#pretend there is no stanza break it just looks better if i split up the screenshots <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[trickstersaint]

maybe you learned it from martyrs // december 14 2024

[spectralhearts-blog]

Spotted at Grand Central, bags in hand, RACHEL WEISZ. No, that’s a mistake. It’s KIT SNICKET, they are a CANON CHARACTER and come from A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS. They are THIRTY-ONE and I’ve heard they are DISCERNING, as well BRASH. They happen to hold THEIR memories. Don’t believe me? See for yourself. 

welcome to new york! what is your character’s name?

kit katherine snicket ; firefighting volunteer, occasional fortune-teller and taxi driver. consumer of tea as bitter as wormwood. pretending to not have her true memories.

where / when have they been pulled from in their fandom?

the last thing kit can remember before she suddenly found herself waking in this new vexing and fallacious dwelling was medusoid mycelium crawling down her throat on an otherwise ideal island, fingers numb and falling limp as the baudelaires cradled newborn beatrice and promised that kit snicket’s daughter, though orphan she may be, would not grow up alone

— or, when i’m not just trying to stretch writin’ muscles that have gotten too used to academia, kit’s story has picked up rather unusually after her death in THE END (both episode and novel). she had died of a vile fungus, comma deadly, shortly after giving birth to her daughter whose custody she had entrusted to the baudelaire orphans. she remembers recently losing her brothers, one to death and another to his misery and exile, and her parents much less so. she remembers giving one of her last goodbyes to a wicked man whose one kind deed she can’t forgive the rest of his treachery for, but to whom she still owed a life and more. her last repayment could only be a short stanza from a long and complicated poem. she remembers her heart breaking twice, the first composed of so many crumbling increments of a once-noble organization and the second for a man first among brothers and second among an underground librarians (both literal and figurative). but most of all, she remembers beatrice baudelaire ii, the last in a long line of failings she needs to make up for.

do they have a job, and if so - what is it?

kit works at a kitschy alternative tea shop, where her position alternates depending on whether she keeps making the tea more bitter than the customer requests. on those days she gets shunted into the back, or into occasional tarot readings since the owners discovered she has some theatricality and training with it. it becomes difficult to not put on a vaguely european accent or remark upon the virtues of deciding one’s own fate whenever that’s requested, however.

what with the curse and all, how has your character’s life changed?

there were definitely some adjustments necessary - not only had kit just suddenly woken up from her definite reality of being dead (though she cannot honestly say this has been her first flirtation), but this new york was unlike one she had ever experienced. not only were technologies congruent and the entire city utterly devoid of code, but her reliable expectations of municipal aristocracies have been completely pulled out from under her. her initial attempts to contact those who might remain of her once-noble organization were quickly stoppered when she could not locate a reliable telegraph anywhere, and olive jars at local grocers lay infuriatingly unspecific.

so safe to say, kit quickly found herself a regular fish out of water, her only relevant skills those she had picked up from her own varied interests and inordinately ordinary assignments. the moment she realized something was amiss in the city, spontaneous appearances, fuzzed memories and personalities scattered in the people who passed through the tea shop, was the exact moment she felt warm comfort settling in her spine at the case of a spectacular scheme to be investigated.

kit spends most of her time at her work or freely wandering the streets of new york, occasionally under a cloak of night. in this city whose volunteer firefighters align most with the literal definition, she is trying to be the most noble member of a more distinguished volunteer fire department she can be, hitting the pavement and chatting with nearly all she comes across until she can uncover the mystery behind new york city.

is there any other information about your character that members might find helpful?

yea! so, first off before any deeper introduction to kit’s canon-wise character as it stands below — kit has maintained all her memories, and always has, but apart from the first few days in the city during which she had been running around chicken-without-a-head-style, she has adapted a disguise in which she pretends to be an ordinary kit snicket, just another new yorker. as a V.F.D. member, after all, she is equipped with the training necessary to slide into an alternate identity when a sussing out of friends and foes is needed. if she undoubtedly trusts someone, she will let them in — otherwise, she does her best to keep up her facade.

anyway! i’m going to be pulling from both book and tv canon for kit - } a noble member on the firefighting side of the schism in the V.F.D., or Volunteer Fire Department. kit is one of the snicket siblings, twin sister to jacques and one of the last surviving snickets along with her younger brother lemony. kit was shrewd and a very practical child, though as likely as either of her siblings to throw herself into trouble for a good cause. she attended Prufrock Prepatory School twice, once as a student and later as an English teacher, during which she required V.F.D. readings of all her students — a requirement that ended when the vice principal quickly fired her (continuing, however, for the two students she grabbed on the way out for their V.F.D. recruitment)

as a member of the V.F.D. herself, kit was engaged in multiple missions involving the dousing of fires both figurative and literal. she was once arrested trying to break into a museum in order to steal an artifact back to its rightful place, and once helped construct a submarine. she also masterfully constructed a chilled salad recipe that included mangoes and black beans among other items. most notable, however, was a certain mission that included poison darts, a sugar bowl, and the assassination of members of a family that might have been as noble as her now-splitting organization. whether or not kit feels any guilt for the death(s?) of olaf’s parent(s?)... well, she regrets any vile act, and this one’s particular role in the deepening schism, but this is another secret she’ll keep close to her heart.

kit didn’t have much time for relationships as she globe-trotted for the V.F.D., but at some point she did love a certain melodramatic count and shared with him an ill-kept secret of adoration for sad poetry. in the later years of the schism, her path fell in with the eldest denouement, and she and dewey began preparing for a life together.

kit loves secrets and secrecy ; it’s integral to V.F.D., and she is nothing if not a loyal Volunteer. she loves them to her own detriment - keeping them, seeking them, and squirreling them away. toward the end of the series’ events, she was starting to have to admit to herself the some of V.F.D.’s secrecy was the very thing poisoning it from the inside... but, old habits die hard, and in this city so far away from the V.F.D. it’s easy to slip back into her secret-hunting ways.

kit cares for children, but doesn’t particularly know how to interact with them. she thinks of them like miniature adults, rather than having considerations in mind for the trials of their own age group. being pregnant with beatrice was no wake-up-call, but it made her more aware of how ill-equipped she was going to be as a mother to an infant. with dewey at her side, that seemed easier -- but without him, and with medusoid mycelium crawling up her throat, she knew her baby would be better off with the baudelaires than she’d ever be with her. with a second chance at life, she does keep catching herself distraught without her daughter -- but has also decided it better not to look for her, when she believes her safe with the baudelaires.

ASOUE S3 SPOILERS; i loved almost all of the expansion netflix brought to the series, but definitely mourn some of the moral ambiguity kit lost in the transfer over. kit is caring and daring, but she is also incredibly stubborn to her own sense of being one of the smartest minds in the room and ruthless to the point of being willing to do anything to accomplish Greater Good (kudos to netflix tho for correctly pulling over that impulsive streak, nice 👌 👌 dragon-flying off a cliff while 8mos pregnant, definitely kit). i’m still not quite sure how much i want to incorporate netflix’s interpretation of the opera into kit ; she definitely had a much larger role in the death of olaf’s parents. anyway for now i’m probably going to loosely go with she being the admirer who slipped beatrice the poison dart, and may have been on-mission to distract olaf from the theft of the sugar bowl at the time, and eventually i’ll get around to expanding on that

[spnnmp-blog]

Dialogue reference

As I have stated, this project is about trying out new techniques and new ideas within my creative practice. One of these techniques I want to try is the recording of dialogue and sound for film. It crossed my mind to just do a musical soundtrack to accompany the visuals but I think a more effective way of firmly getting the ideas and context across would be to have a narrative element within the audio. The issue with just having the musical element is, you get the tonal changes in mood through key changes (major and minor reflecting happy and sad feelings) but it’s hard to convey a narrative within them, especially if - as I’m thinking - the videos are only quite short respectively. A dialogue element will much more effectively help convey the messages as we have both tonal aspects as well as content and words to help. 

My first reference for this inclusion of dialogue is the monologues and narration of ‘The Narrator’ in the film Fight Club. This film in itself is a film dealing with mental illness and depression that manifests in a split personality disorder. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exL51n3py6g

This clip from the start of the film, is an impressive CGI rendering of a virtual IKEA catalogue highlighting the way in which the narrator’s life is run by the draw of capitalist, mass produced products in order to fit in with his idea of ideal society. Over top of the sweeping slider movement, tracking the character on the phone ordering more furniture, we hear the narration explaining his need for these products and how he justifies this compulsion. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykdmnS-MtXI 

It is this scene in particular that stands out for me, most specifically the last 5 seconds as the narrator lies apathetically staring at the TV informercials. The visuals combines with Edward Norton’s emotionless, droning voice really communicates the state of lifeless depression. The way he reads the dialogue is as though the words just fall out of his mouth, said with conviction but without emotion. You know in another life he is a smart and well spoken person, he just lacks the confidence to run with it. No joy is to be found in his monotone voice, even as he describes the furniture he supposedly loves, theres no emotion or spark to his voice that suggests he has any actual enthusiasm for his belongings. Spending money gets him superficial joy. 

The visual element of this scene too resonates with my experience of depression at it’s worst. You don’t laugh or cry, you just seam to exist waiting for something to happen, often in the middle of the night. So you sit and watch TV, but you’re not really watching it, you’re just staring at the changing colours and shapes, thinking. I want to homage this scene in my own work due to it’s (and it’s a rather cliche thing to say now about this film) importance in my life as a creative person. 

I first looked at poetry back when I was first considering my final project. My initial idea was to take a poem of a selection of poems and build a story from that in a more traditional form. Since then, I have moved from a more formulaic approach to a more art-film based idea, meaning that I needed to adopt the style of narrative I was going to write. For a more formulaic film, you can get away with being a bit more descriptive and use exposition to guide the audience. Thus, you can do more and move around in time more within the narrative. However, for a more art-film medium, you can be more expressional with the narrative but it also tends to lend itself to a more generalised one. I started by looking at popular social media/ forum site, Reddit. On Reddit you can find a ‘sub-Reddit’ for near enough every topic you could think of and so I went and found the ‘r/poetry’ sub. On here I posted this question: 

To which I got 17 replies of people recommending me different poems specifically and poets in general for me to have a look at. One of my favourite suggestions was Aubade by Phillip Larkin

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.   Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.   In time the curtain-edges will grow light.   Till then I see what’s really always there:   Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,   Making all thought impossible but how   And where and when I shall myself die.   Arid interrogation: yet the dread Of dying, and being dead, Flashes afresh to hold and horrify. The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse   —The good not done, the love not given, time   Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because   An only life can take so long to climb Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;   But at the total emptiness for ever, The sure extinction that we travel to And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,   Not to be anywhere, And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true. This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That vast moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die, And specious stuff that says No rational being Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,   No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,   Nothing to love or link with, The anaesthetic from which none come round. And so it stays just on the edge of vision,   A small unfocused blur, a standing chill   That slows each impulse down to indecision.   Most things may never happen: this one will,   And realisation of it rages out In furnace-fear when we are caught without   People or drink. Courage is no good: It means not scaring others. Being brave   Lets no one off the grave. Death is no different whined at than withstood. Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.   It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,   Have always known, know that we can’t escape,   Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go. Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring   In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring Intricate rented world begins to rouse. The sky is white as clay, with no sun. Work has to be done. Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

This is a very cleaver and resonant depiction of what it’s like to deal with depression (from my experience) on a day to day basis. The thoughts that go through you’re head that become debilitating and issues that make the difference between simply being down and having depression. 

“Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,   Making all thought impossible but how   And where and when I shall myself die.   Arid interrogation: yet the dread Of dying, and being dead, Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.” 

This part of the first stanza is a great example of the early signs that I was pre disposed for this illness, from a very young age, I have feared death. What does it mean, when will it happen and how will it feel? I think these lines sum that up, the words “dread” and “being dead” on context bring up ideas of the mystery of the situation, the unknowing. Whereas “thought impossible” “interrogation” and “hold” sound very similar to the way in which these thoughts can become incapacitating. Often, you fixate on one thing and it causes any other thoughts to stop. This idea that I have about death was one of the original ideas I wanted to explore when coming into this project - the infinite scale of the universe and the subsequent meaningless feeling of our fleeting existence. 

“—The good not done, the love not given, time   Torn off unused“

and 

“The sure extinction that we travel to And shall be lost in always“

Again, these lines summaries that feeling of uselessness and meaningless.

“Postmen like doctors go from house to house.“

The final line is very powerful, it shows (to me) that this is a viewpoint that is held by many people, it’s the every-day person that feels these feelings and that you are not alone with them, which is a positive ending in my mind. The postman acting as the every man but then followed with “like doctors” show that even the people who deal with death are subject to this way of thinking too. 

As a dialogue for my film, it’s a very good starting point for me. However, if I am to have these three separate films, splitting up this poem for each part (bad days, normality, and good days) may not leave me with a long enough reading to work the visuals around. It may also not break up perfectly anyway. To really get the idea across that these are different points of view, the poetry needs to mirror these points of view. Overall, Aubade is a very somber poem with only small hints of positivity at the end. Instead I need to make a selection of poems for each shot that fits better with the desired length and mood. 

Voices - Nationwide

Voices is a marketing campaign from the mutual finance group, Nationwide. Nationwide have commissioned a series of short films depicting “real customers” reciting poetry and spoken word pieces about 21st century life. There’s a total of 16 adverts that run between 20 seconds and 2 minuets. The shorter videos obviously being more practical for T.V. advertisement and the longer videos suited to social media due to the cheep cost of marketing through the likes of Facebook and Twitter promotion. T.V. too has more regimented pre-existing formats to enable lots of adverts in a short amount of time where as social media (especially Facebook and Youtube) lends itself to longer videos. Once the viewer is interested in a product, they are more likely to watch the entire video, whereas on T.V. audiences would get bored. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLw3Em2mGRE&list=PLF9206AD222A37AA8&index=4

The content of the videos is very simplistic in methodology, very simple documentary style filming in a montage style edit. The obvious ‘hand held footage’ shooting style and natural lighting (not obviously lit externally) sells the idea that these actors are every day people talking about the business. This in turn subconsciously says to  the audience that the people have sent in this footage themselves because they love the products they provide so much. 

The above video is one of my favourite from the series. The narrator in this case - Sugar J (again, use of informal names similar to how they would appear on a magazine write in column, sells the idea that these are every day people, not actors) - talks about the idea that technology, because of it’s inherent ease of use and connectivity, causes us to actually drift apart as a society. Sugar J proposes that we instead should see the ease of use as a means to connect on a real world basis. The spoken word in this project serves as a device to propose a deeper reading of the content. Because it’s not spelt out in simple terms, the audience have to think about what’s being said and what it means in relation to what’s trying to be sold. 

“...Sometimes, advertising is at its most effective when the hand of the client and agency can be least detected.” VCCP’s (Nationwide’s lead creative agency) deputy executive creative director, Jim Thornton says that he thinks the success of the project is because of it’s raw format, it’s simplistic nature and how it’s been taken back into the hands of the masses. However, when you look at the Youtube comment section, you see a different story, almost the opposite. People have taken to slandering the campaign for being blatant propaganda and soul-less. 

This is the tendency for internet and social media - youtube in particular - to dismiss something without properly understanding the background. A lot of people are dismayed thinking that Nationwide is a bank, whereas they are in fact a mutual finance so the profits of investors are put back into the company, not for the financial gain of the companies elite and outside investors. There’s also a dismissal from a certain proportion claiming that it’s pretentious and pompous. This is interesting when considering my own project as this could possibly be a reaction to my work too once I post it online. However, my work is being made for different purposes, as an art project not a commercial one. This will attract a different (and hopefully more open minded) audience and give context to the use of poetry. 

I think this campaign highlights (regardless of context and political agenda) the potential that spoken word and non linear dialogue methods hold in creating an engaging and thought provoking narrative. This is essential when creating more abstract or speculative work, and especially when discussing mental illness.