Monthly Archives: March 2017

I honest to god had my first light bulb moment today! Probably the first of its type for the year. It was in response to one of the five questions that we have been asked to ruminate on until the next class.

How does the world affect the tone of what we see?

The dreariness of the weather, the cold colour tones, the air of hopelessness all contribute to a sense that we will be pushed to the threshold of our mental wellbeing. As viewers and as characters, this world will be the impetus for us to either fight or fly and overall, stay glued to our objective.

Had the character Ray been placed in a tropical environment to tell her story, her urgency to acquire a house out of the elements mightn’t have been as palpable. She may have rethought her decision to pull a gun on Lila. She may have sort shelter elsewhere.

This world is not her friend no matter how caring she is toward her family.

We as viewers, we are drawn into her plight and with the realistic production are reminded that this could be our plight too.

Continuing on from my previous (somewhat tangential) blog…

We were asked to write something we like, then something we hate. Then we were to add five reasons why we like it, five reasons why we hate it. Then, we were to write five reasons why someone might like what we hate, and why someone might hate what we like. Who would these people be?

What stories could we tell?

So…

I like sound/audio and I hate how I have to pay $9 to the government for a concession card.

In applying the exercise…

I like audio because;

• it can be sculpted
• audio technology has surpassed visual production
• it is difficult to block out
• it tells a story
• the principal of sound can be paralleled to the existence of the universe

I hate having to pay $9 to the government for a concession card because;

• it doesn’t seem justifiable
• the government don’t need my $9
• government money may go toward the military which I don’t mind to a degree however they aren’t using tax payers $$$ efficiently. For example, the JSF which is a contract that has been on hold for nearly 10 years and tax payers have been paying hundreds of millions of dollars for the licensing
• I have very little voice to contest this
• That could be spent on my lunch or toward the money that I save when I use my concession

The reasons why someone might like what I hate could include;

• one may believe that the $9 concession card fee goes toward the teller’s wage
• they may also believe that the fleet of JSFs will be delivered this year
• they may enjoy airshows
• Their boss told them to charge $9 and if they were to consider wavering it, they won’t get their promotion
• They are malevolent to the core and revel in the thought of societal struggle

Someone may hate Sound/audio because;

– it can hurt your ears when near a construction site or an airshow

– people can use sound offends

– some may prefer vision

– they may be hard of hearing

– the thought of sound/audio may evoke a bad memory like an ex or a bad performance

Finally… 

This exercise has been a lot of fun and it has contributed to the first 2 characters in my story!

Advancing to this inspiration came on a night out watching Andrew Knight and Jan Sardi speak about film writing, I observed several platitudes that seemed to function as space-fillers.

At Etihad Stadium that same evening, I conversed with many people who spoke mechanically as though they were automatons in a Stepford nightmare. They were trialling a rotoscope camera which delivered impressive images though those I spoke to couldn’t seem to answer simple questions such as, ‘whats your involvement’ without looking as though they had just inserted a floppy disc into their brains.

It reminded me of Jacques Tati’s 1967 film Playtime where humans became secondary to the cold complicated machinery that ruled their lives.

From here, the first character B was born. B is a surviver who craves the human touch and is the personification of the lack of societal intimacy as a result of advancements of technology and bureaucracy. B’s antagonist is H. H who is malevolent to the core and profits off the fear of others.