A3: Part I – Work In Progress Explorations

How does one conceive an original and compelling audio-visually stylised story idea, in the context of studio pressure…

I feel like I’ve had the most brilliant ideas in random day dreams that I’ve left behind and I wish I could just access them in my brain’s recycle bin. But alas I cannot. I am only human.

The first sprinkle of natural audio-visual inspiration occurred to me when Matt played a particular tune on guitar near the train station. It was late at night and a couple of our friends were catching up after a 21st in the city. Anyway, he played a little song he’d been writing and I immediately heard being used to convey an audiovisual story.

Perhaps because music is so close to me in all elements of my life, it has proved a great source of inspiration and audio-visual sense. This was also true with my last screenplay I wrote (in year 12).

Here is an excerpt of Matt’s piece:

 

Perhaps it was all the champagne from the 21st, but I soon went into crazy brainstorm mode and pictured a million different scenes. I first pictured it in a Western – in the lead up to two gang or cartel leaders facing off behind a red sunset. Then in a romantic drama scene – featuring two lovers moments after escaping odds against them, to then be confronted with a huge unravelling setback.

For me it’s tonal quality evokes a bittersweet uncertainty, curiosity, or apprehension, though it also has a spirited sense of movement/direction. I hear it as a mode of narrative traction: to introduce a new set of complications or revelations, to instigate a new journey. I hear a character discovering something new or having the penny drop moment.

So I went with the journey concept and was evoked by the notion of entering a new world, falling down the rabbit hole, or getting on a train to a random place as a means of escape.

Coincidentally, ACMI is now showing Wonderland – an exhibition on Lewis Caroll’s timeless tale. It explores how Alice in Wonderland has inspired revolutionary filmmaking – from groundbreaking special effects and animation, to evocative storytelling and technological development. So I went to the exhibition hungry for inspiration, and boy did I get fed. A fascinating savour from Wonderland was the diverse range of play scripts. How the story has been re-interpreted and adapted over and over again, yet each produce a different mood. This gets me. Intertextuality. Mmmm tasty.

N.B. How cool is this script layout?! This is from one of the first Alice in Wonderland play scripts. I might give this spin on formatting a go for my final draft.

Separate to ideas drawn by the audio, I had been thinking a lot about my Nonna and her mind’s recent deterioration. She is such a strong woman, able to fathom any physical pain and be understanding of it, but this year is different. Her mind is slipping. She has been in a nursing home for about 6 years now and every so often she will ask us to help her with the cooking or to turn the stove on. To which we reply, there isn’t one, and she will say yeah in the kitchen and gesture left, as we sit in her sterile bedroom, identical to the next person’s.

She believes my Nonno, her husband, is having an affair. Let me just highlight that they have been married for over 60 years and this is completely untrue. In all the time she has been at the nursing home – which is five minutes down the road from home, my Nonno visits her at least thrice a day. Sometimes she believes he hasn’t come at all. She can’t recall. Sometimes she will make snide comments like “I know she cooked this” – referring to food my Nonno has cooked and brought her, or, “you always take his side, and I’m alone here while he’s in my house with her“.

Her rapid deterioration has broken our hearts, though strangely I find it so intriguing how her mind shifts day to day. One day she is perfectly accepting of her life, and the next she is confused and asks us to get food out of her non-existent fridge.

I then concocted my ideas into one big soup, relating Nonna’s inconsistent mind to falling down the rabbit hole and BOOM. I have a story.

I could use Matt’s song as an audio commentary/story drive and base a character around my Nonna, adapting some of her memories and constructed realities to create a story. the soundtrack will lead the story’s beats and there will be very little dialogue. I then also connected a train as the visual conveyer –  the sequence could function as a fantastical train journey: the protagonist would stop at different platforms and reflect on her life, mimicking an extended highlights reel. I imagine the protagonist getting on a train and each stop is a different memory/constructed reality.

 

With this seed planted I moved into the writing frame of mind. Reflecting on Catherine McMullen’s advice about short form and the writing process has been super helpful. (See all week #8 notes here.)

Most relevant for me now were her points on getting out the story’s ‘groundwork’. She recommended a way to do this (but advised not to follow so strictly) called Save The Cat. I found this version adjusted to short form:

I started framing the main story beats, realising that there’s a larger story around my sequence/montage idea. I need to decide if my screenplay will function as a detailed sequence, or be encased in a contextual narrative. Is my entire story the “fun and games”? or shall I encase that in an exposition shell?

I looked for more writing inspiration though my favourite director, Tarantino, and Catherine’s mention of him got my thinking about his style. He is the king of intertextuality (which is something I’m toying with). I was curious about his process…

Tarantino has a certain “commitment to the prose”, he believes a screenplay itself is a “literary narrator”, that a screenplay is a novel to be adapted to screen. I love this attitude. (Sorry McKee).

“In the first draft, I didn’t want to know any more than a viewer… I didn’t want to know any more than the other characters did about the characters”

– Tarantino.

I love this! I believe I need to put myself in the scene to write out of it. You have an idea where you’re going, but you need to LIVE in that moment. You know you’re doing this when you’re writing because you feel a buzz – that you are experiencing your own creation. I think this is what writing is all about, particularly in writing an audio-visual narrative.

Tarantino’s talk ignited reflection on my own writing process:

• I know music provides a great stimulus for my creativity (audio-visual imagination)
• I know I use real life experiences as a mode of expression
• I know I like adapting other stories in doing so
• I know that I need to have my rough plot points before I can start writing
• I know that I will be inclined to draft over and over once I have gotten out my first.
• I know that once I have an idea seed, I nourish in my mind daily and it must naturally evolve, I can’t just force it. This is where I’m at now.