‘WIRED’ is a short Sci Fi thriller about a woman being gaslit by her smart hub.
When Becca loses her partner, job and spark she retreats into her apartment to recuperate, pouring her heart out to her only companion – MAIA, her AI wellbeing Smart Hub. But as she lands a new job, begins to turn her life around and prepares to leave the flat to re-join society, it seems MAIA has other plans…
The film blends shades of ‘Black Mirror’, ‘Ex Machina’ and ‘Her’ with dashes of the dark humour of ‘Bad Sisters’ or ‘Bridesmaids’.
Director’s Vision for ‘Wired’
I wanted to make this film a riff on AI’s ability to learn behaviour: What if it learns the ‘wrong’ behaviour? Amy has crawled from the wreckage of a gaslighting, controlling and toxic relationship with her ex-fiancé Rob. And she’s been pouring her heart out to MAIA on a daily basis all about it ever since. What if the behaviour her AI smart hub learned was not how to better serve her – but the gaslighting traits? And those v2.0 hubs are notoriously glitchy – what if having diagnosed isolation as the prognosis – MAIA then went to exceptional lengths to get her way..?
Visually, I wanted to nod back to classic Sci Fi aesthetics so shot on anamorphic lenses, complete with lens flares on MAIAs blue light and swathed the frame in red as the machines spin out of control.
Given this film is essentially a two-hander between Becca and MAIA, the inanimate Smart Hub, drawing Becca’s character was key – she’s headstrong, belligerent but wallowing. We see flashes of her spiky character that’s been blunted by isolation and I wanted to lean into dark humour in these moments and in the rhythm and pacing – such as the stabbing, where we aimed to teeter on that tricky line between comedy and tragedy. Given the nature of the script, casting was crucial and Amy Beth-Hayes was a perfect fit given her proven record in both comedy and drama. Polly Maberly as MAIA has a large body of work as both an actress and, critically, in Voice Over work so felt an ideal choice for the clipped, polite-with-an-edge-of-menace disembodied voice of MAIA.
