Looking at personal experience, it was very hard for me to revisit the lowest emotion. What I found that I felt so alone and fought it by myself. It overwhelmed me so that I could hardly write anything. It was to the point that I thought I chose the subject that was too close to myself.

Another approach was research.  YouTube provided an invaluable source of mental illness, especially from the patient’s point of views. Watching people with these problems for hours was quite a daunting experience. I found beyondblue, DepressionCarer were very useful for my research.

What I am doing at the moment are:

• The thoughts are organised by mindmapping technique.
• The beginning and end, which are what I have in mind in the very first time, are put in Celtx.
• The middle is the tough part for me but at least the structure has been laid down.
• I take note of a random thought and a real life quote.
• Some characters may to be added to build up a climax.

So far, this is a long process. And it is frightening too.

7 April 2009

Note: This is it! It is the last blog post on COFA blog I have on my own record. It is assumed that the next post there was the first draft of the script which I will not post it here, not in the near future anyway. However, I will post the process I can recall until it gets to the following semester when we, the Master of Digital Media, blogged about their project again.

• What is the story you are telling? — It’s about depression. My partner was depressed and got out of it. But now I am suffering from it and slowly climbing out. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
• What is the character that brings the story through? — There are two main characters in this story: a depressed mother and her autistic son. I thought the mother would be the central character that was seen in the son’s eyes. On the other hand, it should be about the son who wants to help her. That is his hope that she will get out of the blues. He wants her to get to that light.
• And who is the story for? — I said it was for general audience. But on the second thought, it should be more specific. Depression is not an uncommon illness and yet to talk about. This story should speak to the people close to those who have the sunken feelings. They are the best cure even though it does not seem that way. You are the light even you don’t see it yourself.

The main conflict in this set up is the son senses his mother’s misery but he feels useless to help her. He is afraid of losing her but she is slowly drifting away.

Although the son is set to be autistic, the plan is that he is off camera all the time until the last shot to reveal that he is the narrator of the film. His monologue portrays his feeling towards the situation not how could communicate to the mother. This is hopefully expected to get a punch.

It is clearer what is to be achieved after I write this blog. There are some strategies to get those juices out:

• Personal experience — I have to sit down somewhere and bring back those down emotions and examine how I coped with them.
• Research — I have read about autism and would like to get more depth in depression.
• Metaphor — Light has been mentioned a few times. It is what I can think of at the moment. There might be something less cliché coming up.

Another issue I had was a technical one. I am a big fan of Celtx and have been using it for scriptwriting for sometime. Once I upgraded it to version 2.0, it froze. Celtx support forum suggested to clear cache. It took me many attempts to fix the problem. I downloaded from another source, deleted the old preference and re-installed the program. Now it seems to be working but still takes a while to load, though.

27 March 2009

• What is the story you are telling? What is it inside you? It has to be an issue that you are passionate about.
• What is the character that brings the story through? What is hope or fear that drives the story? Hope is the ultimate goal whereas fear is where you do not desire to face.
• And who is the story for? Who are really the people we want to talk to? This will determine how we build the lead character that can relate to the audience.

The protagonist should be humanised and has the spark of life even though he/she is not a good guy. There has to be something that intrigues others. On the other hand, the antagonist bring changes to the story. Conflict is the central of the story. The antagonist is the person who gets in the way of hope or put fear in front of the protagonist. In the end, it comes the moment of catharsis. He/she is not the same person any more.

As a artist, we are the magician whose job is to guide the audience to inhabit the world we have created for them.

23 March 2009

Something makes her happy. What is it? What could brighten her up in these gloomy days? She is left to deal with the cruel world by herself and it doesn’t seem to have a way out. But she is still smiling…smiling at me.

10 March 2009

It feels strange when you revisit a location and do not recognise it. This is the corner of Harris Street and William Harry Street.

The picture on the left was taken on 6 February 2003 with Nikon digital point & shoot camera. It was one of those images I took and told me that I had good eyes. The site itself fascinated me. It was an empty land with a view overlook at Sydney in its growth.

Years went by and I passed that spot occasionally but did notice the development until I went to a second hand camera market at Ultimo Community Centre across the road. That land is now Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre. I have been inside briefly but it did not trigger the memory of the old image.

It is impossible to replicate the angle in then-and-now tradition for a number of reasons. First of all, the old building is a big part of the composition and it is not there any more. If it was, it would be behind the new one. Moreover, it was a different camera. These days I use Nokia N96 camera phone for simultaneous street shots like this. It is easier to upload them on the fly.

However, I try to stick to the old composition where Centerpoint (AMP tower) or , now, Sydney Tower is in the background looked through the building. Some risk is involved when I have to stop in the middle of the traffic light to get this shot. Well it’s Sunday people don’t get killed, do they?