The original brief outline for The Lounge is intentionally broad to encourage you to take what might be a simple notion and then work with it to develop a substantial and nuanced concept that will serve as the basis for your video project. The emphasis is on learning to develop a process that will help you examine your ideas, pull them apart and then reassemble them in ways that are outside of your habitual ways of thinking and working.
Use this space to post your ideas and comments on The Lounge.
Fabian Astore 
Stephanie Tighe 3220124 MDCM3002
Sketches
Project ideas:
The project idea that I have made some progress in, is a narrative based around the Internet and the board game Scrabble. I do not want much dialogue in the film, if any at all. I would like the story to be revealed through particular sites on the Internet that the main character visits, through words on the Scrabble board and other means if suitable.
This is a story about a girl called Lucy. She has recently dropped out of uni and moved out of home. She has no job and no food in the fridge. Lucy is relatively lazy but very creative. In her desire not to get a job she decides to become an Ebay ontrapunure. The only problem is she doesn’t really have anything to sell. First she sells some clothes, but soon once again she has no money. She then gets the brilliant idea of selling her parents items. It starts with small items such as a vase. This then progresses to her selling one of their couches. Towards the end of the film she sneaks into her parents house to remove the couch at night but it turns out her parents are actually home playing Scrabble. Delighted by her random arrive they invite her to join there game. She sits down. Looks at the board and grabs seven letters from the bag. on the board she sees a few words including “guilty, lazy and betrayal”. She then lays out her seven letters which spelling ‘couchea’ or ‘couches’. The final ending short I am not settled on yet.
Style Manifesto, Likes:
The style I really like is from the artist, musician and filmmaker Micheal Gondry. He mixes film, animation, and computer effects to create films that can visually show a characters subjective world view.
I also like rich colours and deep depth such as Robert Boynes’s paintings:
True Fictions. Year: 2005.
Details: Full colour, 51 page catalogue, 24.0 x 28.0 cm,
And Merilyn Fairskye’s artwork such as: Aqua 2007 at Stills Gallery, Sydney
Also a Fairskye’s Still from Stati d’Animo 2006
Style Manifesto, Dislikes:
I would like to keep away from the short film looking like a documentary, this includes a shaky camera, unwanted change in lighting and a large focus on humans; I would like to have a lot of film taken up by web filming and images and Scrabble letters. I do not dislike the documentary style at all but I would like to move away from it for now. An example of this would be George Gittoes Soundtrack to War. A great documentary but it is in the opposite direction I would like this film to go. It has been apart of my style manifesto previously and I would now like to explore other styles.
http://www.soundtracktowar.com.au/s2w_trailer_medium.mov
Practice Manifesto:
I discovered that I practice with firstly a story, then a look or style for the film, then a storyboard with an added script to the storyboard if needed. I then film and take photos. I work best in the morning and find editing to be the most time consuming. So time management would be something I will be improving for this project.
Thinking of taking a couch surfing holiday when uni is all done with? Why not use http://www.couchsurfing.com/ as a starting point for your departure lounge?
Elissa Gandakusuma 3214537
Wed 2-4 Tutorial
So when I first thought of the lounge is straightforwardly from the comfort of my own home; the living room. The space of the living room and what it brings. The space of the living room is known as a private space. However, i start to think beyond the private space to a public one which boundary can be blurred with the use of media. For example, the television. The television provides us with the exposure to the public space, drawing us into their world even though in reality and physicality, we are literally in the private space. Our living room. The lounge space as a medium in a way? Between the media itself (the tv) and the audience (person).
I would also like to go more in-depth by focusing on the effect of media itself on us; audiences brainwashed by horror movies. Not only do they draw audiences in, they can also influence audiences (especially the young and vulnerable) the ‘normalcy’ of violence and pathological crimes. My project would basically be about this effect with the person hypnotised and going in and out of the blurred ‘space’, finally getting sucked into the ‘horror movie’-world in his mind (going to all sorts of dark places, committing all sorts of violent crimes), while in actuality he is merely sitting in his living room.
So my video would be kind of abstract with probably a little bit of narrative and a lot of physical movements in the middle (climax) with some haze and mist to convey the blurring of boundaries from the lounge to the public and out-of-control mind.
There’s also something else I’d like to mention. CSI’s cinematography during the lab works in particular. For example, in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y02MVKGhNxE
I really like the way they use unusual camera angles and extreme close-ups as well as the use of asynchronous non-diegetic sounds to correlate with the actions. There are also lots of random scenes and percussive editing that I’d very much like to try with this project. I’m not sure if this will suit my project or if I can even do it. So, any help, suggestions and comments are very welcome! =P
Liss