Short Film Proposal – ‘The Cue’
Research Statement:
I want to practise experimental filmmaking in more depth. How can I push the boundary of cinematic media, and in this case, narrative filmmaking, to explore emotional content and social nuance in a visceral way? I’m excited to make this short film project that will explore an undercurrent of Australian attitudes that punctuate aversions to a culture that is presented back to us on our screens. I’m also eager to make a piece of film art that tries to understand the projections of screen funding bodies, like Screen Australia, and interrogate how publicly funded arts commissions unknowingly operate a sense of narrative control over an ‘Australian cultural story’. I wonder about the plethora of underground Australian films, or film concepts that never make it into the pop cultural lexicon that could be of immense interest in defining new cultural directions for our modern country. I hope the film will reach other Australian filmmakers of all backgrounds, as a call to action to keep making absurd and strange content. These films, I find, are like a lyre bird calling back to the television or movie screen in its own unique, distorted warble.
My idea has been shaped by in-class discussions with director David Easteal (The Plains, 2022), producer Sue Maslin (The Dressmaker 2015), and Screen Australia. It has also been shaped by my own research and experiences. For example, in March I went to a retrospective screening at Miscellania which was headed by an experimental short film produced by a small independent Melbourne production company called Dog Milk Films. The film is not yet released and I did not catch its name – but I was able to reach out to its director John Hewison to talk about punk approaches to film making in Australia and working in the underground. I was heavily inspired by this movement and the power of experimental film. Being provocative and weird feels right when your cultural identity is inherently punk. As a music genre and movement stemming from the 70s, the punk concept had a strong grip on cinema of the time. It birthed postmodern classics like ‘The Rocky Horror Picture show’ (Jim Sharman, 1975) and ‘A Clockwork Orange’ (Stanley Kubrick, 1971) (Kitson, M 2008), not to mention ‘Wake in Fright’ (Ted Kotcheff, 1971). Punk happenings foster visible spaces to, queer and diverse minorities in its very policies of reclamation, resistance, inclusion and rebellion (Sharp, M 2019). This is an area of research I would like to indulge more as I encode the script for the film.
I envisage this film being shown at small cinema events around Melbourne, such as those hosted by Miscellania and micro-backyard screenings. I hope that staying honest to those the film is for, will help it to develop into a project that has meaning to cinema culture in Melbourne and thus will then be shown with authenticity at larger film festivals such as Flickerfest (est. 1991) or the Melbourne Short Film Festival (est. 2020, Thornbury Picture House).
Kitson, M. (2008). Punk Aesthetics: The Filth and the Movies. In Metro (Melbourne) (Number 159, pp. 82–85). Australian Teachers of Media Inc. (ATOM). Sharp, M. (2019). Hypervisibility in Australian punk scenes: Queer experiences of spatial logics of gender and sexuality. Punk & Post-Punk, 8(3), 363–378. https://doi.org/10.1386/punk_00004_1
Treatment:
A stage exists far away, a spotlight on an old battler. She sings a lonesome bush tune about ‘taking a punt’ on country. Her voice cracks and lingers uncomfortably. We approach her frail figure as she makes direct eye contact whilst singing a line, she’s aware the viewer is laughing at her. Things fade out as her song drones into a cacophony of cicadas and distant cars driving past. The vat of empty space is disrupted by a single flickering lamp far in the distance. A repeating graphic of a black screen has an initial appearance with white text that offers a slogan synonymous with anti-gambling campaigns, bearing with it the shouts and hollers of raging crowds. Silence returns and we’re slowly creeping forward. There’s a person asleep beneath the lamp – sat at a beaten wooden desk, asleep atop a heavy book, surrounded by loose paper and racing paraphernalia. Arms laid across the table like a marionette, they’re dressed like an evil jockey. Again a black screen flashes with a different slogan, padded with drones of cheering. Silence again follows as we return to our rolling creep-in that is now close enough to the character to peer over their laid head, we see the book to be an old-timey bets keeping register, a page brimming to completion and marked by a large red cross. A crusted voice over begins to explain the character (themselves) as a horse racing bets keeper who has fallen asleep after spending hours retracing misinformed public bets. They explain this overtime is a punishment, which will soon be followed by a firing, for they were caught fixing a critical horserace the weekend prior. The footage is intercut with creeping footage of vintage horse racing merchandise, a Phar Lap toilet seat, a clock, a radio.
The person wakes and begins to climb the desk, They begin a monologue that becomes the film’s main punctuation. A drum beat pushes in, before they begin explaining their despair and plotting a needed trip to the pub. They take a minute to renounce the horse racing industry as they glide their gloved hands, caressing the table. Beaten historical graphics flood the screen as they examine their suspicious family affairs reckoning with their own reason for why they connive the way they do. A lone billiard ball rolls across the stage, the camera tracks it into darkness as three men appear wearing neck bibs swaying like the lollipop guild in the Wizard of Oz. They are lit from below evoking a glow from their pleated collars. The camera pans downwards to a green felt rug and approaching heeled footsteps, our main character is now wearing an odd jockey outfit made from Australian Jelly Bean camouflage, they twirl a pool cue as they begin to laugh and drunkenly sway around. They joke about the public bar and how it’s lacking in fascinators and properness. They begin to explain a plot to make a buck off of the local pool table. This footage is intercut with creative angles of a game of pool, the clack of the pool balls is replaced by the stabbing of a cue into the felt at the feet of the protagonist. Cutting back to the shot of the men in frills as they stand jarred by what they are witnessing, turning to run in opposing directions as the character points the cue at them.
A sequence of the character becoming acquainted with the bar folk, and scheming a plan to monetise their public pool game. Taking a punt on the country is reprised as a distorted techno track as the character examines a black pool cue, they parade it around like a marching band baton. We see the magical cue depicted in surreal graphic form, through an old CRT television explaining its manifest legend. The cue is a placebo of supreme bad luck, destined to fumble any player’s best trick. The cue represents chance and chaos, the players fear being given the unlucky cue as it assures a lost game. A close up reflection of a pool ball, tracks back to reveal the black pool cue. The cue certainly misses every shot it takes. People at the bar refuse to touch the cue, let alone watch a game that it plays in. The cue becomes an easy prediction of winnings due to its extreme psychological effects on players, the sequence is uncomfortable and unsettling. Sounds of fire crackling and the burnt bits being scraped off of toast flood the audience’s ears.
A tense build up happens as footage of kinetic motion stops short of satisfaction. A ball lands teetering the edge of the pool table, a shot of the end of a cue is cut short before impact, a gun fires a mini Australian flag, scenes from media and politics are cut short of iconic lines. The energy is lost from a meta control, now seen from the film’s very editing booth. The hardcore music intensifies before being met with another silent gambling warning, like the twisting of the knife. A crescendo of dissatisfaction.
Silence as our character returns from the dark and begins to chastise the pub folk, broken black cue in hand. The players found a fairer game when they each played with a broken end of the black cue. With a snap the film ends, as credits roll over.
Link: Mood Board
Mood Board References:
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