CLICKBAIT_101_Unit

Blurred Realities

by
The series Clickbait, a thriller about the real and virtual identities of each person, debuted recently on Netflix. The eight-episode series was created by Tony Ayres, a Macau-born Australian screenwriter and director with a real life story more rocky than many of his characters. 
 
In his new series, Ayres tries to draw a line between one’s real and virtual personality. The Macau-born director and screenwriter says that the series serves as a warning: “There are all kinds of mischievous behaviors online, but behind this veil of anonymity there are very real and dangerous consequences.  The irony is that nothing is really anonymous. Everything we do in the privacy of our bedrooms on our computers is really traceable”, he warns.
 
The series focuses on Nick Brewer, played by actor Adrian Grenier.  Nick seems to be the perfect husband, stepfather, brother and son, until the day he is kidnapped and disappears without a trace. Later, a video of a beaten Nick with a sign that reads “I abuse women. At five million views I die” starts circulating on the Internet. From here, the perspectives of everyone involved directly and indirectly are shown. Zoe Kazan, Betty Gabriel, Phoenix Raei, Abraham Lim, Ian Meadows and Jessica Collins round out the cast.
 
The series is produced by Matchbox Pictures and Tony Ayres Productions, in conjunction with Heydan Television. All three companies are part of NBC Universal International Studios. Alongside Ayres, Christian White is also one of the creators and screenwriters of the series.
 
According to Forbes magazine, Clickbait is “the perfect summer binge,” but it goes beyond entertainment: “It takes an honest look at everything we do online every day”. In an interview with the US magazine, Tony Ayres noted: “What appealed to me was doing a 360 on a crime and by telling the story from varying points-of-view we were able to show different peoples’ perspectives on what a crime means. Some of the people were inside the crime at the core and others were secondary to the event, but were still impacted by it”.
 
Tony Ayres
 
Tony Ayres is arguably one of the most sought-after screenwriters in Australian television and film today. However, the beginning of his life was marked by instability. The director recalled in an interview with Australian television program SBS News the “chaotic” childhood he had, which even rivals the stories of many of his characters.
 
Ayres was born in 1961 in Macau but never knew his father. At the age of three, his mother married an Australian sailor who was visiting Macau and shortly after he travelled to Perth, where he stayed to live with his mother, sister and stepfather.
 
However, after arriving, the family unit quickly disintegrated. His mother decided to leave the Australian sailor, and a tumultuous childhood followed. Tony’s mother began working as a singer in Perth nightclubs and the family was left with no fixed abode. 
 
“At one stage we lived in the storeroom of a Chinese restaurant, amongst the takeaway containers and coke bottles. I think I went to 11 different primary schools”, he said, stressing, “It was a very impoverished and pretty unstable life. My mother was trying to survive in the best way that she could, but that meant there was a string of different boyfriends and we had to move from place to place.”
 
Throughout his youth, Tony’s mother developed mental health problems and attempted suicide several times. In 1972, when Ayres was 11, she succeeded in taking her own life. Tony and his sister went to live with their stepfather, the Australian sailor. However, soon after, his stepfather had a heart attack and died. The siblings then went on to live with their stepfather’s fiancée, and later with Tony's history teacher.
 
Storytelling was what helped him survive the chaos of his childhood. 
 
“I used to tell myself stories as a way of going to sleep at night. I used to create all sorts of fantasy worlds”, he said, explaining, “the world was so out of control, I thought that my one way of controlling it was through narrative. And weirdly so, that stuck with me”.
 
Later, Ayres graduated in literature from the Australian National University in Canberra and started writing for television and film, mostly about his childhood. This led to The Home Song Stories, a 2007 film focusing on the mental health problems of his mother, played in the film by Joan Chen. In 2012, Ayres returned to Macau to present the film in his city of birth as part of the first edition of The Script Road – Macau Literary Festival.
 
The Home Song Stories earned the filmmaker a number of accolades. At the Inside Film Awards, it won Best Picture and Ayres won Best Director, while the Best Actress award went to its leading lady, Joan Chen. Also in 2007, at the Australian Film Institute Awards, The Home Song Stories won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress, among others. This success was repeated at the Golden Horse Awards, and at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, Joan Chen received the award for Best Actress.
 
When Macau CLOSER interviewed Ayres in March 2007, he admitted that he had wanted to shoot some scenes from The Home Song Stories in Macau, however, due to a lack of finances, he was forced to change the script. 
 
“It was basically for budget reasons. We spent more time than we expected shooting in Melbourne, and when we moved to Hong Kong, we just could not afford Macau anymore” the filmmaker indicated at the time, adding, “I did have to erase all references to Macau from the script and fully concentrate on Hong Kong during that period of the movie. It would have been very difficult to still include Macau. Maybe in a future project.”  
 
“Macau is presented to me as a romantic reference due to the fact that I was born there. People in Australia don’t even know where it is. I don’t remember much of my childhood in Macau because I left at the age of six,” said Tony Ayres at The Script Road, admitting he has visited his birth city several times, but always just as a tourist, since he no longer knows anyone in Macau. However, Ayres revealed that his mother “loved living in Macau”.
 
Over the years, Ayres has stepped away from the camera to concentrate on production. He co-founded the production company Matchbox Pictures in 2008, and more recently founded Tony Ayres Productions.
Facebook
WhatsApp
Threads
X
Email

More from the author

More of this category

Featured

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Older Issues

Living and Arts Magazine

現已發售 NOW ON SALE

KNOW MORE LiVE BETTER