Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future

Max Headroom was born out of the head of Edison Carter, mid-wifed by Bryce Lynch, in a secret lab at the top of the Network 23 building.

How all that came about takes a bit more telling. Edison Carter was a reporter who work for Network 23, a corporate news channel sometime in the near future. He had his own show (The Edison Carter Show), and his own tagline: "What I Want To Know Is....?" He's primetime, top-rated. And then he gets called off a news story. Something about a tv that blew up. He didn't think that made much sense, so he did what a reporter of his caliber does best: he dug further.

What he came across was footage of something called a "blipvert." Network 23 had their in-house teenage computer genius Bryce Lynch working on what they felt was their most challenging problem, which was channel switching. This simple issue revolved around the ability of tv viewers to change channels during commercials. Bryce's solution was the "blipvert" which compressed thirty seconds of advertising into just three seconds of screen time. However there was a side effect in some viewers, a nasty and rather messy side effect. As Carter was trying to escape the Network 23 building on a motorcyle, Bryce Lynch caused a traffic barrier to raise, blocking Carter's path and he crashed thru a wooden beam with the words "max. headroom 2.3m" printed on it.

Since it would be too hard to have the network's own star reporter suddenly disappear without an explanation, Bryce proposed that they replace Carter with a computer simulation. The head of the network, Mr. Grossman, gave his approval and so Bryce scanned Carter's brain to map his memories and personality. However, the only thing he'd simulated before was a parrot, and Grossman wasn't happy with the final product. He ordered Bryce to get rid of both Carter and the simulation.

Of course, the goons hired to get rid of Carter and Max don't quite get it right. Carter wound up back at Network 23, exposing the whole blipvert situation and saving the day. Max Headroom wound up in the hands of Blank Reg, a pirate tv broadcaster, who not only gave Max his name (based on muttered fragments from Carter's memory) but put him on air. The pirate tv station had a hit show and Max had the audience he craved.

The most interesting thing about Max Headroom being a virtual personality was that in the 1980s when he was created, computer-generated imagery wasn't yet able to actually create a person. Fully digital actors or characters weren't going to be truly born for another twenty years or so.

So, how did they make Max Headroom?

First, they started with Canadian actor Matt Frewer. They put some very thick makeup on him, plastic hair and a suit made of fiberglass. Then they filmed him, using good ol' fashioned blue-screen technology. This let those moving computer patterns be dropped in behind the actor to make Max appear in "cyberspace." Those were originally drawn by hand, and later were rendedered with an Amiga. Then conventional editing was used to match everything up and give Max his trademark stutter.

Now, when you consider present-day motion capture and full digital CGI rendering, how Max was made seems downright primitive. But also remember, they were only just inventing VCRs around the time Max was born.

The tv series of "Max Headroom" aired in the US from 1987-1988. Frequently called the only "cyberpunk" tv show, the look and feel of the show embraced many of the elements of that literary movement. New technology existed alongside old, and the world was split very clearly into haves and have-nots. Stylistic comparisions are often made between this series and the movies Bladerunner (1982) and Brazil (1985).

The series pilot was redone for the US run, and several of the characters were made less dark and sinister. Episodes dealt with a variety of issues that still seem pretty timely, even a few decades later.

Season One:
-Blipverts - advertising overload, literally
-Rakers - commercialization of deadly sports
-Body Banks - harvesting and sale of bodily organs
-Security Systems - credit fraud
-War - the televising and sale of terrorist acts
-The Blanks - mandatory national identity numbers

Season Two:
-Academy - disruption of network broadcasting
-The Deities - cult religion
-Grossberg's Return - tv network supremacy battles
-Dream Thieves - illegal theft of dreams (personal identity)
-Whacketts - addictive media
-NeuroStim - direct brain stimulation via the media
-Lessons - access to education for all
-Baby Grobags - baby production via artificial means