As part of preparing for your presentation, you will upload a piece of work-in-progress that demonstrates your explorations toward creating scenes on the page through visual storytelling. The work-in-progress will be accompanied by a reflective statement (or statements, interwoven through the post) about the process of developing your idea so far.
Attached below is a screen shot of a working scene with annotations and criticisms. The scene’s objective is a result of the slides also attached to this post, which I used within my presentation to convey my cinematic ambition. All of the slides cover subject matter that I am interested in investigating, and relevant to my working screen text.
Overall, my Work-In-Progress highlights my current and main ambition; successful communication. As comedy and tone are achieved by communicating ‘fine print’ – reflected in my Top Secret reference on Slide 5 – this assignment concentrated on the legitimate visual translation of my text. Discussed in week 7’s tutorial, where we annotated screenplays from students in the UK, a screenplay’s content and worth is subjective. However, what is paramount is the text’s ability to communicate from the writer’s internal imagination to the external reader. Thus, my exploration for this assessment aims to successfully translate my internal vision to my audience and the panel of judges (eeep!).
The Picture This! studio focuses on audio-visual techniques and the relationship audio and visuals have on one another. Conceptually, my screenplay aims to address the isolation one can feel whilst in the context of our overly-connected society. Semi-autobiographical, the screenplay follows the unidentified ‘GIRL’ as she travels from Melbourne to Canberra, and spends the most of her 24 hours in complete solitude. The screenplay’s catalyst came about from a similar experience of my own, where whilst completing a intermediate trip within Australia I was shocked at what I could achieve without the transmission of help from anyone at all. Exposing through my ability to just ‘glide’ from state to state, the way our society has recently been constructed; prioritising real life communication for electronic validation and order. Online bookings, check-ins, payment and food delivery – it became apparent to me the very real possibility of our culture’s demise of communication and interaction into solitude and isolation. Thus, my screenplay, with its focus practical audio-visual techniques, attempts to provoke this subtle conformity Western society has become growingly dependant on.
In conclusion, my objective for Wednesday is to successfully translate concept to reality. Ultimately, touching on Dzialo’s understanding that ‘screenplays should be experienced […] as a form of cinema itself’ whereby ‘both, although via opposite polarities, are audio-visual (the screenplay cueing the images and sounds in our mind’ (Dzialo, p109)’. Thus, illustrating a creative visual in my audiences’ mind, that through its very being, will allow me to further my screenplay as a practise and thus be experienced not only like a film, but are their own enunciating subject (Branigan, p87).
BRANIGAN, E (1992) ‘NARRATIVE COMPREHENSION AND FILM’ ROUTLEDGE, LONDON P.87
DZIALO, C (2009) ‘FRUSTRATED TIME’ NARRATION: THE SCREENPLAYS OF CHARLIE KAUFMAN’, IN W BUCKLAND (ED.), PUZZLE FILMS: COMPLEX STORY TELLING IN CONTEMPORARY CINEMA, WILEY-BLACKWELL, CHICHESTER, P109
