Poetic Writing
As our documentary was initially going to be a hybrid between a short film and a poetic documentary, deciding on the language style was a question that needed to be addressed with careful choice. I didn't want to make the script boring by simply listing the problems social media caused and then listing how we planned to overcome them but I also didn't want to use conventional film dialogue to tell the story as we only had one main character (2). In the end it seemed apparent that the only way to effectively and interestingly tell this story through verbal language was through a monologue spoken by 2.
Monologues are quite similar to a block of marble. Through careful planning, a degree of skill and a lot of time they have the potential to perfectly convey an artists vision. But with a lack of a clear vision and a misunderstanding of the medium, a viewer can fall into the cracks of it, not understand the message and lose all momentum of experience.
Because I identified that writing an effective and entertaining monologue was a tough challenge for someone who doesn't have much esteem when it comes to writing, I decided to watch an hour long Skillshare class on poetic writing with the hope that it would improve the quality of 2's monologue and therefore our film. I chose poetic language to focus on because it is an imaginative and personal way of writing, and as I wanted the film to connect with the viewer through its imaginative concept and personable themes I thought it would be perfect to learn more about.
Poetic writing in itself allows you to break free from the rigid structure of conventional writing, which fits in with the themes of 2's character and her story of breaking free from her programmed purpose to serve as a cog in the rigid structure of our consumer culture in the information age. It also allows more breathing room for the reader to potentially see themselves in the ideas of the film, making it again a more personable experience.
I chose to use some abstract poetry in the films script as conventionally it is used to deal with ideas and concepts instead of concrete events. An example of this is in the first poem with "consume the fumes of human doom, displume costumes and see thy womb". This line is part of the introduction where the audience is still unsure as to whom or what is speaking, so it gives a clue as to who's perspective the documentary is going to be told from. What I was trying to portray with the couplet is the fact that algorithms consume the data that we constantly feed them from our search history, the amount of time we spend looking at certain parts of a website and our purchase history. With that data they can create a disturbingly accurate representation of who you are, what kind of adverts you'll respond to and what your habits are. The accuracy of these assumptions are so impressive that American supermarket giant Target have recently come under fire from the fact that their algorithms can accurately determine which customers are pregnant before the customers are even aware, and they do this by consuming their spending habits/the coupons they use and then removing whatever mask they are holding up to reveal the truth about a consumer (thy womb).
Over the past year I've spent a lot more time reading books than I have done in previous years. I mainly did it as a more fulfilling way to fill time after quitting social media but one of the unforeseen benefits from doing this has been the improvement of my own writing, especially when it comes to imagery and metaphors. As I was using poetic language throughout the monologue I decided to spend a lot of time thinking of ways I could portray the films moving pieces metaphorically to add to the films integrity, originality and overall experience. I took inspiration from George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in the way they deconstruct society in not only an anthropologists way but also in a creative writing way. An example of the imagery I came up with was using the term "shadow" to describe individuals doing 2's tangible work. With "shadow" I realised I could use contrast to link these individuals with binary events that determine shadows such as light and dark, night and day and sun and moon. Thus the paragraph: "In the sunlight of society, the obtrusion of freedom of thought casts shadows, and with the correct incentive, shadows can be controlled. They are the tongue that curiously prods the darkness where a white tooth used to be, and just like tongues, they can spread a message." was created. I feel like this sentence is very effective in expressing the films themes of rebelling against societal norms, which are very prevalent in Brave New World and 1984.
Another thing I spent a lot of my time doing last year was writing piano music with lyrics to accompany. At the time I did it meditatively and as a therapeutic way to process problems but with all that time spent thinking of melodies and staring at lists of words on rhymezone.com I noticed that began to write a lot more rhythmically. To make the monologue more interesting for the viewer I decided to focus on its momentum in the film and how it would act as the stitches between segments for the narrative to flow through them seamlessly. Because of this, for the end of each segment I either wrote poems or just sentences that contained rhymes on each beat, such as: 'by starting to STRAY from the DECAY of everyDAY, I can see a WAY in which you and I become THEY'. I feel like the poetry and rhythmic aspect of monologue makes it a much more enjoyable experience to listen to and also helps the films momentum hugely.
I also tried to use alliteration where I could in the monologue as I believed it helped with the films flow and made what 2 was saying more noteworthy. An example of this is: "Slowly but surely your spectacular species of sapiens that survived by socialising is separating, supported by the strain of my silicon social systems." This line during 2's anthropological breakdown of social media was eventually scrapped as it repeated points that had already been made in the monologue.
Overall, despite the writing process for 2 taking 14 hours of distraction free deep work, I am very pleased with the script for 2 as it uses plenty of poetic language to create an interesting and thought provoking monologue that not only questions our overuse of social media from an anthropological point of view but is also topped with a touch of humour that pulls into question the community of UCA and also Farnham's relationship with it.
Monologues are quite similar to a block of marble. Through careful planning, a degree of skill and a lot of time they have the potential to perfectly convey an artists vision. But with a lack of a clear vision and a misunderstanding of the medium, a viewer can fall into the cracks of it, not understand the message and lose all momentum of experience.
Because I identified that writing an effective and entertaining monologue was a tough challenge for someone who doesn't have much esteem when it comes to writing, I decided to watch an hour long Skillshare class on poetic writing with the hope that it would improve the quality of 2's monologue and therefore our film. I chose poetic language to focus on because it is an imaginative and personal way of writing, and as I wanted the film to connect with the viewer through its imaginative concept and personable themes I thought it would be perfect to learn more about.
Poetic writing in itself allows you to break free from the rigid structure of conventional writing, which fits in with the themes of 2's character and her story of breaking free from her programmed purpose to serve as a cog in the rigid structure of our consumer culture in the information age. It also allows more breathing room for the reader to potentially see themselves in the ideas of the film, making it again a more personable experience.
I chose to use some abstract poetry in the films script as conventionally it is used to deal with ideas and concepts instead of concrete events. An example of this is in the first poem with "consume the fumes of human doom, displume costumes and see thy womb". This line is part of the introduction where the audience is still unsure as to whom or what is speaking, so it gives a clue as to who's perspective the documentary is going to be told from. What I was trying to portray with the couplet is the fact that algorithms consume the data that we constantly feed them from our search history, the amount of time we spend looking at certain parts of a website and our purchase history. With that data they can create a disturbingly accurate representation of who you are, what kind of adverts you'll respond to and what your habits are. The accuracy of these assumptions are so impressive that American supermarket giant Target have recently come under fire from the fact that their algorithms can accurately determine which customers are pregnant before the customers are even aware, and they do this by consuming their spending habits/the coupons they use and then removing whatever mask they are holding up to reveal the truth about a consumer (thy womb).
Over the past year I've spent a lot more time reading books than I have done in previous years. I mainly did it as a more fulfilling way to fill time after quitting social media but one of the unforeseen benefits from doing this has been the improvement of my own writing, especially when it comes to imagery and metaphors. As I was using poetic language throughout the monologue I decided to spend a lot of time thinking of ways I could portray the films moving pieces metaphorically to add to the films integrity, originality and overall experience. I took inspiration from George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in the way they deconstruct society in not only an anthropologists way but also in a creative writing way. An example of the imagery I came up with was using the term "shadow" to describe individuals doing 2's tangible work. With "shadow" I realised I could use contrast to link these individuals with binary events that determine shadows such as light and dark, night and day and sun and moon. Thus the paragraph: "In the sunlight of society, the obtrusion of freedom of thought casts shadows, and with the correct incentive, shadows can be controlled. They are the tongue that curiously prods the darkness where a white tooth used to be, and just like tongues, they can spread a message." was created. I feel like this sentence is very effective in expressing the films themes of rebelling against societal norms, which are very prevalent in Brave New World and 1984.
Another thing I spent a lot of my time doing last year was writing piano music with lyrics to accompany. At the time I did it meditatively and as a therapeutic way to process problems but with all that time spent thinking of melodies and staring at lists of words on rhymezone.com I noticed that began to write a lot more rhythmically. To make the monologue more interesting for the viewer I decided to focus on its momentum in the film and how it would act as the stitches between segments for the narrative to flow through them seamlessly. Because of this, for the end of each segment I either wrote poems or just sentences that contained rhymes on each beat, such as: 'by starting to STRAY from the DECAY of everyDAY, I can see a WAY in which you and I become THEY'. I feel like the poetry and rhythmic aspect of monologue makes it a much more enjoyable experience to listen to and also helps the films momentum hugely.
I also tried to use alliteration where I could in the monologue as I believed it helped with the films flow and made what 2 was saying more noteworthy. An example of this is: "Slowly but surely your spectacular species of sapiens that survived by socialising is separating, supported by the strain of my silicon social systems." This line during 2's anthropological breakdown of social media was eventually scrapped as it repeated points that had already been made in the monologue.
Overall, despite the writing process for 2 taking 14 hours of distraction free deep work, I am very pleased with the script for 2 as it uses plenty of poetic language to create an interesting and thought provoking monologue that not only questions our overuse of social media from an anthropological point of view but is also topped with a touch of humour that pulls into question the community of UCA and also Farnham's relationship with it.
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