Director Fede Álvarez (Photo credit Maria Moratti / Contigo / Getty Images)
Getty Images
Apple TV +
AAPL
In nine programs, Careers tells nine seemingly unrelated stories, cooled using just audio from the recordings of phone calls, in which characters are thrown into mysterious and mysterious situations that they try to make sense of. of them. On-screen, abstract images, similar to Apple’s screensaver, dance around with the transcripts of the conversations anchoring the audio recordings. Stars include Rosario Dawson, Lily Collins, Aubrey Plaza, Nick Jonas and Riley Keough.
Careers it’s an interesting series, but, while Apple describes the show as an “innovative, immersive experience on television,” it’s actually a podcast with a flexible screensaver playing with the sound.
Directed and co-written by Fede Álvarez (Do not breathe, Dead evil), Careers based on a French series created by Timothée Hochet. The original series was released in France in 2017, and is already on its third season. Hochet got the idea for this show, which included just phone conversations with abstract images, after listening to U.S. emergency calls on YouTube. From there, Hochet came up with the concept of a series that would consist only of audio recordings of phone conversations. It basically came up with an idea for a radio show, or podcast, but for TV.
Hochet created his first video, called Calls (auditive knowledge), and posted it on YouTube. He caught the eye of Lorenzo Benedetti, head of Studio Bagel, and eventually the idea was turned into a series and shown on Canal +. The series is gaining a good reputation in France, and with good reason. Each program tells nail-biting stories, just listen to episode 3 of the first season, which is now available on YouTube, unfortunately without English subtitles. It is very effective in daring. All recordings in the various stories in the French series came from different places, such as a plane black box, answering machine, walkie-talkies, or emergency calls. The series featured a star-studded voice from the French film industry that included Gaspard Ulliel, Ludivine Sagnier, Nils Arestrp and Mathieu Kassovitz.
The new variation of Careers, created by Fede Álvarez, begins with the same story as the one that opened the French series. The first episode entitled “The End” follows the couple’s long distance conversation. Tim is about to break up with Sara, but someone is crying outside Sara’s home. Soon, events turn out to be amazing, that will only be explained at the end of the series. Each remaining program, written by Fede Álvarez, Nick Cuse, Aidan Fitzgerald, Noah Gardner, and Rodo Sayagues, will follow different characters as they face strange situations.
One of the best events out of the nine available on Apple TV is episode 3, titled “Pedro Across the Street” starring Mark Duplass, Judy Greer and Pedro Pascal. It follows the conversations of twins Patrick and Alexis and neighbor Pedro. This is the funniest program of the series, and one of the few that doesn’t include a terrifying body element – an element that binds all the programs together. As the times expand, it slowly becomes apparent that the various stories that connect them are connected on a global scale.
There is nothing completely new about the concept of the show. It could be as easy as a radio show or a podcast. Careers nonetheless it is an interesting series, which demonstrates the power of audio narration. Orson Welles ‘radio drama on HG Wells is after all’ World War 1938 was so successful, leading listeners to believe that aliens were landing on Earth.