Impact 50

The Impact (Impact50) Synopsis

The Impact opens with the President of America (Olivia Williams) giving a televised speech to the world (written by Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct) where she sets out the premise of the movie… Nothing will survive.

The Impact poses the question: what would you do if you knew that you only had two hours to live? This question was answered by thousands of screenwriters who wrote short scripts that were filmed and edited together to create The Impact.

 The Impact is a fascinating tapestry of interwoven stories from diverse voices around the world; at times moving and profound, at others hilarious and irreverent, but always asking ‘what would we do in our final moments?’ A multi-cultural and global reflection of pop culture’s vision of the apocalypse… written and filmed BEFORE the actual covid apocalypse of 2020, and now offering a haunting reflection of where we may be headed as a species.

Key Story Points

• The Impact is a London Screenwriters’ Festival initiative to get as many creative people as possible their first-break and a ‘produced’ IMDb credit.

• ‘The Impact’ is about a fictional apocalypse, and production was halted because of Covid. It now feels strangely prophetic.

• The opening script is written by friend of the festival Joe Eszterhas, who in his day was the highest paid screenwriter in the world for ‘Basic Instinct’.

• The President in the opening scenes is played by Olivia Williams (The Sixth Sense). 

• 2,800 scripts were submitted from around the world to make the final selected 50 that were released to filmmakers.

• Nearly 100 short films were produced and submitted to be part of ‘The Impact’.

• Over 1,500 new entrant film crew, producers and directors were involved in the process, and from across the globe.

• ‘The Impact’ sets two new world records for the Most Screenwriters and Most Directors on a feature film. It may also set the record for longest end credits.

• On the premiere night, there will be an awards ceremony where the winner of the Best Screenplay award will be given the Final Draft Meteor Award… And an ACTUAL meteorite!

The Story Of The Impact 50

It All Began With A Kiss… 50 Kisses, Actually

In 2014, the London Screenwriters’ Festival premiered their first Create50 project, 50 Kisses – www.50kissesfilm.com

50 Kisses was the culmination of two years of work, drawn from 1870 submitted scripts, 127 produced films, an untold amount of man hours, and one vision – to get writers writing and filmmakers making films.

 The film launched the careers of many writers and filmmakers and entered the Guinness Book of World Records, breaking the record for the most screenwriters in a feature film.

 As we awoke on the proverbial morning after our 50 Kisses journey, we knew that we needed to do it again, this time with greater focus and ambition. After consulting with the community, we settled on The Impact50… a selection of stories set in the final moments of humanity before a cataclysmic meteor strike will destroy all life on earth.

 Project director Chris Jones explains: “We were keen to give writers a ‘real life’ opportunity to work with directors and get their films made. This was especially important for writers seeking that all important first credit”.

The Writers Challenge

In 2015 the writers challenge was launched: 2,800 scripts were entered during the submission process which closed in early 2016. 

 Unlike other writing challenges, collaboration and feedback was hard-baked into the process. In order to submit a script, the writer also had to read and leave constructive feedback on three other submissions. This process created an extraordinary amount of momentum, and most importantly, experience, education and new relationships. Creating a learning experience and expanding industry networks is at the heart of both the London Screenwriters’ Festival and Create50 projects.

In the spring of 2016, a team of eight writers and filmmakers descended upon the London Screenwriters’ Festival offices in Ealing Studios to assess the submissions. The entries were considered, argued about, and finally whittled down to a shortlist. One of the winners from 50 Kisses, Phil Peel, was part of this process and he personally read 300 scripts, adding: “I learned just how important the concept is. Over and over again my notes were ‘needs tightening or cut dialogue’, we need to get into the story fast.”

The final shortlist was then submitted to the industry judges, who then selected the final 55 scripts. We asked for candid comments from some of the judges who shared…

“I admired all fifty-five of the winning screenplays enormously and it is practically impossible to pick one favourite.”
Ted Tally, Oscar Winner for ‘Silence Of The Lambs’

“My favourite was actually perhaps the simplest one: MORE. I like the simplicity and clean emotionality of the storytelling, and how we all turn to children in moments of fear. It felt real and honest and like it packed a lot of emotion into so little time.”
Simon Kinberg, Screenwriter / Producer ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’

“He Who Is Without Sin had a great twist as well as a mini-redemption arc, masterfully-fit into such a short amount of screen time.”
Nicole Perlman, Screenwriter ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’

Shooting The President

As we moved to the filmmaking phase, we knew that we needed another script for the opening scene of the movie where the President of the United States addresses the planet and sets up the premise.

Screenwriting legend Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct) agreed to write the two-page opening script, and Olivia Williams agreed to play the president. The speech was shot on a reconstructed interior set of The White House Oval Office at RAF Coltishall in Norfolk (owned by October Films), providing both a killer opening to the film AND the speech that filmmakers could integrate into their own films.

 Chris Jones adds: “We could not have asked for more. A killer script by an iconic screenwriter. A world class actor to play the president. And a fantastic location. It REALLY set the tone of ‘excellence’ for the entire project.”

The Awards – Part One

At the British Screenwriters Awards in 2018, the first round of awards were announced and given to the writers. Writer Kim Wheeler accepted the Best Screenplay award for her script ‘In Vino Veritas’.

The Filmmakers Challenge: Let’s Make A Movie

Once the 55 scripts were released on the internet, the filmmaking challenge began. And like the screenplay challenge, feedback was built into the process so that filmmakers could re-edit and even reshoot parts of their films based on the constructive criticism they received. 

Filmmakers from across the world engaged in the process and the filmmaking voices were truly diverse and surprising.

The films were then shared on the Impact50 website for feedback and producers notes. The filmmakers who got the most from the process actively engaged in the feedback process and their films were dramatically improved.

One stand-out example of this is ‘T Minus’ by Adrian G. De la Pena Media. You can watch the before and after cuts HERE.

Project Director Chris Jones adds: “All the filmmakers who actively engaged with the feedback process radically improved their films by re-editing and in some cases additional shooting. We wanted to go beyond what most competitions offer. We wanted the community to be active participants in each others learning and success. You can see this clearly in the feedback offered, film maker to film maker, on each of the film’s pages on the site.”

As we closed the filmmaking part of the process… the unthinkable happened.

Who Knew? The Actual Apocalypse!

Just as film editing was getting underway, covid struck.

The tenth London Screenwriters’ Festival was scheduled to take place in April 2020, and given that the entire concept of the festival is to bring 1,000 international guests together in a single space for three days, the news for us was genuinely catastrophic.

The festival pivoted online and delivered a month-long extravaganza in Spring 2020, but covid decimated the entire business. Only in the last months of 2021 were we able to turn our attention back to The Impact.

In doing so, we also had the very strange sensation that the project was somewhat prophetic. The film was completed in Spring 2022 and our attention then shifted to launching and distributing the final feature.

The Final Movie

The trailer can be downloaded as an MP4 file on the Vimeo page directly HERE.

The World Premiere

On May 31st 2022, The Impact was premiered to a packed house at the Genesis Cinema in London.

The red-carpet event also included the Impact50 Awards where the ‘best in category’ winners were honoured on stage. They were…

The Best In Category Awards For Impact50 2022

• Best Performance: Amos Dewhurst in ‘Francis Of Fell End Farm’

• Best Production Design: BJ Boulter for ‘Blood Sweat and Tears’

• Best Cinematography: Edward Swales for ‘Francis Of Fell End Farm’

• Best Visual Effects: Paddy Eason for ‘I.R.L.’

• Guerilla Film Award: The Watchers by Siege Entertainment

• Best Director: Natacha Simpson for ‘School’s Out’

• Best Director: Eleanor Horley for ‘School’s Out’

• Best Director: Hilla Sewell for ‘School’s Out’

• Best Director: Rudi Goodman for ‘School’s Out’

• Best Music: Ice Dob f or’School’s Out’

• The Kim Wheeler Emotional Impact Award: ‘Daddy’s Fort’ by Cera Rose Pickering

• Final Draft Meteor Award for Best Produced Screenplay: Ben Marshall for ‘Rock. Paper. Scissors.’

• The Anil Rao Best Film Award: ‘Equals’ by Ben Lacey

The film also set two new world records. One for most screenwriters on a feature film, and one for the most directors on a feature film. We are also going for a third record, but more on that in a future post.

Festivals and Beyond

Chris Jones comments: “It’s been an extraordinary journey – with an actual apocalypse in the middle! The film itself feels even more poignant now, with covid hopefully behind us, but also with what’s happening in the Ukraine and the looming challenges of climate change. We have also lost some key members of the community over the years, which again brings into stark focus one of the messages of the film: nothing is permanent, let the small stuff slide and live in the moment. It’s now time to get the film seen around the world too and we have begun submitting to top tier festivals.”

Eight years in the making.
Sixty-seven writers.
Thirty-six directors.
And one actual apocalypse.

Stills Gallery

You can download a Zip file of all photos HERE.

NOTE: Impact50 is the project name, The Impact is the name of the final film that was made from the project and will be released in cinemas in the summer of 2022.

Running time: 2 hours and 16 minutes
Excepted BBTC certificate: 12A

• Full list of credits on the website at www.impact50film.com/credits.

• Trailer link: https://vimeo.com/685535393

• Trailer MP4 Download link: HERE

The Impact50 Storyworld and Timeline

About the 'World' of the feature film 'The Impact'

We wanted to create a storyworld that would challenge screenwriters and filmmakers to dig deep into a human narrative that transcends politics, religion and petty differences.

We want to explore the idea, ‘As we look into the face of death with certainty, who would we choose to be in those last few hours?’

We also want to tie the stories together with a single global incident. ‘The Impact’ is not country specific and we encourage diversity.

Phase one of the screenwriting and filmmaking phase produced some amazing work. We felt we needed some tougher stories too, to create more dynamic and confronting moments of humanity, good, bad and downright beautiful or ugly.

There’s a maximum of two tickets per person, but anyone can register. Please ask your cast and crew to register for their online tickets if they want to attend. Family and friends are also welcome.

The film will be streamed on the website AND on a private Facebook page at 8:00pm UK time, March 19th 2022.

We will not be putting the film online directly after the premier as we plan a festival run to gather some awards.

Countdown to ‘The Impact’…

The Impact has a VERY strict time construct, to which you must adhere. Here are the story beats BEFORE our story begins…

• Zero hour: Amateur astronomer James Anderson spots the asteroid from his home observatory in Alice Springs, Australia. He immediately puts in a call to NASA.

• One hour in: Four other amateur astronomers from the dark side of the planet confirm the Asteroid, provisionally named KT-1887.

• Two hours in: NASA verify and confirm the size, trajectory and estimate ‘the impact’. They debate action to take.

• Two hours and fifteen minutes in: The White House is called and information relayed to William Jones, chief scientific advisor to the President.

• Two hours and thirty minutes in: The President is pulled out of a meeting on agricultural policies and briefed on the impending threat.

Where our story begins...

• Two hours and forty five minutes in: The President addresses the nation and planet. ‘An asteroid the size of New York city will impact in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Africa, in 97 minutes, it will destroy all life on earth aside from microbes. The blast will take just over one hour to travel around the planet…’

• Four hours and twenty one minutes in: Impact in the Atlantic Ocean. The physical impact will be felt planet wide, mostly experienced as a small earthquake. The blast wave from the impact will take one hour to circulate the planet.

• Five hours: Total annihilation of civilization and the end of our story as the blast wave comes full circle on the opposite side of the planet.

Asteroid Impact 101: The Facts

• Many meteors hit the atmosphere each year and appear to us as shooting stars. Few make it to the ground as a meteorite.

• Recently, we all saw video clips of the Chelyabinsk meteor which was half a ton when it finally hit the earth.

• In the more distant past Meteor Crater in Arizona was created 40,000 years ago by a meteorite the size of a basketball court.

• The dinosaurs were killed by a meteor that struck the Yucatan basin 65 million years ago. Ash and debris engulfed the atmosphere and temperatures plummeted, killing almost all large animals. Rodents and other small animals thrived and dominated and rose subsequently. This meteorite was estimated to be around 10km wide.

• Most scientists agree that a large asteroid impact is a certainty. It’s just a matter of when.

• A big enough asteroid has the potential to kill all life on earth. The impact would boil and vaporise the ocean, create massive Tsunamis, blast the atmosphere into space. Truly hell on earth.

• NASA has a $4m per year budget to run the Spaceguard Survey, charting near-earth asteroids more than 1km in size. There is no way to track everything in space, especially an asteroid that wanders into our solar system from afar.