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my-grindelwald · 6 years

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I translated Johnny’s Movie View Magazine Interview!

It’s a really really long interview (5.2k words) so I put it on google docs, but I also copied it over below the “keep reading” line if you prefer reading it on tumblr. He talks about his beginnings in acting, working with Tim Burton and other directors, the process of film-making, Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts, the Hainan film festival, and his upcoming movie Waiting for the Barbarians.

DISCLAIMER: I translated this myself so there definitely will be places with a some errors, although I have tried to translate as accurately as possible.

How did you start off your acting career?

The word “acting” is pretty strange. I started acting accidentally. Or perhaps it was fate. When I first moved to LA, I was a guitarist for my band. After the band broke up, I lost my job. I tried many different things: working at record shops, bookstores, you name it. I had a friend who was an actor, and he thought I’d make a good actor, so he suggested I meet his agent. I shot my first movie not really knowing what I was doing. And then after a while, I realised that I was slowly moving towards another path in my career, and I knew I had to put aside my dream of becoming a musician in order to fully commit to acting. I started researching and taking classes in performing, and after going deep into the acting career, I realised the most important thing was just practice.

How did you feel when you first acted in front of a camera?

I remember feeling really stupid (laughs). That was my first time finding out how a movie was shot - how all the bits we shot were pieced together to form an entire movie. To be honest, at first, I thought acting was pretty boring, because there was always a very detailed flow we had to go with, and stuff like specific camera angles and close-ups would all be laid out in detail for us. At the time, I was really ignorant to how a film was shot, so standing in front of a camera for the first time felt totally absurd. But in becoming an actor, I’ve changed a lot - I’ve become more confident in front of a camera. Sometimes, I even feel more at ease in front of a camera.

It’s really been a learning experience for me. Learning is one of the most important things for an actor. You need to observe the people around you with a keen eye - their body language, the way they talk, that kind of stuff. You absorb all of that unconsciously, like a sponge, and in a couple years, when playing a character, you might find yourself using this knowledge you’ve picked up and adding it to your performance. And when you act more freely, the real you is also able to live more freely. Actors are observers, so I try to observe and copy the body language and speech of people around me.

When you first get a script, how long does it take for you to understand the character and find his inner motives?

I feel like it’s pretty natural. After receiving a script, my brain tells me how to make sense of it. I first pick out the more meaningful parts in the script, and see if the story has depth to it. I always see if the script itself is good before deciding if there are any good roles in it. If I’m not satisfied with it myself, it’s, of course, going to be impossible to convince me to bring the character to life. If I do want to take the part, but I’m not able to add something more to the character, I start to consider my limits, and from there, I find new ways of approaching the character. Sometimes, I’ll be offered roles that have not been acted by anyone else on screen before, and my heart would tell me to give it a shot. In these cases, I normally know whether the script is suitable for me by the tenth page, sometimes even the fifth page, of the script.

When preparing for a role, do you put yourself in the character’s shoes?

Yeah, I actually do. I’ll see these images of scenes, or maybe childhood memories, or just bits and pieces of the character’s life in my mind, and it helps me empathise with the character. When reading a script for the first time, I make some notes or remarks on it to record down these instincts I get. After that, reading it for the second time, I try to challenge the boundaries of my initial thoughts on the character, and find any errors in my concepts. If my thoughts on the character are the same on both readings, I’ll read it again, find the character’s defining characteristics, and then try and fuse myself with the character. Once I’ve finished reading the entire thing, I more or less have a rough understanding of the character. But I have a habit of not reading the screen direction too much. I rather let the character’s mannerisms and actions come to me naturally in the moment, instead of following these specific actions in the script, because it lets me fully immerse myself in the character.

When you first worked with Tim Burton, he was still a very young director. How was it like working with him then, and have you worked with any other young directors since then?

I met Tim in 1989. We agreed to meet at St. John Street in London. At the time, I thought he didn’t seem like he had the material in him to be a director. I had been wanting to shoot a film that was away from the normal, and I had continuously been looking for an opportunity like that. So agreeing to meet Tim was kind of like laying out the path for myself. At the time, I was shooting Cry Baby, and the director, John Waters, was the kind of person who created taste through film, but Tim wasn’t. I had been very sure that I wouldn’t be chosen for Edward Scissorhands, but I really loved the screenplay, to the point I won’t ever forget the emotions I felt getting that screenplay for the first time. I cried like a child, reading that script. Edward’s suffering really hit me in the soul - I knew that kind of feeling: the feeling of a constant lack of safety, being afraid to interact with all these unfamiliar people and things, and the fear of being hurt. I had thought Tim wouldn’t cast me for this film, so I had wanted to cancel our meeting, but my agent wouldn’t let me.

Little did I know, we got on like old friends from the first time we met. Tim’s pretty shy, and I’m not exactly the talkative kind either, and three hours and eight cups of coffee later, Tim’s hands were already shaking. A month later, I didn’t hear from him at all, so I assumed I hadn’t been cast. But then, I got this phone call from Tim, and he said, “Johnny, you’re Edward Scissorhands.” My mind just went blank; the only thing I remember was crying. I had found the strange, off road path that I had wanted. Crybaby had been my first step, and Edward Scissorhands my second.

What about later on? Were your films with Tim successful?

In those first three weeks of filming, Tim was a little hesitant; he was trying to decide if my acting was too weird, and in those three weeks, we didn’t get along as easily. But in the end, he let go, and said, “Just do it your way,” and somehow, we managed to get the stuff he wanted. After Scissorhands, Tim and I became closer, and we then shot Ed Wood. From there we just made movie after movie, and now it’s like we practically have a common language.

You’ve worked with many famous directors as well. How is working with them different from working with Tim?

I’ve got pretty good relationships with the many directors I’ve worked with before. Tim’s like a brother to me, and we’re both friends with many other directors. When working with other directors than Tim, I try even harder to get what they want in the character to present the story to the audience. Some of the younger directors are sort scared that they didn’t do enough preparation, or that something they didn’t expect will happen. I think they’re thinking too much into it - they’ve already got the entire film in their mind. Sometimes, they end up relying too much on the planning, and they’re overcautious, so they lose a lot of the freedom that comes with making a film. He’ll think, what if the stuff I shoot doesn’t look exactly like what I’ve got in my head? The more they limit their imagination, the fewer chances they have to think of something on the spot, and come up with something amazing that they didn’t initially plan for.

So when I work with them, I want to give them a chance to experience something fresh, or something challenging, something new and exciting. Sometimes, we could do 10 takes of the same scene, and still not get what we are trying to go for. I think it’s not good if the actors are all thinking too much about how they should act, while the director is thinking too much about how he should be shooting it. On set, I’m even more willing to improvise, by, for example, changing the way I say my lines, or adding some actions that aren’t in the script, and in that moment, we’re able to capture the natural, genuine reactions of the actors I’m working alongside in the scene. You need to step out of your comfort zone in order to find the most truthful interactions between humans. There’s some directors that are very strict, and at every step of making the film, they’ve got a very specific idea of what they want. But the problem with that is that they don’t understand that film is an art of human interactions, and it’s not something you can do with just one person telling everyone else what to do.

Do you have any Hollywood films and directors that you pay attention to?

In recent years, I haven’t watched many films outside of Hollywood. I remember when I was really young, I watched the film Time of the Gypsies by the director Emir Kusturica. The colours in that film were particularly gorgeous, and it was a very artistic film. I ended up working with Kusturica in Arizona Dream, but you could say that film was a nightmare for both of us. Normally, a movie takes about three to five months to be shot, but we took an entire year for Arizona Dream. Of course, that film became an important film in my career, and Kusturica is an amazing director,so he has always been able to do this without fear. I’ve always believed that fear is our greatest enemy - whether it’s in our lives or when making a film, fear is always there to drag us down.

Working with Kusturica was an extraordinarily meaningful experience for me. It gave me the opportunity to experience, first-hand, that as an actor, you really can try anything, so as long as the role is reasonable, I can go ahead and try it. There was once I worked with Faye Dunaway, and at the time, I was still pretty young, and she was already middle-aged. We were shooting a scene where my character, the young man, has to seduce Faye’s character, and he’s growing from a young boy to an adult. Our initial plan was for my character to run around like a rooster and follow Faye around, so when we were shooting the scene, we just ran around in circles in the house. You see, film can just be shot like that. When we discuss certain scenes, we don’t consider how to minimise the risks - the most important thing is that we embrace our curiosity; just give ourselves the freedom to explore, say, what kind of results would I get if I did this scene this way. When you make a film, you can’t follow the screenplay exactly. Sometimes, there’s beautiful dialogue in the script, but it may not fit with the vibe of the rest of the film, so you’ve got to reluctantly cut it out. In making a film, you need to push the boundaries. If you don’t try, you won’t know what kind of sparks you’re really able to create.

So making a film involves a lot of teamwork and putting aside your ego?

Yeah. For example, on set, another actor may ask to do another take, or want to try another way of doing the same scene. You could hate that they’re doing that - you could even hate the actor himself - but you should give him a chance to try, because it could help open another door for yourself, and in the end, you’ll definitely get something surprising out of it.

When shooting From Hell, the director Allen Hughes gave me many suggestions. Like when we finished shooting the scene where my character turns hostile, he walked over and he told me, “No sunlight.” I immediately understood: don’t give them a ‘good’ expression, just remain committed to being the bad guy. Even though the lines are already written out nicely, actors still need to figure out the emotions within those lines, and use stuff like their body language to bring across these emotions, and these are all actually hidden between the lines in the script. Simply reading out the lines is a very easy thing to do, like saying, “I love you” is easy, but the audience isn’t stupid. They can sense that the feelings behind the words “I love you” aren’t real. Of course, the script itself is very important as well - the information in the lines helps us to understand the plot. But these hidden, unspoken lines are what make up the atmosphere of the film, and it lets the audience feel the change in emotions in the characters, and the waves of emotions in the character. The actors’ performances and the script combined together creates the tension in films.

Are there any young directors who have moved you with a script?

If a young director works on a screenplay, he needs to leave the actors some space to explore on top of giving them his vision. A good script would be one that even if the actors go with whatever idea they have, the film will still work out - it means the script is flexible. Being an actor, I’ve got a responsibility to both the director and the audience. I’m the medium between the director and the audience - I bring the director’s vision to the audience, but through that, I also have my own interpretation of the stuff I’m doing. I always have a lot of ideas, so when shooting a film, I have to find a balance between my own interpretations, and the director’s vision, while still being loyal to myself. A good screenwriter always leaves enough space and chances for the actors to explore. Putting together a film is like making a montage of clips, really. If the director’s too harsh, too many clips will end up on the cutting room floor. But as an actor, if you’re not giving the directors a choice on what to leave in or cut out, then you’re not doing your job well either.

Other than acting, have you tried any other jobs in the film industry?

I’ve directed a film once, and I’ve written a screenplay. It a story about the native Americans and how they lived, but it was only a rough framework, not anything refined yet. I didn’t want to act in it myself, but people told me that if I didn’t act in it, it would only get maybe 2 million dollars, but if I did, it’ll probably get 5 million. I was convinced by that. Being a director isn’t easy. You need money to be able to shoot whatever you want to shoot. But actors and directors are two vastly different roles. A director has to manage everything on set, but as an actor, you only have to care about your own performance, and nothing else. A director has so many different things they need to take care of, while an actor just goes with their feelings and does the scenes they need to do. Actors don’t need to bother with logistics on set. If you made an actor take care of all this stuff, I’d bet you, within 5 minutes, the set would have to be shut down. They wouldn’t be able to concentrate on their performance. If I had to do that, I’d go crazy.

As a director, after work, you still need to sit down and read through your script, see if there’s anything that should be changed. To me, that kind of lifestyle might as well be from a scene from a horror film. And after a day of shooting, the director still needs to review all of the footage. If I’m both acting in and directing the same film, I’d be looking at my own performance the entire day, which feels really weird. So really, both acting and directing have their own challenges, and trying to do both is just extremely difficult.

As a casting director, I really wasn’t good at judging auditions. I never felt like screen tests had any relevance to the actual shooting process. Just reading a few lines won’t show a person’s real acting ability. When I was a casting director, I watched these people walk through the door every day, read their lines, and all of them couldn’t get the kind of feel I wanted for the film, and I was going slightly mad. To begin with, I wasn’t great at the auditioning process as an actor, so as a casting director, I wasn’t good either. So, a suggestion to people looking to audition for things, don’t just go in and read your lines. Act out a portion of the script. I want to see what you and your fellow actors sharing the scene with you can do. I want to see your interpretations, your style, the path you want to go down. Through a process like that, I can see the big picture of the film, and how much space you’re leaving me, as director, to make choices. Like I said before, a good actor should leave space for the director to make creative decisions as well.

So do you still want to continue being a director?

Yeah, I actually want to direct 2 more films. One of them is a screenplay that I stole 30 years ago. At the time, my agent told me the rough storyline of the script, and after I heard it, I just completely took it away. Also, I won’t necessarily act in films I’m directing, because I really enjoy the process of working with different actors and creating a film with them. I especially like it when they develop their characters and breathe life into them, because in that moment, as a director, there’s this sense of accomplishment. Basically, if I direct a movie, I want to put my entire heart and soul into directing, and not have to worry about my performance.

What kind of script catches your attention?

Those that resonate in me. As long as the character in the script is moulded so that it feels vivid, and the plot is interesting, it’ll catch my attention. About the script, I think about how much space the actor playing the role has to explore on their own - whether the actor is able to make the character even more well-developed, more thought-provoking, more interesting. The most fundamental part is seeing if I’m able to get a feel of the character. If I am, then the screenwriters did a good job of creating a vivid, believable character. I see if the script can still remain faithful when put under pressure from outside forces, to make sure that it’s not just another script with a storyline everyone’s heard a thousand times.

After Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was released in China, Grindelwald became very popular amongst Chinese fans. J.K. Rowling did not include much about Grindelwald in the Harry Potter series, so how did you create this character?

First, I had to get the foundation right. Jo gave me many suggestions, and other than that, the most important part was just the screenplay. I made many notes on the script, and through reading the script multiple times, I slowly added flavour to the character. I didn’t want him to be a character that people could just take one look at him and understand him. He’s a master of manipulation who wants to convince people to join his side, and on the other hand, he does have softer, kinder parts to his personality. My take on him was that any internal conflict you had in yourself becomes very dangerous when dealing with Grindelwald. I think he has a double personality: one side of him is his original self, and the other is the side that tries to oppress - one clear, one mysterious. That’s also the reason why I chose to have different coloured eyes, to show the two sides to his personality.

The relationship between Grindelwald and Dumbledore is something that many of the fans pay particular attention to. Did the events that happened in their past have any influence on the way you created Grindelwald’s character? And did you film the “Mirror of Erised” scene together with Jude Law?

No, when I got to set, Jude Law’s parts had already been shot. Jo has really written an amazing story, and she really showed how Grindelwald and Dumbledore’s love and at the same time, hate, for each other was built up. I think the two of them are a sort of surprising pairing. To each other, they are the best person in the world. I believe that there once was a passionate love between them, and this love was born because they both saw a reflection of themself in the other person. But for Grindelwald, his love came with an envy. He had always thought of himself as the greatest dark wizard, but in his heart, he clearly knows that Dumbledore has the same level of power that he does, and that Dumbledore will become even stronger. His conceitedness is eventually the reason why they went on different paths.

From then on, Grindelwald harboured a grudge in his heart. But do you know what this grudge represents? There’s a side to his grudge that no one gets to know of - it’s wounds, it’s pain, and it’s this hatred that he has, having this, in a way, forbidden, love, yet having nowhere to vent his frustration. I understood Grindelwald and Dumbledore’s relationship from this point of view, and from some lines in the film, you can feel this paradoxical opposition between them, where they oppose each other like fire and water do, but yet are bound to each other. Grindelwald’s decision in the end was to continue on his path that led him to become the Grindelwald we know now. These are things that you can’t see on the surface of the story, because they’re all hidden within the tiny details. I think Grindelwald and Dumbledore’s past is filled with pain, so I also really want to know what exactly happened between them.

As we see in the movie, Dumbledore says that he cannot move against Grindelwald because they made a blood pact. If the blood pact did not exist, would Dumbledore be able to move against him?

I believe even without the blood pact, Dumbledore would still be extremely hesitant whether he is able to move against Grindelwald. This is also Grindelwald’s internal conflict, because he isn’t sure if Dumbledore will one day return to his side. But I’m guessing he’s also somewhat anticipating the day when the two of them finally meet to fight, because Grindelwald needs this battle to happen in order to achieve his final goal. His hatred, envy and bitterness will all be let loose in that one battle. Grindelwald is very confident no one in the wizarding world can be a worthy opponent to him, because his name is his faith. But in the end, it will be this exact arrogance that will lead to his downfall.

How do you feel coming to Hainan and having the masterclass session with young directors?

I’m very inspired by them. To have this sort of opportunity to chat with people that are willing to devote themselves to filmmaking is really special. When I attend press conferences, the questions the reporters ask are mostly similar. Once these reporters have been in the business for a while, they aren’t really that interested in your answer - they’re just trying to get their job done.

But here, this large group of young audience really is interested in the film business, and this makes me really happy. Like if someone asked me a question about acting, then I’d gladly share about my own experiences as an actor. You could even ask me, “How did you become famous?” And I’d say, “If you want to become famous, first of all, don’t think about becoming famous.” Don’t be too focused on reaching your goal, and focus more on the process instead. If you’re able to persevere doing the thing you love, then you will become the person you want to be. We often say that when someone has an ambition, it’s a curse, but really, the truth is that being able to do something you love while working towards a goal is also not a bad thing.

Having this opportunity to chat with young people that want to commit themselves to the film industry makes me really happy. They’re not trying to repeat what others have done before them - they’re like the future of film. If sharing my experiences are able to help them understand what a career in the industry is like, then I’d be very honoured. Nothing makes me happier than being able help others improve.

Another thing about the activity that made me very pleased was that everyone was very sincere. It wasn’t just about me sharing my stories - the more important thing was that I took something away from it as well. The questions that the audience asked also let me reflect about myself. They’ve given me even more hope for the future - the fact that more and more people want to go down the film industry path and face whatever challenges they meet without fear, it’s a really amazing thing.

Do you have any plans for the future?

To me, I’m not sure how the future will be like, and I don’t want to just follow in someone else’s footsteps. I think the most important thing is what kind of attitude I’m meeting the future with. I’m just going to think about how I can make my characters more real, more natural, because as an actor, you’re responsible for the role, and for the film. And I think that’s enough.

Sometimes, in order to do what you love, you need to persevere, and not just come to terms with what you have in order to make someone else happy. In making a film, every aspect is closely linked together, and if a director tries too hard to please everyone, his vision will end up becoming very restricted. I’ve told this to Michael Mann once, while we were filming Public Enemies. I talked to him about some of the choices I had made for my role as Dillinger, mainly about the way he talked. I had some ideas that conflicted with his. Dillinger was from northern Indiana. We hadn’t found any recordings of his voice, but we did have one of his father’s voice. His father had a very typical southern accent, which was very different from how people from Chicago and New York spoke. The place I was born is only 70 miles away from Dillinger’s hometown. I’m from Kentucky, so I’m familiar with southern accents because I grew up speaking it. I felt that Dillinger should speak with a southern accent, but Michael Mann thought he should speak with a Chicago accent. So I told him, “Look, in this gang from Chicago, you’ve got two Australians, the guy playing Baby Face Nelson, Stephen Graham, is British, and Marion Cotillard is French. I grew up 70 miles away from Dillinger’s hometown! You got a bunch of foreign actors, and you’re saying my American accent isn’t real enough?”

Out of all the movies you’ve watched in 2018, which one is your favourite?

I really like documentaries, so I’ll recommend this one: Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story. I can’t remember if it’s a 2017 or 2018 film. It’s about an actress in the 1930s. She’s a legend. She invented the radio. The ship that one of her friends and their family was on, headed from Europe to America, was destroyed by the Germans. Her friend’s death made her start to think about how to deal a blow back, so she started her research into the radio. Her invention is the foundation of our bluetooth and wifi systems today. But the American government took away her patent without notice, and she tried to appeal, but didn’t get anything out of it. So she ended up spending the rest of her life just slowly aging away. This movie was particularly touching, because it was written like a lament for Hedy Lamarr, and it completely moved me. There was another film, not a 2018 one, it’s Embrace of the Serpent by Ciro Guerra, I really recommend this one.

Last question, you’re working with Ciro Guerra on a film, right? Can you tell us a little bit about it?

I think it’s definitely going to be a great film. It’s called Waiting for the Barbarians, and I think it’s really relevant to our reality today. The story is very intense. It’s about the history of a fictional empire, and the battle of good versus evil. We always say that the good will triumph over the evil, but sometimes in reality, it isn’t the case, and this story is told from this point of view. My character is an “intruder”. He says that the barbarians will do things to threaten everyone else, and threaten the entire empire, but it’s really not the case. But the story takes everything he’s come up with and turns it into reality. I’ll be working with Mark Rylance in this film. He’s a veteran in the industry that I particularly admire. I’m not sure when this film will be released, like how when I did Sweeney Todd, I could only imagine how Tim Burton would piece all the clips together to form the complete film. Sometimes I really, really want to see the complete movie early, but it’s not actually that easy. To an actor, this also pretty disastrous. Ciro Guerra has his own, very unique views and visions, and at the same time, he’s open to listening to our ideas about our characters. He’s a great director.

#johnny depp #wearewithyoujohnnydepp #johnnydeppismygrindelwald #johnnydeppisinnocent #tim burton #ed wood #edward scissorhands #public enemies #fbcog #fbtcog #fantastic beasts #gellert grindelwald #sweeny todd #arizona dream #waiting for the barbarians #from hell

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charlotteisnotthechosenone · 5 years

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Review: Legendary by Stephanie Garber

To provide a little bit of context for anyone who is not familiar with this series Legendary is the sequel to Caraval (released back in 2017) and is the second book in the Carval series. The conclusion, Finale, was released just the other week. As it is a sequel I am not going to delve too much into the synopsis but just to pre-warn everyone this review will contain spoilersfor events that take place during Legendary.

When I first heard about the Caraval series a lot of people were saying how they thought it would be perfect for fans of The Night Circus which naturally should have peaked my interest in it but it instead seemed to have the opposite effect! The Night Circus is a book I hold so dear that I didn’t want Caraval to be a lesser version of this story and for me to be constantly comparing the two. I didn’t want to dismiss the series completely though and a few months after it was released I reluctantly picked it up. While I do see where the comparisons to The Night Circus originate, particularly in terms of the setting, for me this is where the comparisons end. When you delve properly into both books they both have vastly different themes and plot lines and are both outstanding books in their own right. I will admit that my expectations for this series were set so incredibly low because of all these comparisons – how could anything, in my opinion, come close to what I feel for The Night Circus? I am now so incredibly glad that I put those worries to one side and gave Caraval a fair chance because I have fallen completely and utterly in love with this series.

I picked up Legendary so that I would hopefully finish it around the time that Finale was to be released (which I achieved!) and I think there is one quote from the book that perfectly sums up what I feel for this series – ‘Caraval can make you fall in love’. I am so totally and utterly absorbed in the magic of this universe and as I turn each page I feel like I am stood there next to Scarlett and Tella discovering the world alongside them. I feel that their awe is my awe and their fear my fear. There were so many jaw dropping twists weaved throughout the story which seemed to give Caraval itself a much darker feel that in had in the first book. The game held a sort of magical innocence the first time around - until the game was finally complete and all hell then let loose! But with Tella’s ulterior motives to free her mother and her bargain with the Prince of Hearts taking place before the game had even got properly underway I knew we were in for a much darker ride this time around.

Throughout the story the stakes and the importance of finding out the true identity of Legend increases, and without this knowledge – until right at the very end – I find that you, as a reader, can very much empathise with the difficulty Tella faces in what she deems to be an impossible decision. Every new bit of information seemed to bring with it more questions and more conflicts until it became totally impossible to see a way out of Tella’s bargain which would not wreak destruction on the world – hand the deck of destiny over to Legend and allow him to inherit the abilities of the Fates to become ridiculously powerful or hand Legend over to the Prince of Hearts and allow the Fates to be freed. Throughout the book this decision came back time and time again to the identity of Legend. If you are going to hand a very large amount of power over to one man then you need to know their intentions. I have been totally fascinated not just by the identity of Legend himself but I want to know his story, where he came from, how he got his power, where the hell did the idea of Caraval come from!

“Every good story needs a villain.But the best villains are the ones you secretly like.”

I don’t think I just like Legend I am absolutely enthralled by him. At the very start of the series he is seen as a sort of ‘god like’ figure and for me anyway I quickly just accepted that he was this important figurehead, presiding over the game and who would build his reputation solely on his illusiveness. But as you delve deeper into the world of Caraval, particularly in this second novel you realise that Legend’s secrets may be closer than you think. The penultimate pages leave you with a tease of these secrets, goading you to come back for more in the third and final book. While reading I often found myself getting completely swept up in the world, and to some extent, the innocence of Caraval and it is only when you stop and remember the number one rule of Caraval that you realise just how immersed you have become.

“You must remember it’s all a game”

It is this which provides the grounds for the impossible task Tella must face upon winning Caraval. Each and every one of Legend’s pawns each have a role to play in order to keep the game moving forward so how can you be totally sure absolutely anything they say/do is real? When playing Caraval first time around this was something Scarlett seemed to be able to keep very much at the forefront of her mind and as a reader you were very much able to separate the real from the make believe however throughout Legendary that line becomes very much blurred both for the characters and myself as a reader. I think this just one of the reasons which highlight the absolutely incredible writing throughout not only this novel, but its predecessor as well.

Legendary is one of the most spectacular books I have read in ages and this series is steadily becoming one of my all time favourites. As much as I want to dive straight into Finale I also want to eek this series out for as long as I can because I don’t want to have to finish exploring this world. One thing is for certain though it won’t remain on my TBR for very long!

#book #booklr #booknerdanonymous #new #recently uploaded #YA #YA novels #YA Books #ya fiction #young adult #young adult books #young adult book review #YA Book Review #bookreview #caraval #legendary #finale #stephanie garber

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aikainkauna · 6 years

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Fic mehm

This was shortish, so might as well post it here. Snurched from the lovely @trelobita .

-What is your total word count on AO3?

-1 421 808. That little?!? I thought I would've gone past the 2 million mark a long time ago. What with Connie whipping me on the way he does.

-How often do you write?

-When the right mood/inspiration comes, and when I'm healthy enough (both mentally and physically) to be in writing condition. Which is not often enough; I hate it when I do want to write, but brain fog and/or physical fatigue mean I can't keep my brain going or my body upright. That's mostly for fiction, though. I can type bloggity waffle like this, and could just about proofread a sex toy review today despite it being a brainfog/tireded day. The deadline for the review was today, so I did it under duress and must've left something out or fucked up some grammar as consequence. Finnish conjugations are hell when your memory is shot to pieces; English is much easier to write because you don't have to remember how to conjugate a word to denote it's in the past tense for a plural with a conditional towards place A, signifying inclusion. No, I'm not joking. Sauvallanikinkos? ("Also with my wand, too, maybe?")

-Do you have a routine for writing?

-My body isn't good with routines and schedules, so no. The only pattern I have is to try and get 1000 words done at least and then to email myself the latest draft after I've finished writing.

-What are your favourite tropes?

-Have you got a month? (This question foolishly asked about your favourite kinks and tropes and pairing types all in the same question, BTW, so I split it up into three questions, because... c'mon.)

Tropes:

-Flawed characters who are still somehow understandable and appealing; not the typical Asshole Protagonist or antihero thing so much but more of an... well, I guess it's just good characterisation I prefer, in the end. Not that kind of squickily obvious macho power fantasy sold as "grittiness" just for the sake of being an asshole (funnily enough, that kind of crap usually comes from the kinds of people who have too much privilege in the first place). So, yeah, good characterisation that's still got some shreds of humanity left is my jam.

-Telepathic lovers. Exactly because it hurts so much when the person who's supposed to love you the most and to understand you the best doesn't, and vice versa. So that's a big RL trauma and squick I prefer to fix, because in fic, I CAN.

-That's a major one, actually. Fix-its not so much on a plot level but on a human level. Especially sexism/gender bullshit-breaking fixes. Fix-its get a bad rap, but that kind of thing, just like the bashing of romance and fanfic, sets off my "ah, this wouldn't be the devaluing of something considered empathic and female/feminine again, now would it?" alarms.

-This overlaps with the pairing thingy, but the Depraved Bisexual is my favourite character type to write. All the Connies, Tennant!Peter Vincent, Captain Renault, Zainab, Laura, etc... YES.

-Male character gives up some masculine privilege he doesn't fancy anyway for the sake of love and empathy/female character gives up stereotypical female things she doesn't fancy anyway in order to be herself and free herself as much as she can from society's chains. Give Torsten all the pwetty dwezzez he wants and for Falcon!Yassamin to remain childfree, dammit!

-Man cuddles and medicates woman during her period and actually empathises/feels how awful it is. As I was saying about the fix-its...

-Funny banter, even if I can't write it as hilariously as I'd want to.

Favourite kinks?

-Poetic prose and Romanticism. It's word porn or nothing, baby.

-Historical detail, accuracy preferred but depends on how the story wants to go (the Barmakids DON'T get butchered horribly by Harun al-Rashid in 803, TYVM).

-Anal! That's almost too obvious to mention.

-Androgynous, genderbending, sex-bending, femme men. Why do you think Connie is the love of my life?

-Lots of arousal-drippage.

-Some way for the bottom to see themselves being banged. Mirrors or telepathy or magic or video camera projecting it before their eyes or whatever. Unfff.

-Orgasms. Always orgasms to complete satisfaction. Orgasm denying or writing it badly or so vaguely that characters/readers can't get any catharsis/release for the arousal is a huge squick. That's a hard limit. Fuck characters who tease and don't let someone get off.

-Psychological/emotional depth. That's such a no-brainer it shouldn't even be necessary to mention (although in these days, it seems to be, because apparently wanting that is now a repressed sexual minority instead of normal human, especially female, sexuality. Oh, fuck off). Yeah, these memes do bring out the pet peeves about internalised misogyny, don't they? Especially the sort that manifests itself in sputter-inducing ignorance. Even my medieval characters and their somewhat dated and essentialist ideas of sex and gender are ahead of Tumblr in the very basics, FFS.

-BDSM that's based very much on extreme care and healing, the sort that uses the intense sexual activities/sensory overload as a kind of way to heal the sub's anxieties and to help the sub let go, achieve catharsis and release. And for the top's love to be the guiding, ravishing, then healing and comforting force that contains the sub and the sub's anxieties in a fiercely loving and protective way and absolutely, so that not a drop spills over. So, yep, BDSM as therapy is my kink in both RL and in fic. Not so much a desire to humiliate or to be humiliated, but on the contrary, to value and to honour the other half. The top finds strength and validation through being the healer, through their power being able to do something good (instead of tearing someone down and having power over them through that). Yes, I know that's not everyone's idea of BDSM, but it's mine and that's what you'll get if it's a healthy relationship I'm trying to portray. (The Barrings and Zainab and Fadl don't have the healthiest ideas of sex, anyhow; Jaffar/Pwinzezz usually do.)

And I'm leaving out so many. You only have to look at my Ao3 pages to see the recurring themes:p

Favourite pairing types?

-Experienced Depraved Bisexual Character/Less Experienced and/or Repressed Character, GIMMIE. Fucking love that shit.

-Similar: Older, More Experienced Man/Younger, Horny Woman.

-Horny couple, usually M/F, seduce someone into a threesome. The Rosesverse and Devilry are full of this, so might as well admit it.

-Do you have a favourite fic of yours?

-I do have a soft spot for the first two fics in the Falconverse. As if you didn't all know that already! They do have some noticeable flaws here and there, especially the first one (I still insist that weird lube choice was HIS and not mine; I do know better and yelled at him at the time), but they still contain my deepest and most profound writing both erotically (and I mean that in the widest sense of the word, encompassing all things Love) and spiritually and character-wise. Defy Not The Stars also turned out better than I expected, considering I had never attempted so much plot and a traditional historical romance novel before. But I guess that Roses, what with its length, has allowed me to explore more aspects of the characters and their lives than anything else I've written. And of course, considering Devilry is my most-read saga ever, I do have a soft spot for that pile-up of a car crash. If only for the sheer intensity of the ride; I was just thinking yesterday how it really was aghori sadhana done through writing. Meditating in a graveyard is for wimps; try spending months in Torsten Barring's fragrant boypussy.

-Your fic with the most kudos?

To no one's surprise, Because The World Belongs To The Devil, at 234 kudos.

-Anything you don’t like about your writing?

-I suck at pacing sometimes. The sex scenes tend to run overlong if I write them in several sessions instead of just one go. It's not that the characters want to try different sex acts and shag more than once during a night, but more that the tension is spread out unevenly ("JFC, why did they change position again? I want them to just fucking come already, damnit!") This is obviously a result of how many things *I* see in my mind's eye during a wank; it's always more of a clipshow of different sex acts and pairings and orientations than one straightforward scenario. I'll be more mindful of that in the future and have been watching out for it in the past few fics already; I don't think the shags in The Guardians of Samarkand overran, for example.

-And sometimes my kinks get too obvious and repetitive for me, too, the way any porn gets tedious and repetitive. But on the other hand, I know very well that fanfic *is* about us imposing our kinks on our darlings, no matter how much we may go on about our dedication to characterisation and such. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: what's key is to get away with your kinks *but* in such a way that they can also engage the reader and that they become interesting and enjoyable not just for you, but for the readers, too. And you need good characterisation for that, and it's a really delicate balance to juggle your kinks and believable characterisation.

-Something you *do* like about your writing?

-I can write immersively and deeply and engage all the senses (sight, touch, scent...) in rich detail, as well as go deeply and profoundly into the emotions. And write some fucking hot porn ;) Those are the things I've had praise for, at least. Maybe my spiritual bits aren't as relatable or something, because people hardly ever remark on those (interestingly, my mum is the only one to have taken up those bits! But I skim over the sex scenes when I read the fics to her, so she only gets the gen). Or then it's the fact that most of the time it's Thief of Bagdad fic, and thus in an Islamic context, and most readers aren't familiar enough with, say, Sufism, to feel like they're qualified to comment without making arses out of themselves. But of course I like my spiritual bits; I'm an ex-religions major!

This had a taggity thing at the end, but I hate doing those because it always puts pressure on them even if you say they don't have to (come, now. The pressure is there, the moment you mention someone by name). I don't own the meme or you, so, as always: do what thou wilt.

#writing #meme #meta #personal #i guess #ao3 #fic

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metamodel · 5 years

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Death and Revival Revisited

The End is the Beginning is the End, as Billy Corgan suggests on the soundtrack to (what I feel is the unjustly maligned) Batman Forever. I had way too much “decline and rebirth” material to fit in the last issue, so I'll continue to follow that seam for a while. (You'll find that downturn and revival is a recurring, uh, theme here at Recurring Thing.)

After returning to design after a year away, I find that Everything Now Looks Very Strange Indeed™. This is another one of my updates on restarting a creative practice (which I’m calling Studio Thing), plus a dose of cultural and design commentary.

(If someone’s forwarded this thing to you in the hope you’ll find it interesting, you can subscribe here to secure my everlasting love. And please, pass it on if you think it might be of interest to anyone.)

🔂🧟‍♀️ The eternal return of zombie-centred design

Some follow-up on that evergreen topic of what comes after human-centred design: at TEDxSydney I delightedly crossed paths with fellow innovation veteran Carli Leimbach, who’s been thinking about “earth-centred design” as a corrective to anthropocentrism. I’m intrigued. She’s run an initial workshop with some like-minded people, and I’ll keep tabs on her progress.

In other more-than-human news, Anne Galloway recently posted her talk at IndiaHCI 2018, “Designing with, and for, the more-than human”. I’ve been following Anne’s work for a long time, from when the Internet of Things was called “pervasive computing”, to her more recent work in Aotearoa about sheep. For Anne, more-than-human-centred design means:

“Acknowledging that human beings are not the be-all and end-all.”

“Accepting our vulnerability, acting with humility and valuing our interdependency.”

“Living with the world, not against it.”

Recommended. Also interesting is the “more-than-human design research roll-call” she recently initiated on Twitter. Follow this link if you want to get in touch with people who are active on the topic, at least in academic circles — some familiar names pop up.

🥪🤮 The alternative to curiosity is… hard to swallow

I’ve just wrapped up my NEIS coursework, and to celebrate I want to recount a story about my teacher Jason that also demonstrates why I’m so glad I decided to sign up for this microbusiness training and mentoring program.

A few years ago, Jason was the director of training at a large catering company which had a significant focus on healthcare facilities such as nursing homes. To get a feel for the training needs of his workforce, he decided to tour their workplaces, immersing himself in their day-to-day work. (His CEO was frankly a little surprised by this — as is the case with many sectors, it was uncommon for management to visit the frontlines. In fact, when he urged the Head of Care at one aged care facility to tour the frontlines of her own operation with him, the staff didn't recognise her, and assumed she was a visitor. Yikes.)

While working with kitchen staff in one nursing home, Jason noticed that one resident, a lone old woman, always ordered the same dish: a single salmon sandwich. Intrigued, he asked the staff about this, and they shrugged. “She must like it,” was the reply.

The next day, Jason decided to have lunch with her. After a pleasant meal together, he couldn't contain himself.

“Betty, I've noticed that you always order a salmon sandwich,” he said. (I love that he still remembers her name.) “I don't mean to pry, but, uh, why is that?”

She looked at him for a second.

“It's because I'm afraid,” Betty whispered.

It turned out that Betty had dysphagia — a problem with her pharynx or oesophagus that made swallowing difficult — and was terrified that if she admitted this, she would be placed on the puréed diet of an invalid. Over time, she'd gotten used to salmon sandwiches as the one meal she knew could swallow without issue. And because of her fears, that's all she ate.

“Betty, how long have you been eating salmon sandwiches as your only meal?” Jason asked.

“Two years.” So basically, a resident had been potentially malnourishing herself for years because the systems around providing and talking about choices under this regime of care were broken.

After setting her up with a more appropriate (and still chewable) set of diet choices, Jason decided to consult with dysphagia experts and patients like Betty to create a unit of training about these kinds of patient needs, aimed at preventing such system breakdowns. Everyone at their client nursing homes could attend. The aged-care nurses who came were flummoxed, telling their Head of Care, “Why are we only hearing about these kinds of problems and solutions from the catering guy? No offence, Jason, but seriously, WTF?”

In the midst of such regimented systems, where industrial efficiency often erases the possibility of supple action or even humane behaviour, I’m grateful that compassionate minds like Jason’s exist. When curiosity seems like it's at death’s door, people like him arrive to revive it.

The reveal: I was initially pretty skeptical about doing the course under Jason because before classes started, I'd gleaned that he’d spent most of his career managing McDonald’s restaurants. It turns out that my fears were misplaced, because I got a lot out of his teaching. While I really don't share his interest in large food systems, either in experiencing them as a customer nor in their general industrial impact on the world, I'm glad there are people like him enmeshed in such forbidding places, trying to make them more sensitive, responsive and just.

👹👽 First and Last Men

When’s the right time to write a requiem for the human species?

The other night I had the pleasure of experiencing the late Jóhann Jóhannsson’s First and Last Men, a live symphonic and film adaptation of Olaf Stapledon’s seminal 1930 sf novel of future history, narrated by that alien god who lives among us, Tilda Swinton.

(I only knew the Stapledon novel by reputation, and Jóhannsson from his film scores, but was recently prodded to see this production when I watched Philip Kaufmann’s excellent 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In a passing exchange that you’d easily miss, two characters chat about their reading habits, and Stapledon’s work is mentioned. More on this later. Intrigued, I pounced on the Jóhannsson version when it arrived in Sydney as part of the Vivid Festival.)

Jóhannsson only uses the last part of Stapledon’s immense story, which starts in the 20th Century and spans the next two billion years. This focus on the last of eighteen successive human species summons a particularly elegiac mood. Responding to the eventual extinction of life on Earth, humans have genetically re-engineered themselves for life on Neptune, and it is these highly advanced Neptunian humans, astonishing in their animalistic diversity, 20-year pregnancies and 2000-year childhoods, for whom Swinton speaks with such characteristically icy dignity. (My god: that voice.)

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

[/caption]

As the camera slowly pans across a series of Yugoslavian Stalinist monuments (you probably know the ones — they recently came into vogue online in the last wave of ruin porn), we cycle through glassy sheets of what anticipatory mourning sounds like: slow arpeggios, and vocals that alternate between the wonderful anonymity of wind instruments and the mewling of cats. (I want to celebrate the two vocalists precisely because they didn’t call attention to themselves: they were exemplary orchestral players.)

The mood is well-earned: despite all the ingenuity and adaptability of these far-future humans, we discover that a cascade of supernovas has triggered our final extinction. Manned interstellar spaceflight — that mainstay of most sf — is revealed as madness, reducing humans at their technological, technological and ethical peak to nihilistic despair. And as the ever-warming climate of Neptune slowly wreaks havoc on their awesome civilisation, the only thing these “Last Men” can do is make telepathic contact with the past — the conceit that enables Tilda Swinton to narrate the tale for us — as they wait for the end.

It’s uncanny how much this story from 1930 resonates with our slowly unfolding climate change disaster. And now that the worst seems inevitable, the intense melancholy of Jóhannsson’s First and Last Men feels fitting — a necessary alternative to either denial or relentless panic. But beyond this, I’m impressed by the supreme ambivalence of Jóhannsson’s take. He makes the Last Men as dignified and magisterial as they are aloof, and their vaunted supremacy is a mixture of authentic maturity and our own sneaking suspicion that in their immortal, genetically-designed perfection, these final humans have lost the capacity to take unexpected action. It’s profoundly sympathetic.

This suggests to me that having a post-human-centred design orientation is very far from being misanthropic. Perhaps we just need to stop pretending that empathy is ever completely possible — who can truly pretend to empathise with a post-human species two billion years in the future, let alone our strange and often unknowable fellow lifeforms, be they vertebrate, invertebrate or botanical? — and instead extend a generalised (and non-paternalistic) sympathy to our neighbours and ourselves. Sympathy is okay. Yes, our situation can be pegged to a combination of pathetic ignorance, shortsighted greed and genuine moustache-twirling villainy. And we are not the centre of the universe. But like others, we are still a species that deserves a dignified mourning.

🦸🏼‍♂️☄️ Can only a God save us now?

Stapledon’s 1930s future-superhumans continue to haunt me.

When I was teaching art to six-year-olds last year, I did a unit on comics, tracing the emergence of costumed superheroes to the ’30s.

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No comment.[/caption]

“Why do you think superheroes appeared then?” I asked the class. “What was going on?”

“IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WORLD WARS!” said one student. “MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WERE DYING!” called out another. “My great-grandmother met my great-grandfather in a Spanish flu hospital during World War I!” came another, very-relevant non-sequitur. (It’s easily forgotten that the 1918 influenza outbreak killed at least 50 million people. And yes, these kids are amazing, and publicly funded education is the fucking best.)

Out of the despair of modernity — mechanised mass slaughter and earth shattering pandemics enabled by the globalisation of capitalist industry — we cried out for salvation. Yes, there are many reactionary underpinnings to our superheroic imaginaries (the above image is just the most obvious), but their basis in real trauma behooves us to at least be sympathetic their emergence. We need to take fantasies of supermen seriously (and critically), rather than simply dismissing them as misguided or ridiculous because they’re rather obviously dodgy as fuck. And similarly, we need to take populism seriously.

Make no mistake: while I’m fascinated by downturn and revival narratives, they’re more often than not pretty terrifying: “Make America Great Again” is the clearest contemporary example. And when famed philosopher Martin Heidegger looked forward to “a spiritual renewal of life in its entirety,” he was talking about Adolf Hitler. Don’t look away. Stay and fight in the mud.

🚀🌎 Refuge

Besides talking to the past, the final act of desperation of the Last Men was to transmit proto-organic matter into space, designing it to reassemble on favourable ground in a direction towards intelligent life. (Listening to Tilda Swinton intone gravely about “the Great Dissemination” was just too deliciously weird.) Of course, this is the plot of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the story that prompted me to explore First and Last Men in the first place: we are being invaded by relentless pod-people, growing out of seeds assembled from “living threads that float on the stellar winds.”

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

Not just taking our jobs — they're stealing Jeff Goldblum's life![/caption]

Too delicious.

Yours in ambivalence,

Ben

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yabookprize · 7 years

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The political power of YA

YA Shot intern Lucie Deacon explains how reading got her interested in politics:

“I hate to start on a downer, but given the current state of world affairs, it’s necessary. Sorry.

The world is plagued by political turbulence and uncertainty. Our newsfeeds are filled with a constant barrage of negativity, bias and fake news. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably doing your absolute best to ignore all of the above by immersing yourself in a good book, ideally one that promises to take you far away from the real world and all its problems. Yet it was exactly my ‘bury your head in a book and pretend it isn’t happening’ approach that sparked an interest in politics that I ever expected.

I mean, politics is for middle-aged, middle-class, white men, right? Full of monotonous, jargon-riddled speeches, it’s hardly surprising that so few young people are keen to get involved.

Over the last year, celebrities, bloggers and YouTubers aplenty have used their platforms to encourage us to vote and it worked. According to the BBC, voting turnout amongst 18 to 24-year-olds increased from 43% in 2015 to 54% in 2017. Whilst that’s amazing, it’s not enough. We’ve got to foster an interest in politics in young people that goes beyond ticking a box on a ballot paper every five years.

That’s where books come in – not just heavy textbooks explaining the ins and outs of political theory, but YA fiction.

Hold on, you ask, how can reading non-political books make me interested in politics?

Books, unlike politicians, don’t spew out empty slogans, making us tune out rather than tune in. Instead, YA writers tackle issues that are directly relevant to young people: tuition fees and unpaid internships, increasing house prices, social inequality and so on.

More importantly, writers do this in a way that appeals to our humanity. Chris Riddell, the former children’s laureate, has described books as ‘empathy engines’. Books make us step out of our personal experiences. As Riddell says: “they allow us to see through the eyes of others. By transporting us to other worlds, they help us to understand our own.”

This idea has been supported by studies at the New School for Social Research, which shows that “the empathy we feel for characters wires our brains to have the same sensitivity towards other people”. This research also suggests that fiction needs to be directly linked to the real world to be maximally effective in building empathy.

Writers have the power to wake us from our political apathy. For instance, after reading The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, a novel inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, I couldn’t help but be saddened and enraged by police brutality towards black Americans. The story of Khalil, an unarmed black teenager shot by a police officer, opened my eyes to aspects of white privilege that I had never considered before.

Reading The Hate U Give made race issues real to me in a new way. It made me realise that they are not something of the past, but a reality that many people still face every day. Without patronising me or preaching, Thomas convinced me that I have a responsibility to get involved, just as much as the people in power and those directly affected do. I tweeted, signed petitions and joined campaigns because of that book.

When we read, we imagine ourselves in the place of the characters, empathising with their problems. By making the political personal, such stories are often uncomfortable, yet their power to provoke an emotional response is crucial in getting us to think critically about our society. We need to change not just how minority groups are treated, but how politics works too. If we want to see real, positive change that works for everybody, then our generation must intervene, be it by campaigning, blogging, tweeting, or other means. Let’s make our voices heard!

We need a new generation of writers to get involved too, especially YA writers who are politically engaged and offer fresh perspectives on what’s going on. We need them to talk publicly about their work with young readers and discuss not only what drives them to write about political issues but how we too can get involved.

This is why YA Shot’s outreach programme, offering free writing workshops and talks to library-school partnerships, is invaluable. The 2018 festival programme is focused on human rights, so if you’re eager to learn more about what you can do to help change the world (or at least a little bit of it), join us on 14th April 2018.”

Lucie Deacon is in her third year of a French and Art History degree at Durham University. She is also working as a social media intern in a chateau in the Loire Valley and in her spare time she volunteers at book festivals. Lucy researched and wrote this article as part of her first year internship with YA Shot, with detailed advice and input from her second-year peer-mentor, Elinor Clark.

#YA #politics #books #The Hate U Give #ya books #Black Lives Matter #Angie Thomas

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lunar-stories-blog · 7 years

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Tara Tan: “I really admire strong women”

Softspoken with a refreshing sense of humour, Tara Tan is a junior who studies acting in the Atlantic Acting School, a studio within Tisch. We met up in Gramercy and chatted about her mixed Thai/Chinese-Singaporean background, the vast world of acting studios and theatre (something I personally know nothing about), and the strong women in her life that she looks up to. -Amy

Hi, my name’s Tara Tan. I’m originally from Singapore, that’s where I grew up, but I was born in Bangkok. I’m mixed race - I’m half Chinese-Singaporean and half Thai.

I started out in freshman year doing liberal arts, but in my sophomore year I transferred into Tisch for drama cause I really missed it. I specialise in acting. I came from an arts background, I went to an arts high school in Singapore, and it just feels like something that I’m familiar and comfortable with.

Do you find that there are a lot of Asian people in acting?

No… well, I think in recent years there’s been a growing number in the States, but in Tisch… I mean there are a few but obviously not a lot. In my class, my studio, I am one of only two Asian girls in my grade. (Amy: How big is the studio?) In my year there are about maybe 75 people.

How did you get into drama and acting?

I think when I was young I just liked to mess around and just play make belief. I was a very obnoxious child so I would be very yappy and sing a lot, and dress up a lot, as like a character, and I liked to host little mini plays in my room and invite my parents and grandparents. I watched a lot of TV and I was like, oh I wanna do that, that seems fun.

So my Mom, picking up on my interest, she signed me up for drama classes when I was seven, so I did that on the weekends, just for fun. And then in 2008 Singapore opened its first pre-tertiary arts school. Pre-tertiary is like high school. So my parents helped me audition for that. I didn’t really know what was going on. I got in and spent my high school years there, my growing up years there, and I was just really immersed in theatre.

So your parents always supported you?

They always encouraged me to do what made me happy, they’re really supportive. I think they believe that if I do what I like then I will be happy and find success in that, rather than dreading what I do.

What was it like growing up mixed-race in Singapore?

I always felt like I relished in the idea of being mixed-race. I was really proud of it. I guess it made me feel unique and special and that I had two homes. Because I didn’t live in Thailand I really yearned to know more about that culture. So there was a point in time where I was really into Thai culture - listening to Thai music, and movies, and yeah, I just really wanted to get a hold of both my cultures.

Do you feel a strong connection to Thai culture?

Yeah, I really do. Cause my Mom and I are really close, and I feel like connecting with that part of me brings me closer to my Mom, and it is a strong part of who I am.

Do you speak Thai?

Mhm! Not too well, but fluent enough.

What about your Singaporean Chinese side?

Singaporean Chinese side... I speak English at home with my Dad. We’re not very Chinese Chinese. Sometimes I feel like I’m not as in touch with my Chinese side because being Chinese from China is really different from being Chinese in Singapore.

Singapore is a melting pot of places, a bit like New York City. It’s very progressive. So I would feel like my family values - some of it is Chinese, and some of it is very Western, too. I feel like my Chinese side is like a hybrid Chinese, like a Singaporean Chinese.

In New York and at NYU do you find yourself in a Thai community, or a Singaporean community, or an Asian community?

I mix myself in all of those social groups. I have Thai friends that I hang out with, and I also go to Singaporean events. I have Singaporean friends that I hang out with. But funnily enough, my main group of friends are Asian but they’re Asian American.

Do you find that your experience is very different from theirs?

Yeah, it really is. Different in the sense that I did not grow up in America and a lot of them are first gen American, and I mean, I can empathise with their stories, but I don’t think it’s something that I’ve experienced. I never experienced that struggle of maybe not having parents that can speak English as well as me, you know?

What’s a daily schedule like for you in Tisch?

Studio is like three days a week, from 8:30am to 6:30pm. But sometimes it ends earlier, sometimes we start at like 10:00 and end at like 4:30, but it’s a significant amount of your day and time - and effort. And sometimes you have to rehearse on the weekends too, and outside of class, so it sucks up a lot of your life (laughs).

When you audition for Tisch, I have a theory that it’s like the Harry Potter sorting hat.

Based on your audition they see which studio you best fit in. And there are a bunch of them. There’s like Experimental Theatre Wing, which is like more physical theatre-based, very exciting, and then there’s the Meisner Acting School, and mine, Atlantic, where they have different techniques and approaches.

Is it like the same thing everyday, or do you work on a production at a time, or...?

So in my first year at Atlantic, they didn’t let us perform in a production for the public. So we spent the whole entire year just training and getting the technique in our bodies. But in the second year, they do have showcases and productions. Usually we work on scenes in class for weeks and weeks, showcase it in class, and then we get feedback, and then we go back and work on it. So that’s like, our main projects. But this semester my main project was - we were given a play to work on, and we’re supposed to select texts, extracts from a play, and perform a throughline in class.

Do you do plays mostly, or musical theatre, or…?

Not musical theatre cause my studio doesn’t specialise in that. Mostly straight plays, but last semester I took a film class within my studio and we could only select scenes from films.

What do you prefer?

I’m definitely definitely more comfortable with theatre. But I’m really really interested in film as well.

Do you go out to a lot of auditions?

Mainly the ones within Tisch. But there are a lot of auditions in the city, too. There are like online platforms for actors that you can check out. There’s one called Backstage, which a lot of my friends are on.

After graduation, do you see yourself staying in the city?

Yeah, I really really wanna stay in the city and find work.

What’s your dream job or production?

I definitely wanna do something creative, and even if I don’t end up acting or in theatre, that’s fine with me, because what I learned at art school and acting school is really valuable. I would love to join a theatre company, or like an arts institution of sorts, and just start from there. Yeah. But definitely something creative.

Since you grew up in Singapore, you probably grew up seeing a lot of Asian faces in the media. How has that changed for you in New York, in the States?

That’s funny, I didn’t really watch a lot of Singaporean TV. Like actually, the TV that I saw was what I see now, in America. That hasn’t changed. Western media, American media is far reaching. I mean, I would see Asian-American faces pop up on my TV screen, but I don’t think much has changed. I do see that there is a call for more diversity, for sure, and more visibility for these ethnicities and races because their stories matter and they do exist, you know, like we’ve been here forever. So shows like Fresh Off the Boat, that was something I was not familiar with back home in Singapore.

What are your thoughts on that book, “Crazy Rich Asians,” that’s being turned into a movie?

I think that it’s a step in the right direction. I see on Facebook that people seem really excited about it, but people are also really mixed about it. Like, they’re talking about how it might not actually be that progressive, they’re still portraying stereotypes on TV. But I think it’s something exciting, and I think we just need to not be so judgemental all the time and just celebrate that we’re having an all-Asian Hollywood movie, like that’s something to be excited about. And if it’s something that doesn’t please you when you watch it, then new art’s gonna come out, something better. You can always build upon what has already been brought to the table.

Do you have any role models or influences?

I’m actually mostly influenced by the people around me, like people I know personally. I’m really influenced by my female friends, my Mother, my aunt, and I really admire strong women.

To you, what’s a strong woman?

A woman who knows how to have fun, is put together, but is mindful and wise and doesn’t let life get her down, or anything get her down.

She lives for her own values, and she does what is right, not because a man tells her to do something. A woman who can be alone and be happy, but she can have a guy if she wants, or a girl, it doesn’t matter.

Yeah, that’s a strong woman (laughs).

You can reach Tara by email at taratanjm(@)gmail.com or find her on Facebook.

Interview by Amy Ni.

#interview #tara tan #drama #acting #theatre

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weregonnaneedabiggerblog-blog1 · 7 years

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The Perfect Way to Watch a Movie

I often wonder if the way I’m watching this movie is the right way to do so:

If I’m in the theatre and I have to go to the toilet, did I miss an important scene?

If someone talks during an important plot point, have I truly experienced the movie by missing out on that moment?

If someone walks past the screen, has the effort these filmmakers have made to immerse me in that world been shattered? Is it my fault or the guy that got in my way? Should I be focusing on that or the revelation that Johnny was the guy that ratted them out the whole time?

Do I have too much on my mind at-the-moment to fully immerse myself in the first place?

Am I seeing this at the right age? Should I wait till I’ve at least went through secondary school or should I have seen this when I was seven? But I wasn’t seven years old when “Minions” came out, so am I missing the nuance details in the script the filmmakers put in exclusively for a child’s mind to spot? Probably not, no.

In many respects, there is more than likely a key calculated perfect way to experience a movie of a certain length, target audience and genre. But honestly, that’s just bringing structure into art. And who the hell wants that?

Movies can be a fun, mass-appealing piece of harmless entertainment; something the whole family can enjoy. But at the same time, they can be on the further side of that pole; acting as captures of what imagination we humans may have with our differing life experiences, and how that makes us view the world. Movies aren’t supposed to be one thing; they weren’t created to be as easily analysed as this essay title would suggest they should be, and that’s often the main issue when the masses try to interpret the idea of the film medium as-a-whole. Often if we feel this movie didn’t fit our requirement of entertainment, then it’s a failure. It’s a bad movie. A majority of the mainstream movie consumers would agree with that notion. Others on-the-other-hand feel that movies should be something else; something that inspires us or makes us question our world. And the main issue of interpretation is when people want a film to just be one extreme or another. To say all movies should be mindless nonsense with no character development, themes or messages is the equivalent of wishing for a movie that is nothing but moving colours, and to say films should have no entertainment value and only be serious analyses of the human condition is, again, bringing structure into art. Movies can and should be able to be entertaining. Movies should also have depth. And when the planets align every now-and-again, we get that special movie that can appeal to both the mindless drones and the pretentious dickheads.

But what makes movies so special, like music, is variety; variety in stories, setting, characters, cast, filmmakers, camera angles, set design, costumes, music etc. And whether these elements come together to form something explorative or adventurous, it still is artistic. The ability to empathise with a fictional character portrayed by a real human being is one of the greatest achievements of an artistic vision, with their worlds and ours only being blocked by a projector or TV screen.

The state of connection movies bring out of us is also an amazing achievement. When I sit down in a theatre, about 90% of the people there I either don’t know and/or never will know. But when we all sit there, there is a true communal experience occurring; we laugh at the guy screwing up his first date due to his awkwardness and we later sit and sympathise with him as he wonders if he will be forever alone. And it’s that mixture of entertainment and commitment to a character that makes the idea of a movie being one thing and not another totally pointless.

Back on topic however, I’m saddened to go on movie news websites and to read how the popularity of more expensive, private movie theatres with 4D rumbling chairs that let you hold your 3 course meal are being seen as a just alternative to just sitting down in your theatre seat and trying to enjoy what is put infront of you. Although, maybe that’s how you would prefer to experience the new Star Wars’ space battle as your rocked violently in your seat, or maybe the idea of communally watching a movie bothers you; the fact that the guy next to you I constantly text with notifications turned on. Maybe you hate the restraint of not being able to pause this 3 ½ epic to go and check if your mum’s messaged you back about it being okay to stay out at the pub an extra hour past your beddy-byes. Why not hear valid criticism as the guy in the back row boos at an unprecedented turn-of-events. Why don’t enjoy the bellowing laughter as the audience watches Will Ferrell mistake the glass door for being not there. Why have other people interrupt your immersion, the way you want it?

There is no right or wrong way to interpret a movie or even experiencing said movie for that matter. Do you watch this movie now on opening weekend with a packed audience, or do you watch it a few years from now on Netflix? The 1939 adaptation of “The Wizard of Oz” is often cited as the most viewed and most popular movie of all time, but I didn’t experience it during the pre-WWII tensions of its era, I watched it one Christmas in the mid-2000s and still found enjoyment out of it. I never experienced the context in which that movie was released. Maybe it was better than I didn’t, and just enjoyed the movie on its own merits. Over the years, several movies like “The Big Lebowski” and “The Iron Giant” have become more popular after the context of their release, and are still beloved despite the lack of such context as to why this was made at that time. At-the-same time, there are countless superhero movies being released at-the-moment that have context to release in the current popularity and resulting saturation of that sub-genre.

In conclusion, perhaps there is no non-scientific, white-knuckled calculation of the perfect way to experience a movie, just like there’s no perfect way to interpret a movie. Someone interpreting Fantastic Mr Fox as the weakest of Wes Anderson’s filmography is no more subjective than me choosing to view Ghostbusters on Blu Ray over VHS. The title of this essay is intentional; it’s to show how there is no perfect way to experience a film, or how to even get into movies in the first place, it’s something that occurs. Someone telling you how to experience art is someone who doesn’t understand art; someone who thinks everything in life should be broken down, sterilized and simplified, until we’re no different than the mindless drones in Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”

Attempting to watch every perfect movie ever made is an impossible feat I recently realised I will never accomplish, so to me I feel I need to be open to as much cinema now and in the future as possible. After all, I live in the era of blockbusters, and box office seats sell out fast these days.

#discussion #movies #thinkpiece #film #essay #personal essay

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acidflash · 6 years

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The Secret DJ

This is the third book in succession I’ve read about the phenomenon we love and know as Electronic Music. I think that’s what to call it anyway. As time goes on I like using that term less and less as “EDM” becomes more and more infused into our everyday lives. Either way, whatever you want to call it each book has been significantly different in its approach to this intoxicating lifestyle but equally enjoyable. “Ninety” by Johnny Proctor was a foray into fiction and Acid House, “Sonic Youth Slept On My Floor” by Dave Haslam was a memoir that heavily focused on his DJing and now we have “The Secret DJ”, a memoir of sorts but it reads like fiction with its larger than life escapades! I loved it and would highly recommend reading this to anyone. I’m not sure this is particularly a “book review” per se but I talk about it and what parts of it mean to me.

The Secret DJ is a series of tales from a now fifty something DJ who was one of the original “Superstar DJs”. He takes us on a non-chronological journey of debauchery, realism, philosophy, narcotics, comedy and education. Several characters play a supporting role, none more so than Tour Manager his, well tour manager obviously. Except he sounds like the most useless tour manager ever and is saved by the fact he sounds like the most hilarious wingman you can imagine. Possibly not for The Secret DJ but certainly for the reader.

The book is written obviously from an anonymous source and focuses purely on life on the road as a working DJ, apart from a couple of life-changing events. There’s no childhood stories that give you hints of the life to come, there’s no background as to how he became a DJ, it’s just straight in with the mostly comical japery and what it’s like to endure/enjoy that lifestyle that is so revered by many, but so few could ever withstand.

As someone who started DJing back when few people did I can empathise with so much of the book. I’m around 10 years younger so although I was part of the first army of “bedroom DJs”, there were far fewer of us than there are nowadays and there was no sync button. Much of his outlook is “I’m an old bastard and it was much better in my day”, and as much as I try not to be, my outlook is not too dissimilar. Of course it’s wrong, there are undoubtedly things that were much better “back in the day” but there are also better things nowadays. Sometimes the same thing is why it was better then/now. We had no camera phones so everyone just got on enjoying themselves, but few of us have much of a record of the great times we had bar what we can remember, which let’s face it isn’t a lot. Clubbers nowadays can keep physical memories of these great times. I’d prefer to just enjoy myself and not worry or cringe about what people I’ve been out with might slap on social media but there are certainly pros and cons to both sides of that argument. Likewise how organised things are these days. There was so much adventure 20/30 years ago, you didn’t quite know if things would happen or not, there wasn’t always security, chill out zones etc. so there’s better safety nowadays. Whatever way you look at it there were good things and bad things about the different eras.

Anyway I digress. There were many passages I’d like to highlight but I don’t want to give too much away. Nothing more annoying than reviews or previews that give away all the “best bits”. Instead I’ll tell you the ones that resonated with me the most. You can read it yourself for the funny parts, of which there are many.

His description of how the art comes more naturally the less you try for instance - “Have you ever tried too hard at something physical, a sport or a game? Have you noticed how you are never better at it when you’re not trying at all? It’s that.” Bang on. Once you can do something on autopilot then you’re sorted. Most of us probably drive a car without thinking about what we’re doing most of the time, it’s like that. Once you start thinking whether your clutch/accelerator co-ordination is correct then you suddenly start changing gear poorly.

Likewise, mistakes. We’re human. Be immediately suspicious of anyone who appears to be mixing “perfectly”. Little mistakes show up reality. Technology is doing most, or all, of the work if absolutely nothing is going wrong. I almost always used the crossfader to mix, and once I got so deep into a mix where I was using the channel slider I forgot the crossfader was still stuck in the middle. The record eventually ran out when I’d faded it out almost perfectly, I slammed the channel slider back up triumphantly thinking the crossfader was right over and had a great surge of adrenaline. Then the next song started, not only were there huge brass stabs at full volume but obviously completely out of time with the record that was playing. Took me around 5 seconds to work out what the hell was going on before I stopped the record. The following month I turned up to play again at the same club to discover they were selling the set I’d done that night on CD. The first half the monitors barely worked so there were trainwrecks and then there was that big mistake. I was mortified. Everybody who I spoke to over the next few months loved it and didn’t care so I stopped caring. Ride your mistakes out, realise everyone makes them and eventually you’ll lose the fear. Unless you are playing in front of 5000 people obviously….

Treating people in the service industry not only with respect (as any even remotely respectable human being should) but to turn it round and be the subservient one. In turn you will be treated much better and for longer. I don’t work in the service industry but in a role that has similarities, trust me when I say the better you treat me the further I will go to give you a great service. In The Secret DJ’s case he also treated them well so that when things inevitably got fucked up later on he was also in credit. Plan ahead in other words.

Talking about Tour Manager he fondly describes how he is the only person made a better person by cocaine, “Some people genuinely have great trouble coming forth from their shell, and sometimes the mollusc within is very special”. Great words and instantly endears you to TM. Their relationship is clearly very special. Well I guess it has to be when he’s useless at being a tour manager!

Talking about the “Shazam generation” and how the research has been taken out of record finding, he says “Being a DJ is about being an authority, which comes through contact and immersion, not mental tourism. In this Information Age, the true hazard is that information gets confused with knowledge. Just cos you have something doesn’t mean you own it”. Incredibly sage words.

Twice I actually cried with laughter. I find laughter to be incredibly infectious and rarely laugh hard on my own even when watching something funny. To laugh at a book so hard that my daughter thought there was something wrong with me takes some doing. Without particularly giving anything away, one downer-addled adventure ends with him saying “If this was a film, there would now be a montage of stills of ascending idiocy”. My head was already doing this, seeing it written out in words tipped me over the edge. Secondly, “MOORSEBERRY SHREWSCAKE”. I couldn’t breathe by the end of this story. Seriously, I couldn’t.

On fame - “One day people loved what I did, then they didn’t. But the things I made were the same. Odd”. We can see it as punters when someone’s musical output doesn’t really change in terms of quality but suddenly a newer, younger kid is on the block and they’re forgotten about. A fickle mistress indeed.

As the book edges closer to the end a very sobering event happens to The Secret DJ. I must say it did knock me sideways a bit, I wasn’t expecting it to hit me so hard. He hinted early in the book that he “lost it” in some way and went off the radar but it was shocking. He writes it in a very blasé way too, I think perhaps as a defence mechanism - making light of what is a very serious situation. How he even managed to survive is a miracle, far less write the book.

Lastly, an extremely poignant quote. “To this day I have no idea how you can spend so much joyful time with another human and end up not seeing them ever again”. I’m sure most of us who spent many years clubbing can fully understand this. Outside of family I had the most amazing time of my life with a few people you can easily count on your fingers. With the exception of one I’ll probably never see them again for various reasons. It still fucks with my head a bit, even years later. How did we go from saving the world, looking out for each other no matter what the situation was, feeling like there was no-one else in the world either understood us or even existed, having the maddest adventures that bound us together for ever more, to never seeing each other again? Growing up I guess. Drifting apart. Shit going down.

Think I’ve hit several tangents there and I was meant to be telling you how great a book it is. It’s a great book for two reasons, the storytelling is first class and will take you through a range of emotions, which lets face it is what you generally look for in a book isn’t it? But also I can connect with so much of it. Like Dave Haslam’s book I mentioned at the start there is so much of the book I get on a personal level. Some of its music-related and some of it’s personality and some of it is both. I guess those of us who obsess enough about music to go down the DJing route are probably similarly built.

One last thing, and I suppose it’s the elephant in the room. Who is he? There are a vast array of clues, although he says something near the end that means you can’t read too far into a lot of them. After all, why write a book anonymously if it’s easy for people to guess? There aren’t too many people he can be and I have a good idea but I like the myth. There’s not really any sniping or secret-telling about other DJs apart from the odd short anecdote and none (apart from the famous Steve Angello incident) are ever named. It just feels like a guy wanted to write a book about his adventures but didn’t want people to know it was him. I know how he feels.

Order it here: The Secret DJ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0571334482/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i4yxBb5729B54

If you fancy the other books I mentioned you can order Dave Haslam’s here:

Sonic Youth Slept On My Floor: Music, Manchester, and More: A Memoir https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1472127528/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_D5yxBb66E5E24

and Ninety by Johnny Proctor here:

Ninety https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1979953414/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_f7yxBb8C98A14

Review: http://acidflash.tumblr.com/post/174467922138/ninety-by-johnny-proctor-a-review-zico-is-a

#HouseMusic #DJs #SecretDJ #ElectronicMusic #books

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vileart · 7 years

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Dramaturgy Abort: Therese Ramstedt @ Edfringe 2017

MISSION ABORT

By Therese Ramstedt

directed by Claire Stone

AS PART OF THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FRINGE 2017

Venue: Gilded Balloon –

Rose Theatre Studio (Venue 76)

Dates: 2nd to 28th August 2017 (not 14th)

Time: 5.45pm (6.45pm)

Box office: 0131 622 6552

Internet: http://ift.tt/Ox1xIU

PAIN, SHAME, CONFUSION!

EMPOWERING FREEDOM AND A MASSIVE RELIEF?

Therese Ramstedt is proud to make her debut at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe with the world premiere of her latest play Mission Abort – a humorous, honest and heartbreakingly human monologue about a woman’s experience of having an abortion.

Strong opinions on the legislative side of women’s reproductive rights are voiced on a daily basis, yet rarely do we hear the perspective from the women who have had to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Mission Abort confronts our taboos by telling the story of one woman’s journey – from discovering she’s pregnant, to making the decision, following it through and getting on with life afterwards. This explosive tragicomedy brings its audience on a laugh-cry rollercoaster featuring questionable life-modelling skills, the looming voice of Donald Trump and leg-dancing to Kate Bush.

What was the inspiration for this performance?

As with many creative ventures, this play started in personal experiences. Before I myself had an abortion, I had absolutely no clue what the implications would be on me and the impact it would have on me physically and emotionally, or the effect it would have on my relationship (both with my partner at the time and with friends). I came to realise women's (and men's) personal experiences of terminating pregnancies is a part of the discussion on female reproductive rights that is missing. We talk a lot about the legislation side of things, but hardly ever about the human beings behind this decision. And when abortion as a topic is addressed in arts and the media (which is rarely!) it is still very marginal, and often portrayed as something fairly shameful that women either regret or simply - in superhuman fashion - forget about.

So I wanted to create a piece that in an upfront, honest and accessible (which for me often means humorous!) way talked about this experience that one in three women in the UK have gone through at some point in their lives. And a piece where the woman who chooses to terminate a pregnancy is neither a victim nor a robot - but a strong person who makes the right decision for herself, but still allows herself to feel and to take this big decision seriously.

For a woman, the life-changing moment comes when there are two purple lines on a pregnancy test - and contrary to what Hollywood rom-coms would have us believe, there are alternative choices that we have a right to make. And with this work, I wanted to be completely free of judgement either way but just shed some light on a relatively unheard perspective. Because I believe human beings empathise with and find understanding for other humans - so if we don't humanise the choice to have an abortion, and actually talk about the experiences, how can we expect other people to understand that choice?

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas?

I really would like to think so! I think one thing that performance does (or can do) which is unique to other forms of communication is to create an immersive narrative where the audience really can have the opportunity to put themselves in the character's shoes and perhaps understand their path and motivations. This, at least for me, I don't think happens to the same extent in lectures or talks - we might get to understand someone intellectually, but perhaps not laugh and cry with them in the same manner. What I really appreciate about live performance in particular is that there is no escape (cruel, I know!) - once the audience is in the space with you, they can't just hit the pause button if they feel too challenged. Of course, there is always the option to walk out but that is often much more of a statement than people are willing to make...

How did you become interested in making performance?

I actually can't even remember a time when I haven't been making up stories for performance. It was always something that I knew I wanted to do, but I suppose if we are going way way back (as in, to nursery school!) it was often a way for me to create small worlds that were closer to the kind I wanted to live in. One where little girls could wear pretty dresses AND fight with swords saving villages from evil dragons (I didn't know it at the time, but I basically just wanted to be Daenerys Targaryen). And performance-making for me since has just become a way for me to say my piece, but without lecturing or in any way judging other people - I am generally much more interested in raising questions than I am in providing answers (even if I do take a great deal of pleasure in being right when it comes to quizzes and anything grammatical...)

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

A really important thing for me was to incorporate a lot of humour, as I think it is our responsibility when creating work on a "serious" or "difficult" topic to make it as accessible and enjoyable for an audience as possible - to make it a conversation people want to have basically! Also, without laughter there can be no tears and I find it very difficult to connect with any work that doesn't have both sides of the comedy/tragedy coin.

Another thing was to not shy away from my own personal experience, and exploring parts of myself that were at times quite difficult. While the play did very quickly become a separate entity to me and my story, even if the events have ended up being nearly exactly what went on in my own life, having my personal experience behind me made me perhaps more daring in how far I could take it and how much I could address in the piece.

And this, I think, is what has turned into what I now hope is a very overall "human" piece - the woman in the play is me, but she could really have been any woman who'd found herself in the same situation.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

Exploring big human topics through humour and music is what I did with my Swedish theatre company, Annan Teater, so I think it does follow on quite naturally! Previous work I have made have dealt with topics like depression, suicide and sexism in the workplace - so it's probably in there. However, this is the most personal work I have made, and definitely the work that digs the deepest into one individual human's experience - it is also the first full-length work I am producing and performing in English.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

I hope that they will perhaps understand a little bit more about something they may not have thought of before, and to feel encouraged to openly talk about the experience of terminating a pregnancy. Or at the very least, maybe empathise with and understand the woman who wants to make this choice for herself.

(Of course, I would love for audiences to also experience a connection with the piece, to laugh and be moved - so far people are responding beautifully to it and hopefully there will be more of the same!)

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience? I did debate a bit back and forth about how to best get the audience on the character's side, and one important aspect of this is the audience interaction I have in the piece - throughout it, I (try to) give them the opportunity to support the character and be directly involved in her choices and experiences (cheering for her when she finds out she is pregnant, hold her hand through the procedure etc) But another important element was to not be too "in-yer-face" and to let the audience make up their own mind - this piece doesn't preach or judge, it is simply showing a woman at her most vulnerable but also at her strongest and most empowered. I also want the audience to come out of the show with a positive, empowered feeling in them - so choosing to also share the positive elements of both pregnancy and being able to make the choice to terminate was always really important for me.

HOW CAN A CHOICE THAT IS SO RIGHT BE SO HARD?

Having previously touched upon the subject of abortion in one of her earliest plays with Swedish theatre company Annan Teater (which she co-founded and ran between 2012-2015), when Therese had to make the decision herself, she discovered that there is a side of the story that nearly always seems to be missing. What is having an abortion actually like for the woman who goes through one? Obviously deeply personal experience that is individual to all women, but with one common factor: not something that we talk about.

Mission Abort crushes the taboo around abortion and explores the ups as well as the downs, offering a truthful and direct account of a topic that is acutely current – and what better year to do it than the 50th anniversary of the UK’s legalisation of abortion?

IF WE CANNOT TALK FREELY ABOUT IT, WHAT DOES “FREE ABORTION�� REALLY MEAN?

Therese is a versatile writer, singer and performer who has worked across a myriad of art forms including film, theatre and music - as a performer, producer and PR - with venues including Barbican Centre, Royal Albert Hall and also at the Edinburgh Fringe and in her native Sweden. Humour and song are at the heart of her performance-making, and alongside her own creative work Therese performs extensively as a singer with ensemble London Contemporary Voices. With LCV, Therese has collaborated with artists including Laura Mvula, Nitin Sawhney and Imogen Heap, and features on the soundtrack to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

Mission Abort is developed with the support of Soho Theatre, where Therese has been a Young Artist on the Comedy- and Writers’ Lab schemes since 2015, and is directed by Claire Stone from feminist duo Feral Foxy Ladies (I Got Dressed in Front of my Nephew Today and Balancing Acts).

from the vileblog http://ift.tt/2xlG2EQ

#Theatre #Blogger #visual art #Edinburgh Fringe #Experimental Critique

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ges-sa · 7 years

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Spider-Man: Homecoming Review

New Post has been published on http://ges-sa.com/spider-man-homecoming-review/

Spider-Man: Homecoming Review

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”25987,25986,25985,25988,25989,25990,25992,25993,25994,25995,25991,25996,25997,25976,25977,25978,25979,25980,25981,25982,25983,25984″][vc_column_text]Spider-Man has long been my favourite comic book superhero from before I could even remember, with my parents buying me my first comic (Spectacular Spider-Man vol.1 187) from a shop in Umhlanga in the early 1990’s before I could ever read. Though I couldn’t understand the words, I was wowed by the images of Peter Parker springing into action as Spider-Man and battling the villain of that issue, the Vulture (coincidentally). It was the first Spider-Man movie in 2002 that got me back into the medium in the early 2000’s and I’ve followed the “Wall Crawler” in his many other animated shows, comics and appearances since.

Following the rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the worldwide success of ‘The Avengers’, many have wondered what it would be like if Marvel Studios required the rights to Spider-Man and worked their magic on him within their connected movie world. While they have not completely re-acquired the film rights, they have managed to successfully negotiate a deal with Sony Pictures to finally make this a reality. We got our first taste of the all-new Spider-Man, played by Tom Holland, during ‘Captain America: Civil War’ last year; and what a sweat taste it was. For everybody that loved and enjoyed that version of Spider-Man, there is plenty more of that goodness in store throughout ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’. Spider-Man is arguably the most popular superhero and one of the most enduring figures in pop culture. There is an everyman quality about him, allowing most people of any age and demographic to him, and this movie does a good job of highlighting that.

While taking much of its inspiration from the early ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’ line of comics as a template, ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ is a pure joy for any superhero, Marvel or “Spidey” fan. Beginning just after the events of ‘The Avengers’ we are shown how the newly formed Department of Damage Control, under the auspicious of Tony Stark and the US government, impacts Adrian Toomes’ salvage business and sets him down the path to becoming the villainous Vulture. From there the film moves forward to the present day as Peter Parker readjusts to life after having met Tony Stark and encountered the other Avengers. From the moment Peter is introduced (The prologue scene is available online and the Playstation store for those that can’t wait until seeing the movie in theatres), the tone for the rest of the movie is set. The film wastes no time retelling Spider-Man’s origins or the death of Uncle Ben for a third time, choosing to drop us right into the ongoing story and succeeds in effectively telling a hero’s origin tale without including the already familiar origin itself.

The most notable thing I can say about this movie that it’s pure fun. Peter Parker, more so than any of the other previous films, is a smart and geeky high school kid, who loves being Spider-Man and can’t wait to jump into costume and help people around Queens, with the hope of impressing his new “mentor”. As the characters mention more than once, emphasis is placed on Peter being a “Friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man” and it shows, so don’t expect any grand city-wide or world threatening peril in this one as the stakes are a little more personal and ground level compared to that of other MCU films. This just feels so right, especially for the first film about this new Spider -Man, it makes you wonder why it’s taken so long for this aspect of the character to be spotlighted. I felt that this film captured more of the overall spirit of Peter Parker than any of his other five previous films have done while trying carefully to steer clear as much as possible from aspects and subject matter covered in those earlier movies. He’s got some level of scientific acumen, not accepted by his many of classmates, clearly charming, doesn’t quite have the famous “Parker luck” but still finds a way to let his activities as Spider-Man interfere with his civilian life and always striving to do the right thing even if he doesn’t quite go about it in the best of ways. It’s really amazing that they’ve incorporated all these aspects of his personality as well as several aspects of his classic costume into one film and have it all work within the structure of the film.

When he’s in costume, Spider-Man is on full display, doing whatever a spider can and throwing out good natured quips to the criminals he encounters and is very chatty; while out of costume, Peter Parker deals with day-to-day teenage life at a high school that feels more lively, diverse and representative of any high school you’re likely to find in the US today. That this is the youngest Peter Parker we’ve seen yet on film further adds to the immersion and better captures this period in the character’s life. Regardless of whether the costume is on or off, the overwhelming upbeat tone and sense of fun is present throughout. This by no means implies that this film never gets serious when it needs to. As much as Peter Parker gets a thrill out of being Spider-Man, there are times when he realises that being Spider-Man has its price and has to weigh up doing the right thing at the expense of how it will affect other’s perception of him as Peter Parker. As part of his first venture into tackling larger scale crime than he’s more accustomed to, he’ll have to overcome novice mistakes and attempt to the rise to the challenge; conveying, “with great power comes great responsibility,” without the words ever having to be spoken.

Tom Holland hits another home run in his second outing as the 15 year old Peter Parker. His joy, enthusiasm and situational comedy is a pleasure to watch and handles the heavier scenes deftly, leaving me excited to see more from him in this role in the future. It’s like watching a puppy with big paws, it is clear to see that he has so much potential and many years of leading man roles ahead of him. Michael Keaton has experienced somewhat of a career resurgence ever since ‘Birdman’ and turns in another great performance as Adrian Toomes, the Vulture, who is played more as a scavenger after his namesake, with is an inspired take on the character. His shift from blue collar worker to blue collar criminal is handled with reasonable believability and one can understand his mindset and empathise with him. Robert Downey Jr. returns as Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, and little needs to be said about him at this point. He could sleepwalk his way through the role and still nail it. Stark takes on more of a hands-off mentor role for Peter in this film which is an interesting extension of their relationship from ‘Captain America: Civil War’ and isn’t nearly in this movie as much as the trailers and marketing suggest but does carry weight and importance when he is present.

Having avoided trailers and spoilers, a pleasant surprise is the return of Stark’s head of security: Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) after not seeing him since ‘Iron Man 3’ in 2013. He who acts more as the first point of contact for Peter in his communication with Tony and is entertaining when he is on screen. It’s good seeing him on his feet again, hopefully this not the last we have seen of Happy Hogan in MCU related films. Another major surprise is Jacob Batalon as Peter’s best friend Ned. He adds another layer to this story, giving Peter someone to confide in and has his fair share of comedic moments. It remains to be seen if he will be the MCU film version of Ned Leeds but regardless, it will be great to see him return in the sequel. Marisa Tomei shines as Aunt May and while far younger than classic Aunt May or even the ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’ version of the character, one can see what the filmmakers were going for. There far too many other side characters, supporting characters and cameos to mention but by and large, everyone performs their parts well and brings something regardless of how big or how small their roles may be, although some side characters seem far removed from any version of their comic counterparts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wNgphPi5VM

‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ is definitely worth anyone’s time regardless of how much of a fun you are or where you sit on the movie going spectrum. You’ll get a complete Spider-Man story that doesn’t require much, if any, knowledge from any other films to be able to enjoy; although fans of Spider-Man and/or the MCU will definitely find more things to get hyped about and ponder until future movies. Children will no doubt flock to see it and this is one that can be enjoyed by the whole family. There is a mid-credits and a post-credits scene at the end for those with the patience to do so. I have no doubt this will an instant hit with South African audiences and shoot to first place on local top 10 charts. I already can’t wait to see this movie again and look for any easter eggs or references I might have missed the first time.

Comment below and let us know what you think of this movie when you see it, what you are hoping for in the 2019 sequel, if you think Spider-Man will appear in future MCU Avengers films or what you favourite Spider-Man movies/animated shows are.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Additional Information

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Reviewed on: Cinema 3D Available on: Cinema 2D, Cinema 3D, 4DX, IMAX 3D, Cine Prestige Genre: Action, Adventure, Superhero Age Rating: PG 10-12 Estimated RRP: R50 – R120 Release Date: 07 July 2017[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Likes

Best all-round movie Spidey yet

Fun hero’s origin tale without the obligatory origin

Strong lead and supporting cast

Dislikes

Certain casting decisions of minor characters

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0 notes

metamodel · 5 years

Text

Death and Revival Revisited

🔂🧟‍♀️ The eternal return of zombie-centred design

“Acknowledging that human beings are not the be-all and end-all.”

“Accepting our vulnerability, acting with humility and valuing our interdependency.”

“Living with the world, not against it.”

🥪🤮 The alternative to curiosity is… hard to swallow

The next day, Jason decided to have lunch with her. After a pleasant meal together, he couldn't contain himself.

“Betty, I've noticed that you always order a salmon sandwich,” he said. (I love that he still remembers her name.) “I don't mean to pry, but, uh, why is that?”

She looked at him for a second.

“It's because I'm afraid,” Betty whispered.

“Betty, how long have you been eating salmon sandwiches as your only meal?” Jason asked.

“Two years.” So basically, a resident had been potentially malnourishing herself for years because the systems around providing and talking about choices under this regime of care were broken.

👹👽 First and Last Men

When’s the right time to write a requiem for the human species?

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[/caption]

🦸🏼‍♂️☄️ Can only a God save us now?

Stapledon’s 1930s future-superhumans continue to haunt me.

When I was teaching art to six-year-olds last year, I did a unit on comics, tracing the emergence of costumed superheroes to the ’30s.

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No comment.[/caption]

“Why do you think superheroes appeared then?” I asked the class. “What was going on?”

🚀🌎 Refuge

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Not just taking our jobs — they're stealing Jeff Goldblum's life![/caption]

Too delicious.

Yours in ambivalence,

Ben

0 notes

metamodel · 5 years

Text

Death and Revival Revisited

🔂🧟‍♀️ The eternal return of zombie-centred design

In other more-than-human news, Anne Galloway recently posted her talk at IndiaHCI 2018, “Designing with, and for, the more-than human”. I’ve been following Anne’s work for a long time, from when the Internet of Things was called pervasive computing, to her more recent work in Aotearoa about sheep. For Anne, more-than-human-centred design means:

“Acknowledging that human beings are not the be-all and end-all.”

“Accepting our vulnerability, acting with humility and valuing our interdependency.”

“Living with the world, not against it.”

🥪🤮 The alternative to curiosity is… hard to swallow

The next day, Jason decided to have lunch with her. After a pleasant meal together, he couldn't contain himself.

“Betty, I've noticed that you always order a salmon sandwich,” he said. (I love that he still remembers her name.) “I don't mean to pry, but, uh, why is that?”

She looked at him for a second.

“It's because I'm afraid,” Betty whispered.

“Betty, how long have you been eating salmon sandwiches as your only meal?” Jason asked.

“Two years.” So basically, a resident had been potentially malnourishing herself for years because the systems around providing and talking about choices in this system of care were broken.

After setting her up with a more appropriate (and still chewable) set of diet choices, Jason decided to consult with dysphagia experts and patients like Betty to create a unit of training about these kinds of patient needs, and aimed at preventing such system breakdowns. Everyone at the their client nursing homes could attend. The aged-care nurses who came were flummoxed, telling their Head of Care, “Why are we only hearing about these kinds of problems and solutions from the catering guy? No offence, Jason, but seriously, WTF?”

The reveal: I was initially pretty skeptical about doing the course under Jason because before classes started, I'd gleaned that he’d spent most of his career managing McDonald’s restaurants. It turns out that my fears were misplaced, because I got a lot out of his teaching. While I really don't share his interest in large food systems, either in their experience as a customer nor in their general industrial impact on the world, I'm glad there are people like him enmeshed in such forbidding places, trying to make them more sensitive, responsive and just.

👹👽 First and Last Men

When’s the right time to write a requiem for the human species?

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]