I would think the female lead would be an FBI grunt / Marshall looking for a promotion who realizes she must bend a few rules to obtain the necessary clearance to execute her objectives... namely...

Therefore, she 'saves,' Griffin... by kidnapping him -

Perhaps she's looking to work for the Department of Justice and dubs Griffin, as the ultimate hacker, to be a 'Witness Protection,' expert...

Just one humble request... if you are going to have female heroes in the production, could at least one of them not look like a model to start with? She could be attractive as in having a great personality without needing to be a classical beauty. Just think of the typical messy jeans and t-shirt IT-girl who nobody would ever notice at the office.

Eventually, she may need to dress up in order to achieve her purposes... look pretty to pass as dumb and such obtain information she needs. The older trick of the world perhaps, but I dare anyone claim it does not work. ;)

I heard about Nazis using control over switchboards in occupied territories, namely France, to ferret out the resistance networks. Can't find a citation, would appreciate. Who knows who calls whom, knows most of the topology of the social networks in the area. That's the purpose of the comm data retention now enforced in EU, retrospectively ferreting out recent associations. (Bleh. Imagine what such an occupying force could do with those data today.)

Relying primarily on the central idea is the major strength of Clarke's novels. Little distraction with the characters, low to no dependence on the reader being able to correctly remember all the character-related fluff.

I'm 99.9% sure I've seen a film from the 1940s where a telephone operator solves a murder based on the calls she has to put through. I can't remember its name or anyone involved with it though so I can't provide any links... But it's a very interesting idea for a film.

"She would naturally be very intelligent and attractive"

Erm... why?

"Great writing does not have to rely on this theme. One of the best examples are the works of Arthur C. Clarke."

With all due respect to Sir Arthur, he isn't very good at dialogue or characters though, his novels depend almost entirely on their central ideas.

...also, for more realistic angle, if this theme HAS to be used, what about making Griffin win the case but fail miserably in getting the girl, and letting her fall for somebody else (preferably off-camera)?

Why oh why does a relationship problematics have to be shoehorned into every single movie on the planet? Not everybody enjoys having to watch that.

Great writing does not have to rely on this theme. One of the best examples are the works of Arthur C. Clarke.

... "Bond also got his reward in the end inevitably"

Guys, lets try to NOT to be a bunch of sexist jerks here, right? Please.

Any of the characters as per profession/role could be female - sure tech is a male dominated profession but for the love of all things shiny, do NOT define the female characters as per their relationships to the males. DON'T fall into the shallow love interest trap.

and not just those who have worked there but also those who havve called them - and have handed over a lot of personal information over the phone for account verification purposes. Enough that it would be very likely to make an audience think about the security of their own personal data with the biusinesses they deal with.

I have worked in a callc enter close to three years no an seen - well, a lot. I have seen incredible amounts of ways to abuses sytems, a lot of disgruntled employees, people nsapping under constant pressure from all sides.

Considering the number of people who have worked in a call centre, I think this character is someone the audience would be able to relate to much more than a nerdy hacker.

I work for a call center (although in the IT dept nowadays). I'd dare say this scaringly makes a lot of sense...

Yes, that's exactly what I meant to say.

They might be a group of friends within a call centre who feel they have been treated really badly and decide to take what they deserve (i.e. a lot more money) by criminal means.

Or even a gang within their own call center. TYpically, one personb only has access to tsystems of one client. But a call center is likely to have dozens of cloients - just a few people working together could easily, say, pull together lists of personal daa from several sources to be sold that is les easily identifiable as coming from company X.

Maybe she could be the leader of a call centre-based gang, a sort of virtual form of organised crime?

That sounds not only a good character but a realistic one. I know people in exactly that position with exactly those feelings about their jobs.

Also, the plot is totally believable. In fact one British bank found that operators in its Indian call centre really were abusing their position for financial gain:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4619859.stm

Thanks Tuomas! I have heard the song dozens of times, but never seen the clip. LOL!

You can easily verify the John Thomas reference by watching and listening the Monty Python episode on YouTube yourself, perhaps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcP8sVjZ5qg

Junior High must have been fun for him ;)

John Thomas, in the real world, is a film editor in New York!

Just regarding the name, you can't call someone John Thomas in an English language film, at least not if you want to show it in Britain:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=john+thomas

It would be like a Finnish film with a character called Jorma Jortikka (well actually there was someone called that but you get the idea).

Great, I'd be happy to know what becomes of him or if I can help further. Best wishes there.

Singh needs intellectual stimulation. The bad guys fall in love with his genius as he casually, unaware, solves a supposedly dead-end strategy problem they had. At that point in time he's just roaming around depressed in impossible corners of buildings, and gives them the solution to their problem as he overhears a couple of sentences from behind a panel while continuing looking emptily at the street while sipping his chai ( that scene can well be outside of India). They see him as a perfect candidate for the team. They let him put out their fires and it amuses him. Bu the goes a step further. He figures out what the motivation behind every member's actions are, what their history and personalities are. What their group dynamics are. What they are interacting with. And how the denouement invariably will be. He yet does not take himself into account. He is in the story this time around. And when the moment comes he doesn't let things reach the -otherwise correctly- foreseen end. He uses not only intellectual skills but also an unsuspected extreme physical intervention to turn things around.

He had been an observer all his life, assuming he can't reach out and act on things himself, ever since his childhood when some in hindsight insignificant event put the conviction in his head that he can't actually take things in his own hands: he just wasn't one of those people -everyone else for that sake. Even after his intervention now, he still has that conviction. This was a glitch as he sees it. It was above a certain threshold of of importance and he couldn't have just let things evolve in that direction. He stopped being himself for that moment.

But now he knows how that feels.

As for his family, it is another story.

PS: I could use another trip to Mumbai myself, especially in the light of the Hindi song I've posted a MV suggestion on WAM for!

I have a lot of ideas about this character, so I'll be happy to write down everything I have in mind once we will have more details about the episode.

Yeah, naming a character can be hard to do. And I thought naming a new puppy was tough :). So I look up name meanings to help me.

As far as names with meaning go, she is a good match for Griffin :)

Sounds cool. Just one question: can one do green screen stuff for under water scenes? Or would it just look really fake?