Making the most expensive and offensive thing on the internet

By Dave McKenna

The tale of how I became the man making the ‘most expensive & offensive thing ever made for the internet.’ Like many of the episodes of The Hateful Tate it started with too much alcohol and spending unnecessary amounts of money. It was a standard night in Margate, there was a rave to attend which began with a buzz and ended in the not so early hours of the next day, with the similar feeling of doom, regret and the question that always lingered. ‘What in the name of Susan Boyle am I doing with my life?’ Arriving back at my basement flat (which isn’t relevant to this article at all really apart from the fact you might think ‘oh Margate that’s nice, sea views, fresh air’… No, There were no sea views, actually no view at all but still the squawk of the Seagulls penetrates. Anyhow, it was in this fragile state of mind that I began talking to my significant other (H) about my next film job and how its going to come about. It was a speech executed not in the style of a leader, giving a detailed plan of the route to victory but more in style of a stuttering modern-day politician when faced with the fact they’ve backtracked on a lie they told months before.

H asked if there was a site specifically for film-based jobs. She saw that as a more realistic & rational approach, compared to my priors pretending to be a qualified electrician just to get on a Bollywood film set (true story, I was sacked after a few hours. Turns out it’s quite difficult to pretend to be an electrician). I knew of one site, FilmandTvpro.com. I’d recruited on it while producing a French Short Film, discovering the finest (well cheapest) filmic folk from the corners of the web. Three out of Five of my recruits turned out not to be completely useless, one of them turned out to be mental and lived with me for a while. So I’d paid the price for my cheap labour, what I hadn’t paid for, as I explained to H that night was a membership for the site.

FilmandTvpro.com allows you to advertise jobs for free but if you want to apply they ask for a £170 annual membership fee, which I deemed absolutely unacceptable & beyond all sensical spending. Telling this to H expecting a similar squashed facial expression and tut from her, I was baffled to find her smiling, telling me to invest. I stood like Teresa May, not in shiny gold trousers but ‘Strong & Stable’, refusing any such expenditure.

I’m not sure if it was the weary hour, the effects of the night before or just plain madness but the next thing I knew H was taping in her credit card details. Now scrolling through the listed jobs with the ability to apply felt incredible, I was empowered. I was freed from window shopping, finally I was a millionaire, and I could make a purchase (application) whenever I felt like it. Despite this initial delight, four or five days passed without an application being completed.

Jobs that I did eventually apply for were standard editing, presenting roles that were naturally ignored as I do have the habit of coming across quite sarcastic in both my CV & cover letter. In fact I’ve never got a job on the merit of my CV, which might make it the worlds worst CV. Fortunately, a job posted as ‘Videographer – to follow a kick boxing world champion around the world with his entrepreneur brother’ required no CV but a short video demonstrating why I was the man for the job.

I remember I made the following video briefly before my friend came over to go to the pub I told him of the opportunity and how I’d applied, questioning whether I should pester the Kickboxer on his personal twitter? I did and showed the video to the pub-wantaway. He hurriedly said ‘its really good mate, yeah its really good … so we going out or what?’. We did and we were ending the night with a curry when a Mr Andrew Tate called to arrange a Skype interview. I naturally stayed out for a few more pints before staggering home for the interview that could lead to the escape from the basement flat.

I spoke to the Tate brothers for about half an hour, we had a mutual understanding of what the series should be within this short space of time. We arranged dates, rates and that was that. I learnt soon after that the Brothers had already employed a filmmaker and were no longer paying attention to the Filmandtvpro applications, it was the personal twitter pestering that had bought me to their attention.

So, the advice I would give to people searching for that elusive comedy job would be the same Ray Kroc the founder/ stealer of MacDonald’s said to himself many a time, ‘Persistence is everything’. However over that it would be that ‘luck is purely a mix of preparation & opportunity’. I’d prepared my whole life by making funny films, and strange documentaries without a patron, no purpose, no need & certainly no viewers. Luckily for me post rave blues credit card generosity/foolishness and two millionaires presented an opportunity for me to utilise such preparation.