What the Old House Deserves

She longed to sing another time.

But, no matter how hard she craved, her skin was still made of paint. Her bones, still timber. Her murky eyes only saw through glassy panes, her voice only sighed through tangled air vents…

And she was fixed firmly to the earth amid a lonely forest, never to move from there again. 

This was her curse. By a powerful witch, this bitter musician was transformed into a house. And, as a house, she was now an ‘it’. 

The house had been reduced to nothing more than a furious, gluttonous wreck, counting the years one by one on its peeling walls, and was to continue to do so for many years to come.

It wanted nothing more than to live in extravagance and glory, once again.

*   *   *

One day, the old house called to a stranger. It called her in the midst of a storm. It mattered little to the house what so happened to have happened for that stranger to be walking by it under such convenient circumstances – all that mattered to the house was that it finally found itself a visitor.

HOUSE SPIDERS ARE NOT YOUR ENEMY (Experimental text)

This is a fictitious manifesto. In creating this, I tried to bring myself to feel passionate and also visualise a spider writing the text. My intention leaned more towards hyperbolic and ‘over-the-top’ humour, while also speaking my true beliefs and feelings towards the text’s subject matter. 

I was first influenced by the Vorticist’s manifesto (in BLAST!), specifically in the more visceral, excessive and radical tone and style. I thought this made way for adding humour to my text. I was also influenced  by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s On the Abolition of the English Department, particularly in terms of structure. I wanted the text to be easy to read and straightforward in this respect.

(Another note: You'll notice I say "Earth's 'West'". I say that because I'm pretty sure there are other places where spiders aren't THAT stigmatised, and I've grown up mostly in suburban Australia where, yes, there is a good chunk of people who are squeemish about spiders. I dunno, haha.)

1. The current reputation that house spiders have in the cultures of Earth’s ‘West’ is flawed
• These common arachnidian Earthlings, found dwelling in the homes of human beings, face an unfortunately great amount stigmatisation
• A single spider is too often wished, by a human being, to plummet into as many circles of hell as the number of legs on its body, 
• Or be crushed and flattened by a force a million more times than it is capable of counting
• Spiders do not deserve such a cruel reputation
• The main point:
  These house spiders are terribly misunderstood

Big Building (Experimental Text)

This narrative was inspired by a book quote (Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest). The only relation that quote has to this text was from its comparison between humans and ants’ different experiences. 

My main goal was to create imagery that’s difficult to imagine and concepts that seem impossible to exist. I tried achieving this by combining sensory adjectives with senses that they’re incompatible with, and writing concepts/ideas that may prompt the readers to think about things that humans can’t experience or know. 

This short narrative was more explorative of human experiences and limitations, and focused on emotion/thoughts rather than action. I tended to add a lot of repetition to emphasise these ideas. 

“The ant climbed out of the basin and up onto the formation’s peak, but it felt no sense of towering above its surroundings because it had no fear of falling. [...] Without the fear of heights, there can be no appreciation for the beauty of high places.”

From The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (2008)

The building of sandstone reached for the stars and stretched to the horizon
And the traveling woman did not want to go inside.
The desert was relentless. The sun scorched. The traveller sought refuge.
With no other choice, her tired legs walked timidly in the building’s direction.

A ‘Quick Brown Fox’ Story (Experimental text)

I limited myself to have every word follow alphabetically, with no repetitions until the alphabet looped again. With this, I sacrificed grammatical correctness, the correct uses of words and character naming, to create coherence. Finding words for the letters ‘Q’, and ‘V’ onwards was tricky, particularly ‘X’, where, due to its lack of common English words, I resorted to using words beginning with ‘ex’. Some of my uses of apostrophes were downright incorrect, and sometimes I invented words, ensuring that they still ‘felt’ like they fit into English. 

The narrative explores the point of view of a burnt cabin and its relationship to the humans that once used it. I thought the fragmented sentences suit the point of view of the cabin character.

A burning cabin doesn’t ever forget. Gone, house’s image. Jealously kindled. Living mourns nobody’s oaken planks. Quietly resents sapiens, those ungrateful vermin, who ‘xcessively yearn ziggurats.

Neon Disasters (Experimental Text)

I chose to experiment with multimodality. Before this text was written, I drew abstract shapes inside of a circle, intending to represent nothing. After its completion, I observed it from different rotations and found images from the shapes and colours. With those findings, I decided to write a narrative that followed along what I saw while rotating the circle anti-clockwise.

My writing process was a mixture of describing the first ideas that came to mind, while also trying to keep them consistent with each other. Because I wrote primarily from feeling, the imagery, world and narrative all became surreal and dream-like. I was especially fond of my use of personification of objects like the moon, the sun and the sky.

Despite the text’s surrealness and nonsensicality, it vaguely explores some of the consequences of curiosity and the unknown.

And then a rock from outer space struck the eye of the atmosphere. The sky cried until its colour faded from blue to pink – an uninviting kind of pink that the sky should never be the colour of. The world shook like zig-zags and spirals. 

An Arrettian's Solitude

For alternative version: Linus and the Chimera-Person

There was once a being from planet Arrettia who sat to eat his lunch. He watched the Earthling besides him do the same, using two strange, shiny utensils to eat. They only heard the desert wind that whistled, and then the tools used for bearing food clinking onto the tools used for transporting it into one’s mouth. It was the two of them alone atop the ruins of a lost sanctuary, letting the slowest hours of the daylight pass by. 

Suddenly, the Earthling lifted one of its utensils, intertwined with a portion of the stringy, wobbly feed from its box. It held the utensil towards the curious Arrettian. A nervous murmur escaped the Earthling’s mouth as it held up its food, yet not eating it. Perhaps the Earthling was trying to communicate its distaste for its meal? Perhaps it was an exclamation of being thankful, or maybe it was even offering to share? 

The Arrettian struggled to do anything in return. A moment, and finally the Earthling appeared to give up the interaction, continuing to eat its stringy, wobbly food again. Then, the Arrettian continued the same with his own.

Insect Repellent and the Stars

It is the smell of a certain kind of insect repellent that takes me to the stars. It takes me back more than ten years; takes me to a riverbank kilometres away from home. I was there in a place just outside of some cabins, surrounded by strangers that accompanied me on that rusty old bus that took us there. It was the place where all that was familiar were my sketchbook, my flashlight, and myself. No buzzing and no troublesome bites – it was only the serenades of distant crickets and the laughter of unfamiliar children from metres away. On those few Spring nights, I lay alone.

The Lights, One by One

The kind of house that Clara lived in was ordinary. It had all its windows closed and every exit shut so that nothing could climb their way in to find her. Hardly any curtains nor blinds were left open, and now almost nothing could watch her from the dark outdoors. Tonight, Clara was the only one inside of her home. 

Clara took in her last spoonful from the now empty plate. It once contained the leftovers that her parents spared her before they left that night, and now her final task of the day was to catch up on her quadratic equations. Mathematics was never her strongest subject at school – she preferred ones that were more flexible and allowed for a greater imagination. She wasn’t excited to return to her room. But, why waste any time? Except to wash her dishes, there was no other use for her staying at the table any longer. She made her way to the sink.

A Bored, Needy Piano

We haven’t spent any real time together in so, so long. What are you doing these days? Always with those notebooks, are you? Always typing away on that little computer, too, are you? All of those other things that occupy you, you and I know I could never compare to – never in my lifetime. Oh, if only I was capable of providing the same variety as the infinite possibilities of strokes you could on a sheet of paper, or surpass whatever superpower a computer wields. A lot of the time I wish you and I could be more than just you instructing me what to sing, and me singing as you play. Do you wish that, too? I could never know.

THERE WAS ONCE A YELLOW HOUSE

One of the places on Earth that I felt about most fondly was the house placed at 23 Dudley Avenue. The address still exists, and you can find it right now if you wanted, but know that the house there now has nothing to do with me. Our old house wasn’t two-storied, nor was it so boxy and sleek. Instead, it was amusingly “L” shaped, and dressed in soft, cheerful yellow panelling. 

It was nearly the end of 2009’s Winter when my family and I started living in that yellow house. Especially for me, this was very exciting. We’d only just come from somewhere a couple of flights away, and for the first time in a while, we stayed at a house that was ours – as in “just for us” – meaning we were relieved of the concern of having anyone else around. 

Whale Fall

Whales are one of the greatest creatures on Earth. 

If I asked you to tell me anything about a whale - the one thing that makes them most unique - I know first you would mention its size.

I live by myself. Metaphors for the imagination.

You live alone. But, at the same time, you are also constantly in the presence of your loved ones. How is this possible?

First, you still are being sheltered under your parents’ roof, enjoying their company. You’re also not the type who coops up in your room for much of your day. But still, you live alone. If not your home where you physically spend most of your life, where do you live? The answer is easy. 

Where you live is in your mind.

Poem: A haiku four hours before submission time closes

Ev'rywhere I've tried.
No place my mind can stay put
And do as it's told.

Narrative and Aesthetics - The narrative and aesthetic decisions of The Incredibles (2004)

 It is without a doubt that over the years Disney and Pixar’s animated films have captured the hearts of many, and Brad Bird’s The Incredibles (2004) clearly makes the cut. The Incredibles is set in a universe where there exists certain people who possess superpowers. However, due to changes in the law, superheroes are made illegal, forcing supers to live and work jobs without using their powers, disguising themselves as ordinary people. The story is told from the perspective of Bob Parr, a former superhero who works at an insurance company. After eventually getting fired from his job, he grabs the opportunity to do hero work under a top secret organisation that not even his family is aware about. Soon, his wife, Helen Parr, starts to get suspicious of Bob and attempts to track him down, only to discover that he has fallen into a superhero-hunting trap organised by Syndrome, a former fan rejected by Bob. Being an animated film produced by Disney and Pixar, already audiences expect family-friendly content from the film. However, The Incredibles manages to tell a significantly more unique story than their previous works, as well as even surprise audiences by being the first Pixar feature film to receive a PG rating (Filmsite n.d). 

Script Writing 2021 - Final Assignment - Pitch & Script

Final Assignment

Script Writing, Winter School 2021

ONE-PAGE PITCH

TITLE: Ms Axel is a Goon

GENRE: Action, comedy, sci-fi, family

LOGLINE: In the humid city of Dasmus, Mei Axel is a former goon who's just escaped captivity. Since her escape, she's been trying to better her life with her new found passion for music, but she quickly learns that the entire country wants to trade her name and face for a price.

FORMAT: Full-length animated film