Notes Taken from Week 1’s reading.

I found week one’s reading interesting because it teaches something that is rarely taught-collaboration. Previously (before reading this) my feedback to other peoples creative work has often been too specific/blunt which can not only hurt there feelings and make them doubt what they created, but it can frame me in a bad light that may damage the creative relationship I have with the person.

Some specific notes I took from this reading is below.

• Everything should link to the vision, go back to the start. I think this is important when harnessing ideas, often people want to take their idea (of the idea) in their direction which may not fit into another collaborators idea of the idea and the direction they try to take it. Everything falls out of sync and the creation suffers, like several people painting on the same canvas. By clearly defining what the project is and where it should be taken at the start collaborators begin working on the same thing (adding their own unique flavour) instead of trying to define it and take it.
• Provide questions rather than answers. This idea really stood out to me because it is something I’ve never done. However its very practical and something I will take onboard in the future. By asking questions you keep the initial idea with the writer/creator, you gently push them in another direction without making them lose confidence in themselves and without knocking there idea too much. Often, I now only realise, this technique was used in High School when my teachers would correct my essays, the brilliance behind it is that it got me thinking and kept me confident.
• Give concise notes don’t be wishy washy. This one seems somewhat contradictory to my above point-but it isn’t. I see asking questions as being better for bigger picture creative work. For example, What is the significant behind CEO having a warped sense of justice? If the CEO is a major character that has agency in the story his/her sense of justice would be significant. However if you wanted the CEO to wear different clothes or live in a different type of house you would write it down specifically.
• Use First Person. As it states in the text this is in order to not come off as condescending. You don’t want to be too blunt. By putting an I at the start it makes your thoughts seem subjective (which they are) as opposed to be objective and infallible.
• Don’t Confuse Symptoms and Causes. If you identify the bit that hasn’t been working for you, then the writer can work out how it has been caused. This again falls back to the idea of not letting too many hands mould a vision into something wayward and unrecognisable. Something that tripped up some people in class was the distinctions between Cause and Symptom. An example of a Symptom would be a line that is funny as a one liner but in the context of the script isn’t funny. A Cause of this would be the way the character is behaves in the script before hand. Maybe the character says too many quirky things for this line to stand out? Or maybe the character is too serious, which makes the audience take everything too seriously. Irregardless of what it is, something needs to be changed so the flaw can be resolved. Another example would be Symptom: Scene that lacks in dramatic tension. Cause: No conflict was built up earlier in the story.
• One last thing to be aware about, which we touched on in class, is not pulling a thread that could unravel the whole script. Lets say a producer asks a writer to change a scene, and the writer does, but because they changed the scene they also have to change all of the preceding scenes to give that one context. This is an example of pulling the wool and unravelling the jumper. What should be done is fixing a tiny whole at the start, that gives context to the troubled scene.

As I was working on an assessment task last night an idea came to me of using perspective, defined by google as a particular attitude towards or way of regarding something; a point of view, in order to reveal things implicitly about character.

In the piece of creative writing I will do tonight I hope to juxtapose perspectives to shed light on character.

Currently its Saturday Night and I’m feeling tired and not wanting to write at all, however I’m often told that the best writers can write like its a trade-any time, any where. So here goes nothing….

Black and light, Black and light, Black and light. SUV’s and Sport Cars rolled into the car park of the Casino. Men got out, formal shoes gracing the pavement, cigarettes dangling from mouths, open collars and slicked back hair. They walked with a purpose, moving quickly towards the light and dark of the Casino. They walked through the doors into a new world, a world of chance, where the thought of achieving something great, greater than oneself, was only a role of the dice away. The Casino placed the outside world into obscurity. It had the fate of those men in its cold magnetic hand.

A silhouette walked down the highway kicking cans into the creek.

How does one come back? How do I get back? Through all those years I thought I wasn’t changing, I was……. I was changing. 

Wearing a green bomber jacket and board shorts he walked into the wind. His eyes were bloodshot, they stung when he blinked. His hair was short and neat, his drivers license told us he was 29. Not even 30, yet something feels inexorably gone.

Time doesn’t tell us what it takes, it just takes. 

A fleet of young men, in SUV’s and Sports Cars drive past, throwing cans and yelling abuse. The silhouette doesn’t look up, whats there to look at? He focuses his eyes on the wind and beats on. The young men give up. They illicit no reaction and sail down the road, tuneless music beat deep and loud.

I think I’m going to finish here for the time being. I didn’t end up getting to the point of perspective (the very thing I initially set out to do). I think in the long run this will happen towards the end of my narrative, so no need to rush into it. I was quite happy with this, I think my depiction of the Casino was a strongpoint and I think the final paragraph of the man walking down the highway and coming across the fleet of cars was nice. I might have to make the correlations (that these are the same people) stronger. It would also be worth fleshing out the scene, maybe some more dialogue?

IDEAS

• Maybe I could reveal the silhouettes facial features at the very end?
• Have a look over ‘Life and Times of Michael K’. The dialogue here is good rhythmically, if I want to continue with this scene. Work on my short story dialogue.
• One, was not, but those with the most self-awareness found themselves leaning into a slower rhythm as they swaggered into the Casino.

INSPIRATION AND ANALYSIS – THE SEABIRDS – THE TRIFFIDS

I would like to discuss the lyrics of a song called Seabirds, by a fantastic Australian rock band The Triffids. In my post I will explore how this song will help me shape my worlds internal logic, as well how it demonstrates subtle exposition and clever subjectivity that I hope to draw inspiration from when creating my future work.

Below, are the lyrics.

Continue reading →

Last Friday I had an idea of something that could develop into my final project for this class. I want to put this idea on paper, and flesh it out a as a means of moving it forward.

I would have my project brought into 3 parts.

Part 1: Will be the Short Story, Currently I’ve been having these ideas for stories that centre around people learning something about themselves or confronting some deeper personal issues on the beach. The first idea that I had, centred around two old high school friends running into each other in the township. The second, which I think it the most potent idea, has two narratives, the first is about a recently divorced man and a morning he spends at the beach after he sleeps with a random stranger. The second will centre around the stranger, and her night at the Casino before ‘picking up’ the Man. I could envision this project going to around 2000 words.

Part 2: I would like to adapt one of these moments into a short 1-2 minute film, as a way of visually supporting the writing.

Part 3: I would like to film some kind of video essay, potentially with me in the RMIT greenroom, talking about how water/the beach function in classic texts and how my short story and visual piece (and the world I have created) fits in with this.

When I do write this, I’ll need to think of how my world fits in, or doesn’t fit in with these worlds. I don’t need to make this a super strict or academic video essay. But I do need to a main objective, and I think if my objective is simply to compare and contrast (my world and these famous beach worlds) It should be relevant.

E.G This is this world, This is how the world relates to the protagonist, then this is my world and this is how my world relates to my protagonist.

Reveals a truth/Baptism of sorts.

The Swimmer, by John Cheever, whose works largely concerns himself with the decay, the rot, behind the beautiful charade of suburban American middle class life. Depicts its protagonist on a pristine, dreamlike summers day. The protagonist sets himself a goal to symbolically through a sea of pools to his own, the day symbolically (again that word) grows colder and the protagonist begins to comprehend the truth behind his world, that indeed his world his fake and friends are pretend, rather surrealistically, his old life, or his old idea of his life, fades away. It’s also a stripping away of his ego. Maybe in my short story, the lead character of mine begins to learn something about his past? Maybe he too needs to lose some ego? This example would be of the beach, as a place of renewal. The Beach as a place of moving forward.

Other Beach Texts

• Cloudstreet (It plays an untrusting God)
• Rabbit Run (no water, no renewal)
• Mad Men
• The Wind in the Willows
• Heart of Darkness
• Of Mice and Men (a place they go as a refuge and ultimately to die)

How will the idea of world influence my writing? Think about this as I work on my piece.

What inspiration can I draw from when creating this world?

Project Brief #2 – Brydan Meredith – s3547569

The task below was written in our second class of the Semester. It required us to write about a place we liked and then begin imagining why someone may not like the place and whom these people/characters may be.

This task was a prolific one for me, it garnered colonels of ideas that were substantial enough to generate more ideas, which led to further writing.

That night I went and responded to my initial Brainstorming session with a short piece of creative writing.

The paragraphs in italics, that start with a bold word, are the ones I deem to be worthy of elaboration. Under these paragraphs I write about how they influenced my creative response.

 The Original Task – Brainstorming

I like the Beach.

I find it, like so many others, quite peaceful.

In an age where everything is so busy, where so many people do so many things, where everything changes in minor, irrelevant ways every day, beaches remain untouched by culture, they are timeless. Old but still significant. 

I think the above paragraph speaks for itself. I like how my protagonist can be alone yet completely in the open. It makes for an expansive image.

A lot of Australia’s national identity is tied up with the beach, considering that all the major cities are on the coast.

I hope to mould my piece into something that feels uniquely Australian. In this first draft it may not, but as I continue writing I want to begin to explore ideas relevant to Australians. Even by placing universal ideas in an Australian setting will see me achieve that.

Why might someone not like the beach?

It’s quite messy, you don’t feel clean, you get sand and water on your clothes and on your body.

The physical discomfort that I talk about here go hand in hand with mental discomfort that I explore in my writing. How physical aspects of the world give implied reasoning to particular behaviour is really interesting. Would my writing be more interesting if my protagonist, instead of falling to his knees on a cold morning at the beach, reacted the same way in his pristine bedroom with soft carpeted floors and perfectly framed photos hanging from the wall? These two images, of a man kneeling in despair on the beach or in his room connote very different things. The beach makes him appear more animalistic, he would be perceived as being poorer-without material possessions as well as physical wellness. However, if he does the same gesture in his room, the piece would make the reader examine the impact wealth has on his mental health. He would be perceived very differently. 

Can be cold and windy.

Potentially they could have had a near drowning experience or a loss of a pet or friend/family member to the waves.

Who would these people be? What stories would they tell?

Potentially gamers. People who enjoy passive entertainment. It would almost be a comical story, to have a bunch of gamers sent to the beach and experience something out of there comfort. You would also get a clash of culture between the surfers and the gamers.

People who are very body conscious: Often people wear less stuff at the beach because of its unique environment, it could be a source of anxiety for some people. You could tell a story of someone learning to accept themselves while at the beach. This could physically or mentally.

Maybe my story will not be about someone accepting their body, however it might be about someone accepting themselves. It might even be about someone coming to terms with the past. Nonetheless acceptance will be a theme.

The Creative Response

The silhouette strode across the sand until it reached the water’s edge. It had signed the divorce papers yesterday, spent a night at Park Beach Motor Inn, fucked some ugly stranger and walked here in the remaining moonlight. It was time for cleansing. Falling into temptation the Silhouette fell to his knees as the sun rose above the horizon.  

 Juliet, awoken by the light of the morning, felt nothing by her side. There was no longer a man next to her, no big hunk of flesh she could hang onto, no human heart beating in rhythm with hers. Draping the bedsheets over herself she let out a muted whimper. The sun fell through the window, it warmed her body as she slammed down a fist.

 The Casino, located half a kilometre from the beach, smelt like beer and mould. It is here where Juliet spends many moonlit hours. Sitting at the bar, night after night, she would listen to the same songs, if she closed her eyes, even just for a second, shapeless objects of green and amber would fall onto the black of her eyelids; darkness burnt with flashing light.

Many warm nights would be spent at the Casino, sitting on a red stool, rubbing sweat from her eye. She would watch the men drink, discerning between those who drank to be happy and those who drank to be sad. It was the sad ones she liked-they were the ones who would do anything.  

 The Questions

How do I think this piece could be improved?

I think I’ll start with the small stuff.  In my third paragraph, in my first draft (it has since been changed) I write It is here that Juliet spends her nights. Sitting at the bar, night after night, she would listen to the same songs. Firstly, I write the word Night too many times, it makes the whole scene start rather chunkily and clumsily. Secondly, it may be a matter of opinion, but I write the Casino rather vaguely, all we know about it is that it is half a kilometre from the beach, which is trivial and unimportant, and that it plays the same songs. The sentence about the songs, now that I think about it, seems to be more descriptive than first thought. Like the Beach ‘beaches remain untouched by culture, they are timeless. Old but still significant’ this Casino, could be untouched by culture, unwilling to change from the same old songs. Maybe this is a world I can explore in the future? A world where things don’t change, a world where history is bound to repeat, where people get stuck. And when they do get stuck how do they act? The Beach (and its surrounds) could be the ideal place for this, because it naturally doesn’t change. Through my further writings, I can begin to tease this out.  

What do I think works with the piece?

I think the relationship between the story world and the characters is strong. The idea (that I just touched on) of my characters being in a relatively flat, dry and unchanging world is something that, now that I’m conscious of it, works quite nicely.

I like whats not known about the piece. The protagonist is nothing but a silhouette without a name. Juliet is also shapeless, all we know about her is that she really likes lonely men because she can connect with their loneliness.

I also like the way I reference the moon. I don’t know why, but for me moonlight has a greater impact than sunlight. Moonlight connotes mystery, as if the things it does illuminate are less significant than the things it doesn’t.

By Brydan Meredith, s3547569

Project Brief 1 – An Early Reflection – Brydan Meredith s3547569

I want this blog post to explore and exploit the very basics that comprise a story world. An issue I had in these opening lessons, was that I struggled to get past the false idea that place (setting) and story world are interchangable. They are not.

Let’s go to an apartment.

The apartment lives in the 1960’s, it is in California, on the top floor of a 20-story building Surfers talk amongst themselves wearing nothing but bathers, the cream carpet is soft on their terse feet. All of the Surfers are men whom enjoy listening to Elvis Presley. They all smoke, they all drink, they are all under 30, 65% of them don’t believe in God, 10% consciously rebel against any kind of authority. In the middle of the apartment lies a huge, green couch. It’s the centrepiece of the room. Behind it, at the very back, just metres from the window and balcony, there is a bar. Jailhouse Rock plays in the background. Everyone is talking, the dry California sun shines through the large window at the back, energy, positive and intangible swells within the room. Our protagonist, inscrutable, sits on the arm of the couch.

This is my world. Now let’s play around with it a bit.

The apartment lives in the 1960’s, it is in California, on the top floor of a 20-story building a group of Indian people, from Pune, talk amongst themselves wearing nothing but board shorts and T-Shirts, the cream carpet is soft on their terse feet. All the Indians, Men, Women and Children alike enjoy listening to music from their native city. Only a few smoke, none drink, 95% of them believe in God and none rebel against any kind of authority. In the middle of the apartment lies a huge, red couch. It’s the centerpiece of the room, behind it, at the very back, just metres from the window and balcony, there is a television. Ambient music plays in the background. The room is quiet, but pleasant, everyone is happy, the dry California sun shines through the large window at the back, energy, positive and intangible swells within the room. Our protagonist, sits on the arm of the couch with a relaxed expression on his face; Contentment.

These two examples of the same setting demonstrate that a) Setting does not solely define a world- innumerable things do. Some of these innumerable things are: The culture that comprises it, the country (albeit ficticous or not) where the world lives, the year the world is set, the people within the world, the objects that comprise the setting, even the weather, all play a role in building this world. If there was no Sun in my first illustration, the mood would change, maybe the characters would talk less, wear more clothes, drink less alcohol, listen to Bing Crosby.

The second thing I was showing can be found in our protagonist, doing the same thing in both sketches, can be perceived differently depending on the world he is in. He wears the same expression on his face both times and in the first example, is not fitting in, and is perceived as being alien (inscrutable). In the second he is perceived as being relaxed, content, because he matches the world around him.

I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration.

I woke up to Rolling Thunder, got out of bed and drove to the store in torrential rain. It was Christmas Eve and I had work, which meant that I would spend most of the day selling stuff. This was neither a good or a bad thing. It was just a thing. Christmas music would play all day through treble heavy speakers, which sufficiently gave the store the ultra-capitalistic vibe that it (and pretty much any other store that relies on selling stuff) really seems to dig.

As I walked into the store I was greeted by a man with hollow, beady eyes. They shifted around his sockets. His pupils were invisible yet significant, made him look apathetic to the human condition. I knew this man, worked with him. An impatient alcoholic, puts a magnifying glass on your failures and forgets his own, can’t comprehend imperfection being attributed to his name.

The day moved slowly because beady eye man was in a sullen mood. Instead of the usual mix of cheer and anger mixed with a heavy dose of superficiality- today was all melancholy. I tried to make small talk, ask him about Christmas plans, but he refused to play his role in the conversation- everything was a dead end response. The previous week he had told me he planned to spend Christmas with his Father, but today he said those plans had fallen through. I asked him specifically, he said one word. No.

I sincerely hoped he was lying.

Aside from my feeble attempts at conversation the day was nice, plenty of happy customers and excited kids. The water eventually cleared up and the heat came which made everything more accessible for everyone. Murky grey turned dead blue. The sun burnt through the clouds until there was no more cloud left, hot and thick air, nearby gum trees shivered and simmered, did a waltz in the wind.

I continued attempting conversation as time entered early afternoon. I offered him chocolate several times throughout the day, as if it would fill some kind of void, build a bridge in our relationship. I was wrong, presumably out of pride he refused.

The day eventually ended, it was time for me to leave. Christmas was approaching.

As I turned off lights around the store I looked across at the counter. He was packing up the registers, the glow and hum of the vending machine filled the room. This time I saw someone different- maybe it was the light. I didn’t see a man standing there counting money, instead I saw a small man confronting loneliness, not an ordinary loneliness, not a fear of missing out,  it was something much deeper, much sadder. I couldn’t put my finger on it but I could understand- he was facing something I fear the most. It was as if in some point in time he chose to consciously forget someone, something, some moment in his own history that was once important. Something he should have remembered. Maybe not. Maybe he never had these things to begin with. Didn’t have the memories to clutch to. Didn’t win the raffle to run the race. Got unlucky.

I went to shake this mans hands, I half smiled and genuinely wished him a merry Christmas, he wouldn’t make eye contact, didn’t look at me, he half grumbled ‘you too’ out of obligation. If Chocolate didn’t work I was pretty sure a handshake wouldn’t cut the mustard. For the first time ever I thought about him in a way that would have hurt him the most -I pitied him, not in condescension, I genuinely felt bad.

I walked out into the Sun and looked out at the SUV’s speeding down main road. The heat beat against my face, the wind was hot. I squinted unconsciously at the traffic until my eyes watered. A thought had hit me, I just didn’t know what it was, it was ethereal, intangible, ever so close. I continued walking towards my car, looked up at a swaying gum tree and then down at a fluorescent portable bin, it was overflowing with broken cardboard and giant plastic wrap. Under the Sun I walked; through the Candy Cane fields and under the mistletoe, next to an Elf with Rudolph by my side, through a mist of sugar and in a Pine Forrest littered with Coca Cola signs. Before too long I had reached my car. The thought blew back to me, I got lucky, opened my car door and stood silent in a moment of a grace. I understood that everyone, in their own quiet way, is trying.

I took comfort in this.

Hi there

So I’m going to talk a bit about what media making we did in the studio and what purpose it served. So for the class, with every project brief, we were required to write an exegesis (which is quite similar to an essay) and with that exegesis we submitted a piece of media that supported what we wrote. So in the exegesis we would argue one thing about the genre and the media making would demonstrate what we argued.

At the start of the semester we looked at things like tropes and conventions and how they function within genre. But as we went through the semester we began exploring  (more broadly) how genre functions and what genre means to not only the film itself but to film making as well.

For example if you were to make a western film or discuss the Western. You could highlight the implications of that genre, discuss whether they are good or bad and through your media piece you can show your ideas or subvert whatever it is you’re arguing against.  So if you don’t like that the bad guy in the Western is almost always a symbol of modernity you can do something about that.

In our final media pieces we had a choice between making one 8-10 minute short film or a series of 2-3 minute film sketches. And no one made a loving tribute to their favourite genre.

Instead we looked at things that weren’t quite right in our chosen genres. We looked at things that we think could be changed or simply things that interest us. And through these different ideas we explored, exploited and exploded genre.

Brydan Meredith

s3547569

Exploding Genre. Final Exegesis. Project Brief 4

Before we get into my core ideas on how Bottle Film functions I must lay out what I believe a Bottle film is. The term ‘Bottle’ comes from episodes of television that are set in a single, minimalistic location. These Bottle Episodes generally come about when the shows budget has dried up, for popular shows they come after a high-budget storyline has been produced and the series is running out of money. The only difference between Bottle Film and Bottle Episodes is that Bottle Film does not necessarily spawn from the economic constraints, aside from that they both abide by the same conventions: Single Location, Dialogue Heavy Script, Small Cast with an emphasis on performance and character growth. In my essay I will discuss the long shot, realism and space within the Bottle Genre whilst contending that unlike other genres the constraints of Bottle lead to innately interesting, subversive filmmaking.

Bottle films, unlike contemporary Hollywood films, use different editing techniques in order to immerse the audience in the films narrative. In her essay The Action Sequence (2011) Lisa Purse cites David Bordwells writings on contemporary editing. Bordwell suggests that due to the inexpensive nature of editing “todays films are on average cut more rapidly than at any other time in US studio filmmaking”. Later in her essay Purse references Geoff King who talks of Impact Aesthetic, a mode of filmmaking characterised by: objects being hurled towards the camera, shaky cam, loud noises and quick paced editing. This mode of filmmaking immerses the audience by assaulting their senses- it’s designed to unsettle yet entertain viewers in a similar fashion to riding a rollercoaster at a theme park would. The experience is more reliant on cheap filmic thrills as opposed to thought provoking narrative. This paradigm shift has meant that many contemporary films do not have a narrative punctuated by moments of action, instead the narrative is derived from many fluid action sequences. This unfortunate trend of rapid fire editing can be attributed to the Western Worlds broader media environment, where advertisements, ‘flash’ Facebook videos and paragraph length articles dominate. Bottle film in its very nature subverts this type of film making. Instead of maintaining audience interest through quick cutting it instead uses the confines of its single location. The genre requires a slow edit in order to draw the audience into its space. In the creation of my piece I discovered that the single location setting when mixed with the long take creates an unparalleled sense of realism that is reminiscent of being at the theatre. In editing my Media piece I found that the scenes shot as long takes were the most interesting because a) the actors have more to do, they didn’t have the opportunity to quickly turn off and on a character like in a short take B) There was more information in the frame, at times all actors were doing interesting things and C) The long take grounds Bottle Drama in realism, when the camera is fixed in the one shot for a long time the viewer gets a fly on the wall perspective which has the effect of making the viewer feel like they are really there and that the scene is actually happening. Unlike other genres where the quick cut is often used to disorientate the viewer within the filmic space, the long take in Bottle film subversively presents “space and time uninterrupted by the cinematic cut” which, in a day and age where the correlation between film and theatre gets exponentially smaller, is far more interesting.

I have already established that the Bottle Drama is a canvas for realism. I now want to talk about how my Bottle Drama, as a naturalistic film, opened itself up for hybridity and self-reflexivity. In his essay chapter ‘A Plague of Frogs: Expressionism and Naturalism in the 1990’s’ Steven Dillon talks about naturalism as being the perfect canvas for a filmmaker to subvert audience expectations. At the beginning of the chapter he talks of Paul Thomas Anderson’s decision to have characters (towards the end of the film) unexpectedly sing along with an Aimee Man song (non-diegetic) from Magnolias soundtrack. This decision from Anderson has been questioned by critics due its refusal to abide by the naturalism he set up earlier in the film. Dillon later defends Anderson by stating “So if the scene does not make sense, it is because of our generic expectations. It must be that we are reading Magnolia as basically realistic, expecting the physical rules of our known world to obtain”. In reference to Anderson’s decision he then ironically states “surely the genre train has fallen off its tracks”. I believe one of the most significant affordances of films that are grounded in realism is that they provide an unsuspecting canvas for the filmmaker to puncture with either self-reflexivity or metaphysical elements, which Anderson did twice in Magnolia (the second time being with a frog storm). In my film I explored this by having established Western Genre tropes seep into the realism. One of the main ways I did this was by having the outsider (Victor) infiltrate the established relationship (Jack and Sarah). It’s a convention of the Western for the outsider to be a symbol of progress upsetting the traditional ways of the community. In my film I wanted to turn this convention on its head by writing Victor as a symbol of the past. Victor wore a tweed jacket, he spoke with a light old English accent and alluded to the past with lines such as: ‘How times have changed’ and ‘A woman never used to speak to a man like that’. Victor was the source of all conflict, however true to Western convention I had the relationship be restored at the end; stronger due to the challenge it overcome. Joel portrayed Victor in a stylised, theatrical fashion because I wanted the absurdity of the character to juxtapose with the realism that other elements in the film created. The overly theatrical piano chords that occurred at the end of each ‘act’ were another self-referential nod to the theatrical elements of Bottle, they served to remind the audience that they were watching a film. In a similar way to what Paul Thomas Anderson did with Magnolia, these stylistic flourishes were jarring, yet interesting.

In this paragraph I intend to focus less on how Bottle Genre functions and more on the restrictions that can come through abiding genre conventions. John Belton, in his essay The Space of Rear Window states “The figure most frequently identified with the notion of “pure cinema” within classical Hollywood filmmaking is Alfred Hitchcock”. Belton contends that cinematic storytelling is distinguishable from other modes of storytelling due to its ability to show, not tell and that Hitchcock is the master of this. When writing my Bottle film I knew that dialogue was the key to its success, I had mentioned to me that (for a good Bottle Drama) if I was to take out the vision and play the audio it should work as a radio play, so I knew if I had good dialogue, I would have an interesting film. Unfortunately when watching the final product I realised their wasn’t enough silence in my film, though there were moments of good visual story telling (for example when Sarah cuts her Finger and the final shot where Victor looks through the window) it was for the most part too dialogue heavy, which is a constraint of Bottle film. Hitchcock however, in Rear Window, masterfully avoids this constraint through the use of space. Hitchcock uses two seperate spaces in one location to tell his story. The first space is the interior of Jeff’s apartment where (true to quintessential Bottle film) a dialogue heavy drama (this time in the shape of a love story) unfolds. The second is from Jeffries perspective, where a murder mystery unravels before him. Ingeniously this aspect of the story is told completely visually which gives the audience respite from the talkative drama. The juxtaposition between the two spaces is also profound, with the vibrant, colourful courtyard (a melting pot of life) contrasting with the dull, lifeless interior of Jeffries room. Hitchcock uses these alternating spaces within the one location as an antidote to the restrictive nature of traditionally dialogue heavy Bottle films. There is one moment in my own film that alludes to Rear Window which is the final shot of Victor looking through the window at the happy couple. Perhaps, if I had my time again I could have utilised that outside space more, it would have been beneficial for the overall film if I told the story of what Victor does when he is alone in that space.

In conclusion perceived “constraints” of Bottle Film: single location, the long take, a small cast- conventions that lend themselves to naturalistic filmmaking, appear to be constraints at first, however these conventions, all innate to the genre, lend themselves to subversive and ultimately interesting filmmaking.

By Brydan Meredith, s3547569, Project Brief 4

Academic Bibliography

Belton, John. The Space of Rear Window The John Hopkins University Press. 1988.

Dillon, Steven. ‘A Plague of Frogs: Expressionism and Naturalism in the 1990’s’ From his book The Solaris Effect, University of Texas Press, 2002.

Purse, Lisa. Contemporary Action Sequence, University of Edinburgh, 2011

Films Cited

Paul Thomas Anderson, Magnolia, 1998.

Alfred Hitchcock, Read Window, 1954.