Unless Pictures Post Office
Character strength test
I have (I think) come up with a pretty good rule of thumb to test whether a show is tonally cohesive, i.e. has integrity.
Would the character who has the most conviction (who has the most opinions about how things should be) watch the show they’re in?
The First Wives Club and the politics of camp
Camp is both a dangerous supplement and a needful weapon in a handbag of dazzling accessories. - Allen Pero
Your audience know
Filmmakers are often asked to articulate their audience demographics by age and gender. However, I think that is extremely limited and doesn’t get to the heart of the issue - will they actually watch your film or TV series? I think a better way of articulating it would be as audience behaviour. Are they regular cinema goers? How do they find new TV shows - through friends, reviewers or social media? Do they watch to tune out or to socialise?
What is the Metaverse?
If there is anything I’ve learnt about the metaverse, it’s that it isn’t here yet. It isn’t something you can go experience right now, despite all the hype, because it is all still theoretical. There is technology that can give you a taste of the metaverse, or will be used in the metaverse one day (VR headsets, augmented reality, virtual concerts), but the real metaverse is still some years away.
Mindful television
The world of Dickinson makes sense to us because we live on the internet, a planet where genres and periods collapse into 2D memes whose power to transmit embedded meaning is matched by the low cost effort of producing them. The most sophisticated meme (or mash-up) wins the great war for attention. In Alena Smith’s show, the text references aren’t hyperlinked for further reading, they’re embedded — benefiting from prior reading, like an episode of The Simpsons or all of Twitter.
The play’s the thing
Let me take you back to 2010.
I’m in my first year of professional practice and I’ve just paid an inordinate amount of money to see Schaubühne’s HAMLET as part of Sydney Festival at the Roslyn Packer Theatre. I’d been entertaining an obsession with Director, Thomas Ostermeier throughout my undergrad and scavenging for clips of anything from his oeuvre that I could find on YouTube. This production stars the extraordinary Lars Eidinger in the title role. It had been touring the world, and I was beside myself with excitement about seeing it in the flesh. It did not disappoint (this is an understatement).