Back to the books

Are you in the mood for a surprise today?

Well, upon accepting my offer to study at AFTRS, I received a letter in the mail stating I had been accepted into a university course I applied last year - before I started working, and before I applied to AFTRS. I had applied for two different courses at the University of Technology, Sydney - one a Bachelor of Arts in Communication to major in Media Arts and Production, and the other is the same degree but with a major in Information and Media. I was accepted into the Media Arts and Production major and degree.

This came as a HUGE surprise. Firstly, I had completely forgotten about this application and shrugged it off once I started working. Secondly, I simply wasn't expecting to get in! I wasn't even expecting to get into the two AFTRS courses I applied for, which is still a surprise to this day.

At the end of the day, I took the university offer and with a heavy heart, canceled my enrollment in the Graduate Certificate in Screen Culture at AFTRS. I figured it was time I went back to uni to finish what I set out to do 3 years ago, and to feel better about dropping out of university in the first place some year and a half ago. I feel ready, funnily enough. And not the kind of ready I felt when I had just finished school. I feel the kind of ready that gives me the power to take on new adventures and seek new heights.

In short, I feel great.

I know I'll go back to AFTRS one fine day when I am done with uni. Besides, I think a post-graduate course will be more useful to me once I've learned to live a little more than I already have.

On a side note, I was lucky enough to keep my job after accepting the offer at uni. Once uni starts, I drop down to part-time and will work half the hours I work FT. The total amount a week being 20 hours, squeezed into two, long 10 hour days a week inbetween my time at uni.

Truth be told, nothing comes easy anymore. Life, a challenge it is!

Kineticart

Blue Valentine: the room of desire, desperation and no return

I found this neat photograph of Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance and lead Michelle Williams on set during the production. It was this room where Dean, played by Ryan Gosling brings his wife Cindy (Michelle Williams) to rekindle their relationship, after it is clear that it's breaking apart at the very seams.

They enter a love hotel, and Dean picks the 'Future Room', a neon-lit, tight space with no windows, including your average tacky rotating bed and faux fur pillows. Nothing is true for the couple any more, and nothing can be reversed. Their relationship is in shambles, as they crawl and beg for freedom - of each other, and freedom of the present. The 'Future Room' does nothing, but take them deeper into the land of no return. Time travel does not exist, and if it did, everything would be right. What destroys us, and where do relationships go to perish? Where does it hurt?

Visualising Stories Through Music

I love visualising stories and ideas from music. Apart from film being a main point for inspiration in my creative work, I find a lot of my ideas stem from music or surrounding sounds. Stories of my past and future selves put to music I hear, or put to not-so-familiar sounds connected to distant memories and felt emotions.

This Broken Social Scene track began playing while I was pretending to work. (I'm at my desk now trying to blog this as discretely as possible)

This track reminds me. I find myself travelling, going back home for the summer holidays in the days when I was still carefree. School. Coming off the plane after an 8 hour flight, it's always the night. I'm stuck in a car for an hour between the airport and home. The highways are empty, shrouded in orange darkness (lit up by street lamps all along the way). The occasional car speeds by, and slows down. There are no traffic lights on this one way highway, everyone is free to go as they like. Having exhausted myself in telling what few stories I have between the last time I spoke to my mum, and now, I watch the sleepy world outside my window (covered with condensation). We start to move like stretched out lights, leaving traces of our existence behind. Time speeds up, but slows down enough to capture this sight. Interweaving highways and roads that lead to anywhere you want. It takes me home.

What does this song remind you of? Where does it take you?

Sonnet 29, Shakespeare (and a New Year greeting)

Hey, happy new year all.

I admit, I have been a terrible host and for that I apologise! I have been busily trying to catch up with life as it has made it through to 2011. Damn it, the sneaky new year went on to start without even telling me. I have been struggling at work, and to see the lightness in film and creativity on most days, so I must ask you to be patient with me till I find some resourceful information or ideas to spread.

I do, however, begin 'school' at AFTRS (I've just enrolled in the Grad Certificate in Screen Culture, picked it over Directing. Explain later) in just over a month's time, which should get me back into my right frame of mind. I'm very much looking forward to it!

In the meanwhile, I shall leave you with this beautiful video - featuring David Hyde Pierce (from Frasier) reading Shakespeare's Sonnet 29. Inspiring, devastating, a beautiful kind of disaster.

Stay happy, everyone.

A Spike Jonze/Arcade Fire collaboration, "The Suburbs"

Saw this a while ago. Been meaning to share it.

Here's what I found on the video (some details from Win Butler, Arcade Fire's lead):

“It’s not a video. It’s a short film; we’re still working on it. It’s like a science-fiction B-movie companion piece for the record. Basically, we played Spike some music from the album and the first images that came to his mind had the same feeling as this idea for a science fiction film I had when I was younger. My brother and I and Spike wrote it together, which was really fun– it was like total amateur hour. We shot it in Austin and a lot of kids are in the film, and it was great just hanging out with these 15-year-olds for a week and writing down all the funny things they said. It was cool to revert to being a 15-year-old for a little while."

Although it is set in Austin and seemingly reflects the suburban life for American youth, I think the themes are universal. The video reminds me of when I used to ride bicycles around my suburb with neighbours who lived nearby and not so nearby. We would race each other to the vandalised park, play rubberband wars, chase each other up to the shops where we would buy shandy beer (it was all so exhilarating). We'd pick up a couple of cap guns and have fights in our front lawns. This video brings me back to these feelings of being alive and free - my suburb was my turf, and nothing could stop me.

Less Time, More Films

It's amazing how quickly time is lost when you work full-time. As you can imagine, I have been very occupied with work. When I'm not at work, I'm resting, dealing with the trivial matters that encompass my life, or thinking of different ways to overcome my lactose intolerance. The Japanese Film Festival in Sydney began last Monday, which I've been attending almost everyday throughout the week. I've been losing sleep, eating badly (dinner has consisted of buttered toast for the past two nights now) and basically not giving myself the tender, love and care that I seem to need.

(photo from JFF Facebook page)

I have, however, been seeing a lot more films than the past two months put together! I took advantage of the perks that came with having a boyfriend who worked for a film festival by sitting with him while he watched the screeners. I saw almost half the films on at the currently running Japanese Film Festival, including A Lone Scalpel (closing night film), Flavor of Happiness, Confessions and Solanin (by far my favourite). We managed to see Josh Fox's documentary Gasland, Michael Rowe's Leap Year (also known as Año Bisiesto), a Christmas tale gone wrong in Rare Exports, Australian genre film The Loved Ones, and a couple of others. It has been quite a busy November.

Next week, Kieran and I head to the Gold Coast for the 4th annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards. I'm really looking forward to this event - it's the first major 'black tie' film-event I have been asked to attend - well, Kieran was invited, and I got to be his lucky 'plus one'. Nevertheless, it will be great to be amongst all sorts of important folk in the Asian film industry. I can't wait.

December will bring all kinds of crazy with Christmas and New Year's around the corner already. Time to empty my wallets, repent my sins and consider my 2011. Can't say I'm not excited!

I'll end this post with one of my favourite trailers - a sweded trailer of Be Kind Rewind. It's sweded with all the charm and greatness of Michel Gondry.