If my calculations are correct, then I will likely have that scrolled parchment (or a facsimile thereof) in my hands in just under a year. Yes, I will have confirmation that I hold a Bachelor of Education degree, making me a qualified high school English teacher (and not a moment too soon, given the atrocious spelling and punctuation I see in Facebook postings). To be honest, I don't know what's worse: the lamentable level of literacy or the underlying messages contained in these posts. Peeps, the ramblings of some nincompoop in a Tik Tok film clip hardly equates to a peer-reviewed scientific journal, okay?
Life has been busy. This has involved what seems insurmountable stress at times, but there has been fun. Let's focus on the fun. One of my university assessments requires me to imagine a piece of text as a short film. Not only do I have to imagine it, but I must also CREATE the film, along with a report explaining camera angles, diegetic elements, and all that blah-blah-blahdy-blah about which I have been learning.
The text I have chosen is Longfellow's The Wreck of the Hesperus. I am not going to go to the extreme of crashing a fishing boat in the river of my town, but a call on Facebook for props and wannabe actors led to a kindly man offering me use of his miniature model ship. I took footage on my phone, wobbling the phone a little, and yes, it does look like the boat is sailing in a cataclysmic storm. A lady lent me a pipe that belonged to her late father, and it became a prop for the vainglorious sea captain in this piece.
What has been really fun was filming Mr Bingells, who stepped out of his comfort zone to play the ancient sailor who warns the captain there is likely a hurricane approaching, so please put the ship in 'yonder port'. The captain was played by another guy I know, who does have a theatrical bent, but this was all new for Mr Bingells. Mr Bingells stepped up admirably. He even interpreted the character in a way I hadn't - my thoughts were that the old sailor might be timorous in his pleas to the foolhardy skipper - but Mr Bingells' motivation was fury and anger that this dunderhead paid no heed to the warnings of a very experienced sailor.
Although I am using non-diegesis without spoken dialogue, Mr Bingells' improvised rehearsals involved him scolding the captain with words to the effect: 'You fucking idiot! There was a ring around the moon last night! Where's the moon now? There isn't one! There's a storm coming!'
When we discussed his contributions later, Mr Bingells wondered how his dialogue would have fit in the source material. I am of the view that Longfellow did not have the older sailor address the captain thus because it is kind of difficult to work that speech into the traditional tetrameter-trimeter pattern particular to this ballad style of poetry.
Yesterday, I filmed a young girl who had volunteered to play the daughter whom the captain had tied to the mast. She did well, praying in earnest for her salvation from the storm, as required in the narrative.
Really, even though it was study, it has been something of a hoot.
The other activity in which I engaged to distract myself from the stress that is modern life was to treat myself to a movie last night: Oppenheimer. I thought it was magnificent.
Oh well, I'd best away. Chat soon.
