Shot 1, our protagonist sitting on the beach, looking out at the waves.

Shot 2, he turns to his left and sees a figure coming towards him down the beach. Essentially the same scene of him looking at the waves, is filmed from a different angle.

Shot 3, we see a long shot, of a man wearing rolled up pants on the beach, he is short and stocky, we cant see him clearly. It is a perspective shot from our protagonists point of view.

Shot 4, we cut in to a mid-shot and see this man walk down the beach, he is in full focus. The man stops walking and looks at the protagonist

Shot 5. We get a close up of him looking at the protagonist, he seems hesitant apprehensive.

Shot 6. He leaves the frame and I pull focus on the water.

Shot 7. The camera, stays where it is and pulls around, from the distance we see the two talk. Then we cut in to a front on shot.

Creative Writing Exercise #3

 The Ferris Wheel’s lights shimmer across the darkening bay. The soft, dainty, yellow falls on the calm of the ocean. Teenagers swim amongst the colour, warmness, everything warmness, the water rises and falls softly; dark blue and speckled gold.

Tim places his school bag on the damp grass and sits and looks out across the ocean. There was a lot of darkness on the horizon-but none of it was near. Out on the pier fisherman pack up their rods and frozen fish as young couples kiss under the slowly rising moonlight. Tim was waiting for the stars, but all he could see was one full moon.

Busloads of tourists walk down the beach taking pictures, devouring breath after breath of fresh sea air. They head towards the omniscient neon glow of the miniature golf place, where they will be greeted by a giant, concrete Koala. It’s light blue eyes will pierce through the night sky and the carnival music will ring through the park until the late hours of the evening.

A group of workmen sit on a bench near Tim, they laugh and drink and eat fish and chips. It was the end of a long week and they knew it. For them, there was plenty to laugh about, it was the first time in a long time any of them had money. Tim digs his hand into the sand amongst the soft grass and looks up at the enormous Ferris Wheel. His green eyes water in its presence, the wheel shone light over everyone and everything.

The night ends and time marches on.

____________________________________________

(My intention is to now juxtapose this night, of my town in its prime, with my town in its current decrepit state).

Below I will attach images of the notes I made whilst reading Adam Ganz’s Essay on Lens Based writing. I will also write about the points Ganz makes that stood out to me. I read his essay and made notes a couple of weeks ago, however I’m about to do some creative writing for Pb3, so now is the time to reflect.

• Seperate facts from the implicated meaning of facts: I don’t believe this was a direct quote but its nonetheless something that stood out to me. Often when I write creatively I fall into temptation of trying to hand-feed the audience the meaning (behind what I’m writing). This compromises the creative work in the long run and comes across either as clumsy exposition or heavy handed writing. For example if I want to show a derelict town I should write….The ferris wheel stands next to the pier, its lights cracked and dim. I should not write: The ferris stands next to the pier, a perfect symbol of the now ruined town.
• Often scientists without a literary grasp were the most successful. This relates to subjective writing and clearly conveying imaginative images. No doubt the literate scientists pontificated and wrote using terms and phrasing few could understand. As a creative writer it is necessary not to fall for the same thing, their is no point in writing anything if no one other than yourself can understand it.
• Write what is in front of you, as if the movie is playing in front of you.
• Dialogue isn’t conversation, it is to reveal character and advance conversation.

Below are my notes in the flesh!

Aronson writes “films based on strongly felt themes can be clumsily structured, cliched, people with stereotypes and prone to preachiness”. Aronson is stating that when a theme is too significant in the mind of the writer, the final product can be heavy handed. She suggests that themes are best presented implicitly.

This got me thinking of themes in my world, the main one I came up with is the theme of Progression and Tradition.

Progression Vs Tradition

To begin to explore this theme I must understand the meaning of culture, Google defines Culture as: The ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society.

A custom in my culture would be drinking (alcohol), if you don’t drink you’re behaviour (not drinking) isn’t accepted, you are the odd one out.

Social Behaviour: Everything must be done in order to serve and honour the idea of their derelict community. Independent thought is not valued, however acting in a group, following everyone else in the town and obeying their customs is. In the town people litter and spit, this is acceptable social behaviour, however in our own society it isn’t.

Ideas: Any ideas one has consistently links back to the group and doing whats right for the group.

Because the culture hasn’t changed in years (since the industry stopped) people just become set in their ways, which only become more grounded and stable as time goes by. If this world did progress and not stand still, the values I previously described would be replaced by ones cultivated from broader civilisation (the outside world) which would be more refined and make my world more liveable.

This theme of progression vs tradition can be applied to my protagonist because he has the choice to go back home (to his past life) or stay in this  rotting town. He could either change or go back home.

The brain storming below is in regards to the theme ‘Change’

I got some good ideas in regards to how I should depict the people of my world, the first thing I wrote was ‘appearance’ which led me to think that the people of my world will be likely overweight or underweight because they are not eating healthy. This led me to place an abundance of fast food places in my town, like McDonalds, Pizza Hut……

Secondly, something I wrote down after taking a photo of my brainstorming, is the weather, I could use it to symbolise the change in my town, in the past it could be warm, now it is cold.

Lastly, I’d like to show the attitude of the civilians through a metaphor of “Timmy” when Timmy was 7 he could look up at the Ferris Wheel and feel hopeful, now Timmy could be fourteen, out of school and not look up once. I could use this metaphor to describe how much world has changed into what it now is.

In this blog post I will fit my own world into Robert McKee’s writings on setting. I initially did all my work on paper and will attach the photos of my work at the bottom of this post. I found this activity really useful in defining my world, it complimented the class we had the other day where we brainstormed ideas. For me, McKee’s writings and that class really helped me get the ball rolling.

McKee Intro: A stories setting is four dimensional – period, duration, location, level of conflict.

Period: Is the story’s place in time. 

Contemporary Victoria 2017. This period is significant because I want to critique the society in which we live. Contemporary Australian society prides itself on being a culture of free, independent thinkers, but all to often people fall into the trap of believing what society tells them too. What inspired this idea, was the other day at Uni, someone was complaining aggressively about Malcolm Turnbull, I honestly inquired ‘Why don’t you like him?’ And they replied ‘I just don’t’. This encounter led me to question how many opinions do I and others hold that are based off nothing. Society often demonstrates its inability to answer the question ‘Why’. By creating a flaw, collectivist society in 2o17 I can critique this.

Duration: Is the stories length through time

My story will be told in two parts. It concerns itself with two characters who sleep together one Saturday night. I will tell the story of the woman night previous to her meeting the man at the Casino the previous night and the story of the man the morning after. I will explore a relatively small amount of time, maybe two hours each way.

Location: Is the stories physical dimension. It is the stories place in space. 

On the coast far away from any major cities. There is a great physical distance between this town an the city. This leads tot he town being somewhat isolated from mass culture, so instead they create their own.

Once an industrial beach town where trade was going strong and tourism was booming. Some years before my story takes place a new coastal highway is built that by-passes the town. Tourists and workmen stop coming and what is left is the locals, as a consequence of this exit the town becomes insular and self indulged.

It is a regular Australian seaside town: A pier, supermarket, fish and ship store, pub. Just out of town 500 metres down the main stretch lies an old, grey casino, where the locals go every night. This Casino, that plays the same music every night, is the heart of the town. At the very opposite end of the main stretch, near the beach, their is a broken down ferries wheel. Behind the supermarket their is a race track from grey-hounds. The Ferris Wheel and Casino book end the town. Next to the Ferris Wheel their is an unused mini-gold place, all the statues are rotted due to salt, water has destroyed the astro-turf.

Level of Conflict

The People

• Insular
• Dress Similar
• They believe their community is more significant than the individuals that comprise it. You serve the community never yourself. Never put yourself above the greater good of the community. A less extreme version of fight club, 1984, hot fuzz. Its a collectivist culture, but more deeply grounded in reality.
• Drink a lot
• Smoke a lot
• Listen to the same music
• Hate change

VS

The Man from Out of Town

• Wears different clothes
• Isn’t part of the community
• Doesn’t drink or smoke
• Doesn’t value community
• Likes variety
• Doesn’t swear
• Is in conflict with the community
• Will he abide by his own morals or be absorbed by the ethics of the community

VS

The Weather 

• Freezing Cold
• Windy
• Dangerous Surf
• Polluted/Trash everywhere/chip wrappers floating in the creek flowing to the sea.

The Man VS Himself

• He’s come to this town on holiday after getting divorced and needs to decide where to take his life. He could change himself and be absorbed into this collectivist culture to change to change his life or he could stay true to himself in the face of adversity and challenge the society and leave.

POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITATIONS OF THE SETTING

(World Rules)

• The people in my world are bored, “lower class” people. This means they are going to be doing certain activities (not others). They are likely too: Roam the streets looking for fun/action, ride bicycles and scooters, carry around portable speakers listening to bland, tasteless music, stray/untamed dos accompany them. They won’t read books, they will gamble, for them physical/sensual pleasures are the most common.
• Cold, people behave very differently in the cold than they do in the heat.
• No real depth of thought shown by the citizen. Their will be no ‘rogue
  philosopher amongst them, once you’re a part of that society you forfeit a part of yourself. It encompasses you, no exemption from the collectivist culture. 

Brydan Meredith, Project Brief #2 Submission. I would like to request that Blog Post #1 for PB2 is read before Blog Post #2 for PB2.

Thanks very much 🙂

Brydan.

Blog Post #3 for PB2 on Collaboration – Brydan Meredith

BLOG POST #2 for PB2

Blog Post #1 for PB2

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.

A Blog on Collaboration

 “I always find that if two (or more) of us throw ideas backwards and forwards I get to more interesting and original places than I could have ever have gotten to on my own” (Cleese, John 1991 A lecture on creativity.

When work is passed through too many hands it becomes susceptible to convolution, it can lose its aim and as a consequence grow further away from its original purpose. There is a Parks and Recreations episode entitled ‘The Camel’ that concerns itself with the design of a mural. In the episode, all the characters in the Parks and Recs department design their own mural based off the spirit of the town they live in. All the character’s design something completely different and vouch for their ideas to be agreed upon. Ultimately, they compromise, they submit a piece of art that contains elements of everyones design but looks horrible. In his article, The Screenplay Business, managing creativity and script development in the film industry Peter Bloure suggests that if collaborators agree upon a singular vision at the start of the project and create everything with this vision in mind, what is created will become unified and succinct. His first dot point reads ‘Be consistent-keep returning to the vision of the type of film you are trying to make, and refer everything back to that’.

In class, when creating our 6-9 frame stories, Matt, Olivia and I sat down outside building 9 and agreed from start to finish what we would create. So when we walked around the campus with our camera we knew (and had agreed upon) the start point, middle point and end point of our story. Every photo we took from that moment on fitted into this idea. Our individual ideas, that we put aside at the start, saw the light of day within the nitty gritty of making the images- through framing, shot selection and acting choices we all got to place our own creativity on the activity within the constraints of a singular vision.

In our second tutorial of class we watched a French Short film and began answering questions in regards to dramatic action. The idea behind the table based group activity was that we could take the story another direction through our groups singular idea. In this activity, everyone was sprouting random ideas without agreeing upon or elaborating on what anyone else would say. We placed no constraints on ourselves at the beginning. There was no unified idea. About 5 minutes into the discussion I put my head down and answered all the questions by myself on my laptop because I couldn’t deal with the off topic, spontaneous ideas of the group. This is an example of collaboration gone wrong and links back to the Parks and Recreations episode that derives its title from this expression: “That a camel is a horse made by a committee”.

Finally, Cleese’s quote still has merit, but is far too vague to be wholly true. Cleese says “Throw ideas backwards and forwards I get to more interesting and original places than I could have ever have gotten to on my own”. He simply wrote ‘throw ideas’, however he should have written “Throw corresponding ideas”. Collaboration needs to be a formal communication process, throwing ideas will not do.

Nonetheless I can understand where he is coming from and the importance of collaboration at university level. In the professional world one does not get unlimited time to make whatever they want. Collaboration is great for practice because it places constraints. The best artists, writers, filmmakers can create quality content anywhere, anytime. In the professional world, their talent is a commodity that needs to remain fruitful in order to hold value. Collaborating, is to compromise, to sacrifice, it may lead to worst results, it may lead to better results, but nonetheless it is something, that for better or worse, happens.

By Brydan Meredith, s3547569

This week we explored the worlds of three film trailers: Sex and The City, Tangerine and Sing Street.

Of these worlds we asked questions, Could it exist in another world? How does it operate? What is its internal logic? Specific characteristics of world?

Because I have already answered these questions of these films in class, I will pick another one for this blog post.

The Darjeeling Limited by popular auteur Wes Anderson.

What are the specific characteristics of the world? India, Bold and Bright colours, American tourists, Culture Clash (ancient history of India as a backdrop to rich Americans), Nature, Set in a timeless place (a steam train is the main source of transport), Small Train Compartment Vs Big Indian Plains, Lots of patterns and colours, Religion plays a major part in Indian Society, the idea of their being religion in India holds the Americans more accountable for their actions, animals (the idea of India being an exotic mysterious place), Self centred tourists.

How does it operate/internal logic? It’s set in a romanticised India. The India that Wes creates is India from Western Imagination, as the quintessential place to learn about yourself and comeback changed. Throughout the film he parodies Western Ignorance in foreign places and frames the protagonists of the film as being self-absorbed, egocentric people-hence why they can’t relate to each other. There is some internal logic that I will tease out. In the world of the Darjeeling Limited every Western character is a character unhappy with themselves and as a consequence they try to change who they naturally are. The Mother becomes a Monk, Owen Wilsons character tries to become less assertive, Adrien Brody’s character wears his deceased fathers clothes and glasses and Jason Schwartzmans ‘Jack’ attempts to find contentment in loneliness. This is the logic of the film and is the reason I find it a captivating, interesting watch. To put the logic in a sentence it would be, The western characters in this films world lack self-assurance, whereas the Indian Characters have the ability to accept themselves and things around them they can’t change. This is the focal point of the film and a defining factor of the world.

Another piece of internal logic: Much of the humour is derived from spoilt upper class people doing lower class things. In a way they seem strongly hypocritical-like they should be behaving better.

Could it exist in another world? I think the story could. It would be interesting if the characters were placed in Russia, or China, or New Zealand….. How would a different place impact their want for self-discovery? In the film India wasn’t a sufficient place, probably because they paid more attention to themselves, but would Russia or China or Australia shift their focus outwards? Maybe. It would be interesting to see the contrast. Physical aspects of the world would change, but not entirely everything. It’s a formula that could be played with.