‘Struggling to land his first job in a school, a young and insecure maths professor discovers that all students have dropped out and falls victim of an absurd power struggle amongst the remaining staff’ –LYCEUM
Gone! Revolution! But this story is not about the students. It’s about what is left of an institution, when something deprives it of its hierarchy and its reason to exist.
Don’t tell me you have never daydreamed about what would happen if everyone from your office just stopped going to work from tomorrow onwards?…and what a beautiful mess that would result to?
At least those kids had the guts to do it for all of us!
NATHANIEL JOHNSON – The Protagonist
Mr Johnson is a lanky 25 year-old maths teacher. He arrives in the school with a suit that is slightly too big, and hair that is slightly too neat. He is looking for his first grown-up job, but he will soon find that he is still more of a student than teacher.
THE P.E. TEACHER
An intimidating woman. She is strong and won’t put up with your weaknesses. She will fight, manipulate and crush those who get in her way.
THE HEADMASTER
Imagine a real estates agent with a military past. His jacket is lined with medals from his service and his face is lined with the biggest and most annoying smile you have ever seen. A patronising dude, he will tell you to kill yourself with that same smile glued on his face. He has no time for ‘progress’.
MS. WADSWORTH | Religious Studies
A middle-aged, feeble and short tempered woman who would rather conform than stand up for herself. The last thing she wants is to anger the headmaster -or worse, the P.E Teacher. Ms Wadsworth thinks her students are brain-dead zombies, but is downright terrified of parents. She will just do her job, as long as you leave her alone.
THE TWO CARETAKERS
The two caretakers -the veteran and the apprentice- spend their days entertaining themselves. They absolutely love the mess they’re in as it allows them to spend their days stealing food from the cafeteria and having their absurd little spitting competitions. Streetsmart and witty, they don’t give a single damn about the state of the school.
THE COOK
He hates his job and everyone around him. All he wants is peace, quiet and a cigarette. He is the lord and master of the cafeteria, and takes pleasure from enforcing his bizarre rules on anyone who enters it. The caretakers get on his nerves 24/7.
WRITER, DIRECTOR | Dareos Khalili
In high school, Dareos had this brilliant philosophy teacher who used to urge him and his classmates to drop out. ‘Imagine the mess!’ his teacher said, amused to the idea. Even though he never had the guts to do so, as retribution he wrote a story about it. This story is LYCEUM.
When he grew up he studied Film Directing and Producing in Bournemouth Film School (UK) and the Film and Tv School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, FAMU (CZ). Today he has next to zero nostalgic feelings about his school years.
As a photographer he has exhibited his ongoing project ‘to Cover the Silence‘ in the UK, Greece, Canada and Australia.
PRODUCER | Cara Weatherley
Cara has been developing her skills as a producer for the last seven years, working on both professional and student productions of varying sizes.
Her credits include one of last year’s Creative England and BFI-backed iShorts, a 1950s Parisian musical short, and most recently an intense psychological drama made for Bournemouth Film School. Cara is excited to be back in the role of producer working with the fantastic team that makes up Lyceum.
CINEMATOGRAPHER | Will Gething
In school, Will was a massive geek. So much that he was the first to receive a 100% attendance award out of the whole school. Looking back his time could have been spent much better had he actually dropped out.
However, he found his calling after leaving standardised education. He studied Cinematography at the Bournemouth Film School, and went on to shoot multiple short films and commercials while training under the guidance of great cinematographers, like Erik Wilson, bsc.
PRODUCTION DESIGNER | Emile Kees Heywood
“What subjects are you taking for A-levels, Emile?”
“English, Film, Theatre…”
“No Science? No Maths?”
“No, sir.”
“Biology?”
“That’s a science.”
“Chemistry?”
“Also a science.”
“Physics…?”
To his teacher’s dismay, Emile has gone on to study Production Design for film at Bournemouth Film School and has been a part of collaborative projects for film and events with University for the Creative Arts (Canterbury and Farnham), the European Academy of Art in Brittany (EESAB) and, most recently, PAFOS 2017 European Capital of Culture. Alongside production design Emile writes prose and for the screen.
COSTUME DESIGNER | Amy Costello
After 1620 days in school, Amy thought she wanted to be an archaeologist. By day 4860 she was graduating as a costume designer.
With a background in classical ballet and acting, Amy moved to the UK at 17, in order to pursue a career in Costume for Film. A passion to artistically enhance and reveal characteristics through the power of dress inspires Amy’s work.
1ST ASSISTANT DIRECTOR | Jay Jones
When Jay was really young he wanted to be a builder because Bruce was a builder and he was allowed to go on the roof. He liked Bruce.
At school his favourite subject was Music so he went to the University of Edinburgh and started a Physics degree. Then he went to Film School.
“Lyceum examines absurdities within our society – I think I’m in the right place. As the 1st AD I ensure the shoot remains organised and runs on time. I recently bought a watch, so I’m feeling quite optimistic about it all.”
CASTING DIRECTOR | Noah Aldhous
Noah has spent about 3,800 days of his life going to school. One of the only times he cried in class was when a teacher shouted at him for ‘asking too many questions’.
Noah has studied Film Directing in BFS and has in the past casted both short films and commercials.
CASTING DIRECTOR | Dorothy Kay
When Dorothy was only six years old and applying to her local grammar school, τhe headmistress asked her to order the different activities within the course of a day.
When the headmistress asked Dorothy why she had put ‘to wake up’ at the very end of her days, she replied ‘it was all a dream’.
After that, Dorothy fell in love with Cinema. In her most recent years she specialised in writing, directing and casting for film.
And now the boring money talk;
47% of the total budget required to make LYCEUM has already been secured, but additional funds are needed to make the production viable to shoot. With your financial backing, meeting our Crowdfunder target will allows us to paying for;
– Cast fees
– Hire of specialist equipment
– Production insurance
– Set dressing – Costumes
– Transport and food for cast and crew
BUT DON’T FORGET
If you managed to read this far down the page , well done to you. Most people have a very short attention span these days (blame the internet)! We hope you now believe in this project as much as we do, and we will be very grateful if you donated or pledged to it. Every little counts.
But also, don’t forget. Apart from pledging what you can also do to support us is share in your social media. If you copied the logline on the top and the link of this page, and made a post on Facebook, statistics tells us that this could bring up to £25 to the project.
Now, none of us was good in statistics in school, but I guess we should trust science, no?
Thank you very much for your time and for believing in this project as much as we do.
-The team of LYCEUM
ARTWORK by DAN CRAMER
London based Designer, Dan Cramer’s conceptually driven and often typographic work is influenced by Dutch and Japanese design from the 60’s. His work explores the blurred lines found in different cultural identities. See his work here.