#actually there was this documentary about experimental music i watched for a class

[goneseriesanalysis]

your caine art is so gorgeous!! kind of a silly question but what movie genres do you think the “gone” kids would watch?

Aa thank you so much!!! I'm so glad you like it

This is such a great question and is perfect timing as I've just got back from my film class. Here are my ideas:

Sam: I don't think Sam is really a movie person so, this is a bit of a cop-out, but I don't think there's any particular genre that he likes. He spends most of his time surfing. The only reason I'm willing to admit he has at least seen A film is because he took Anna to the cinema for their date. (Also the film was definitely Surf's Up, 2007. And no I will not take any criticism on this)

Astrid: Astrid is definitely one for documentaries. And this girl will watch documentaries on EVERYTHING (even open-heart surgery). She also has a secret soft spot for kids films as she watches them so much with Little Pete. She likes how easy everything is. There is a right and a wrong and its clear and obvious what it is. If you ask her though she'll never admit to it.

Quinn: Comedy. I love this boy but I just know he spends his evenings watching Adam Sandler films. That being said, he is open to a wide range of comedy including rom-coms and chick-flicks. He likes to dip into different genres, but really comedy is his thing.

Edilio: Edilio would mostly stick to Spanish-speaking films. Probably comforting family-friendly films that he can watch with his family. But I also think he would have an interest in old cartoons (think thundercats or trap door). They're easy to watch, family-friendly and can be useful for learning English. (I know that Trap Door is an English cartoon but shhhh I'm projecting)

Little Pete: Little Pete doesn't really watch the films that Astrid puts on for him. I think he just likes the experience. Being near her without her talking to him or touching him. He can experience the safety he feels around her without the sensory issues that can sometimes come with it. That being said, I think he would prefer the cartoons with muted colour schemes and softer soundtracks. Maybe Tim Burton?? As opposed to the more colourful Disney films she puts on.

Caine: Did somebody say crime films?? The Wolf of Wall Street, The Godfather, Nightcrawler. He likes to imagine himself as the leading man and he genuinely believes that he could do it better than the actual character. He also watched The Great Gatsby once and thought it was a good romance.

Drake: I think it's mentioned that one of Drake's favourite films is Saw ll?? And I definitely think he'd be into horror, but he would have no respect for the genre. He likes cringey, gory horror (which in of itself isn't a bad thing) but with particular love for any horror that involves the unnecessarily graphic assault of a woman. I also think he would really like Michael Bay and Joss Whedon films. Now that I think about it, he probably likes Tarantino as well.

Diana: OK so this one was tricky but I feel like Diana is, very secretly, a dark fantasy fan. She likes Guillermo del Torro and one of her favourite films is The Witches. It's the perfect blend of cynicism and escapism that just really hits the spot for her.

Jack: Jack is a sci-fi and high fantasy fan. Does it have magic?? He'll love it. Space tech?? He'll love it. He is definitely a fan of the big ones like Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter and Lord of The Rings. But, and this may be controversial, I don't see his liking superhero films. He finds them too cliche and simplistic.

Orc: Orc doesn't get to choose what he watches a lot. He usually just has to watch the crime shows that his father puts on. But when he does get the TV, he's a big action fan. Think Terminator style films. He has also seen Die Hard upwards of 10 times.

Howard: Howard likes cult films. And a good Zombie movie never goes amiss. He hasn't gone a single Christmas without watching Gremlins and David Bowie in Labyrinth was his sexual awakening.

Dekka: Dekka likes a wide range of genres with no particular favourite. She leans more towards foreign films, indie films and experimental just because that's where she finds the most lgbt representation. After the FAYZ, she would be introduced to Ava Duvernay's work and would fall in love. If she's looking for an easy watch though, a good slasher never goes amiss

Brianna: Brianna has never, in her LIFE, been able to sit through a full film. However, if her parents order her to sit down for 5 minutes and just be quiet, adventure will always be her choice.

Mary: Mary likes chick-flicks. They're feel good films that don't require much thinking. They make her feel good about herself and give her some much needed entertainment. Also John loves musicals. I have no reason for this, it's just true.

Lana: Dark Comedy all the way. It just fits her personality so well. She enjoys the humour. She enjoys the aesthetic. And she kinda feels like she's rebelling against her parents in a minor way. What she will not tell you is that she is also a sucker for a well-written romance film.

Dahra: Hear me out here. Historical films and period dramas. Not sure why. I just get The Vibe. She loves Pride and Prejudice (as she should) and just finds historical films incredibly interesting and entertaining.

Albert: Albert is another one who likes documentaries. Definitely after the FAYZ he would focus more on business documentaries. But I think before, he would mostly just watch whatever his mother was watching. Which would include a wide range of interesting topics.

[acyborgkitty]

I just finished watching Jennifer Brea’s incredible documentary Unrest on Netflix. Watch it now. Everyone should. 

My story.

I became ill suddenly, and severely, in September (I think) of 2016. I had just moved to Providence in August from San Francisco, without my partner of 10+ years, to take a teaching job at Brown University. I was teaching a poetry workshop for Frequency Writers, a community writing group, as well as a class I developed for Brown’s Literary Arts department, Experimental Poets of Color. Providence is a city I love, and even though the gig was adjunct (i.e. no job security, no health insurance, etc.) I wanted to be in Providence, and I wanted to be teaching in my fiend. I had health insurance through the ACA at the time, and though I had been diagnosed with several mental illnesses many years before (major depression and general and social anxiety disorders) I felt that my hearth was well managed with the medication I was on. 

I was so happy to be back in Providence, I would walk for hours around the city, sometimes 7 miles in one stretch, listening to music and books. I was thrilled to be teaching the class I desperately wish I had been able to take at any point in my education (which includes three masters degrees), and to be nearer to my friends and family who live in Boston and the surrounding areas. I missed my partner, but we’ve been long distance for much of our relationship (the price of being an artist in academia), and it seemed like he was getting ready to leave San Francisco and head back east himself. 

It was the second meeting, I think, of the Frequency open poetry workshop. It was Wednesday night. I walked to the community gallery space on Carpenter St. where we held our meetings early, unlocked the doors, and made myself some tea. It was a normal night. At some point during the workshop I started to feel exhausted, sick, like I was getting a cold. I pushed through, but took a Lyft home. I woke up the next day and still felt bad. Worse, even. I cancelled that day’s class and stayed in bed. By the next week I still wasn’t feeling any better. I went to the CVS clinic to see if I had the flu, which was going around and apparently quite bad that year. I didn’t, I was told it was just a bad cold, and to take some cough suppressant for the bad cough. 

I thought maybe I wasn’t sleeping well - I was tired all the time - and maybe that was making the cold last longer than normal. I had had (undiagnosed) chronic pain for years which had started in 2007 in my first year in grad school. It was especially bad in my neck and lower back, so I had spent years and a lot of money finding a really good mattress. But I had housemates that were young, noisy, up late, so I invested in an eye mask, noise-cancelling headphones that I slept in, and a white noise machine. I had to teach my classes, but I would show up, teach, and come immediately back home and stay in bed until I had to teach the next class. I spent several weeks like this, thinking it was just a cold, until someone pointed out that colds, even very bad ones, don’t last for several weeks. 

I made an appointment with my primary care doctor in Boston. I’ve struggled finding doctors that take me seriously, like most women and non binary people I imagine, especially with chronic and challenging illnesses. This doctor listened to me, and was gentle, and that was pretty much all I could hope for. He examined me, and tested me for mono, strep, walking pneumonia (which I’d had before, and which was basically the closest comparable experience I had). I had none of them. Then we tested my thyroid, my B12 levels, and my immune functions. He found nothing wrong with me. 

A digression on chronic pain, including a digression on trauma.

I had gone down a diagnostic wormhole several years ago when I’d first started getting tests to see if we could find an underlying cause for my chronic pain. It started in Iowa City, where I did my second graduate degree, and included MRIs, x-rays, testing for immunological disorders, cancers, and basically anything they could think of. Eventually I was referred to a psychologist, because they determined my pain might be a physical manifestation of trauma. And I’d had my share of trauma.

A digression on trauma. I grew up with an emotionally abusive mother who, though never diagnosed, meets all of the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder. I ran away from home as a teenager, living on the streets for most of a year, before re-establishing a relationship with my family, primarily my father who helped me get an apartment, back into school, and eventually into college. At that point my mother re-entered the picture, and my father stopped helping me pay for college, so I worked sometimes as many as 5 jobs while completing my undergraduate degree. I met my partner in undergrad, and he has been an immense help for me in recovering from my trauma, but like so many who were experienced long-term abuse as children, I probably will never be un-affected by my experiences. 

So the trauma angle seemed at least plausible to me, and I went to a year’s worth of sessions with two different people, one a psychologist who specialized in and studied the manifestation of trauma as physical pain, and another who practiced CBT and meditative mindfulness therapy. Both helped immensely with my emotional state, but my pain persisted. So when I moved away for my third graduate degree (my first move to Providence) I transferred care and we started the diagnostics all over again. This time I saved all my records - I have my MRIs and my X-rays still in some box somewhere. We did CAT scans and I went to scores of specialists including  an orthopedic surgeon who recommended surgery; a chiropractor who works with the Boston Ballet Company who diagnosed me as hyper-flexible and gave me strengthening exercises to do that actually seemed to help somewhat; and a neurologist who found nothing wrong with me at all. After four years of referrals and diagnostics, I found a integrative care physician who listened to me break down in her office, prescribed an anti-depressant that is also a sedative to help me fall asleep, and helped me come up with a plan to manage the pain. Massage, chiropractor, walking and stretching, the anti-depressants, 800mg Ibuprofen when I needed it, and Vicodin when nothing else helped. 

After all of this, I wasn’t eager to go down another diagnostic chase. 

Back to 2016.

By this point it was the middle of November. I was so sick that I couldn’t feed myself, I couldn’t do laundry, I couldn’t leave the house except for to teach, and then I spent the next 24-48 hours recovering mostly in bed from the fatigue it caused me. I was experiencing sever cognitive deficiencies, most notably my ability to process and retain information, and my ability to speak. It felt like I had dementia, or what I imagine dementia to feel like. I would read the same sentence over and over again and not understand it, or not remember it when I started the next one. I would fight to get up to go into the kitchen, only to forget what I was there for. Did I need water? Had I fed the cat? Did I need to use the bathroom? My father and brother were taking turns coming down to my house to prepare food for me for the week, and to get my groceries, and to do my laundry. I needed help with everything. I could do one, maybe two things in a given day. Those things included brushing my teeth and feeding the cat. 

I couldn’t even research my condition, given my cognitive symptoms. I was angry, and many days I felt like it would be better to die. I couldn’t read or write, so I took up embroidery as a way to try to keep my life worth living, a way to keep making art. 

In January, 2017 when my partner came to visit for his winter break, we went to my doctor together. I couldn’t remember the questions he wanted me to ask, and I couldn’t have remembered the answers anyway, and I certainly couldn’t get myself there and back without help, so him coming was the only way I was going to get there. I don’t remember much of the appointment, but I do remember my doctor suggested that I might be experiencing a severe prolonged depressive episode. Based on my previous diagnosis of depression. Based on the fact that there seemed to be nothing wrong with me, physically. 

My partner didn’t buy it. I sort of did, or at least I didn’t have the energy to dispute it. My partner started researching, aggressively, and a few months later he came up with something. Maybe, he said, it was my copper IUD. Maybe I had copper toxicity. My doctor said that was impossible, that the IUD can’t cause copper toxicity, but my symptoms aligned, and there are thousands of women on the internet who have experienced copper poisoning from their IUD. So one day in April, my best friend took me to the hospital and I had mine removed. The next day, I felt better. Not 100% better, but maybe 40% better. The next day my partner and I went for a walk, the first time in almost a year I had felt able to do that. 

I kept feeling better. Not getting better, but I stayed feeling about 40% better. A few days I felt almost entirely myself, but then the next day I would be exhausted again. I could do things, but if I pushed too hard, I would collapse and pay for it for days. I learned about spoons, and disability culture and activism. I learned about setting my limits, and prioritizing. I said no to almost everything, because almost nothing was worth the risk of incapacitation for me. 

My brain started to recover too - I could read. I started writing in my journal, not poetry but at least writing of some sort. I felt hopeful that I was recovering. We bought a house, a big old Victorian that needs TLC, and I moved in there with 4 other queer artist friends. I didn’t get the tenure-track job at Brown, but I did get another adjunct offer to teach Book Arts, and I accepted - something I definitely couldn’t have done at my sickest, given that it’s a 15-hr a week studio course. 

But now, a year post-removal, my memory is still a problem. And I still get exhausted a lot. A lot more than I used to, before I got sick. But the anecdotal evidence on the copper IUD detox forums says that it could take years to fully process the toxicity out of your system. The most severe days might be attributed to “dumps” - when the body releases stored copper all at once - and those days feel like my worst ones did when I was at my sickest. I had thought that when I felt better, I would start to do things again, go to poetry readings, have dinner with friends, go for walks, be part of the community I’d moved here because I loved. But I still say no to most things, or write them down in my calendar and don’t go. I know that if I push too hard, I’ll pay for it for days. And “too hard” is a moving target - it changes seemingly randomly, and I don’t know when I’m approaching it until it’s too late. Then I’m in bed for days. 

I’ve been having an especially bad few days. Maybe a week. Maybe more. My memory, my brain isn’t good at sequence anymore, or keeping track of time. It’s frustrating, because I can’t keep track of my own symptoms. Sometimes I remember to write them down, and sometimes I forget, or am too tired. And there’s no one here to watch me, or help me - my partner doesn’t move here until June. Today, for example, I got up at 11 and I fed the cats. And I was so tired that I lay down, and just...passed out. I don’t remember falling back asleep, but then I woke up at 6 pm. I fed the cats again, and then had to go back to bed. The last week has been similar: do just what is necessary, then back to bed. It feels like I’m sick all over again. 

I have had my period, which can be associated with copper dumps. I’m not saying it’s not copper “dumps,” or that it’s isn’t related to copper poisoning. But I watched Unrest and thought: “maybe this is what I have, too?” So many of those scenes were heartbreakingly familiar. I wept through most of it, because Jennifer was saying the things that I’d been feeling. About feeling like it was a good day when all I had done was survived it. About feeling like my life had ended, and that I had a new one now, one that sometimes didn’t feel like a life at all, but one that I still didn’t want to give up. About not being listened to, about not being believed. I wept at the thought of having a diagnosis, after all this time. Of maybe finally at least knowing what is wrong with me. Maybe.

But I don’t know how to find out. I don’t currently have health insurance, because the premium on my ACA policy from last year went up by 50% and I couldn’t afford it anymore, and adjuncts at Brown who teach fewer than 4 classes a year don’t get health insurance, and I’m only teaching 3, and I am barely able to do that; this semester teaching 2 classes took every bit of energy I had. I will get health insurance starting in September when my partner starts his new job in Providence, and maybe then I can get some answers. If I have the energy for it.

My story doesn’t have an ending yet. I’m in bed, as I have been all day. Writing this was the most writing I’ve done since I got sick. I’m grateful for that. It feels like, thanks to the work that Jennifer has done, an important story is at least starting to be told. Not just mine, but one that is shared by millions. 

[rplayford02]

Exercise 1

Watch the four films and respond to the questions: 

What have your learned about the characters?

Did the film have a clear focus?

Could you see evidence of research?

How was the character represented?

What did you learn about the relationships between character and filmmaker?

What would you have done differently?

Portrait of Ga

This film has a clear focus, centralising around the relationship between the filmmaker and her mother. As a result of being related, I imagine little-to-no research went into this film. Instead of presenting facts, like most documentaries I’ve seen in the past, Margaret Tait represents her mother in her natural habit, performing various mundane activities without really providing a wider context. Clearly their relationship is a typical mother and daughter relationship - warm and familiar, as reflected in the cinematography. I like the way the camera responds to the natural light, the vast Scottish landscapes juxtaposed with the small details; the consistence use of location to establish a tone. It’s joyful, the music especially, yet seems fairly surface-level. As an audience member, I don’t really learn much about the character of the mother beyond some of her hobbies, where she lives, and her general demeanour. Overall it wasn’t my favourite.

The Pigeon Game

The film is clearly focused around the hobby of “Doo Flying”, but also the theme of family. The film has a clear narrative structure, although the section that introduces the third interviewee, “Davie”, seems to slightly lose focus and if it were me, I might have removed this section for the sake of brevity. Otherwise, the people in the documentary feel fleshed out, real and intriguing. The main interviewee, James, tells us all about his hobby, the tactics and culture around it, which points to a lot of research being undertaken - although the conversational nature of the interviewing would suggest a different approach. The voice of the filmmaker is prevalent throughout the film, asking questions, creating a colloquial, conversational tone.

I think the subject matter was pretty interesting, but due to the fact my own grandpa keeps pigeons, I was familiar with it already and therefore was slightly confused as to why we didn’t see the pigeons flying/racing at any point. It felt as though it would have been a natural conclusion to the film and I found it kind of jarring that such an important part was excluded. 

Same but Different

This felt like a small clip from a larger project, perhaps because I’m not used to watching such short documentaries. It was certainly the beginning of an interesting topic, with interesting characters and did well to develop an engaging story within such a short space of time. The focus was clearly on the friendship between Byron and Neil, which had been put under pressure by Byron’s transition. We learn about what their friendship was like prior, and how each person feels about how Byron identifies. Both are represented sympathetically, and there is a clear evidence of research in the very professional, organised way in which the documentary has been directed and edited together. Despite this, the filmmaker’s voice seemed to dominate the narrative slightly. The interviewees accounts feel as though they’ve been twisted to suit an agenda and heighten the drama. Perhaps because the filmmaker was Neil’s wife - it certainly re-frames the film in a new context. 

Lester

Rather controversially (after listening to the opinions of the rest of the class), this was my favourite of all the films. From what I could tell there didn’t seem much research involved, rather that the filmmaker already knew the subject personally. It feels very contemplative, and considered and yet experimental, particularly in the use of exposure and camera movement. I like how the actual subject of the film, ‘Lester’ I presume, is never shown. Instead we’re given a tour of his flat, all his belongings and left to make up our own minds about what this tells us about him as a person. 

I also watched the other three films in the series to get an idea of the project as a whole. ‘Lester’ remains my favourite, specifically because of the use of non-diegetic sound, which in the other three felt more ominous and unnerving. ‘Lester’ on the other hand, strangely gave me a feeling of nostalgia. The VHS tapes and old books in particular, reminded me of all the miscellaneous junk around my house that my parents would have bought before I was born. It felt familiar and warm, enhanced by the strings music that soundtracks.  

[geimei]

Have you ever seen, "The Real Memoirs of a Geisha."? It's a Japanese documentary(?) that rides on the coat tails of the movie. What's good about it is it has some nice footage. The bad things are it's spreads misinformation and has a shady feel to it, as it makes Geisha out to be prostitutes. You can find it on youtube if you haven't seen it, tell me what you think.

I’ve actually watched it just a few weeks ago! I was thinking about adding it to my documentaries-tab, but it’s so misleading and plain disrespectful that I’m quite wary of it.

The only two good things about it, for me, were the music, because I like experimental stuff sometimes, and seeing some Maiko and Geiko that I know. Mameyoshi was an absolute star and Sonoe is still active as a Geiko today and Satohina was very cute and sympathetic.

The entire documentary is made to, sometimes more subtly, other times quite blatantly, portray Geisha (and Maiko, many of them are still minors!) not only as prostitutes, but also as completely voice-and personality-less toys for male pleasure, and then masks the whole thing as art using melancholic music and clever cutting. I found that the whole atmosphere was deliberately made out to be very melancholic and sad, as if to make us pity the Geisha taking part (and I also found it kind of cheesy, if that makes sense?).

And the comments of the two men interviewed for this film were just truly disgusting. In the last scene of it, one of them describes Geisha as “robots with nerves”, stripping them of all personality and humanity. It was also claimed that one of the men bought several “mizuage” of Geisha, if I remember correctly, but I highly doubt that this is true.

The film also more or less directly states that mizuage still happens. Mizuage is the name for the rite of passage from junior to senior Maiko, from girlhood to early womanhood, and also the name for a ceremony where a Yūjo, low-class prostitutes or high-ranking Oiran, would be ritually deflowered in exchange for a large sum of money. Before WWII, in some areas of Japan, some Geisha got “double-registrated” as Geisha and yūjo and would also perform this rite the way yūjo did. However, this didn’t affect the big majority of Geisha and was outlawed when prostitution became outlawed in Japan in the 1950s.

Overall, the documentary just was a big disappointment and it was quite infuriating for me, because I had high hopes for it, because it was a professionally-produced and long documentary.

[johnsencummingssound]

Activate the Collection - Week 7

I’ve spent a considerable amount of time over the last couple of weeks working on my Procedural Worlds sketches, including some failed attempts and some things working well. In order to have some consistency throughout the different pieces (despite some of them being quite different from each other), I’ve been trying to attach musical elements to certain themes or symbols within the concepts. The obvious choice is the use of leitmotifs which in particular worked well when attached to the idea of humanity/people as it can be interwoven in the soundtrack at different stages throughout the story. A prominent symbol earlier on in the story is that of the birds, representing the spread of Covid-19 and given harrowing nature of such a concept, my experiments with using a leitmotif to express this ended up a little cliche and overall wasn’t really working too well. I instead began experimenting with trying to attach the sound of a specific instrument to the idea of birds varying from strings to synth drones. The closest I got to something I was happy with after about a week was a patch on a Spitfire instrument that was basically swarming bells, which sort of worked conceptually, in the way the sound started off small and grew to be overwhelming, but it wasn’t particularly inspiring. I also toyed with the idea of having real life bird samples to express this but, aside from there being a very limited number of good bird samples available, it just seemed like a very ‘functional’ idea that didn’t really say much or make me feel like I had actually attempted to do something creative with it. Some time later I stumbled upon YouTuber Davidlap’s video “Animal sounds on acoustic guitar (w/bow)” which sees him effectively recreating animal-like sounds using extended and experimental techniques on a guitar with a violin bow. This idea of experimenting with an instrument to try and create a real-world sound really resonated with me and I set out trying to come up with a bird sound in this way. Eventually I had some success on electric guitar with the help of a couple distortions, delays and modulation effects. Overall the sound I came up with isn’t incredibly accurate to what birds sound like, but in my opinion the ‘slightly-off’ and twisted sound that merely resembles birds sort of works on a conceptual level given the context that it’s representing diseased and mutated birds.

Raw bird recording: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18vHg5WuwDODJDI4Wfu8r3QcH-7dUjSol/view?usp=sharing

Example 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zBnQzAA7XoLNuMKz5eDg7uj_tee6gmhR/view?usp=sharing

Example 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/162lymZAF8BjIcnbqNz9GwcuAQ4sbUs98/view?usp=sharing

During the last couple weeks, Spitfire Audio have been running some online classes based around composition, the earliest of which was “Developing Your Own Creative Voice with Oliver Patrice Weder”. In the video Weder runs through his score for a documentary he worked on quite early on in his career. My major take away from this was Weder’s emphasis on the selecting the correct tonal pallet through selection of instruments early on in the process. In the video he explores his drafting processes in order to create a main theme and then how from that original idea, composing the rest of the score was considerably easier as he either rearranged certain parts or created new cues using the same instrument choices that were approved. Although this approach may not fit every scenario, I think adopting this for Theatre Makers would be quite useful as a tool to hone in on the vibe of the documentary and keep it consistent throughout the numerous cues. By this I mean using similar instruments in my future cues to that of the offer I uploaded over the break. I think that this will help give the score within the documentary some uniformity (something that was somewhat lacking in the documentary I scored last semester) and additionally I think it will make the process more efficient as I won’t be spending as much time looking/ searching for a new sound. After hearing examples from and talking to Jean and Isabelle, it would seem we’re all on the same page as far as our cues being orchestral instrumentation in a more contemporary arrangement — which again will hopefully further this musical consistency throughout the project.

References:

Animal sounds on acoustic guitar (w/bow) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_IKKBHFlo4&ab_channel=Davidlap

Developing Your Own Creative Voice with Oliver Patrice Weder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbolagdzQKE&ab_channel=SpitfireAudio

[limejuicer1862]

On Fiction Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger. The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these fiction writers you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

  Shane Jesse Christmass

is the author of the novels, Police Force As A Corrupt Breeze (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2016) and Acid Shottas (The Ledatape Organisation, 2014).

He was a member of the band Mattress Grave, and is currently a member in Snake Milker.

An archive of his writing/artwork/music can be found at www.sjx.digital + www.shanejessechristmass.tumblr.com

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write fiction?

Not sure if there is one thing, or actually anything, that inspired me. I am always dubious on whether or not inspiration is an actual substance that is required to stimulate someone in order to create. I wanted to write novels, so I wrote novels. The urge pushed the outcome. I know I didn’t talk much as a child, and one of the things I liked doing was reading a lot. I feel that I perhaps hallucinated, maybe fantasised intensely is the better choice of word, but was terribly miserable, and was probably left alone a lot, and therefore just simmered in my imagination by myself. I wasn’t particularly gifted in anything, except reading a lot, and that is especially not a great skill, I just made time for it, because I was terrible at other academic quests, or sports endeavours. Therefore I think there are benefits to speaking in an incoherent manner. Writing is just a small human sacrifice in a suburban supermarket. Inspiration is just the cataleptic attack.

P.B Shelley is a volatile substance that did cast a slow expiration over me for a while though. Around when I was 14 years of age, and then for a long time afterward, but still, currently, very much presently, and probably forever actually. His words were some type of nauseous gateway to perfection. A natural faultlessness for me to read. There was a proportionate unity, and a particular shape to his work. Everything I had read prior to then reading Shelley just seemed like teabag stains in comparison, limp flints. A sudden jet of ceaseless elation.

2. Who introduced you to fiction?

Well you kind of have to don’t you. You have to learn how to read and write, so therefore you have to read all these little dinky stories and books. I don’t have fond memories of these sort of things. I don’t really like thinking about these things. I just spent a lot of time at the library. I nagged people in my family to take me to the library a lot, until I was old enough to go by myself. And when I was there I asked the librarians lots of questions. They pointed to the books for the answers. My father was this sort of person who was very detached, but did amazing things like purchase the complete works of Shakespeare, or the Romantic poets, in these Encyclopaedia Britannica type of leather bound books, something you probably bought from a salesman, or from a catalogue. They were on the shelf. I remember asking him once who all these books were for. He advised me they were for ‘us’ – meaning me and my siblings. I commenced pawing through them. By no means am I saying people should go read Shakespeare to be a writer. He’s definitely not my taste. I got it done early in life. I couldn’t imagine reading him now. That would be so boring. I just read him because it was in my house. I also read pretty much anything. I read my mother’s ‘Cosmopolitan’ magazine for example. I probably enjoyed that more than Shakespeare.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older writers?

Massively. You don’t want to do something that someone did originally and more uniquely – that would just be very disappointing. But – you do also wish to do something in the experimental tradition, perhaps extend something further, or add upon something that came previous. I’ve had odd moments where people have commented that my writing is like a certain author that I have never heard of, or I have checked out an author that is new to me, say Saint-John Perse, and I can see massive similarities, but ones that are just magical coincidences. Someone once told me that my writing reminded them of Thomas Pynchon, a writer I wasn’t terribly familiar with, and who to this day I have never read. I mean why would I go read a writer that people say is similar to myself, or that I am similar to. One of the reasons I write the way I do is because I couldn’t find the fiction that I wanted to read.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

You know that shot in ‘The Omen’ where Lee Remick is pushed over the balcony balustrade and falls – and the fall causes her to miscarry? I once saw a documentary where the director, Richard Donner, explained how they set up and executed that particular scene and then how they shot it. Go watched it, it’s an amazing piece of filmmaking, but watching the documentary, I can only now watch that scene and think know about how they did it. The wonder that I had of initially not knowing how they did it has evaporated. Telling people my daily writing routine might be equivalent to watching that documentary.

5. What motivates you to write?

Because no one believed I could do it. And as mentioned in the opening question, it was always just something I wanted to do, I didn’t have much faith in my ability to do anything else, but this seemed somewhat natural, and I certainly felt less anxious doing it than other tasks. Fretted-about signs always show up in the skull housing, you can keep them inside, or you can plaster them onto a page and publish. I chose to plaster and publish.

6. What is your work ethic?

Cold hands, in a cool climate, need to tap some words out each day. And that’s the key, every day, something has to contribute to the writing of something. What that something is will be particular for each writer. Just don’t die wondering that you never put your crystalline vision into effect. Don’t get to the end, and as a luminous patient … suddenly think: I could’ve done more, I should’ve written more. One of the things that use to upset me, especially when I was young, was this equivalency, and this is particular in my family where my parents came from working class stock when they were children, and then moved themselves into a lowly middle class position, was that reading books or writing was equivalent to being lazy. My work ethic is inspired to prove that that equivalency is false, and that perhaps the benefits of doing something like that are not entirely immediate. Does sitting in an armchair and looking out a window thinking, or ruminating on a thought, lack substance or profit? No … it’s ghostly work. As Evelyn Underhill wrote, some natures have a special sense, an attempt to reach a transcendental consciousness, the contemplation allows us to reach it. My point is that a writer’s work ethic shouldn’t just be to write all the time. Contemplating, how you’re going to write something, why you’re going to write something, should have a worth ethic to it, in that it should be just as rigorous and productive as the actual writing, but it is no less valuable.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

Yeah good question. Guess if I was going to make a list of my top ten favourite writers, or some list that is defined similarly like that, favourite writers or some such, most of the writers on that list would probably be favourites from when I was younger. The only book that might go onto that list, that I only just came around to, would be Gary Indiana’s Horse Crazy. I guess how they influence me today is a bit tricky to answer. I don’t put those books into any list, or hold them close, because of any exact influence on my writing, or an influence on the topics I write about. To a greater degree, most of the books, or these favourite authors, are the ones that I felt gave me permission to make early attempts at this writing business. Certain books made me realise I could do this. It gets back to your question regarding the dominating influence of older writers. I read less fiction these days, and what fiction I do read these days is more for entertainment purposes, meaning when I was younger I would read novels, but would take notes, mental or otherwise, regarding how the novel was written, all the mechanical and technical elements on what makes up a novel. So the reading of novels then was more from an educational aspect, whereas the type of books that influence my current writing, whether indirectly or directly, would be non-fiction work, and that’s not from a position of incorporating direct facts from non-fiction texts, but more to provide a feeling, or tone to inflect into my own work. I just read that famous work by Robert A. Monroe about out-of-body experiences. This in no way means that there will be a plot, or a character directly, in my next manuscript that has these experiences, it’s more just to provide some nebulous science fiction, or scientific, tone.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Oh where can I start! Lots of people. Isabel Waidner. Rachel de Moravia. Candice Wuehle. Nadia de Vries. Darcie Wilder. Why? It seems very unlikely that writing could make a physical change to a person’s anatomy, but perhaps these writer’s may assist in a human’s evolution. Are we just vegetable matter? The future will have visual differences from what we currently see. Why can’t we have writer’s, like these, that act as handbooks, guides, to assist us when we encounter those visual differences. You can either be a body, or a bystander amongst the rubble, or you could read those writers. The interior of their books is like a telepathic reading, lurking emulsions of forward-looking designs and approaches. It’s good shit.

9. Why do you write?

The most common question to ask an author, but the most difficult for authors to respond to. Maybe there is no reason, except I just happen to write, it’s what I always wanted to do, and it’s what I always did. Do you know about the clinamen? The clinamen has numerous definitions, but I’m interested in how it was defined within pataphysics. Originally the Roman poet, and philosopher Lucretius, defined the clinamen as being an unpredictable swerve of atoms. Alfred Jarry, the writer who penned the main tenets of pataphysics, came to understand the clinamen as a slight change that can cause a greater, or the greatest meaning. For example: changing one letter in a word to make a new word, and that new word obviously caries a completely new meaning. I’m interest in the clinamen, but not a slight change, a delirious upheaval. A repetition of images, tweaks of images causing dislocation and jump-cut in narrative, the death of certain images only for images to reappear later, interchangeable images causing interchangeable narratives. I write, to perhaps take pleasure, or to promote the instability of meaning, and through that instability, reach new meanings through new forms, instructions or procedures. I want to create stories that start at any point in the manuscript, as this aligns with the spasmodic and aleatory experience of modern time, a somnambulist drift between tenses, a relentless overload of information. Shifts of attention to something irrelevant or disconnected – the clinamen. That’s how I feel today, my reasons will probably change completely tomorrow.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

I know I shouldn’t answer a question with a question, but I might ask – ‘What sort of writer do you want to be?” I have a certain sphere as a writer, a speciality, but certain specialities might just be another name for limitation. Unfortunately there’s no glib answer to that question that suffices, except what they probably already know. I’ve seen so many interviews with writers, and I’m talking really famous and rich writers, who when they get asked this question always answer – read more. Yeah, no shit, thanks for nothing. Isn’t that the most asinine and dainty response you ever heard? I’d probably advise not to get distracted by the idea of being a writer, don’t get distracted by all these accoutrements of a writing life. Don’t get distract by finding some perfect, decorated writing space, or finding some enlightened pencil. But one thing I would say is, everything is a story, everything that happens can be a story. And everything you can possibly conjure up in your imagination, is a story.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I’m nearing the end of a large piece of work that is, at the moment, unwieldy and a bit broad in its scope. I originally started out with the idea that I was going to write a memoir, not based on my life, definitely not based on my life, but a memoir based on the movements of two childhood male friends. These two friends, over the years, become on-again, off-again sexual partners with each other, but with an absence of love or any affection. One of the male friends, is very loosely based on Herb Mullin. And definitely not based on the life of Herb Mullin at all, but an idea that Herb Mullin had. He thought that a small killing would prevent a major catastrophe to occur. He believed, at the start of his killing spree, that his killings could stop a massive earthquake from occurring in the San Francisco area. Actually he believed that all the deaths caused by the Vietnam War, up to that point, were enough to forestall this earthquake, but as the war in Vietnam was winding down, he’d need to advance the killings himself. Anyway – I was intending to write a massive cadaverous tragedy that plays out with these two male friends, based on this livid idea that an individual waging a war on society, that unfortunately involves bloodshed, could stop a massive war from commencing, or that could finish a massive war between two nations. Oh and it’s a love story. I’m really enjoying writing it and it is fucking nuts. If anyway wants to read it, by all means hit me up. https://archive.org/details/anabasispoembyst0000sain/page/18 http://www.sacred-texts.com/myst/myst/myst06.htm https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/09/17/to-die-in-effect-for-love-on-gary-indianas-horse-crazy/ https://www.monroeinstitute.org/robert-monroe

  On Fiction Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Shane Jesse Christmass On Fiction Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

[mrmichaelchadler]

Nick Allen's Top Ten Films of 2018

Below is a small glimpse at my film year, a collection of the movies I was fixated on during and after festivals, recommended to you if you asked me what was good, or was simply blown away by. And in the case of my number one film, it was lodged so deep into my brain that its second-to-last shot made for a solid homemade Halloween costume. Of course, this list is subject to change at any minute, with special shout-outs to “Roma,” “Minding the Gap,” “Eighth Grade,” “Widows,” “Vice,” “Free Solo,” “If Beale Street Could Talk,” “Blaze,” and the laugh-out-loud quality of “Mile 22.” 

10. “Bird Box” 

In 2010, Susanne Bier made one of the most unforgettable stories about the immediacy of day-to-day violence with “A Better World,” its plot hinging on acts of humanism across continents. She brings that focus on how we treat each other to the ruthlessly thrilling “Bird Box,” which tops off a year of nervous cinema, but is approximately 300% more stressful than the silent but deadly “A Quiet Place” (nor can “Bird Box” have its logic poked through by the prospects of farts). The hook here is an apocalyptic disadvantage—one’s eyes must always be covered from an outside force that invades consciousness, making them want to hurt others or themselves.

Adapted by Eric Heisserer from the novel by Josh Malerman, “Bird Box” takes the set-up of a survival story to its most tense limits, where characters are walking, driving, or riding down a river through unknown environments, without being able to see where they are going. In a year in which watching white supremacy terrorize families in “The First Purge” seemed redundant, “Bird Box” is one of the most terrifying depictions of fanaticism; those who do decide to see sometimes have a frightening, monstrous power, and try to force others to look. It's a scary reflection of our modern cults built on hatred, anonymous conspiracy theories, or willful misinterpretations of the Bible. 

The whole of "Bird Box" hinges on dumb luck, but each major set piece has an inescapable claustrophobia, in which the ability to see what the blindfolded characters can't, and imagining what could befall them, makes it that much more terrifying. At the center of it all is a top-level performance from Sandra Bullock, portraying a mother in the most desperate mode of survival. She makes a viewer even more wistful that somehow she and her two blindfolded kids can survive the film’s impossible world.

9. “Searching” 

Aneesh Chaganty’s “Searching” is a thrilling correction to a few bugs in mainstream filmmaking: it’s an unabashed crowd-pleaser that doesn’t talk down to its audience, a tech-savvy movie that doesn’t lament the growing presence of smart phones and social media so much as whole-heartedly embrace them, and a screen-based thriller that isn’t just the cinematic equivalent of watching a desktop. That it’s also a thriller that gives John Cho the leading role he’s long deserved is just one of its many elements to adore.

Scripted by Chaganty and Sev Ohanian, this story about a father (John Cho) searching for his missing daughter Margot (Michelle La) is one of the year’s most exciting examples of creativity, with elements of filmmaking one can easily take for granted—it’s one of the year’s best edited films for how it creates an emotional roller coaster using only the content on its characters’ screens, orchestrating a narrative out of an insane amount of on-screen detail that fully immerses us in everyone's lives. "Searching" plays wonderfully on repeat viewings, and the opening scene has deservedly won comparisons to the first ten minutes of “Up”—“Searching” is the debut of major storytelling talent, with a thrilling new perspective on the technology we use every day.

8. “John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection” 

“John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection” is a sports documentary that begins with a Jean-Luc Godard quote, and doesn’t show its title subject until five minutes in. Yes, this movie is a dream for anyone who has felt film semiotics and sports analysis aren’t too different of beasts, especially when one talks about the strengths and weaknesses of a performance. Needless to say, “John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection” transported me back to my brain-fueling Film Studies classes, all focused around a pivotal match for the hot-head tennis player in 1984. This doc does not just thrill with how it toys with form, but also in how it proclaims the expansive potential of critical thinking. I dare anyone who is interested in the very concept of criticism, whether for athletes or filmmakers, to try to turn it off after watching it for those five minutes.

7. “Makala” 

“Makala” popped into my life as a review assignment back in August, and by the end of the year it’s still the most exemplary idea of the power in minimalist storytelling. One of the most tense scenes this year is of Makala trying to push a huge bundle of coal, strapped to his bike, up a small hill, as captured with simplicity by director and cinematographer Emmanuel Gras. As it documents one man’s process in creating coal, carting it many miles and then trying to sell it, “Makala” speaks to the eternal values of filmmaking, and recognizes that walking many miles in someone else’s shoes is an instrumental part of it. 

6. “Cold War”

Anyone who was a bit miffed by the ending of Damien Chazelle’s musical “La La Land”—not that it ended on a surprising note, but that it felt like an incomplete thought—will find refreshing heart and soul in Pawel Pawlikowski’s musician story, “Cold War.” Told over various years and across countries, the story of two Polish musicians and their romance in spite of years and geographical distance beautifully condenses time but doesn’t cut short its emotion. “Cold War” precisely captures the different chapters of a relationship, while having a black-and-white beauty that makes the film like the year’s best love ballad.

5. “Mandy” 

Like a holy mix of “You Were Never Really Here” and “If Beale Street Could Talk,” as blended with a chainsaw fight and served on an actual dish of revenge, “Mandy” is one of the year’s most visceral proclamations of love and loss. Be not fooled by the howls from its growing cult audience, the best aspects of “Mandy” (directed by Panos Cosmatos and co-written with Aaron Stewart-Ahn) are not its albeit glorious action scenes but its sensitivity: this is the story of a man (Nicolas Cage), a woman named Mandy (Andrea Riseborough, her close-up laughing at macho BS the true face of this film) and the depths of his battling the demons of grief after his loved one is taken away. The late Johann Johannsson’s heavenly score uses synthesizers and heavy metal guitars to grip you from its opening text, and the film’s heavy use of color filters creates a dreamy atmosphere, which only gets kookier as “Mandy” becomes a straight-up hero odyssey with Cage battling phantasmagorical Jesus freaks. But the true beauty of “Mandy” is its intimacy; it’s as beautiful as looking into the eyes of your loved one as you both lie in bed, no one else existing in the world.

“Mandy” also features an unforgettable Nicolas Cage scene, in which he downs a whole bottle of vodka in a bathroom while standing in his underpants. He’s crying, howling, screaming. It epitomizes the appeal of one our greatest screen artists—that Cage is unafraid to tap into the absurd emotions we sometimes wish we could—and it pushes the surrealism of the scene to sincere and complete heartbreak. I’m placing “Mandy” in my proverbial “In Case of Loss, Break Glass” collection, right next to a copy of Philip Roth’s Everyman.

4. “Leave No Trace” 

I really love what my colleagues have written about Debra Granik’s story of a PTSD-afflicted father living off the grid with his young daughter, but one of my favorite qualities of this nearly pitch-perfect story is that it’s not what you think: it’s not about them living in the woods, but adapting to our society, a story that takes place after what only seems like the true narrative. The completely soulful performances from Ben Foster and Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie create a family dynamic you don’t want to see disturbed, and through small developments there’s a large unease that capitalism and technology could get in its way. Granik’s script, adapted with Anne Rossellini from Peter Rock’s book, has an incredible rhythm with its bare bones scenes, exploring the greatest of emotional stakes in the most deceptively simple way.

3. “Madeline’s Madeline”

In a sense, “Madeline’s Madeline” is a movie that was made for its debut lead, Helena Howard. You understand, about thirty seconds into the film, why Howard warrants her own project, and why a filmmaker like Josephine Decker would mix her own experimental and primal instincts with the talents of her future young star. “Madeline’s Madeline” is delightfully beyond words—describing it as a film about acting and actors is just scratching the surface—but it’s one of the most year’s most hypnotic movies, especially as Decker’s camera toys with point-of-view and takes an approach to editing that is unlike any other film from 2018.

2. “Shirkers” 

I spent much of my Sundance last January recommending to people a little documentary called “Shirkers,” and ramped up that practice when it came out on Netflix this past October. Believe the hype for this movie, which just took our #6 spot on the staff list, and is one of the few docs that has been making waves on #FilmTwitter. It’s both a celebration of and a mystery movie about the lost treasure of a film project that Tan directed as a teenager in 1990s Singapore with her friends, which then disappeared along with her pushy filmmaking mentor, an older white man named Georges, before the film was finished. “Shirkers” has Tan investigating what happened to the project and looking back at her life when she was a teenager making her cool-as-hell film that predates the style of "Ghost World" and Wes Anderson. Perhaps best of all, Tan shares with us the filmmaking daydreams, and the collaborating women, that fueled such an enigmatic passion project. 

1. “Hereditary”

I believe “If Beale Street Could Talk” director Barry Jenkins put it best when he once tweeted to “Hereditary” writer/director Ari Aster, “GIVE ME BACK MY PEACEFUL SLEEP,” followed by six crying emojis. Speaking as someone who has now seen Aster’s masterful debut five times (including an experimental, not recommended double feature at the theater with Fred Rogers doc “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”) I can only affirm the lasting power of “Hereditary” and its perfection as a modern American family tragedy that uses horror language in order to devastate its viewers. 

There are so many elements to cherish about the film, including its exact creepiness with slow-moving shots and deceptively long takes, a score by Colin Stetson that peacefully conjures the devil, and the way that while a first viewing may inspire one to watch it through their fingers, "Hereditary" only gets more disturbing with each viewing. And all of this for a horror film that’s about a household that doesn’t discuss trauma, or about a family plot that’s a highway to hell. Most importantly, however, is the emotional magnitude brought by the likes of Toni Collette, whose viciousness as the central mother can rival the terror of Joan Crawford proclaiming “No more wire hangers” in “Mommie Dearest,” and Alex Wolff, depicting the shattered, silenced nature of trauma. 

"Hereditary" is in the tradition of disturbing films like Kubrick’s “The Shining” or Zulawski’s “Possession"—it's equal parts terrifying and exhilarating, scarring a viewer with the emotional turmoil that's in the foreground. Aster's film messed me up in more ways than one in 2018, and it hurts so damn good. 

from All Content https://ift.tt/2UNJS6a

[morningpages-louise]

July 20, 2018

Magandang magandang umaga mga kaibigan!! Hehe netsim memories. quite glad that is over pero i have another simulation this coming monday, hopefully it will be moved oy :(( my group and i havent even practiced yet.. i havent even prepared my audio lol gg my friends so yeah anyways good morning! it is july 20 and from what you can see, im in quite a good mood hehe well i dont know im excited for the weekend eh. today is walang pasok. kind of a bummer as i had quite a few things to do in school today. for one, my concept report which has been moved back way too many times, and i was also going to record my audio for my drama netsim afterwards. i also had quite a few meetups huhu i need the moolah girl and finally i was gonna practice pero since there's no school nanaman, why not just enjoy it noh? enjoy the mf weekend huhu i cant believe next week is the last week of july. wtf. how fast is this year going by! next thing you know it's gonna be my birthday and then the holidays. I AM HELLA excited for the holidays but no this year makes me sentimental. what a year it has been. i love it. im branching out, learning to be independent. lots of big changes. new friends, im single lol, new condo and the changes that will be happening next are well im gonna get my braces out ( FINA FUCKING LY) yes hehe but yeah it makes me sentimental uy also this term is ending like lets relish in the moment and live every second shall we? you know what this is what im talking about talaga when it comes to my mood. like im so happy and giddy at the moment but yesterday i was literally feeling like shit. ugh what is this. maybe im bipolar or something. grabeh i dont think so naman pero wow what a sucky feeling noh? huhu what else is in my mind aside from the work i have to do (VPRODUC reflection paper, Philippine Primer requirements) oh i guess that's it. Not a lot naman. And i will follow up on the lasallian stuff huhu it seems like its not moving which means ill eventually have to change my writing story din :( sadness. so yeah this is just me and my life hehe im happy and im so glad there's no school so i can follow through on my morning routine you know. it's always a joy to go through your morning routine without feeling the need to hurry up and all that stuff. enjoying slow mornings (well not really slow) i also have an appreciation for my condo uy. last night i literally took 2 hours just to put my polaroid photos up pero honestly, id do anything to make this space feel more like home <3 i love it here. i love the fact that we have a television. although i dont use it as often as i like kasi busy eh, im glad to know it's there. im also happy that we have a divider. it makes things feel legit lol, it makes it feel more like a condo. hmmm perhaps i should share my thoughts yesterday. i watched several short films kasi for my video production class and i noticed that a lot of the features, documentaries, experimentals and music videos tackled quite dark themes. depression, death, political issues, not wanting to live in this reality, battling authority. basta i think there was only one hopeful film which was the one about the inmates and their rehabilitation through art. it got me thinking, are the kids really alright? you know that saying kasi "the kids are alright" no i dont think they are. why is this generation like this? we live in an age where its so easy to connect with people (with the internet and all that) but in reality, no one is connecting. we end up closing ourselves. keeping to ourselves. ignorig other people. "the bystander effect" as i have learned in my anthropology class. How true. And how sad. its a topic i consistently go back to because its something i really wonder about you know. but im also curious to know, is it just a part of growing up? this angsty phase? maybe all kids were like this when they were at this age? but i think regardless, its something interesting to look further into. why are we all so disconnected, unsatisfied and unhappy with our lives? it always brings me back to addy's caption. wait lang ha im gonna look for it: "Shame when you inwardly keep pitying yourself for not having enough and then you actually got the world right under your feet" god can i just say i love addy. i do believe she is a beautiful soul. i actually miss her a lot. pero yeah ACCURACY LEVEL IS ON POINT. i always repeat that to myself uy. god we're all so caught up in illusions and fake dichotomies (Char big word) curated by society and institutions. life is simple. why do humans make it so damn complicated? anyways thats my brain dump for tonight hehe im 879 words and counting na so imma leave for now, good bye i love you!! i am happy because i am accomplishing a lot of my morning routine and it is only 11 YEAH

[funtubeweb]

Film Forward: Five to Watch in ’18

Inventive auteur animation, a compelling feature debut from Laura Marie Wayne, and a timely documentary essay on that great unfinished project we call democracy are among productions currently in the works at Canada’s public producer. Here are five titles to watch in the coming twelve months.

Love, Scott

Nova Scotian musician Scott Jones was on his way home from a night with friends when an act of homophobic violence changed his life forever, leaving him paralysed from the waist down. With Love, Scott, his close friend Laura Marie Wayne, an alumna of EICTV, Cuba’s famed International School of Film and Television, tells his story in a nuanced and finely crafted feature doc.

Juxtaposing poignant testimony from Scott and his family with impressionistic verité footage, Wayne fashions a beautifully textured portrait of resilience, accompanying Scott over three years as he embarks on a fragile journey of healing.

The film features concert footage of Jones himself directing VOX, a community choir he founded as part of the Don’t Be Afraid Campaign, along with a spacious original score by experimental Icelandic ensemble Sigur Rós, active players in the global struggle for LGBTQ rights.

“I’ve become deeply connected to and part of the LGBTQ community,” says Wayne. “I identify as an ally, and I’m using documentary film as a medium to present an insider story of queer experience to a mainstream audience.”

Producer Annette Clarke has championed the project from the onset. “I was immediately drawn to Laura’s sensibility,” she says, “the way she holds up a mirror to Scott and his soul, and to the whole complex human condition. Together they’ve done something remarkable. They’ve given us beautiful film that questions the progress we’ve made in protecting the LGBTQ community.”

Wayne shot the film herself and shares the editing credit with Marcos Caraballo – also a graduate of EICTV. Love, Scott is produced and executive produced by Annette Clarke at the Quebec-Atlantic Studio.

What is Democracy?

Framed as an open-ended question, Astra Taylor’s latest project takes on the oft-cited but little analysed concept known as democracy. The idea first occurred to her back in 2012 as she was coming off her time with Occupy Wall Street — but the planet-wide rise of demagogic nationalism has thrown the project into sharp new relief.

“I was totally onside with Occupy and its critique of income inequality. There was a sense that liberal democracy — with its checks-and-balances, its focus on individual rights and free markets, all that — was letting us down, and direct democracy didn’t seem to offer a realistic way forward either. I felt a need to return to fundamentals, to go back to Plato’s Republic. And recent history shows just how fragile democracy is. Plato actually wrote about the rise of a demagogue — and here we are. There’s a sense of crisis about democracy now, and what the hell it actually means.”

In a big-hearted and wonderfully free-wheeling conversation that moves from Athens to Atlanta, scholars like Cornel West, Silvia Federici and Wendy Brown share screen time with the demos itself — health workers and school kids, refugees and activists, regular people wrestling with the practical and philosophical challenges posed by the democratic idea. Pictured above: Silvia Federici with Astra Taylor in the former city state of Siena.

The project reunites Taylor with Lea Marin, the NFB producer on the acclaimed NFB/Sphinx co-production Examined Life (2008), a philosophical road movie hailed by Variety as “a playful riposte to the notion that movies are for turning one’s mind off.”

“Astra likes to think big,” says Marin. “She’s not afraid of making intellectual films. But this is a very accessible project. It invites people from all walks of life to join a conversation on how we can rebuild democracy, how we can work together to bring about global change…Astra is less interested in pronouncing than in asking the right questions, and those questions matter now more than ever.”

Taylor is the author of The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age (2014); the editor of Examined Life: Excursions with Contemporary Thinkers (2009); and co-editor of Occupy!: Scenes From Occupied America (2012). Her film credits include Zizek! (2005), a feature-length profile of contemporary philosopher Slavoj Žižek. Below: producer Lea Marin with Cornel West and Taylor.

The chief DOP on Democracy is Maya Bankovic whose credits include The Prison in Twelve Landscapes and My Prairie Home, which was also produced by Lea Marin at the NFB’s Ontario Studio. What is Democracy? is directed by Astra Taylor, edited by Robert Kennedy, and produced by Lea Marin at the NFB’s Ontario Studio. Executive producer is Anita Lee.

The Zoo: Remembrance of Things Past

The fate of an aging polar bear, living out his final days in the decommissioned Stanley Park Zoo, is entwined with that of an elderly resident of Chinatown in The Zoo, bittersweet and sparsely elegant animation from acclaimed Vancouver director Julia Kwan.

“I loved visiting that zoo when I was a kid,” says Kwan. “I returned to the site years later, after it had closed, and all the animals had been relocated — except that bear. It was so sad, to see it pacing around its pen, old and alone, and the image has stayed with me. I want to draw parallels to how we treat our elderly, people seen as no longer useful, and to reflect on what’s happening in Chinatown — where old ways are quickly disappearing.”

Kwan’s first feature drama Eve and the Fire Horse (2005) won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance as well as the Claude Jutra Award for best Canadian feature by a first-time director. She went on to direct a pair of shorts for the NFB: Surfacing, an homage to musician Sarah McLachlan produced in co-operation with the National Arts Centre and the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards Foundation; and the live action/animation hybrid Blossom, an impressionistic account of immigration produced for Vancouver’s 2010 Cultural Olympiad. The Zoo, Kwan’s first fully animated film, sees her collaborating with the team at Jester Coyote Animation, the Vancouver-based studio that worked with the BC & Yukon Studio on Window Horses and Shop Class.

“Julia has crafted a wonderfully multi-layered script,” says producer Shirley Vercruysse. “It’s anchored in a very specific place yet it addresses universal themes relating to loss, change and abandonment. She’s done such great work with drama and documentary, and we’re delighted to be collaborating with her on her first animation.”

Kwan is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and The Zoo mines the same cultural terrain that informs much of her work. With Everything Will Be, an NFB-produced vérité doc that premiered at Hot Docs in 2014, she captures the texture of daily life in Vancouver’s Chinatown, a distinct urban universe under attack from aggressive real estate development and gentrification. Here’s the trailer:

oehttps://http://ift.tt/2DnhIGh

The Zoo is co-produced by the NFB (Shirley Vercruysse, producer) and Fire Horse Productions (Ruth Vincent, producer). Executive producers are Shirley Vercruysse for the BC & Yukon Studio and Michael Fukushima for the English Program Animation Studio.

John Ware Reclaimed Honours Alberta’s Black Pioneers

John Ware, born into slavery in the Antebellum American South, was already on his way to becoming a legend by the time he arrived in Canada in 1882. “The horse is not running on the prairie which John cannot ride,” declared the MacLeod Gazette in 1885. But his remarkable achievements, along with the larger story of Alberta’s African-American homesteaders, have been largely effaced from official histories of the Canadian west. Pictured above: John Ware, his wife Mildred, with son Bob and daughter Nettie.

That’s a situation that Cheryl Foggo has resolved to remedy with John Ware Reclaimed, a feature documentary that continues a project she began with John Ware Reimagined, a play that premiered in 2014.

Foggo’s own ancestors came to Alberta western Canada in 1910, fleeing a resurgence of racist policies in the newly formed state of Oklahoma, and as a kid growing up in Calgary, she was a fan of the Stampede, enamoured of all things Western.

“But there was no Black presence in the popular culture expressions of that Western narrative, and as I grew up I began to feel under-represented, unwelcome in a story that contained no reflection of my own people,” she says. “Canadians generally know very little about the long rich history of people of African descent in this country,”

With John Ware Reclaimed, she aims to thrill as well as to educate. “That’s the beauty of John Ware’s story. It’s so powerful and compelling. He was an amazing person who chose to make Canada his home, to work everyday to have a positive impact on the lives of people around him. Canadians have been deprived of this great story piece of our history… So it’s a double gift. I get to educate and entertain.”

Filmed partly on land where Ware himself once operated a ranch, the film features Black rodeo champion Fred Whitfield as a stand-in for Ware, along with stylized narration by writer Lawrence Hill, musician Corb Lund and others cultural commentators. A stirring score includes music and song that would have been present in Ware’s world. Pictured above: Cheryl Foggo and Fred Whitfield, photo by Shaun Robinson.

“Working with Cheryl is an absolute pleasure,” says producer Bonnie Thomson. “What she is doing with this film is so thoughtful. She’s celebrating this amazing figure, this charismatic Black cowboy. But she is also investigating his life and times in a completely new critical light, fearlessly examining what it means to be a Black person in Western Canada.”

John Ware Reclaimed is being shot by Douglas Munro, edited by Margot McMaster, and written and directed by Cheryl Foggo, whose previous film credits include the NFB release The Journey of Lesra Martin. It’s produced by Bonnie Thompson at the North West Studio. Executive producer is David Christensen.

Museum of Symmetry: Paloma Throws a VR Party

Paloma Dawkins first rode into the NFB Animation Studio as a successful Hothouse applicant, propelled by self-acquired tech savvy and a lively visual imagination. With Museum of Symmetry she’s hitched her inimitable gifts to the rapidly evolving world of VR to fashion a kaleidoscopic interactive joyride.

“I love clubs and celebratory environments where people come together to dance and have fun,” she said in this 2016 interview. “I want to bring that culture into my creation process.” A proud ‘hacker artist,’ the largely self-taught Dawkins is part of a growing gang of young women who are carving out their own pleasure-positive space within the male-dominated worlds of video gaming and VR.

“There are no rules here. Just enjoy.” Part invitation, part dare, an impish game mistress urges us to enter Paloma’s universe, a delightfully disorienting pleasure dome inspired by her fascination with geometry and nature — and wired with infectious dance beats. Hold on tight for a full mind-and-body immersive VR journey.

“Paloma’s a firecracker, exploding with crazy positive energy,” says producer Maral Mohammadian. “Her work is all about empowerment. She loves taking risks, and she’s not being afraid to be feminine in her own unique way.”

The project was created in collaboration with Casa Rara, the Montreal-based VR studio co-founded by Tali Goldstein and Ruben Farrus under the credo The Everyday Made Wonderful. Joining Paloma on the creative team were Charlène Boutin, resident designer at Casa Rara, and Alt Lit writer Ashley Obscura. The effervescent score is the work of Caila Thompson-Hannant (aka Mozart’s Sister) whose latest recording is described by Pitchfork as “daring, aggressively bubbly, and sharp”.

Museum of Symmetry, the first project from the NFB English Animation to be fully conceived and created as VR animation, is produced by Maral Mohammadian and executive produced by Michael Fukushima. Designed for HTC Vive headset, it will be hitting the festival circuit this year, and will also be exhibited at selected museums, and gaming & music events.

NFB Hothouse, a twelve-week paid apprenticeship in animation filmmaking, was established in 2004. Here is the film that Paloma created during Hothouse in 2013:

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Check out her personal website for a sampling of her work in various graphic genres.

The post Film Forward: Five to Watch in ’18 appeared first on NFB/blog.

Film Forward: Five to Watch in ’18 posted first on http://film-streamingsweb.blogspot.com

[dimanchebonsoir-blog]

That was weird

This Friday, we went with the class to the Nouveau théâtre of Montreuil, all excited about what we were going to see. The play we were waiting for in the theater seemed to be about the artistic movement Dada and its name, Modules Dada, was quite intriguing. The play is inspired by the real performances of Dadaists like Hugo Ball or Tristan Tzara in 1916, and as a consequence, Module Dada is an experimental theater play, a mix between theater, music, poetry and dance. At the end of the show this Friday, the public was speechless, lost between perplexity and boredom. Actually, this performance is in the same vein that the Dada's ones in 1916: how this experimental, rebellious artistic approach could have influenced people in the 20th century when it leaves the public puzzled nowadays?

Staged by Alexis Forestier, the play Modules Dada is a musical throwback to the Dada movement’s development. Since its very beginning in Zurich to nowadays, Dada's characteristics are made of a cultural bubbling. It's an artistic rebellion against the society and the social system in a post-war environment. Founded by Tristan Tzara, Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings and Marcel Janco in Zurich, the beginning of Dada takes place in the Cabaret Voltaire. Firstly made of intellectual reflexion in the Cabaret, Dada exported itself through art, manifestos, performances, and public scandals of the Dadaists. The movement quickly expanded in Germany, in France and in the United States. It also gave birth afterwards to other movements such as the surrealism.

The play Modules Dada is a mirror to Dada's development and its way of thinking. The artists on stage speak different languages, they dance, they scream, and most of all, they construct and deconstruct the scenography around them. In that way, the play depicts the Dadaists constant rejection of the world: they wanted to destroy all the artistic and ideological conventions in order to rebuild new ones from scratch. However, staging these days a play inspired of Dada's work out of context is a challenge. The play is an art performance from the 1920′s performed in 2017: how to make clear to the public that this performance is part of an outdated intellectual mouvement?  Today, theater goes together with entertainment: at the Cabaret Voltaire, the Dadaists wanted to use theater as medium for expression. The Dadaists’ claims were food for the mind and they need to be understood in their context: people at this time were sick and shattered by war and they wanted something to shake the society. After the play, when I watched the public’s reaction, I wondered if people were more enthusiastic to experimental theater in 1916.      But by looking closer, when you see art performances, read manifestos and poetry that tend to break the established order, the content of such an experimental play based on similar problematics may become more consistent. Nowadays’ public is not unresponsive to an alternative play: but seeing an artistic experiment from times long since past without any mediation might be rough. However, I hope that experimental theater will have a long life ahead: even when people go out of the theater with a global feeling of incomprehension, this feeling might lead them to discover new features that make a weird play more plain.

Video - extract from “Dada”, a documentary film from Greta Deses, 1969

[thelondonfilmschool]

MEET THE PROFESSIONALS - Richard Kwietniowski

As we continue to MEET THE PROFESSIONALS that place The London Film School at the forefront of developing emerging creative talent within the screen industry, we turn to director and screenwriter Richard Kwietniowski, who is joint Term 6 tutor with producer Sue Austen.  “We organise the final taught term and then supervise the making of all the graduation films. Students arrive with us as a platform to not only their grad films but also their careers beyond.” 

Prior to that, Kwietniowski was a visiting lecturer, quite often for the end of term critiques, and was invited to do a couple of presentations and a week on directing with Term 6. This made him extremely familiar with the Term 6 system by the time he became a tutor at The London Film School.  “We have different genres [of grad films] - there's just such an astonishing range. And I've never quite seen that from any other film school. So when I was offered more, I thought it would be very interesting, and Sue and I have been doing it for two years now. We've just about worked out where the toilets are, and now they're going to move!"   

Kwietniowski’s background started him off in literature, but he soon fell very seriously in love with film.  While studying at the University of Kent in Canterbury, they started up a Film Studies department, into which he defected from literature studies and did a higher degree thesis in film. This earned him a scholarship for a year to The University of California at Berkeley to expand the research, where he programmed some of their screening centre, The Pacific Film Archive. "I ended up moving to Bristol to run a regional film workshop, which had a lot of money then from Channel 4 and the BFI to try and develop grass-roots film making. This was a very interesting time to be in Bristol – trip-hop was coming into play and I hung out with a lot of musicians, and eventually started making films for one particular musical outfit who are still my composers to this day actually. And then I very cautiously started making more ambitious films on 16mm with arts grants and that led to being offered work by television.”  Kwietniowski eventually took a deep breath and focused on making his first feature film, which naturally led to a second.  "Basically I worked with cinema in every possible way before I did production, in that I ran a regional film theatre, worked in an archive, worked for a distributor and I also taught a bit.” Kwietniowski kindly met up with our very own Sophie McVeigh to discuss what attracted him to The London Film School, the challenges of being a Term 6 tutor and any advice he had for potential students. Sophie McVeigh (S.M): Was the broad teaching that the students get here what attracted you to LFS? Richard Kwietniowski (R.K): Well it's different because where I taught before, there was a practical element but I had to give lectures on film theory and history, and here it's the other way round. I mean obviously we cover those things but the key thing about this place is that it's got to impact on the students' own work. And so it's a kind of hive of productivity. S.M: Your Directing Strategies classes are very popular – have you been doing those for long? R.K:  The whole idea is we show a film that we think is something of a landmark, or significant in one way or another, and then try and extract from that something that's useful for students to take and apply to their own practice. What makes this film particularly effective? Let's look closer at that. It was very strange the first time I did it because I suddenly became very phobic that I was being forced back into becoming a lecturer, which was many, many years ago. And then suddenly I realised, no. I'm dealing with film makers and screenwriters, so therefore it's not just a case of saying 'I know more than you.' It's got to in some way have a direct relationship to how they are developing their skills, basically as storytellers. And there's a lot of technical training in this building so it's very important to create a space for people to think about the mechanics of story telling. Because basically, everything I know about directing is really from watching lots and lots of films, and working out what I think works and then applying that to whatever need I have. So I think the process of stimulating students with existing material and trying to get them interested in looking much more in depth at films they like or have seen is a whole part of the process. 

Photo Credit: Ava Gerlitz

S.M: What's the most challenging part of your job? R.K: The good challenge is that we're always working with about 80 students. So there are as many as 80 different projects in my head, all at different stages of development and production and that's kind of exciting. There is a culture to try something a little bit different which I really love, for instance the silent piano accompaniment (with the Term 1 silent films screenings) last Friday. I'm still totally overwhelmed by how much support it got from the students. It was so magical. It is a case of saying, 'How about this?' or 'Let's try that.' We need to keep doing that and it's very exciting, so that we don't get set in our ways and we learn things as well. I sneaked into the virtual reality event last Tuesday, and I was thinking, y'know, Virtual Reality on Tuesday, silent accompaniment on Friday, how fantastic is that?

S.M: What advice would you give a student applying to LFS before they come to allow them to get the most out of their time here? R.K: I'd definitely come with an open mind. You may think 'I'm going to be a director', or 'I'm going to be a director of photography', but you will study lots of other related disciplines and everybody has to do a bit of everything. So suddenly you might be surprised by design or producing or editing. So, for example, if you come saying you want to be a director of photography, don't just do cinematography or camera stuff. I think it's really crucial that DOP’s, at least once, have to either design or art direct a project. Because cinematography and design have to go hand in hand. And when you look at most specialist courses in DOP’ing, it's just about DOP’ing. Or with directing it's just about directing. And the work they end up making on these courses is much duller than the range of work that is made here. So I think that the student has to be willing to arrive with that kind of open mind. I think the other thing as well is to try to get the sense of the basics as much as you possibly can before you arrive. So if you've never edited before you can get something like Premier very cheaply and make sure you know the basics. Or read a little bit, at least know something about the history of cinema.

Photo: Katie Garner

S.M: Does working with the students here inspire your own work? R.K: Oh definitely. It's odd cause some of my friends say 'You must be going crazy, it's another year without production for you'. And I go, 'Yeah, but I've just helped over sixty films get made all around the world and some of them are very good indeed!' It's incredibly gratifying because it's still about productivity. There are other writer-directors who I know as friends and they're quite envious I think because they sit in cafés with a laptop and that bloody screen, and I'm whizzing about and getting emails from China where a shoot is about to start. And I much prefer that, because when you start working on features it is always years, you have to develop and there are false starts and this constant unproductivity, even if you yourself have generated a lot of scripts. So there is something very pleasing about being connected to work that actually does get made within the year. It's very stimulating because you have to keep thinking in an applied way. 'Can I help this script get better?' That's quite a big challenge, so I have to get a sense of where the writer-director wants to go, what type of film it is and how that can be sharpened. And that will definitely impact well on how I shape or reshape my own work. But I think the thing that students always respond to is enthusiasm and we have very motivated course staff and tutors. We have five working directors in the building, I think that's more than ever before. And I think that's very healthy because we are all very enthusiastic about what we do, and that enthusiasm rubs off. 

Photo: Katie Garner

S.M: What do you think LFS are looking for in potential students? R.K: Two things really. The first is a willingness to commit to the course and its multi-disciplinary nature. And second is some evidence of potential. Even if it's in a related field like photography or writing or something like that. In that, we want to take people on a journey and the journey is their own. But we want to feel we're not starting from zero with somebody. It's a combination of those two things really, but it's quite flexible in that we can take people who've, even, thirty years ago got a degree in law and suddenly decided this is what they want to do. 

S.M: What's unique about LFS? R.K: So you've got the whole side of the technological training. But then on the other side you've got an extraordinary amount of experimentation. And I think ultimately each student is treated as an individual, and does have an awful lot of say over what they're going to graduate with, in that they can shoot anywhere in the world, they have final cut, and so on and so forth. And so I think it's this interesting combination of professionalising people in terms of practical training, and a certain kind of creative experimentation. So, in the MAF course they make a mute black and white film in Term one, then in Term 2 everybody makes a film inspired by or related to a painting in the National Gallery – I'm going to see them tonight and they're always a completely mad selection of stuff! Then Term 3 is documentary, then 4 and 5 is studio... you know, it's like this very peculiar variety of stuff which pulls people in different directions and has a lot of surprises. And there is a very strong sense of the presence of the students, the actual involvement of students, which is increasing and being encouraged. So it's very interactive. 

Back in May 2016, Richard Kwietniowski had the honour of hosting a Q&A with the late great actor John Hurt following a screening of THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT.  

Below are some extracts from the conversation between Kwietniowski and LFS Patron Hurt as director and actor were reunited following their collaboration on Kwietniowski’s LOVE AND DEATH ON LONG ISLAND.

How did you feel about playing somebody who already existed?  How did you approach that?

I’ve never treated fact or fiction differently, in terms of the drama.  It is what it is, and it is what is on the page.  And of course, with Quentin [Crisp] there were already a couple of interview that he’d done and he had certain tools that for an actor were just a gift, and that was he always knew what he was going to say, how he was going to say it and when he was going to say it. That’s a good starting point. 

Did you meet him in the process of preparing for the role?

Absolutely, we met him once or twice.  I can remember coming to the set and the boys were all saying “How far do we go?” and Quentin simply looked and said “You can’t go far enough.”  And if he hadn’t made that remark no-one would’ve dared go as far as we did in the cafe, we were absolutely completely outrageous, and enjoyed every second of it! So it was an extraordinary thing to say to a group of actors and, boy, did they take advantage. With characters like Quentin Crisp or the Elephant man, they are characters that could easily stray into caricature.  How does your approach stop reaching that point? I don’t know how I stop reaching that point. I’m certainly inclined to go too far. I suppose I rely on director saying “John, you only need half your talent”. 

I think you play victims not as victims.

Evil men as evil men? Well, I don’t know of anyone who’s out and out evil.  I know of people who’ve historically become evil, but I don’t know that they set out to be as such, or they think of themselves as such. Yes, Quentin did put himself in the way of all kinds of physical difficulties. The reasons seemed to be so much more important, the reasons were that he was going to make a mark.  He was determined that  it should be a crusade. He didn’t see himself as a victim, that’s for certain, and the Elephant Man definitely didn’t see himself as a victim.  He was, and I think the Elephant Man must’ve felt at times victimised as indeed Quentin must’ve felt at times victimised.   What are you looking for when you read a script?

The first thing I want to see is does the piece work. Second thing is, is what I’m being asked to do in that piece, the character I’m going to play, is there something I can do with it that I believe to be individual, not original, but individual. There’s no point in trying to be original. You are by nature original, so there’s nothing you can do about that. But you have to feel that you’ve got something to offer it that’s specific and particular. I don’t really go any further than that. But very rarely do you read a script that is as complete as this one from the very beginning. 

Do you look at scripts as a starting point from your perspective?

Well film has changed so much too. And also there are different styles of film. Film has become much more liquid in many ways than it used to be. It used to be a much more rigid process. It technically was more rigid. When I started, they were using Mitchell cameras for god’s sake. I mean they were like tanks. You couldn’t suddenly whip into a scene with a hand-held camera. It’s changed quite a lot, and there are a lot of scripts that rely entirely on improvisation, which I enjoy too. It’s fun game, but it’s a risky one. It’s very risky with somebody’s money. Was TV more progressive than cinema then in this country? I think yes, in terms of material. But cinema was growing up at that time in terms of our own voice. We’d got the rank organisation which was aping America and following on the apron-strings of Hollywood, but our own voice has taken some time and is still taking time to establish properly, which is a shame, because if it hadn’t been for the wars and so on, we had a very strong voice before. 

What qualities do you value most in a director?

You certainly want someone, if it’s possible, that you can look up to in terms of their perception and understanding of film, particularly in the piece you’re dealing with. I would like it, personally, if I have the chance of working with the director, rather than for the director. That can’t always be. All of these things are kind of generalisations because there are no two directors the same. So therefore they have qualities that vary as much as their natures, and its very difficult to do what life always wants you to do. They always want you to put everything into categories. And I’m not sure you can categorise that easily. Yes, but I look for a certain presence. A director has to have a presence on a floor. It’s very difficult to direct if the crew and the cast don’t look up to him, one way or another.   Would you have any misgivings about being in somebody’s first feature film? I’ve made too many to have misgivings about it. What I’d have misgivings about is doing somebody’s second feature film when their first was a success, because it’s usually a disaster. And then they get their senses together again and forget their pretensions and get back to what they were doing in the third film. So go for first and third. How much time did you have to rehearse for this film?

Everyone was called every day for 1 week.10 o’clock in the morning until about 5 o’clock in the afternoon.We blocked the scenes because Jack knew how he wanted to shoot, knew the angles he wanted. And for him, and I would agree with him, if you’re going to shoot something in that space of time you need a shot list. You cannot afford to be scrabbling around wondering how you’re going to shoot it. You don’t have the time and it undermines everyone’s confidence.

Read more about the Master Degree in Filmmaking here: http://lfs.org.uk/full-time-study/ma-filmmaking/curriculum