A Video I Made On Nostalgia Culture And The Representation Of Millennials In Film,  I’m Quite Proud

Music as Metaphor

In the video above, India sits at the piano, playing a soft melody to herself. In this moment, she is alone, reflecting on her predicament. She has a violent darkness in her that at this moment, causes her more sadness than anything else. This is her meditation.

Charlie enters, the looming figure that is representative of this darkness made flesh. Charlie is outwardly violent, unashamedly manipulative, and takes immense joy in his cruelty. Throughout the film, he attempts to indoctrinate India into this ideology. He interrupts her melody with the kind of deep, foreboding chords you would expect, which India futilely attempts to rebuff with her original, soft melody. The following scene perfectly illustrates the relationship between the two characters without a word being said.

While India is still technically in control of the song, Charlie is controlling it’s tone and atmosphere with these dark bass notes. Much like in life, he is trying to get under her skin, and seduce her into his psychosis. Note how he ever-so-gently let’s their hands touch 19 seconds in, daring her to get closer to him, daring her to let him lead. Perhaps excited by this touch, India gives in, and at this point the song becomes a duet.

This is music as metaphor.

Closing her eyes, India allows the music to naturally progress, lowering her defenses, entertaining the idea of harmony. Charlie brilliantly picks up on this moment of weakness, and utilities it to completely take control, changing the music dramatically as well as closing the gap between them physically. She loses all her autonomy in the song, and for a moment plays nothing. She should not have thought cooperation would come so easily.

Unwilling to accept this, she herself makes a bold move; changing the mood of the song. She enters with a lighter, much more playful flourish, as if this is all a game or competition. Look at how she looks at Charlie; she wants to know just how much she can control him, to what extent she can lead (or equally, to what extent he’ll let her lead). She studies his face intensely, desperately curious how he will react. she has been baited, and by engaging Charlie rather than ignoring him, she is already letting him take control. This is especially pertinent given how light and and playful the song has become.

That said, listen to what happens when their eyes meet; however playful, the notes start to sting.

India realises her mistake, and yet again tries to rectify it. However, it is too late, in this moment they connected, and a sad, dark honesty comes out in the song. India knows she is like Charlie, sh knows it but she hates it, and right now she cannot deny it. Charlie realises that he has more power over India now by allowing her to take the lead, and allows her the spiral downwards around the 1:25 mark. He knows what it will lead to; the ostinato.

This is the moment when India and Charlie are truly working together; India allows herself not to lead or follow, but to work in unison with this monster. This is when she has fallen completely under his spell, and she allows herself to. Charlie understands this, and the physical barrier between them completely breaks down. The music grows somewhat sadder as India feels the lust and longing in her grow from this physical contact. She knows what Charlie is. She knows what she is. She cannot help what she wants. This is the closest the two get to having a sex scene in the film, and honestly, it’s an infinitely more effective way of conveying their relationship to one another. Charlie moves out from behind India, knowing his seduction has worked. India closes her eyes, her legs tense, and she is lost in the song.

The song abruptly stops, and there is a clear look of both exhaustion, horror and realisation on India’s face. She pants and takes the silence in. Charlie leans in to kiss her, and also disappears behind her in the shot. When she turns to him, she see’s he was never actually there.

This is the power he holds over her.

Stoker is a fantastic film from one of my favourite working Directors, and I feel this scene perfectly illustrates the idea of music as metaphor in cinema.

Now with some supporting evidence! Check out the crazy use of text in this film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gzOmk5-ji0

New video! It’s about The Forbidden Room, and how Guy Maddin visualises aspects of memory and fantasy. Plus - it’s short!

If you enjoy the video, a sub/like/share/comment/box of roses would go a really long way!

Castles in the Air, Episode Four:

The Frame

Castles in the Air is a bi-weekly horror anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone. The podcast is created and owned by Will Donelson.

After a lifetime of work, a scientist and his team finally succeed in creating a working time machine. However, he quickly finds the device taken away fro him and turned into a commercial product, and people soon begin taking "tours" of the past. The scientist ponders the nature of recorded history, and the worth of documentation holds in a world where the past can so easily change.

Subscribe on iTunes: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/castl…air/id1191981068

Stream on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/will-donelson-1/the-gate

Stream on Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/castles-…34?autoplay=true

RSS: castlesintheair.libsyn.com/rss

Written, directed and edited by Will Donelson

This episode features voicework by Hameed Mourani

Closing theme is “Blood on the Snow I" by Black Tape for a Blue Girl

Opening theme is "Consumed by Love" by Giles Appleton. This episode also features music by Wren.

Episode art by Skye Liberace (http://dieskye.space/)

Castles in the Air is owned by Will Donelson.

If you like what you heard, please subscribe to us on iTunes! I would also appreciate any ratings/reviews on iTunes as it helps boost the shows visibility.

Thank you for the patience with this one.

Hello friends! I’d like to direct all of you to the following link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1367347179/dead-in-the-west-a-tabletop-rpg-set-in-the-mythic?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=dead%20in%20the%20west The past year and a half or so, I’ve been working hard on creating my very own pen-and-paper tabletop RPG (think Dungeons and Dragons if you’ve never played one before). The game is set in what I like to call a “Mythic Old West” setting - think old cowboy movies and pulpy novels - the kind of place made up of tall-tales and larger-than-life characters. Setting out on an adventure in Dead in the West should feel like your party is a group of modern-day scribes, stitching out the tapestry that is the first Great American Folklore! The Kickstarter is not asking for very much, and will go towards creating both a digital and physical edition of a beautiful rulebook, filled with gorgeous artwork by tumblr users like yourselves, all paid a fair commission.

Please do consider contributing to the Kickstarter! Dead in the West is an incredibly fun game, and I’d love to share it with as many people as I possible can.

Also you get the bonus of seeing my ugly mug in the dieo up there.

Thanks everybody <3

4000!

A huge thank you to my 4,022 subscribers. That number really snuck up on me. If you’re an artist please hit me up! I’m sitting on a episode of Castles in the Air until I have some cool art to go alongside it, and I’ll start uploading them to Youtube as well. 

SCRIPT DOCTOR! Hereditary has AMNESIA

In a potentially new series, you get to look at my slack-jawed mug as I bloviate about film scripts and the changes I'd make to them. If you have any films y...

Hello all! I just started a video series on screenwriting and editing. I’ll hopefully be going over some general advice, common mistakes and even sharing some stories from my time in script editing.

Also, this is my ugly mug.

If there’s anything you’d like me to talk about, let me know! The first episode is on the film Hereditary, and sacrificing thematic value for story.

Callisto

Sleek, silver. No shadow. Silver.

You acquaint yourself with what you’re looking at. The fog around the corners of your eyes dissolves. Slowly, the ceiling above you begins to materialise. “I am alive,” you think, “but too soon.”

This was wrong. Surely, this is wrong. You had heard that time doesn’t seem to pass when you’re under, but this seems distinctly different. Something was looming over you - the sleek silver ceiling that bore no shadow seemed like a distant, yet familiar threat. That was it - there should be a shadow there! If you in orbit of Callisto by now there would be a shadow. You turn your head -

No. You can’t. Something is wrong. You can’t move - you can’t even feel. Not like a numbness, no, like an absence. Your eyes dart down - the position of your body makes hardly anything visible. You just want to check - is it still there? Are you all still even there? Then you remember;

The Cells Alive.

The Cells Alive System was revolutionary. Loosely based on a process used in a Japanese Fridge of all things, the process involved freezing living tissue without the risk of damage or liquid crystallisation. For longhaul journeys like this, it was a Godsend.

By why were you awake? Why had your brain awoken without the rest of you? You wondered if something similar had happened to the rest of the crew - if you could just turn your head, you could check on them. A hot wave passes over you - or more accurately, your brain. Your mind. That’s the part of you you can feel. What was happening?

Sleek, shadowless ceiling. Just look at something else.

Memory ekes back in, slowly. You remember now - something had gone wrong. The ship lost power. You had no idea why - you were in a pod, for God’s sake. Either way, the hum of the ship was gone.

Well, “hum” is an embellishment. You have no sense of hearing presently, but when the ship is moving, you can feel the vibrations in your skull. If you can move your eyes, it’s a safe bet you’d be able to feel the ship’s engine, rocking them ever so slightly.

Or maybe your ears did work. Maybe there was just nothing to hear.

The ship was at a standstill - yet here you were. You remember, in your earlier days, before the mission, asking about the safety of the pods. In the dim blue light of a distant memory, nestled deep in the canopy of your faraway world, you remember, and are overcome with horror.

Early in the morning, the engineer reassures you. The pods run on a separate power source. They’ll keep you frozen, and keep you fed, even if the main ships power dies. Your body needs so little food in this state, and the machine will even exercise your muscles a little while you sleep.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Why are you awake? How long will you be awake? Does Earth know you are?

It is frustrating that the overwhelming panic that grips you has no outlet - no sweat, no swearing, no screaming - nothing. Even your eye control is limited - you can’t even blink. The pod is keeping your eye moist. Were the settings jumbled? Why was your brain awake? Why were your eyes?

“Send me to sleep,” you pray. “Send me to sleep, send me to sleep until we’re rescued, please.” Like a child, you wish you could tighten your eyes, to amplify the strength of the wish.

Then another terrifying thought overcomes you; what if they aren’t coming for you? What if, back home, all they see is that the power is out? What if they assume you dead? What if they never come? How long will you be this way?

Silver, sleek, featureless. This image would burn into your eyes until, even if you escaped, it would have long since shrivelled up your retinas. Please, you ask, give me a shadow. Give me a detail to latch on to - give me something.

“The CAS system will keep you going,” I remembered, “pretty much indefinitely.”

Send me to sleep and kill me. Please. Send me to sleep and kill me. Cut the feeding tube off. Let your muscles atrophy. Please. God. Please.

Deja Vu. You remember thinking this before. What time was this? Has this happened before to me? How long have I… You remember… Yes, this did happen before, you woke up. But something was different.

Christ, God, no. The ceiling, you remember now. It wasn’t featureless. There was a mural on it. Where was it? Where had it gone? It was a schematic of the ship, where had it gone?! Was this the same ship? had you been taken, somehow? Was I home?! Wait, no, have I -

had you just been here long enough for your eyesight to fade?

How long have you been here?

No, I can’t have… This is all… Ah yes. Now you remember. Silver. Sleek. Featureless. You hadn’t woken up just now. It was… something else. A moment of clarity… You think. Alzheimer’s? Dementia? Not a physical thing, though. It was time, gnawing at me… Something… Else.

They say that time passes quicker the older you are. I wonder how long I have been here… Time doesn’t seem to be passing quicker, though maybe i would only notice if I had a point of reference… Something besides this ceiling… Maybe if I tried to have a conversation, everything would be moving too fast for me to follow. How long does it take a human brain to rot from the inside out, on its own accord?

I wonder if they mourned me, on the news… I wonder what a human face looks like. What do shapes look like?

The moments of clarity are the worst. I want it to take me over completely. I wonder how scared I was, the first time. The first time I realised this was everything… I wonder how different I really have it from people back home. This is ageing, this is just… Time… That’s all it is. The time we’re all afflicted by… condensed… into a…

How old are you? I remember now… Laying here… you remember the schematic fading… You could even notice it happening. Almost in real time, I saw it fade. Let me close my eyes.

Callisto, you think, must be beautiful. A beautiful silver. Sleek. Featureless.

Yo at this point I think I’ve seen enough desolate Russian landscapes in cinema to reconstruct the whole country from memory

Here’s a video about Arrested Development! And editing! And the magic of both!

Like a breath

Raising her head skyward in frustration, her eyes glide over a choppy, crystalline sea. The only sky the Forager has ever known, as if the air itself ruptures into a tumultuous gray just above the mountains. With her limited understanding of the world, she used to assume the atmosphere a physical thing, that thinned out as it approached the ground. Up there, she figured, the air was like a mighty ocean.

Sighing, she digs her hands back into the muck below. A thick, shapeless assembly of dirt and clay – all that remains of whatever structure once stood here. However old this building was, and whatever import it held, to her it was merely something to be dredged. An unspecific mass incarnadine, to be hopefully panned for gold.

The cracks along the ground were filled with this rubbish; great splinters through the earth at the bottom of unimaginable gorges, into which all the works of civilization came tumbling down into. A single split like this had the potential to contain centuries of progress – countless artifacts and trinkets, buried within the rubble. Their individuality now faded, together they lie as a great amalgamation, and a monument to inevitability. If she were to grab hold of something – some old keepsake or remain – it may well be all the we would ever see of a certain snapshot in time. To the Forager, it meant an exchange and a meal.

Indeed, it is hard to say how many priceless heirlooms and invaluable relics she had herself broken in search of a more easily quantifiable trade.

One false step and she herself could be swallowed by antiquity.

To say the history of the objects she held in her hands had ever crossed her mind would be a half-truth – a lie to flatter the ghosts of whatever world she trudged through. Only the immediate past of a given object – how pristine it appeared – ever factored into her thought process. After all, “worth”, and especially human worth, is an invention. Despite lofty connotations, the scrap she neatly folded and tucked away now carried with it a newer, more objective value than what previous generations might deem it to have.

With an ache of pain, the forager arcs her neck skyward. Long before her time, vainglorious scholars waxed poetic about the idea of the convergence. In the now, the reality, the word had lost it's meaning. She had never known her celestial body as a singular identity – only as a part of the twisted amalgamation. Everything had been drawn inwards, you see. As the universe drew ever closer to its inevitable conclusion, it's satellites and travelers were dragged towards its center. It was like a great homecoming, in a sense. Every atom was called home, to be reunited in their single point of origin. In time, it would all be crushed together – every star and every world. There would be a great unification before the end. Out with creation, and in with destruction. Like no more than a breath, with another perhaps to follow.

But for now, and for another trillion years, this will be the shape of things. A tumorous mass, growing larger by the century, and then shrinking into nothingness.

And all sentience throughout all time would amount to - this final stage of evolution – is rats on a ship. Hungry and cold, rummaging through the trash of their forbears.

With her head held high, the foragers eyes glaze over the continent of another planet. Her peers, also raising their heads, might look at her own. It gave her solace, before she got back to work, imagining that she herself was to others a similar, tumultuous sky.