despite that, we get paid outrageous amounts of money to make these half-baked fever dreams in order to satiate the whims and projections of talentless bean counters that are hell-bent on transforming all our decades of hard work into ones and zeros for our corporate overlords.’ ‘AI?’ ‘Yeah. I saw something recently.’ Penelope comes closer, intrigued. Maybe there is some real chemistry in the air... ‘They’re about to reboot Angels and Demons, right; my character wasn’t supposed to age in the show, which was fine when I was thirty-odd. I’m older now, but I figured they’d write me some clever handwave explanation, then wink at the uber-fans.’ He winks to Penelope in an OTT fashion. Turning his acting mojo on, then switching it off immediately. Despite his claim to fame as a sexy supporting hunk on a B-grade fantasy show, he’s a pro actor, and he wanted her to know that. 🎞️

‘I thought that they’d still want to see me, right? I mean, I am Julian Guttersnipe.' He does an iconic pose. Penelope laughs slightly. 'Turns out, they’ve got a VFX house working on it. They’re going to do the whole thing as a 3D, photorealistic film inside their computers.’ ‘Can they do that?’ ‘Well, this is the great leap forward. They don't even need motion capture: one giant leap for AI and machine learning, and another step removed from locations, sets, actors, and unions; all those things are merely impacting the bottom line adversely... at least, that's what those bean counters keep telling us -- video games outsell movies, so real actors are worth less and worthless.’ He lights a cigarette. Penelope thinks he looks exactly like Julian; even 20 years on, she can still see that same spark of life.

'The Irishman used those old legends. That was pretty believable.' Deen laughs. 'Well, it worked well enough when they sat down! I guess that's why they made a film that was about sitting down and driving cars.' He's a student of the craft: he even directed a few episodes of Angels and Demons. 🎥 'The scope of the story was so dense, though. I really felt like I'd watched them age those decades in the movie via the visual effects. Way more believable than Forrest Gump,' 😊 'Yeah, Marty usually delivers the goods. Older films from those true auteurs can be quite revealing about new technology. The Abyss and Gravity are still groundbreaking... Marty's gone over to the dark side, though. Fast-talking Wiseguys 8 had tons more CGI than people think, and Joan of Arc isn't quite the same in 2D: the depth was so much more realistic than Nirvana, or any of those post-converted 3D Marvel films, but the plot was full of holes.'

Joan of Arc: VFX reel for AMPAS. Cover Art. Property of Infinity Studios. ©️ 'Then there's New Zealand... well, I'd never say that you're not a creative bunch, but that Hobbit trilogy looked like pure dogshit; too much CGI: it was the interplay of practical and special effects that made The Lord of the Rings so memorable.' 'Yeah, we thought it sucked here, too.' 'Still, there's a reason that your Jacksons and our Spielbergs and Bays and Camerons are into high frame rates, though. That's the real key to this new science: the more frames, the more realistic it gets. The human eye stops perceiving the difference in resolution after 6K, so the infinite resolution of film is misleading: celluloid projection mimics the human eye much better than digital technology, but that's not what they're chasing at the big studios anymore. Nowadays, cinema is about pixels. There's no real limit on the amount of frames per second that we can film in, so films have begun to play around with their frame rates and speeds again, like overcranking it to make violence look more gory. It's a silent-era effect, but we can do millions of clever new things with it now. Watch an action film, then count how many times it uses slow motion: that's a sign of the future. Hollywood produces petabytes of data per film, and those HFR cameras, which are standard for slow motion photography, are among the heaviest data producers: 50 gigabytes a second!'

'Funny thing, Penelope: we remain glued to the screens with digital projection. That's a new wrinkle. While the art of cutting old films was to mimic the blink of an eye, it's more like a moving painting now, or an acid trip on wheels. Cameras have become omniscient: they can go anywhere and see everything. That's what audiences want now. Like Gravity. Plus those early 48fps films looked overlit and waxy: nobody really knew how to light for cameras that shoot that many frames, but nobody's criticising Nirvana 2 for any of that old-school HFR bullshit. It's about to become a growth industry. Cameron's prescient enough to see that the technology will soon become fully immersive, with or without VR.' * Now she gets it. He's part of a living, breathing screen industry; this is the part of his work that gets Deen Conven excited, not portraying Julian Guttersnipe in fanservice movies.👋🏻 * 'So, here's what's happened: Infinity Studios took this idea that more frames could maximise verisimilitude, and they've built a simulated universe inside a computer. Imagine how much information that can contain: 1000fps, capturing every tiniest shift in movement while projecting a hyper-vivid moving image that looks even more realistic and detailed than life itself. That's how they say they're going to copy me without mo-cap -- scanning my old self in at 150 frames per second from the original series, interpolating frames via AI, then porting every tiny detail of my attitudes and gestures onto a 3D, 360-degree digital mannequin that they can control: a virtual Overseer which can exist on their servers forever.'

Julian Guttersnipe, Overseer: digital duplicate. Property of Infinity Studios. All rights reserved. ©️ 'Ok, cynical old pro: what's your professional opinion on The Irishman effects, then?' 'They wouldn't have replaced me if their reel had been as lame as that! Give the execs some credit: they know people watch Angels and Demons to see quality special effects. They knew that if they were going to replace us, those FX would have to be pretty damn amazing. And they are. Marty's film was Shakespearean as dramaturgy, but those digital puppets of Pacino and De Niro were uncanny valley territory. Almost as bad as those awful Zemeckis films; like a Let's Play of Mafia on Xbox; totally toothless; totally airy; crap.' Penelope is surprised. 'This new thing Infinity Studios is creating is going to be truly indistinguishable from reality. It's almost there already: 4 out of 10 of focus group viewers thought that I was the deepfake!' It's not funny anymore -- she starts to see the desperate need in him that had made him so believable as Julian. Penelope analyses the fresh terror in his eyes: this new discovery isn't sitting well with Deen; he thought he knew all the tricks. He hadn't made it to the top rung of stardom entirely for his chiselled looks, though they'd probably helped him with getting there. 'It wasn't Goodfellas, but it wasn't bad. Or what about Benjamin Button? That was hella sappy, though...'😂 Julian Guttersnipe: ‘They told me there’s enough footage of me from various angles and different lighting conditions in the old episodes to recreate me digitally, plus there’s an algorithm they’ve coded that uses my old audio to generate new lines. It has a button for tone and emphasis they can push to get fresh readings, and it can even improvise… it’s all very high-tech.’ He pretends to push a button, lingering for dramatic effect. 'Why would they need me now that they can build a simulacrum, one that works for free and doesn't ask for back end points or medical insurance?' He turns away from her dramatically. This is becoming a Shakesperean soliloquy... '4 out of 10 people can't tell the difference between me and it, and those are odds that the studio is willing to bet on. I get a likeness fee and some hush money, but the bank will probably still foreclose on my beach house by Christmas.' He chuckles, still in love with his (real) rapier wit. Penelope sits and thinks. 'I'm in software. Yeah, yeah: total geek girl stereotype.' Puts her hand on her heart, pretends to blush like a crazy fan. Ironic salute. Camilla: 'I thought engineering and coding weren't capable of being replicated by machine learning, but I read in a magazine recently there's going to be AI that can do my job in the next 5 or 10 years!' - Penelope's British accent. Deen looks puzzled. She's angry. Penelope: 'We're all being replaced by machines; lighten up, you alcoholic dick.'🍺 Pause. She has feelings too. 'Planned obsolescence is a bitch, huh?' 'Yep, half my day is spent coding my AI replacement. I hope my severance is good.' She's not joking anymore. They've broken through the lies. ‘I guess that's why I still come to these fan conventions.’ - D📺📽️ Deen unfurls himself from the hotel room couch. ‘What? So you can fuck people and see how your work has influenced a generation of childish dweebs?’ 👓🤷🏻‍♀️ He reaches standing position and laughs. She’s not so starry-eyed after all. 😂

Julian: 'Miss Penelope, I have four ex-wives. I was making a million dollars an episode by season 7, and they each got half of that in the divorce.’ ‘All of them?’ Deen: 'Well, I had those four during the seven years of the show. One was an AD, another was a recurring guest actress; then I met a bank teller, and we were together for a while.’ ‘What about wife number four?’ ‘She died.’

Angels and Demons: Alternate Dimension Alternate Poster. Property of Infinity Studios. ©️

Alternate Dimension: the denouement. Production still. Property of Infinity Studios. ©️ **************************************************************************************************************************** This is real, she thought. He’d been slightly munted at the bar when she picked him up after Armageddon, but she’d agreed in advance where she’d make that offer, and he seemed stable enough to make his own choices. Deen Conven was widely known for his carnal exploits in the Angels and Demons fan forums, and she had noticed that he even commented occasionally. Seemed weird that he’d want to talk to hundreds of people that had had sex with him, but he was a mensch.

Deen Conven - San Diego, Comicon 2034. Artist Rendering. Property of The Daily Snail. ©️ So, she emailed him out of the blue and suggested that they could meet at Armageddon. Things got somewhat hot and heavy, and she decided she’d protect herself from unwanted emotional trauma by paying him handsomely to ignore her jelly belly. She wanted to fuck a movie star, not get headfucked trying to seduce him. They hadn’t agreed on the sum, however; she spent 25 minutes at Fat Eddie's haggling over how much to plough her while he ran up her tab. They settled: $3000 for Deen to roleplay Penelope's kinky fantasy. ************************************************************************************************************************ On reflection, Penelope decided it wasn't so surprising other women had wanted the same thing. A first-class, reliable fuck; casual, semi-anonymous sex where they had control... Plus, it was bound to enhance her experience of rewatching Angels and Demons! 😂 ************************************************************************************************************************* ‘Deen?’ He'd started putting his clothes back on; the frisson was fading. ‘It must be nice. Even though they're replacing you, you've originated a mythic archetype that might outlive you. Imagine: Julian Guttersnipe adventures happening in the year 2500, still drawing from your initial data sets! You could be immortal.’ - Penelope lingers for emphasis; playing into his vanity. He shifts. He's not as broken up about it as his dramatic monologue suggested. She wonders if that monologue was for her benefit; just another way of seducing her. ‘I feel like a broken mannequin they've finally replaced. The writers created Angels and Demons: I merely embodied one of them, until that broke my heart and made me give up on life and love, losing myself in grief. Now, my digital double can take care of all that fanservice forever, and I can focus on reality.’ - Deen. ‘What will you do now that you're retiring from acting, Mr. Conven?’ - Camilla, asking a dopey fan question. Julian: ‘Live a myth of my own. Travel the world and glimpse all the wonders hidden to the uninitiated.' 'That's the intro from the show.' Deen: 'It was a good line. It was a good show, too, but I find it hard to watch. If fans weren't asking me to do roleplays, then I'd have forgotten it all. I know there's a lot of people that laugh at me: oh, he’s so pathetic, seducing lonely fans that are only into him for his fake British accent, but I have layers. I'm a real person: I can fly a plane, swim professionally and I’ve picked up several languages. I give half my paychecks to environmental causes.' Faint surprise. The monologue continues... 'I own a bar, I own stock in several tech companies, I'm down to a 3 handicap on the golf course, and I have a harem of willing sexual conquests across the planet. It's my wildest fantasies rolled into one, one where I seldom recollect those endless nights of shooting in cold, wet sewers that haunt my dreams whenever I think back on that goddamn series.' Penelope is impressed. ‘I know it’s phoney, and hollow. After all, all I did was hit marks and declaim lines: Julian Guttersnipe was the Overseer, and magician extraordinaire.'

Julian Guttersnipe, Overseer: digital duplicate. Property of Infinity Studios. All rights reserved. ©️ 'But, in the end, does it really matter? To a dedicated core of fans, it’s worth it to delude themselves - briefly - into thinking I really was that person for one fleeting window of opportunity at a fan convention. I'm more than happy to oblige them, for the right fee.' A mischevious grin. Deen starts towards the door. He leaves her sizeable wad of cash on the dresser drawer.

‘I think you should keep this.’ ‘So… you’re not interested in me for me; you only wanted to tittyfuck Camilla the slayer?’ Defiant tone. She's not going to be the bad guy in this story. 😠 ‘You were the one that tried to control me with money! I think you're insecure as fuck, Penelope, and that was your bullshit way of protecting yourself from having any real feelings for me.'😤 Penelope is shocked. He smiles his movie star smile. D: 'I'm not this candid with all my conquests.' Oh... so he is into me, Penelope thought. 'I'm not like Julian; I call people out. I thought the writers turned him into such a doormat.' She laughs awkwardly. 😅 'An actor might be a whore, but he’s a whore that knows what he's truly worth.' - Julian. 'The bean counters say that I'm worth 15 percent to a film’s domestic gross, and 25 percent in Asia. Infinity's new duplicate is projected to be 17 percent domestic, and 47 percent in Asia. That's billions of dollars of extra revenue for their corporate masters. I can't compete with that. He can fly with the push of a button, rather than a rig that costs $80,000 just to set up. Of course fans would prefer that: he's everything I'm not!' - Deen. 'Why is the duplicate so popular in Asia?' 😎 'They love that freaky shit over there: it's all robots fucking robots, real-life robot doctors and nurses; parallel technology that we can't even imagine, but they're already inventing. They're looking into securing my likeness as well: soon, all these characters are going to be in trillions of movies across the planet, each customizeable by individual consumers; they'll be able to rewrite the plot, invent their own scenarios using digital copies of us in dozens of languages and thousands of locations, each constructing their own personal IP fantasy for a nominal fee. Interactive cinema: that's the endgame that the studios are investing their R&D dollars into. This is just a step along the way.' Deen glimpses Penelope's face. Her mind is boggling at the possibilities. 'Yes, It's every fan's wet dream. The worst thing is that I can't cash in on it. They make 'em as solid holograms too; though that's experimental, and very crude currently, it's only a few years away from reaching fruition: Then, my appearance fees will dry up, eventually, when I'm too old to be Julian. Instead, he'll be like Goofy or Cinderella or Bugs Bunny: a digital icon with a silly voice, rather than an old ham with a silly voice.' He talks very quickly. She thought that only New Zealanders could speak this fast. 'I guess you're lucky that us Kiwi girls prefer the personal touch.' He grins. 'Now, where were we?' Deen unbuttons his shirt. Penelope takes off the rest of her outfit. It’s all on… 🪄🪭🤝

AI images produced by Deep Dream Generator and Runway ML. Amanda Riddell ©️2023.