I will begin by summarising my initial presentation and summary of ideas that I presented in my prompt’s pitch before we formed our groups. I wrote a short piece to present with my powerpoint to the class but never ended up reading it out. It summarised how I feel on the the streets at dusk and night

I ride my bike home after work a lot and I think it’s the best part of the night. There’s a big blue-black over the sky with little pin-hole stars. Theres little boxes triangle roofs with little box windows that glow yellow. There’s big arching poles which point white lights downward to keep you safe. I love night time and I think it’s the most beautiful in the suburbs.

When I ride home at night I’m always listening to my tunes, and even the title of albums inspire me let alone the sings with in. The Suburbs by Arcade Fire, Night Time, My Time by Sky Ferreira, Night Drive by The Chromatics, Floating Into The Night by Julee Cruz. Now that I’m writing these titles down, it’s all becoming clear that there’s a pattern here…

I placed images of music videos I admire that are shot at night in my presentation; Lorde’s Yellow Flicker Beat, Arcade Fire’s Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) and my girl Angel Olsen’s Shut Up Kiss Me. After writing and reflecting on my script, I’ve realised Shut Up Kiss Me is so important in influencing me in my development. It’s Angel rolling around in an out of hours skate rink under some disco lights. The rink too is super 70s. She’s sitting outside under street lamps, under that white glow I want to emulate. My favourite shot is when she follows the car, illuminated by the brake lights. It’s the red light the bowls club provides and I can’t wait to use it. The singer in the script I wrote too is wearing a sequin dress. I’ve taken so many aspects of this video and placed them in this script.

After assessing the club and visiting the location, I’ve put the outdoor scene on the back burner. The big bowling green is no longer what I’m totally enthralled in. It’s the incredible untouched interior I’m dying to shoot in. The green will be beautiful to roll the Dolly over, but it’s the stage and the singer I’m reworking over and over again, who initially was a secondary thought I added to balance the script out further.

Tomorrow we will begin storyboarding and we will be incorporating a parallel narrative totally utilise the space, where the singer is preparing in the bathrooms while the courting begins in the hall. The script is developing as the project continues. I’m finding the nature of this project collaborative and spontaneous, and the short length of the clip is encouraging rather than limiting.

EDIT: FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER

I developed this presentation before I developed the script. In all honesty the script came second, and in honesty, it was based solely on incorporating the Bowls Club into our project, which my group wanted to ditch. I don’t think they believed that people would be kind enough to give students out of hours access to a bowls club for an ‘experimental’ short film. I thought back to using a friend-of-a-friends house in Ascot Vale to film a short I had made about a woman having an existential crisis via a pack of winnie blues. Our actress let their cat out (never to be seen again), smoked inside the house and left a burning cigarette on their leather couch. Regardless, the house owners let us film a second day!

The development I should have written on in the above post was location scouting. I had just emailed and called about 12 different bowls clubs in the inner north to see if we would have a chance to film and 9/12 replied with an enthusiastic yes. As I organised to pop into Brunswick Bowls to meet with the owner and assess the clubrooms, Ian from Thornbury bowls club rang to confirm we could use the club. I was at an RSL at the time. It was very appropriate.
When we arrived to inspect, all three of us were taken by the interior of the bowls club. My presentation was based on nighttime from the perspective of me on my bike, of what things looked like from outdoors. Now it was time to present nighttime from an interior.