Video of two Labs playing in a sprinkler down at the beach

Sunny afternoon down at Bronte Beach...

Two dogs and a sprinkler

Sydney weather went a bit 'polar' today

Muff

So I decided to make a snack.

Sydney dust storm

Woke up Wednesday morning and the world was red. Not just the sky, like when there is a sunset. The air was solid with red.
Not much sound about, as most of the birds were keeping shtum. The odd car and bus driving past.

Phone
went off. It was Jamie from school. Good weather for a bit of
time-lapse she reckons. Got the camera out and snapped a few shots, but
the red was thick and featureless. Not much moving around in there.

Facebook conversation Wednesday morning...

Her:
Hey Dave! Did you take this photo this morning (around 7am) ? I woke up
very early and the colors coming through my window were absolutely
amazing! I took a photo of my window at 6:30am. The sky was pink!

Me: OH crap, the end of the world is coloured PINK!!! (ha ha)
The sky was blood red when I woke up round six'ish so I rolled over and went back to sleep.
The apocalypse does not start without me.

The
dust storm did weird things to ones colour perception. Normal colour
indoors if the lights were on, but outside everything was tinted red.
The only contrast being blue light from the sun, or from buildings, or
car head lights.

The world outside the windows
gradually lightened. The Martian red fading till there was just a white
fog floating around. The air was clear by the afternoon.

A
mate reckons Wednesday morning was just like travelling. When you wake
up in a new place and normal stuff has a strange angle to it.

Cept that in this case the whole city had been transported.

So yesterday the Out-back decided to visit Sydney

This is a video I took yesterday when we all woke up to find our city smothered in red dust.

Sydney dust storm

Bondi Festival of Wind

Rhythm and observation .
Or research and juxtaposition???
This is a chance to put into practise stuff I've been learning at film school.

I went down to the Bondi kite fest, to shoot some 'observational' footage, and cut it up into two videos.
One focus's on the kite professionals who cordoned off a section of beach, and filled the air with an amazing variety of land tethered flying machines.

The second video is all about the amateurs. those folks who filled the grassy area behind the beach and throwing caution and canvas into the air.

Decided after extracting a series of short narratives (peoples kite flying adventures) to try interleaving a lot of the action.

Bondi Wind Festival 09: The Pro's

Bondi Wind festival 09: The amateurs

Research and Observation exercise: Observation

Our mission was to observe a place and create a piece. Extra marks for
extracting some sort of emotion or narrative from out of the 'found footage.'


I hung around a 'mallified' section of Sydney city.


Took shots of the people, and there was some sort of marquee being constructed so took some shots of that too.

Observation and Research: Observation exercise

First
time mixing time-lapse and full motion, first time mixing in a bit of
voice into the audio. We all presented 'rough cuts' and the class
commented.


Someone suggested that I add poetry so I made some up.


Mixed in some of the city noise that the Sony's internal mic picked up while filming.

Time lapse created with the Ricoh GX100 (wish Ricoh would get around to releasing the GX300) and a Sony video cam for the 25fps.

Walked to the park yesterday.

Two girls cusping puberty, long smooth legs, selling tiny succulent buds in pudding plates on the side of the footpath. Their merchandise highlighted by an arrangement of glass pebbles, of Turkish evil-eye blue .

Tips of bare branches on the trees in the park are fuzzy with green shoots erupting in super slow motion.

Two young women wearing black tee's, long shorts and studded belts, are towed along by a boxer pup. They stop and sit in the grass, and snog for a bit.

A couple. Sharply dressed young man in a grey fedora, pretty woman with burnt butterscotch hair, unfurl a rug and scatter cushions about. They lie holding each other for a bit, then he unfolds a paper, and she dives into a chip packet.

An old couple, leading a chocolate Lab stroll past.

The two girls finish kissing and stand. A guy in a white singlet, with the top-heavy look of having done weight training jogs past. He stops to play with the boxer pup, and chat to the girls.

I sit with my back against a tree trunk, and tip my head back. The sharp contrast between leaf dappled shade and the bright sunlight shifts across my lips. Reminds me of when I had nerve endings so new that pleasurable sensations were almost painful.

Spring is my favourite season. Not to hot, not too cold. Jusssst right.

Walked to the park yesterday.

Two girls cusping puberty, long
smooth legs, selling tiny succulent buds in pudding plates on the side
of the footpath. Their merchandise highlighted by an arrangement of
glass pebbles, of Turkish evil-eye blue .

Tips of bare branches on the trees in the park are fuzzy with green shoots erupting in super slow motion.

Two
young women wearing black tee's, long shorts and studded belts, are
towed along by a boxer pup. They stop and sit in the grass, and snog
for a bit.

A couple. Sharply dressed young man in a grey fedora,
pretty woman with burnt butterscotch hair, unfurl a rug and scatter
cushions about. They lie holding each other for a bit, then he unfolds
a paper, and she dives into a chip packet.

An old couple, leading a chocolate Lab stroll past.

The
two girls finish kissing and stand. A guy in a white singlet, with the
top-heavy look of having done weight training jogs past. He stops to
play with the boxer pup, and chat to the girls.

I sit with my
back against a tree trunk, and tip my head back. The sharp contrast
between leaf dappled shade and the bright sunlight shifts across my
lips. Reminds me of when I had nerve endings so new that pleasurable
sensations were almost painful.

Spring is my favourite season. Not to hot, not too cold. Jusssst right.

Latest video

Animated in After Effects

Killen the buzzz

Second part o autumn timelapse

Various City shots including a 'cop stop,' and a rising moon.

Autumn timelapse 09: City (part two)

One of two new timelapse pieces shot in Sydney Aust

Lots of storms and rainbows in this one.

Autumn timelapse 09: Storms

Better viewing if you hit the HD button.
Will post it's companion when I can get it uploaded.

Past couple of weeks I've watched...

Wolverine and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. I'm going to say the same thing I said after watching Monsters Vs Aliens. Visual and audio effects, music, cinematography, all nailed in modern flicks.

What is invariable missing is STORY. Both these movies had bloody great big holes in their narratives. Was watching the extras on 'Revenge,' and George keeps making jokes about how the script isn't done, or ready, or 'hay it's finally here!'

You don't reckon!?!
It was bloody obvious that the script was the last thing that anyone thought about.
I guess it doesn't matter cause both these flicks were for the fan's who would have sucked up any old slop.

Other Films I saw were...

La Spagnola
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290867/


Somersault
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381429/
Both of which I really enjoyed. they were small stories, but riveting stuff.



Ice Age 3 is coming up and I've got a bad feeling bout this one.

Really enjoyed the first, thought the second was OK, but I don't know bout this last one.

Trailer for Story and Audience

I posted a 'write up' for a story idea that I developed for Story and Audience.

Here's the link to revisit it...

http://www.thepagemill.com/TheYearMyVoiceBroke/?p=66

I mentioned that we were all developing short trailers for our films and here is mine...

The second week of Story and Audience trailer (better encoding)

So cute, it does my ed in.

Last night Popcorn Taxi had a showing of the doco, Bananaz.

Enjoyed it. Those guys have way too much fun.

That said, Damon Albarn regulaly getting a 'touch of the nerves' and

chucking up in the green room didn't look like fun ;-)

Q&A after with director Ceri Levy.

He spent six years compiling this piece.

http://www.popcorntaxi.com.au/

http://www.bananazfilm.com/

Last weeks DVD's were...

American Gothic
Loved it when I first saw it in the nineties. I didn't realize that Sam Raimi was involved.
The series starts a little slow, but properly kicks in round the forth disk.
Looks like Twin Peaks had a bit of an influence.
Kinda weird working through the disks and watching the format get whittled at by the film makers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gothic_(TV_series)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111880/




Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Classic!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_Killer_Tomatoes
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080391/

Was watching last week...

Party Animals
 Likable cast, and I dig stories about politics. Good cinematography with lots of tracking actors down corridors, and regular use of depth of field to separate characters from busy backgrounds. 

Good pedigree too.

Six degrees of separation for Party Animals...

1. This Life (same producers) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Life
2. Ultraviolet (writer worked on This Life and Jack Davenport appears in both)
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_(TV_serial)
4. The young guy, who is the new Doctor Who, is one of the Party Animals.

Devil Wears Prada
Gave it a go cause I couldn't find anything else in the library at the time. Ok show but it bent my sense of reality big time. That Anne girl has a smile like a crocodile.

Planet Terror

Needed to watch this again to wash DWP out of my brain. This Grindhouse hommage double feature is 'the bomb'!

Frost/Nixon

Was good but I don't think it deserved the acclaim that it attracted.

Must be American navel gazing again?

Creating experience exercise: Getting the word out there

Spent an interesting day being led through the intricacies of Web

Marketing today by Laurel Papworth, who is an industry expert in

online presence building.

As I result, I now have a Twitter account.

I've been avoiding getting involved in yet online presence but it was

a class exercise so bugger it.

So if your interested in linking up with me over Twitter, my profile is...

http://twitter.com/davetimperley

This weeks movies...

Sweety
One of Jan Chapmans first flicks.
I really liked the weird little shots throughout it. Reminds me of David Lynch.
Lots of 'normal type people' tested by extreme events.

I Robot

Aussie director and I remember it being OK.
It's still OK.
I'm kinda getting sick of seeing Will Smith in films. Getting as bad as Tom Cruse.

The new Star Trek thang
It was a good ride. Bit boring cause you know that there is going to be a happy ending.

Nother 'time travel' type script device which really gets on my tits. Such a unimaginative and overused device to use in a Star Trek flick.
That said, they deliberately mention a parallel time stream, and make no effort to put history back on track, so I reckon the studio is using this movie to completely reboot the franchise.

They re-wrote Trekkie history so that they can take liberties with the characters and the environment.
There will be a lot more product (I heard rumours of a new TV show) arising from this little maneuver.

Went to see this cause I've been following the career of J.J. Abraham.

Liked Alias when it was on the tele.
Ages back I heard that John Cussack agreed to do Con Air, so that the studio would sign off on his personal project Gross Point Blank.
I reckon J.J. has done that same thing with this flick.

Possibly so he could make Cloverfeild, or maybe there is something else up his sleeve???

Moulin Rouge
We had a class recently where we were asked who hadn't seen this flick. I was the only one to put up my hand, so I thought that maybe I should make an effort.

I'm I the only one that found the adapted songs really distracting? I spent a few seconds at the beginning of each piece of music wondering where I had heard the song before. It was like a cinematic trivia night.
I don't mind musicals, and I think it's a shame that new songs weren't written specially for this show.

commercially it's genius. No need to wonder if the audience will like the songs or not.
Also, it's set in Paris, but where were all the Froggy accents?

The art design, and the music arrangements were inspired.



Last King of Scotland
Ok film.
I remember when when I was a kid, and Uganda and Amin were always in the news.

This weeks movies...

Sweety
One of Jan Chapmans first flicks.
I really liked the weird little shots throughout it. Reminds me of David Lynch.
Lots of 'normal type people' tested by extreme events.

I Robot
Aussie director and I remember it being OK.
It's still OK.
I'm kinda getting sick of seeing Will Smith in films. Getting as bad as Tom Cruse (or Tom Hanks) in that he is in so many films that I don't see the character anymore, I see Will Smith being chased by aliens or shooting gangsters or giving away money.

The new Star Trek thang
It was a good ride. Bit boring cause you know that there is going to be a happy ending.
Nother 'time travel' type script device which really gets on my tits. Such a unimaginative and overused device to use in a Star Trek flick.

That said, they deliberately mention a parallel time stream, and make no effort to put history back on track, so I reckon the studio is using this movie to completely reboot the franchise.

They re-wrote Trekkie history so that they can take liberties with the characters and the environment.

There will be a lot more product (I heard rumours of a new TV show) arising from this little maneuver.

Went to see this cause I've been following the career of J.J. Abraham. Liked Alias when it was on the tele.

Ages back I heard that John Cussack agreed to do Con Air, so that the studio would sign off on his personal project Gross Point Blank.

I reckon J.J. has done that same thing with this flick. Possibly so he could make Cloverfeild, or maybe there is something else up his sleeve???

Moulin Rouge
We had a class recently where we were asked who hadn't seen this flick. I was the only one to put up my hand, so I thought that maybe I should make an effort.

I'm I the only one that found the adapted songs really distracting? I spent a few seconds at the beginning of each piece of music wondering where I had heard the song before. It was like a cinematic trivia night.

I don't mind musicals, and I think it's a shame that new songs weren't written specially for this show.

commercially it's genius. No need to wonder if the audience will like the songs or not.

Also, it's set in Paris, but where were all the Froggy accents?
The art design, and the music arrangements were inspired.


Last King of Scotland
Ok film. I remember when when I was a kid, and Uganda and Amin were always in the news.

The second week of Story and Audience

The second week was where we took everything we learnt by dissected films in

the first week, and and built stories of our own.

What follows is the culmination for me of the two weeks.

Our final exercise was to create a trailer for our scripts and I'll post

that later.

Audience

Anyone who enjoyed Alien, Long kiss goodnight, and Kill Bill.

Three sentences

Hester, a young refugee interned in a detention camp, must discover the

strengths and talents she possesses after the protection of her father is

removed when he is badly injured by a camp guard.

Embarking on a journey she is tested by both the land and its people.

She arrives at the center of this lands society and exposes them to the

darkness their society harbors.

The world

- A country where refugees are interned, out of sight of the citizens

- Comfortable democratic society

- Prisons run by corporations in a Desert

- Most people with ‘half a brain’ travel through desert in airplanes

Characters

- Hester: (Animus) young woman, twenty one, dependant on her dad becomes

independent. Innately capable, she must become a hero.

- Father: (hero) strong, mechanic. Sacrificed in first act.

- Nanna Jo: (sidekick) older woman, becomes mother surrogate

- Jed: (trickster) enters in second act. Becomes Judas.

- Mo: (Anti hero) enters in second act. Becomes love interest.

Story and action beats

*First act*

*Introduction*

Hester On blimp with father looking after her.

Packed in with other refugees.

Her dad is single handily keeping the blimp airborne.

Blimp flying over the sea, is found by Australian jets.

The blimp is forced to follow the jets inland, and to touch down next to an

internment camp.

We follow the blimps passengers through processing.

They meet Nanna Jo who is a long time internee who has befriended them.

*In camp*

Hester witness’s young women in the camp being abused by the guards. Only

her father’s influence, due to his uncanny ability with engines keeps her

safe.

It becomes apparent that Nanna Jo is in love with Hester’s Father

Hester causes problems for other prisoners through her self centeredness and

becomes outcast.

There is a secretive game the kids play in the compound which she joins,

excels at, and ultimately ruins for the other kids.

Hester is forced to work in the camp garden and there she causes trouble.

In both cases she is rescued by her dad or Nanna Jo.

Catalyst for Hester Is losing the protection of her father forcing her to

escape the camp into the unknown

Her father is working on the camps airplanes. Hester is helping him as no

one else in camp likes her.

There he suffers an accident and can’t protect her anymore.

She is driven to act and escape as she has made enemies of the guards and

the other prisoners.

*Second act*

*Loses everyone from her previous life*

*Environment: desert*

Nanna Jo and Hester steal one of the camps planes and flee into the desert.

Nanna Jo has decided that something must be done to free the other

detainees..

Hester just wants to get her dad back and to be safe.

They spot a car that’s broken down and two bodies nearby

Nanna Jo insists that they land and help what turns out to be two men (Mo

and Jed.)

They camp for the night.

In the morning they are caught by police.

Nanna Jo is killed

Hester is helped to escape the cops by Mo and Jed, and Hester is obliged to

travel with them.

She starts to get interested in Mo.

*Psycho farmer*

*Environment: agricultural *

Farm run by small family.

Hester and Co. stop to get fuel and water.

Mo’s intention is to rob the farmer.

Farmer captures Mo in the act.

Jed takes charge and organizes to free Mo, but it's Hester’s insight that

allows the pair to prevail.

Jed holds the wife hostage. Hester holds a gun to the dog’s head (she's

worked out that the farmer loves his dog more.)

*Love blooms*

Hester becomes romantic with Mo and is ‘on top of the world.’

Jed is left sitting in cockpit drinking himself stupid.

There is a short period of ‘happy families’ as they fly towards the city.

Mo and Jed feel that the city is where their combined destinies lie.

*Betrayal*

*Environment: urban

*

As they approach the city, Jed (possibly jealousy?) betrays Hester and Mo to

the law.

Despair as they are incarcerated in refugee slave labor camp.

Split apart and forced to work and witness atrocities.

*Third act*

*Escape*

Hester befriends a family who give her an opportunity to be with Mo.

A totally ‘take charge and get things done’ Hester and Mo resolve to escape.

They are successful in part to Mo’s sacrifice and Hester ‘resolves to

fight.’

*Leader is born*

Traveling by car which allows us to insert car chase.

She leads the family to the radio personality.

Publicizes atrocities in camps.

Exposes slave labor.

Original except

*Camp Airfield: Mid day*

The airfield is a small strip laid out on the sand outside the camp. There

are a few buildings, and several planes lined up along the runway.

Hester sprawls across a section of aeroplane wing. Her plane is parked in

the middle of a line of identical planes.

She’s around 21, short roughly cut hair.

She looks back at the barbed wire fence, glad to be looking at it from the

outside ‘looking in’ for a change.

She would rather look back at the camp, then out into the desert which

stretched away behind her.

Her dad grunts gently beside her, arms and head buried in the internals of

the planes engine.

‘Hand me a wrench honey’ his muffled voice floats back to her.

She drops off the wing onto the sticky tarmac of the runway

Looks into the deep shadow cast by the wing, her eyes adjusting to the dark,

searching for the tool chest

She spots the chest, and also notes the silhouette of a camp guard standing

just behind it.

‘Hello,’ she says, ‘checking up on us?’

‘Just you HONEY heh’

‘Kay’

She walks over to the tool chest on the ground in front of the guard, bends

over and fishes out a wrench.

‘Okay’ her dads voice speaking to the pilot, floats down to her ‘turn it

over.’

The Engine above them choughs, prop spins once, vibrating to a halt, engine

splutter.

She feels the rush of air driven backwards by the props, and looks back over

her shoulder at the blades

Engine chough, prop spins once, engine splutter, fading blast of air.

Hester spins on her heel and scrambles up a ladder propped against the back

edge of the wing.

Chough, spins, splutter, fading blast of air.

Hummmmm said her dad. He was standing on the front edge of the wing watching

the blades.

‘What’s up poppy?’ she came up to stand next to his left shoulder.

Chough, spins, splutter, fading blast of air.

Hummmmmm.

‘Yeah, what’s up?’ said the guard who had materialised next to his right

shoulder, which he violently shoved with his own.

Chough, spins, splutter, fading blast of air.

Hester’s dad, caught off balance by the shove stumbled forward, pivoted to

keep his footing on the edge of the wing,

Chough, spins, splutter, fading blast of air.

He leans back and the leading edge of the prop smacks into his hip throwing

his body off the back of the wing.

Chough, spins, splutter, fading blast of air.

*Camp Infirmary:*

Dark inside but lots of daylight spilling in through the windows

Dad is lying on a bed roll

Covered from the shoulders down by moth eaten blanket

His dirty feet poke out the bottom

Hester is kneeling next to him

Nanna Joe walks in and kneels beside her.

‘The guards are throwing lots in the guard room sweetheart, we have to go

now.’

‘What?’

‘We better make the most of what your dad taught you and get out right now.’

They leave the infirmary

Hester following along behind as Nanna Joe strides confidently forward.

*Camp Water tower:*

This tall metal structure is near the parameter fence

Nanna Joe walks between the straight metal legs which hold aloft a big water

tank.

She crouches down by the small pump which drives bore-water up into the

storage tank and opens its pressed metal casing.

Reaching inside, she undoes a bolt on the fly wheel, and unscrews the cap

off fuel tank and drops it inside.

Hester watches her closing the casing and Squeezes the padlock shut.

The two walk over to the towers thin access ladder, and started to haul

themselves up

Two Guards patrolling the fence hear the pump engine purring and walk over.

One of them peers into the internals of the pump casing through the vent

slots

Sparks bounce around inside the box with each turn off the flywheel.

Putt, spray of sparks.

Oh shit, it's going to do it again!

One of the guard’s runs off, the one left behind starts to kick at the

padlock

Putt, spray.

Up on the tank Hester and Nanna Joe crouch down on a on the narrow metal

mesh foot walk

Hester is helping Nanna Joe loosen the bolts holding the securing bands that

encircle the tank

This is going to weaken the skin of the tank sweetheart so that it splits

more easily’ says Nanna

‘Kay’

Putt, spray.

One of the sparks bouncing around inside the pump casing lands in the fuel

tank

The pump explodes blowing the guard backwards

One of the three legs holding the tank aloft is now missing a section

The tank begins to lean. Creases appear in the base of the remaining legs

Sounds of tearing metal radiates out through the camp.

The tower falls over, across a section of the parameter fence. The tank

ruptures on impact with the ground.

Hester and Nanna Joe are washed forward, surfing on a section of tank.

Prisoners drawn to the noise run through the section of crushed fence but

stop out side the compound and start dancing about.

Hester and Nanna Joe disappear into the line of planes on the air field.

*Camp airfield

*

*Steal a plane

*

They break into one of the planes

Hester sits in the pilots chair and starts up the plane

Nanna Joe is bustling around getting stuff settled

Hester has to push the throttle with her foot, by bracing against her chair

to force it open

The plane surges forward onto the runway

Nanna Jo is in the hold dropping grenades out the open door as they run down

the runway

Explosions pepper the runway as the pull up into the sky

‘We have to get to the city and find people who will listen’ says Nanna Joe

Deep Desert: late afternoon

Flying for hours

See a crashed plane

Bit more flying and they see two bodies lying out in the desert

They land and drag the unconscious two men into the planes hold.

Have something to eat, and Fall asleep under the planes wing.

*Government office: night

*

The minister is shown video of the demolished fence and the dancing

detainees.

‘Well at least most had enough sense not to strike out into the desert’

comments the minister.

‘Quite imaginative really. Can’t tunnel through sand so remove a section of

the fence and walk out.’

‘Yes sir’ replied the head of desert police

*Deep desert: morning

*

Hester wakes and watches three cop planes landing around her

Armed cops jump out of the planes and walk over, forming a rough ring

encircling the women

Hester and Mama Joe are made to kneel on ground

Cop posturing and they shoot Mama Joe

Off in the distance behind the action, observant viewers will see one of the

pilots jerk in his cockpit and disappear.

‘Why?’ sobs Hester

‘Shot while escaping darln, just like you will be. Cept we need to keep you

healthy till Jake gets here. He won the sweeps.’

Pilot leaves the plane and walks over, stands in the circle with the other

men

Suddenly one of the cops doubles over, then another, and a third. Then all

the cops are running around trying to find cover.

The pilot merges into the chose, appearing at random monuments behind cops

under cover of the sniper and killing them.

Two of the cop planes take off and are circling to attack the plane that is

still grounded

The pilot walks up to Hester who is still kneeling on the ground next to her

mother. Shes staring at the ground and doesn’t notice that He’s pointing his

gun at her.

Hester suddenly looks up at him and starts to run away.

‘Hay hay,’ he flips up the mirrored visor,

It was one of the guys that they had picked up.

‘Be calm, I’m going to stand here pointing this gun at you so that these

pistol packing lawmen think they’ve got you covered, and leave off shooting

in this direction.’ He motions with his hand to the gunfight raging around

them.

‘Who did you think was causing all this panic in the ranks?’

Hester shakes her head.

‘My brother is over in that jet’

He pointed to the cop plane that still sat on the sand. It explodes as one

of the airborne jets strafed a line of shells through its mid section

‘Well, not at this moment anyways.’ He turns back to her and grins.

‘We better get our bird in the sky quick smart, cause those planes will

circle about and be back over here to clean us up.’

Hester looks up at him.

‘Look you have a choice, sit here and die next to the old lady, or get that

plane in the air and help me smack those turkeys back.’

A police Sargent breaks cover from behind a dune and runs over to the pair.

Jed drops his visor and turns to face him.

‘You've got one hell of a “pair” Jonesie. Shoot her, and concentrate on

taking down the nut that's out there.’

Jed nods and shoots the sergeant.

Hester watches the mirrored visor turn back to her.

It tilts a silent question.

She stands and walks back to her plane

*Insert air battle*

They shoot down the remaining cop plane. The brother sits in the co pilot

chair giggling and fires the weapons but its Hester’s flying that allows

them to win

They land amongst the carnage.

Exiting the plane they locate the other brother who is searching through the

bodies of the dead cops.

‘Hay Mo, you still breathing’ yells out Jed

Mo stands and looks at them.

He’s tall, wiry, and Hester reckons he’s good looking.

Character revelation exercise for Story and Audience

City of Lost Children

Dissecting a character

*Character: One*

Need/want/goal: Bonding. To be part of a family.

Actions: protect, track, retrieve, pursue, mourn, fight, extricate, endure,

*Obstacles:*

- His grief at allowing Little Brother to be abducted.

- Required to discover the hiding place where little brother has been

taken

- The Cyclops organisation who have abducted Little Brother.

- The Siamese twins who want his strength

- A floating mine field

- A 'maze like' fortress

- psychosis inducing fleas

- Multiple clones of mad professor

*Aspects of character revealed:*

- His dependence on other peoples strength, love, and intelligence.

- Need of a family

- Persistence

- Innocence

this weeks movies...

Like Water for Chocolate
Used to have the book at one time.
Haven't seen this in a looooong time, so I decided to do this flick as a school exercise.


Still a great movie but the soundtrack has turned out to be really disappointing.


Like someone bashing out cliques on a Casio keyboard.

Other great food type movies...

tampopo

La Grande Bouffe

The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover

Run Lola Run






Great electro sound track


Jamon Jamon
Most memorable 'scene I seen' in ages is two guys striped off naked, and fighting a bull in the dark.

Also Penelope Cruise has very nice breasts. In fact, every woman in this flick has lovey bosoms. This also includes a couple of the guys.



Ten Canoes.
Great Aboriginal flick.
Like the mini doco's on how to build a canoe and spears.


Edward Scissor Hands.
Never seen it before.
Don't know why I got this out.

I think someone at school mentioned it.

It's ok.

This weeks movies...

Like Water for Chocolate
Used to have the book at one time and I think this was one of the first cinema flicks I saw with sub-titles?

Haven't seen this in a looooong time, so I decided to do this flick as a school exercise.
Still a great movie but the soundtrack has turned out to be really disappointing.
Like someone bashing out cliques on a Casio keyboard.

Other great food type movies... 
Tampopo
La Grande Bouffe 
The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover


Run Lola Run
Great electro sound track

Jamon Jamon
Most memorable 'scene I seen' in ages is two guys (one being Javier Bardem) striped off naked, and fighting a bull in the dark.
Also Penelope Cruise has very nice breasts. In fact, every woman in this flick has lovey bosoms. This also includes a couple of the guys.


Ten Canoes
Great Aboriginal flick.
Like the mini doco's on how to build a canoe and spears.

Edward Scissor Hands
Never seen it before.
Don't know why I got this out.
I think someone at school mentioned it.
It's ok.

Day one exercise for Story and Audience

The past two weeks, I've been doing the Story and Audience module.

First up, the teacher has been taking us through some steps in putting

together a story for a film.

Our first homework was to distill a movie plot into three sentences.

This is useful for 'pitching' a script, and it also helps focus the writer

on what important themes they want to express.

The 'three act' model is pretty universal in western films.

The film I'm examining is Love Serenade.

*Distilled into three sentences...*

Dimity, a young woman bored with rural town life, finds her curiosity

sparked by 'big city escapee' DJ Ken Sherry who has moved in next door.

Unfortunately her sister has also become desperately intent on capturing the

attentions of the smooth talking neighbour.

Competition between the two women escalates until Dimity is usurped in Kens

bed, and she realises that her sister is more important to her then this

aging playboy, so she removes his presence in their lives permanently.

*The emotional journey of Dimity (main character.)*

Words I would use...

Curiosity, desire, fascination, betrayal, retaliation.

Words from yesterdays chart...

Joy, grief, anger.

Last week I was watching...

*Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me*

*Ultraviolet*

British vampire show and pretty good.

*The Year my Voice Broke*

As good as I remember it. Great Ozzie 'coming of age' film.

*Tampopo*

Brilliant Japanese flick bout food.

*Fargo, City of Lost Children, and Love Serenade*

For school

*Punch Drunk Love*

Brilliant!

Was directed to this by our Audio teacher Mark, for it's interesting sound

track.

Saw Monsters Vs Aliens last week.

What a load of crap!

Never again Dreamworks, NEVER AGAIN!.

Latest Time-lapse video

Finally started to rain up in Gloucester NSW.

I was there over Easter and took some time lapse of the early morning mist rising up off the hills.
Also got a sun set and a couple of horses managed to walk into frame.

Gloucester farm time-lapse

Emotional noise

Traffic is royally screwing this city . Can't wait for the weather to cool down so i can walk to school

Sooooo nice to be doing something a bit more technical for the last couple of weeks. Less digging around in my emotional physique.
I'm stoked to be finally doing Audio as my video work up till now has been lacking without it.
That said, I'm also happy I wasn't in the first group to do Emotional Noise as some of the equipment they were supposed to use hadn't arrived at the school.

Started the week with our new teacher comparing the soundtrack of the original King Kong with the Pete Jackson remake.
then had a look at the opening sequence of Punch Drunk Love
I have to see this movie. It looks (heh,) sounds amazing.

2nd day
We all spent a day being taught how to use ProTools which is software for editing audio
Was a bit boring, but vital as most of us knew nothing about audio editing software.

The school is discovering that you can't get people to do basic audio/visual work without those students having some sort of familiarity with the software used to create these things.
AFTRS quickly organized Photoshop classes a few weeks back, when it became apparent that most students doing Image (refer to my previous post) didn't have the 'skills' to do basic photo editing with the software.
We're the first audio class to have a day devoted to Protools so that we will be equipped in some sort of basic fashion, to manipulate the audio that we will be capturing tomorrow.

3rd day
We get our hands on audio recording equipment. It's been six weeks and finally I can ‘check out’ and use the capturing devices such as microphones. Feel sorry for the poor buggers who have to wait nine weeks just to earn the right to use the mikes.
it’s no wonder most of the kids can't post their work on the net cause their using copyrighted audio.

We spent the morning learning how to use the little solid state audio recorders, then split into pairs, and spent the afternoon schlepping around the city recording sounds.
My partner and I ended up out at Bondi beach where we discovered that wind noise was a major problem with the onshore breeze that was sweeping up the beach.
We retreated to the suburban streets back off the main strip.

What is the deal with Sony???
Only one of the kits has decent headphones in it???
This is as bad as only having ten wide angle adapters for the thirty cameras available to the Foundation students.
Why can't Sony get their shit together?
It's not like any of this equipment is even Pro-sumer.

Forth day
was all about voice.
We did some interesting exercises where we all sat in a circle and played with our voices (chanting and such like.)

We're pretty lucky in foundation in that we get to be taught by professionals in all sorts of creative fields
We even get to be addressed by non-creative such as box office marketing.
The school is attempting to build artists that are 'cross discipline.'
People that can shoot, and edit, and lay down audio, and write, and what ever.
At worst, we are supposed to be able to communicate intelligently with a wide verity of specialists.

Second week
Learnt about temp tracks
Since the music is usually the last thing to be added to a flick. These music tracks are used as placeholders until bespoke music can be composed.

Tom Ellard who used to be an 'out there' electronic artist is now teaching.
We spent the morning discussing memes and V-jaying.

He made a comment about how pirating was killing the music industry.
Record companies are dieing, but this industry is a distribution industry, not a creative one.
In my opinion, Artists will still be exercising their creativity, but getting that art to the audience will change.
He talked of ‘paying ones dues’ in the old days. Artists still need to ‘pay your dues’ online. What makes people think that posting ones work on the net leads to instant fame and fortune?
A relationship still needs to be built with ones audience.

Online distribution is still too novel a concept to make any decisions over. What I do know is that there are a whole lot o Marketroids, A&R turkeys, and middle management that will be looking for new jobs soon.

cut up the samples that we collected last week and built soundscapes.
This is mine…

Emo soundscape exercise

Sweet Easter deal!

I couldn't help myself!

 

Six chocolate hot cross buns and a free loaf from Brumby's bread shop.
hummmmmm chocolate.
hummmmmm 12 grain fried bread.

Monday 16th March

Last Thursday we were given a fragment of a script to learn.
A dialog between two people.
We had to first dissect the fragment using the white board technique.

So what’s this script analysis about?

One gets hold of a whiteboard (is this mandatory? I wasn’t prepared to challenge the teacher on it.)

Then one divides the surface into four sections…

•    Facts
•    Questions (get three answers to questions)
•    Mysterious lines (lines that pique interest)
•    Images and associations

Now we examine each scene in the script and rigorously apply these four criteria to the text.
This helps the Director (or other production staff such as cinematographer) open their mind to possibilities.

We are presenting the fragment of script to the class on Monday, so I’m spending my weekends committing words to memory again.
As before, I’m typing this stuff out to help ‘seat’ it in my head.
Oh Joy!

Once again, feel free to skip it…

Say Goodnight Gracie

What next?

Steve surprises him

Excuse me, do you know what time it is?

Jerry. Holy shit!

Steve. Wait. Before you say anything. I’ve got something wonderful to tell you!

Jerry. What are you doing in my apartment?! You trying to give me a heart attack or something?!

Steve. Oh it’s ok, Ginny let me in. She went to pick up her dress at the cleaners. How’d the audition go?

Jerry. What are you doing in my apartment, Steve?!

Steve. Your weren’t right for the part, were you?

Jerry. Never mind!

Steve. Jerry, it doesn’t matter! Wait till you hear what

Jerry. Not now! Please

Steve. Oh boy! Just wait till you hear what I’ve got to tell you! Come
on: ask me what it is. I haven’t told anybody yet- Benny’ll be right
back, bobby’ll be here, we’ll be leaving for the reunion- come on!

Jerry. Where’s the Chunky Turkey soup?

Steve. Soup? Soup? Who cares about soup?

Jerry. Where’s the chunky Turkey soup?

Steve. I ate it! It was delicious! I thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Jerry. You ate the chunky Turkey soup?

Steve. Yes! I was all alone, I was excited and hungry and I wanted to
celebrate and here was this little can crying out: Take me, open me,
eat me, I’m yours!

Jerry. In my cabinet, Steve, in my kitchen, in my apartment, there are the following items-

Steve. And do you know why I was so excited???

Jerry. 3 canes of chunky beef soup, 3 cans of chunky vegetable soup, 3
cans of chunky split pea and ham soup, and 7 family size cans of
Franco-American spaghettios. Are you listening?

 Steve. What are you doing?. Rehearsing a monologue!

Jerry. Early this morning, as I was about to leave my apartment, I
paused for a moment in my kitchen and looked in my  cabinet, and I made
certain that hidden away behind all those other items, there was still
one remaining can of chunky Turkey soup. Why did I do this?

Steve. 10..9..8..

Jerry. I did this because Chunky Turkey soup as you know, for some
mysterious reason, has become almost impossible to locate in this part
of the city and because I like it very much. In fact, I love it! Why do
I love it? I don’t know. I can’t honestly tell you why I love chunky
turkey soup. All I know is-

Steve. Hey, thanks so much for coming. We would have preferred hearing
something from Shakespeare, but this gives us a damn fine idea of your
talents, and believe me, if a part should turn up…

Jerry. All I know is: I love it! It is dependable. It is there. It is
the last thing I can be certain of in a world filled with uncertainty.
And in any case, I don’t believe that an emotion such as love has to be
explained. Don’t you agree?

Steve. Are you al right?

Jerry. Do you agree?

Steve. My Bad, it was only a can of soup!

Jerry. it was only a can of soup. Was that what you said?

Steve. Yes.

Jerry. Guess what word you left out?

Steve. I have no idea.

Jerry. Guess

Steve. I don’t know!

Jerry. Take a guess!

Steve. But I don’t know!

Jerry. What’s the word?

Steve. Hmmmmn, It wouldn’t be swordfish’ would it?

Jerry. Myz2 the word is ‘my.’ My my my my my! It was only my fucking can of soup!

Steve. You are very angry.

So today we’re all presenting our scenes as an actors rehearsal.
Which means I have to act.
Oh Joy!

This was another long day as not only did everyone perform their piece, but
we got to apply various tones, objectives, and actions to the text.
My turn was pretty much a multi-lane car crash.
I was so reliant on my partner feeding the correct lines for me to reply to, that when they didn’t, my brain froze.

Tried to work my way through it, but the second time through was almost
impossible, what with my partner acting like a crack fiend and feeding
me even less cues from the text.
I had a pot that I had taken in as a prop, and I was left at the end of the ordeal wanting to cave his head in with it.

Can’t blame my partner much though. Hell! we’re both inexperienced with this acting gig.

Doesn’t matter if they learnt the lines or not, cause when stage fright hits,
all the prep in the world an’t worth a ‘bucket o beans.’
Besides, it’s only an exercise. Learn from it and move on is the attitude I’m taking.
Despite any personal discomfort, everything we’ve been doing in this class is damn useful stuff.

Friday On My Mind this week at AFTRS was an interview with Adam Elliot and Melanie Coombs who were presenting their new feature Mary and Max.

http://www.maryandmax.com/

Amazing stop-motion type animation.
Kinda different from the insanely popular Wallace and Grommet type fare though.
These film makers have described a really interesting Australian suburban landscape.

Bit dark, in a good way.

Little bit surreal, and very grown up.
Every Australian should go and see this flick.
It’s sophisticated in concept but almost naive in style.

Mary and Max are shot with digital Canon stills cameras that feed into a central server.

Really beautiful images, and it looks like they used some decent Canon glass to shoot the amazing monochromatic sets.
Lot’s of texture, and all the effects were shot ‘in camera.’
Adam Elliot said in the interview before the feature was presented, ‘people like to see the finger prints.’

Friday On My Mind this week at AFTRS was an interview with Adam Elliot and Melanie Coombs...

...who were presenting their new feature Mary and Max.

http://www.maryandmax.com/

Amazing stop-motion type animation.
Kinda different from the insanely popular Wallace and Grommet type fare though.
These film makers have described a really interesting Australian suburban landscape.
Bit dark, in a good way.

Little bit surreal, and very grown up.
Every Australian should go and see this flick.
It’s sophisticated in concept but almost naive in style.

Mary and Max are shot with digital Canon stills cameras that feed into a central server.
Really beautiful images, and it looks like they used some decent Canon glass to shoot the amazing monochromatic sets.
Lot’s of texture, and all the effects were shot ‘in camera.’
Adam Elliot said in the interview before the feature was presented, ‘people like to see the finger prints.’

Character based story telling

A guest speaker took us through character based story telling
The class gathered in the auditorium

Then we watched the movie The Searchers.
When it finished we were all taken through a dissection of the movies structure.

Don’t think I did very well with the dissection.
Honestly, I was pretty much drifting off watching this flick.
It was too slow and the acting was pretty melodramatic.
It
was pretty hard just keeping interest up to the point where I could
remember turning points during it’s playing and I pretty much flushed
it out of my brain as soon as it was finished.

Should have taken notes while it was playing. Would have at least passed the time.
I
get that it has clearly defined acts and goals, but after decades of
evolution of film, I think there must be a point where hoary old
chestnuts are laid to rest. There must have been a film from the last
ten/twenty years that could serve as just as good an example?

Weirdly,
I came out of the viewing bitching about how much I dislike Westerns
and yet I’ve just spent two weeks riveted by Deadwood, and Star Wars is
just a re-tooled Western.
Maybe it’s the dust I don’t like?

Notes from Character based story telling

Must create empathy with lead character
How do we create empathy?
• Victim of something
• Likeable
• Character in jeopardy
• Funny
• Powerful

Clearly defined endpoint and a high stakes goal are required.
The four great goals…
• To win
• To escape
• To stop something happening
• To retrieve something

Structure
Clearly defined end and timescale

• Set up
• Opportunity – set initial goal
• New situation
• The plane- visible end goal set
• Progress- obstacles accumulating
• Midpoint- hero is utterly committed with a point of no return
• Complication

• Major set back- all is lost
• The final push
• The climax, goal is achieved, successful or not, we must see protagonists new life
• Dénouement- new life being led (often very short)

Inciting incident must mirror climax but climax must be greater.

Friday again.

Hard to believe. The days and weeks shoot past so quickly.
Hour lunches feel like twenty minutes.
The arrival of five o’clock is always a surprise.
Fridays are our ‘free days’ where we can slack off, finish homework, and pursue our own projects.
I’m
in at school bashing out this blog entry, was a body in a short film
captured by a guy testing his super8, committing a fragment of script
to memory for next week.

So what’s been happening since my last entry?
Was back in the park Tuesday morning.
Sat in the dew and read the monologue to the ducks and swans.
They had all disappeared by the time I looked up from reciting the passage to myself, just like the dog walkers.

Nother stressful day where we had to read out our monologues to the class.
Then
we had to choose some verbs from a list to apply to the text such as
flirt, challenge, stalk, and brag. This so we could see how different
attitudes changed the text.
These emotional actions can involve a lot of investment by the individuals reading the texts.
This is mentally hard stuff to have to put oneself through.
I’ve decided that I’m only going to make action flicks so that the only emotions I have to deal with will be anger and revenge.

Went and saw The Reader after school Tuesday night.
Brilliant flick. Really enjoyed Kate Winslet’s flawed character. Pretty much everyone else in the picture paled in comparison.

Was so distracted Wednesday morning I almost walked out of my flat in my underwear.
Seriously, I was lacing up my shoes when I suddenly realized I hadn’t put trousers on.

I felt I needed to apologize to the teacher for being churlish, and caustic, and confrontational in class.
I
shouldn’t be taking it out on her, the content of the course is
brilliant. My problem is that I’m being force to exercise emotional
muscles (glands?) in this class and that hurts.
If you do this class
properly, there is an opportunity to be wounded. Invariably the
wounding is a result of an unrealized, avoided, or repressed truth.
A
favorite comment of a few students is still ‘if I wanted to act I would
have gone to Nida’ (National Institute of Dramatic Arts)
Calluses, wherever they are indicate hard work, right?

First day of 'character performance and script.'

It's raining again!
It's like the first week all over again. As soon as I step off the bus, the heavens start pissing on my head.
New group of classmates too. We’ve been mostly mixed up in the rotation.

All the students have individually chosen monologues to work on (based on the portfolios we submitted to gain entrance to the school,) and all are given a key figure in the history of acting to research and then detail in a presentation to the class.

I've scored Jerzy Grotowski.

We viewed a video on an amazing scientist that used her stroke as an opportunity for researching brain dysfunction.
She lost control of the left side of her brain and discovered amazing insights into the right brain.
You'll have to see the vid to get the full gist. She starts off very ‘left brain.’ Straight forward and scientific but then ‘takes off’ with evangelical zeal while describing the right hemispheres functions.
Riveting stuff! Especially how she describes suffering the stroke. Almost makes it sound so wonderful that I want to suffer a stroke to experience it. That said, the way she describes the experience is pretty similar to people describing meditation or drug trips.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

What was a little weird was when a member of the class arrived late. Her excuse was that her granddad had just suffered a stroke and she had been at the hospital that morning.

We've all been giving individual passages to present as monologues tomorrow.

Sat in a park under a tree and tried to commit the passage to memory.
One of the tools the teacher gave us to help in the memorizing, was to read out loud a sentence and emphasize the first word, then re-read the sentence highlighting the next word, and repeat until all the words have been covered, and repeat for each sentence in turn.
Was just about to start when a woman jogger appeared, lay down a towel nearby, and started doing sit-ups.

Have to wait for her to leave
This learning a monologue is as boring as learning the times tables when I was a kid.

Now she's doing push ups.

I've included the passage below. Less for your edification, and more so that by typing in the passage, I've given myself another opportunity to burn the text into some synapses.

Skip the italics...

I was almost killed once in a car accident.
I was drunk and I ran off the side of the road and I turned over four times. They took me out of that car for dead, but I lived.
And I prayed last night to know why I lived and she died, but I got no answer to my prayers. I still don't know why she died and I lived. I don't know the answer to nothing. Not a blessed thing. I don't know why I wandered out to this part of Texas drunk and you took me in and pitied me and helped me to straighten out and married me.
Why, why did this happen?
Is there a reason that happened? And Sonny's daddy died in the war. My daughter killed in an automobile accident. Why? you see, I don't trust happiness. I never did, I never will.

Ok she's split now. Been reading out aloud for five minutes and dog walkers are giving me wide birth.

Now I’m being rained on.

OK, that's two weeks of Image done.

Lots of male hair in the student group.
My shaggy locks are fitting right in.
I reckon I managed to work with almost everyone in the group.

Character begins next week. As in ‘acting.’
Not sure if I’m looking forward to it, but it’s a bloody important part of the process so ‘bring it on.’

This is a brief summary of the ‘Image’ course (art happens in your head.)

The 'image'
First day was all bout what makes a 'classic image.'
Lot’s of slides o black and white photography.

We split into groups and were sent out to recreate a classic image.

Then we had to change it...

Colour
Telling story with colour.
You know how it goes, Red is sexy, blue is introverted, yellow is warm, and purple is for mystery.

Lighting
Spent the entire day in a studio learning bout lighting.
We then got to play with the lights.
What’s the difference between a Redhead and a Blond?
Bounced light is your friend.
Watch out for hot metal.

Lighting exercise

Movement
Telling a story with the camera.
Where you put it and what you point it at.
Trust in an audience’s ability to suck in information.
Human
eye has about forty five degrees of view. Therefore wide angle lens
tend to unsettle us (mind you IMHO, everybody likes wide angle on their
cameras cause it’s more unsettling to have a small field of view in our
images. What are we missing?)
‘Locked off’ cameras tend to make us feel restricted.
Left to right movement across a frame gives us the impression of forward movement.

We were shown the axe scene from The Shining where the camera looks like it’s locked to the head of the axe.
Bit of North by Northwest where Cary Grant is attacked by the crop dusting plane.
Finally
a clip from Blade runner where a scene between Decker and Rachael where
the camera is ‘locked off’ for most of the piece until a dramatic
moment where a close-up of Rachael is gently vibrating in sympathy with
her ‘high emotion.’

Practical for the day was to shoot a suspenseful scene with three shots.

Suspense exercise

We
found a place in the school with red walls which ramped up the ‘colour
emotion,’ and I pushed the highlights into green in Post, so that the
glass walls increased the contrast with the red walls.
Also crushed the shadows a bit to darken the tone.

VFX
We
had a short talk on the history of VFX. Then we were down in studio
shooting footage of us goofing around in front of a green screen.

Green screen exercise:
Spent a day fooling around with our clips from the day before in After Effects.

Green screen exercise

Pulling
a matte was hard on the people who had no experience o compositing. I
was impressed at how quickly everyone grasped the concepts and got
'something' out of After Effects.
The software situation is a bit difficult for some. There are folks doing the course that have never used Photoshop!
Extra classes have been organized by the school.

Final exercise
Final two days were devoted to teams creating pieces which create emotional attachment with an inanimate object.
This is our piece…

Final exercise

We’ve been pointed to two books as reference.
Adventures in the screen trade by William Golburn, and Story by Robert Mckey.

Sorry to have neglected the Cloud Porn group for so long

This is the last of the timelapse footage for 08.

Sydney East Suburbs time lapse last of 08

Now that YouTube has high def, if the quality isn't all that hot, jump over to YouTube to check it out.

Continuing the film school post...

Tuesday
We were split into our course groups and got our hands on some cameras. About twelve students in each class.
Sucked the video we captured with the cameras up into our laptops, and did a bit of editing in Final Cut.
Our theme was mood and it was raining all day. Almost all the works were somber, bar one by an Italian girl who managed to find colour and movement in the Fox studios precinct despite the rain.
 
 
Wednesday
Three hours of occupational health and safety lecturing by two guys who worked in the entertainment industry.
Almost enough to put me off making films.
By the time they had finished, the main point I got from it isn’t that it’s too hard to make films these days, but that film makers are supposed to demonstrate that they made a proper effort to protect ‘life and property’ during the production.

In the afternoon we had a stunt workshop where we were introduced to famous Ozzie stuntman Grant Page. After a short talk we got to flip off a tower into an air bag, wave our hands through fire, and simulate hitting each other.
My theory is that the school is cramming as much action as they can into the first week to inspire people for the rest of the year.
 
Thursday
We were shown some examples of physical humor (slapstick) and then where split into groups of four, we checked cameras out of the Store, and were set a task to produce a short piece on the subject of OH&S
 
The results have been posted here…
 http://www.youtube.com/user/AFTRSFoundation

Friday
Went through some interpersonal communication exercises, had a chat about professional practice (work place ethics,) and then got to present our short films for each other to critique.
 
We got Friday afternoon off (two of the other groups didn’t)
I think it was cause we and another group were crammed into a single room together

We finished off the week with an online multiple choice test that we all had to complete by Sunday night.
The whole week was designed to soak every student in OH&S good practice.
 

Orientation day.

Hiya folks.
Going to try and keep up this blogging thing this year.
Have to, the school requires us all to keep diaries.
Currently it’s not terribly cohesive.

So 'hi' to everyone and happy New Year.

This posting is a couple of week old.
Honestly, the fortnight has been a bit of a blur.
Fifty new names to remember, plus staff.
We learnt how to ‘check out’ equipment, where does the coffee lives, tracking down assigned lockers, etc.

Woke up to lots o cloud being shoved across the sky by a brisk wind.
Email sent out by the school informs me that the air con in the building is down.
Then there were the Victorian fires.
Do you believe in omens?
 
We were warmly welcomed and introduced to the years teaching staff, who each gave us a quick spiel on what they and their course work were about. One lecturer had taken the lectern and was just about to address us when she got a strange look on her face. She left the podium and scurried from the auditorium.
All a bit weird but being a polite bunch, we all smoothly continued on with the introduction to the school.

Then all the students drew pegs out of a hat.
Thus we were split into groups that were tasked with exploring the school building to search out stories.
The school building is filled with lecture rooms, audio studios, sound stages, pipe lined halls, props dept, carpentry workshops. Every thing you could want if you wanted to make a piece of modern media.
I spent the day with my little group of six, finding clues to the mystery, and forming theories. Some of the clues where stuck to walls, some were on specially constructed web pages, some were hidden in folders left lying on tables, and some clues were held in the staffs heads.
It was like a great big murder mystery dinner that ‘took over’ most of the building, and most the staff were in on the gag.
Hoards of students could be seen roaming the halls and studios.

It became apparent at the ‘welcome to AFTRS bbq lunch’ that the scene made by the teacher that morning was part of the game.
I think everyone was a bit ‘off balance’ and unsure of what was real and what was part of the game.
The day concluded with a faux exorcising of bad spirits. The teacher that had been the focus of our investigations wsa released from her demons and from her responsibilities to maintain her game persona.
 
The theme of the game was occupational health and safety with an occult bent to make things a bit more interesting.
We were all investigating a series of accidents that had occurred on a number of fictional student films that had been shot a few years earlier.
 
Found out in the welcome that we get two weeks on, one week off. The weeks off are supposed to be spent on our own projects.
Expecting us to be a bit proactive I guess.