Tuesday, 7 August 2007

A Post from Flickr.com


COVERFINAL
Originally uploaded by denniskratz
The final cover design for the CD's - we need to get approval from Tamara before using the DK photo - ...

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Tuesday, 7 August 2007 02:57 AM
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 Monday, 6 August 2007

A Post from Flickr.com


BACK2_sml
Originally uploaded by denniskratz
This back may be suitable for the front with the image of the woman. These designs are very much in keeping with the actual Dioramas but am open to more weird ideas.

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Monday, 6 August 2007 04:45 AM
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A Post from Flickr.com


Cover
Originally uploaded by denniskratz

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Monday, 6 August 2007 04:38 AM
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A Post from Flickr.com


Back1
Originally uploaded by denniskratz
A possible back cover....very simple

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Monday, 6 August 2007 04:36 AM
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A Post from Flickr.com


DIORAMAWOMANCURTAIN
Originally uploaded by denniskratz

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Monday, 6 August 2007 02:55 AM
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A Post from Flickr.com


FRONTBACK
Originally uploaded by denniskratz

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Monday, 6 August 2007 02:54 AM
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 Monday, 30 July 2007

A Post from Flickr.com


cemetary2
Originally uploaded by denniskratz
I think we will need to make the text boxes quite consistent if we are going to use them. Perhaps they could be a description of the setting...setting the scene for the narratives. We should decide on this before we proceed. Let me know if you have a better idea.

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Monday, 30 July 2007 04:54 AM
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 Thursday, 26 July 2007

Cottage Script

MURRAYS

Pop-up links:

Click:

In 1967 the town was declared a site of historical significance and The National Parks and Wildlife Service took over its management, preserving the forty or so remaining buildings. These are rented on heritage leases. Two of the cottages are made available to artists who, like Donald Friend and Russell Drysdale before them, come to the town to find inspiration.

Click Next

Throughout the town Park’s has erected plaques with photographs taken by Beaufoy Merlin and his assistant Charles Bayliss in 1872 showing the town and its inhabitants at the peak of the Gold Rush.  

Positioned in front of the houses or empty lots, the images are both insightful and disturbing proving an understanding of what once was, but at the same time illustrating that there will always be a time when what once was is gone.

Close

CAMERA

The artists move through the town taking photographs of the

BOOK

In the cottage the artists found books documenting the history of the town.
Harry Hodge, who was born in Hill End, describes the town in 1872.
People swarmed into the town and Clarke Street became a major artery along which flowed a cosmopolitan crowd of miners, promoters, agents, speculators, showmen and businessmen. The permanent townspeople were rather dazed with it all. Every hotel in town was full and others were going up as fast as they could be built. The best the landlords could do for travellers was to allow them to sit by the fire all night. Every available centimetre of ground was taken up. New shops and dwellings sprang up with astonishing rapidity, and the whole of Clarke Street changed from bark to trim weatherboard. Cornish miners rubbed shoulders with Germans, Poles, Frenchmen, Greeks, Americans and a host of other nationalities.
Hodge, H 1986. The Hill End Story, Hill End Publications
After 1872 the town endured a steady decline due largely to dwindleing gold deposits.
“The breweries closed down, the lemonade factory became a private house, the bush encroached and overran the houses and humpies, whote strees fell into decay, and suburbs became padlocks and orchards,

One year later a very different news item appears.
The new year will find us with a considerably reduced population. There is a dearth in the labour market and there are many idle claims and deserted houses. Only 400 miners are employed. There is a great difference to the vast size of the town eighteen months ago.
Sydney Morning Herald, December 1873

WOMAN GHOST

Click:

Woman and boy – girl in corner, faint outline of the husband.
In the corner of the room there is a dark patch.  In it the artist feels the outline of a woman, weeping for the things her husband has done.  There is a boy in her arms, staring at the tears that line her cheeks, not knowing how to comprehend the extent of sadness.  For the boy, sadness is loosing his marbles to the taller boy at school.  It is a small round puddle, sometimes cool and sometimes only partly cool, and partly warm with laughter.
But the woman knows sadness.  Her sadness is a lake, a mountain, a dark black hole in the ground that her lover went into in search of gold.
The artist wishes she could get closer to the woman, clutch her back and press her cheek against her chest.  But there is time and distance between them, and if she crosses to the other side she will live in a body that is not her own.  They will try to smother her, try to make her believe that there is no way back.  Even if she told her that her husband was right there beside her, standing in the same dark shadow, the same deep hole, she still would not believe.  Even the time taken between two deaths is cruel enough to part the dead from the dead.  
ARRIVAL
They arrived at the cottage late in the night.  It was dark and cold.  They were used to the city, but here there were no lights to guide them and give them a sense of their surroundings.   
They went outside, feeling the cool night dive in underneath their jackets.  They clutched each other, aware of the darkeness, of the presence of a woman whose dress seemed to shake behind them.  They both knew she was there but neither of them was game to say it.  Somehow they knew that if they spoke of her, it would only make her stronger.

TIMESLIP
One morning when washing up at the kitchen sink, one of the artists she felt her body time-slip.  She sat in a carriage, in a dark blue dress. It was dark.  She felt stiff silk fabric against her skin.  The coach door opened and a man hidden in shadow held out his hand.
The man beside him yelled out then, to the pale, dark haired woman who was stepped out of the sulky and turned to the Great Western Store.  It was a crooked yell, filled with lust and heat that the boy couldn’t quite understand.





Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Thursday, 26 July 2007 4:51 PM
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 Friday, 13 July 2007

A Post from Flickr.com


the royal hotel
Originally uploaded by denniskratz

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Friday, 13 July 2007 04:05 AM
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A Post from Flickr.com


the mine
Originally uploaded by denniskratz

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Friday, 13 July 2007 03:51 AM
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Shop FInal Script

GENERAL STORE:

CHINA ON FIREPLACE:

Pop-up Link:

There were a number of colonial produce stores in the town, more than twenty at the time of its peak, but the general store at the end of the main road established early in 1852  was the first and one of the largest in the town.  It stocked a broad range of items from firearms, digger and trapper equipment, tobacco and coffee to toys, fine china and small luxuries like fragranced soaps and creams.  The store had a sales section but also a small eatery where women gathered for tea, gossip and among the more fashionable and well-to-do ladies a game of bridge.

Next:

Much of the business was conducted on credit due and bills were paid haphazardly when nuggets were found or produce sold.  Payments were seldom in cash and generally consisted of gold nuggets, sometimes eggs and salted meat.  Vegetables were particularly valuable, as influenza and skin ailments were common and moved through the population swiftly in times of drought and early frost.   The Chinese were well known for keeping small gardens to substitute their income.

Close

CLICK ON WINDOW:

Curtain Closes – Curtain Opens

Looking out the window:

Image of the window – zoom in to view outside – curtains remain visible to the left of the image illustrating that it is a view out of the window.  Fade from colour to black and white.

Animation: Black silhouette of woman with parasol – behind cut out images of town’s people.

Text: Eleanor walked down the main street of the village. She held a cake tin in one hand, a parasol in the other.  Dressed in black, her face in shadow, she looked like a woman in mourning, but all she could feel was the harsh sunlight on her face.

Text: She had come to the town to honour a marriage that her family had arranged for her.  Today she was to take tea with the other married ladies who were already acquainted with her fiancé. Tomorrow, when he returned from business at the mine, she would meet him for the first time.  In little more than a week she would be married. 

Animation: Black silhouette of woman with parasol – behind cut out images of town’s and buildings rise up and fill the screen. Everything, buildings & people fade out.

Since the boom, the village had quickly become one of the largest inland towns in Australia., known for its rich gold vein. The streets were filled with people, still she had never felt more alone.

Animation: Fade in of woman – now dressed in black – behind her flies.

She walked down the dusty roads towards the town’s general store.  At the entrance there was a woman wearing a mourner’s dress, calling to her children who were playing behind the fence.  The woman had the appearance of old lace – still pretty, but strung with yellowed thread that was full of holes - old and haunted for her age.

She heard two men in brown coats talk about her, whispering how her husband had been hit how she still believed he would come back.

The women locked eyes for a moment, then the wind picked up and the woman stepped inside the store, her children now following close behind.


LAVENDER CREAM(MOVIE)

Click on image of cream

Close Curtain – Open Curtain

Dianna was a young woman, still in her twenties, but the lines in her face had already set in.  She had slender, almost beautiful fingers but her hands were dry and coarse.  She had some lavender cream that she used sometimes to take the bitter sting off, when  her knuckles were chapped and her nails brittle after doing the washing in winter.  She kept it under her pillow and only used it at night. It was the first and only thing she had ever stolen.


TEA SET:

Close Curtain – Open Curtain

Image: The Scene has shifted so that the table is in focus. Two women having tea. Their heads are replaced by neck pins. 

Text:  Inside two ladies watched a woman with a parasol walk quickly down the main street. The lady had arrived alone on the late coach last night.    It was uncustomary for a woman to travel alone, especially a woman with money and connections.  It was therefore a cause for much speculation and gossip.  Whispers said a soured business deal had left her family almost penniless and her in need of a husband.  The women smiled and cussed as they speculated her fate, recounting stories of young wives that moved here from other cities.  The women recalled how many of these women had been driven to desperation by the isolation, climate or their death of their husbands.  Some of them had drowned themselves in creeks or thrown themselves into empty mine shafts. 

They sipped their tea, savoring the hot milky sweetness as the woman walked past the window and disappeared from view. 

 One of the women finished her tea. The leaves settled at the base of her cup, though she did not speak of the fortune that appeared.

 Animation: Teacup appears. Leaves settle in the shape of skull. Click on skull. Newspaper article documenting the woman’s death.

(Leeds, Mrs. John Margaret July  23, 1872 of pneumonia just one week following the death of her husband of the same disease.) 

Click close.

The teacup fades and a boy moves out from behind the curtain.

Click on Boy

Link 2 Boy: The young boy stared hard at the ladies.  Dressed in fine silk garments they looked like the figures painted on dressmakers posters that he saw pinned on the windows of Mrs Newman’s and Mrs McDowall’s stores.  Each of the women had a gold brooch pinned to the top of their chest.  The boy looked at the pins and wondered how much food he would be able to buy if he were to steal one of them.  His family could only afford to eat small meals, and the bodies were always left aching for more.  He looked over at his mother and felt sad that she could not wear fine things like the other women.

Click on dress:

“The well-to-do work heavy, watered-silk dresses, much decorated with flounces or rucking, or the lighter taffeta.  Browns, purples or dark blues, concessions to the Widow of Windsor, where the favoured shades.  The less fortunate pinned sheets of newspaper benath their petticoats to give the rustling swish of taffeta to their more modestly-priced frocks.”

 
This is from :  Hodge, Harry.  (1986)  The Hill End Story:  a history of the Hill End – Tambaroora Goldfield, Book 1.  Hill End Publications:  Toorak, p152

 
Click on Pin:

"Brooches, with names in gold wire on a mother-of-pearl base, mizpahs, cameos and cairngorm or nuggets of gold mounted on pins and rings were also common.  Earrings were fashionable and girls had their ears pierced, usually with a flame-sterilised needle, at a comparatively early age." 

 This is from :  Hodge, Harry.  (1986)  The Hill End Story:  a history of the Hill End – Tambaroora Goldfield, Book 1.  Hill End Publications:  Toorak, p153

FIRE:

In winter, the store’s fire burned all day and night, for the owner kept long hours in order to catch diggers that came back late from the mines. Sometimes men would strike it rich and would spend their money   on things other than women and liquor.

 He was careful to keep track of the paying customers for the warmth often attracted loiterers and no good types that browsed his shelves for hours.  Sometimes he took pity on families who brought their children and would let then stay a while, but when they came too often and for too long, he would firmly in the mother or father’s ear that they had outstayed their welcome.  When told to leave they would gather at the door where warm air escaped as customers entered and left. 

 In winter he also hired an extra helper, as in times of hardship diggers down on their luck would try to slip items into their deep empty pockets. Thieves caught and convicted could do more than 10 years hard labour on the roads *.  Their chances of survival were slim.

* Frontiers of Gold –Book 2 p135

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Thursday, 12 July 2007 2:01 PM
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Cemetary - Final Script

ROCK/GRAVESITE:

 Roll over link –overlay square of text:

The main graveyard lay at the edge of the town nestled in a thick area of eucalyptus forest on northern side of Mudgee Road, There were a range of gravestones and crosses, the size of which indicated the prosperity of the deceased. Death was a common occurrence, especially near the mines where they often said “Men are cheaper than rope”1. 


Click Next

Accidents were ordinary with frequent landslides and carelessness brought on by rum.  There were many stories of children falling into open, abandoned shafts then drowning in the muddy water below - their small bodies broken in the fall.

 They say if you listen quietly at night, the sounds of men, women and children can be heard gathering. Their faces lost inside heavy patches of trees.

 
Hillendiana – p74

 Close

TOMBSTONE – TEXT ‘REMEMBER’:

 
Close Curtain – Open Curtain

 
Dark Background -> Text fades in, in segments:

Since the accident he remembers little of his life. 

Animation: Images in sections fade in and out

He sees flashes.  Faces and outlines. Strings of d i s c o n n e c t  e d moments, the feel of different textures against his skin. 

He remembers the word, as if it was a vein beneath his skin.  A red pox mark rising on the surface, like a stain or a disease. He remembers writing the word in chalk on the blackboard, saying the letters in his head.  He prayed that they would come out, the first one then the next, all in the right order.  But they did not, and he could not remember.  The teacher said that he if he could not spell the word he would never know what it means.  She wrapped her stick against his hands and scolded him because he was poor and un-used to the rules of English grammar.  She lifted her stick and wrapped it, telling him the letters R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R

Audio: Tap, tap, tap as each letter appears.

He remembers now, the letters, the lips, the sound of words. He remembers the grip of his father holding him tightly during those cold Irish winters. When he was a boy winter was a word that ate whole days. 

His fingers became bruised from pulling potatoes. He remembers that teacher’s face as a flash, rough and cold like winter sandpaper.  Now he sees her staring at him.  She is with him in this strange place that feels like the other side. 

CROSS:

Close Curtain – Open Curtain

Image to left: Family standing around the grave.

Text fade in: The family stood quietly at the father’s grave which was marked with a stretch of loose soil and a small wooden cross surrounded by rocks.  They could not afford a proper  headstone, with his name engraved.

To advance the user must mouse over and click on the woman figure. Once clicked the other figures fade out and the image of the woman grows larger and moves to the left.  The text appears in a cloud.  This will probably change when it is getting made.

Text: The woman knew her husband, like so many others, would not be remembered.

click

Text: She would have to take another husband soon. She did not feel that this would be too difficult, as the men still outnumbered the women by more than two to one, but with no money and two small children, she knew her new husband would not be young or wealthy.

click

Text: She studied her rough hands and worn skirt and thought of everything she had lost. She had not wanted to accept his death, but when the men called her to the church to see his body, she could no longer deny it.  Her heart felt empty, like the dark hole where her husband was found. She looked at her brother and started to cry. 

click

Her body shook with each sob and she felt herself going backwards (into herself). Lightheaded, she felt her lover’s breath – cold - on her shoulder.  Then everything went quiet and the death bell rung out across the graveyard.

GHOST FIGURE OF MAN:

Close Curtain – Open Curtain

Link to ghost man – very faint and dark – surrounded by flies and black dots.  They follow the cursor.  The text appears as part of the image.

Behind the Dianna, Jim saw a shadow lurking.  It had the familiar shape of a man.  A man trying to become a woman’s face.  He watched the figure as it moved and twisted.  Dark particles, like small black dots pulled together to form the new shape, but at the last moment they broke apart and scattered.

There was an agony in the figure’s movement.  A frustration.  The man watched it move close to his sister’s back and wondered: Did she know? Could she sense it? 

It had a definite presence – much stronger than the others he had felt here.  They were usually more timid and only came out at night.

CLOUDS: -

Close Curtain – Open Curtain

Animation:Dark clouds appear.

As the family mourned, dark clouds gathered in the east, drawing heavy loads of moisture.

The welcome swallows had long departed.

Four weeks later, when the clouds arrived in the town, it rained hard and steady, flooding the drains sewers.

Animation: rain falling and waters rising

The streets filled with waste sparking an epidemic of dysentery and other disease.

Animation: Waters rise and when they fall, there are crosses.

The very old and very young were the worst affected.

At the edge of German town, at the primary sewer line, a baker and his whole family died. 

KUKABURRA (MOVIE):

Close Curtain – Open Curtain

They could hear a Kookaburra laughing at the edge of the cemetery.  The air was cool, a reminder that the season was between autumn and winter.  As winter came, the cemetery would become more and more crowded with mourners and rows of lonely piles of earth.

 Animation: Leaves falling in piles.

 Fade in image of girl with animation.

The girl was younger than her brother, still unsure of the meaning of death.  It’s finality.  Like her mother, she had thought her father would return. Even now with the memory of his face fading it was hard for her to comprehend that she would never see him again.  It was this lack of understanding that kept her grief at bay.  The sadness she felt spilled from her mother.  It enveloped her and made her skin icy.

 In her hands she cradled the wooden rabbit her father had carved her.  It still smelled like tobacco and sweat. 

 

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Thursday, 12 July 2007 1:55 PM
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 Wednesday, 11 July 2007

Font

I am just using the one font face now - no Tahoma - it looks really messy with two different fonts.  If you prefer the two I can change it back though.

Main text colours used are:

- White and #A6875E (sandy brown)

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Wednesday, 11 July 2007 6:33 PM
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 Tuesday, 10 July 2007

Font

Font for titles: Gloucester MT Extra Condensed

Scene titles: colour #A6875E, size 31

Small text: Tahoma

Silent movies still to use: Gloucester MT Extra Condensed, size 21, #FFFFFF (white)

Suggested pop up box fill colour: #FFFFCC, stroke:#A6875E, text: #000000 (black)
Will update if changes.

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Tuesday, 10 July 2007 2:47 PM
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 Monday, 9 July 2007

Notes for the narrative

Now that we have the visual framework for each diorama, we have agreed that we need to give the visuals context with narrative content that has links across all of the scenes.  As a starting point for the work we have decided to sketch out each scene, noting the characters and major narrative elements.  We have also gone through the storyblog and cut and pasted different elements of the story into the scenes where these elements will appear.   

 

SCENES:

 

Workers cottage

 

Characters:  All four family members (Dianna, Noah, the boy, the girl).  The woman’s brother arrives part way through the narrative. 

 

Major narrative elements:   

-        Dianna feeling uncomfortable in the room.  She feels like she is being watched.  Her husband doesn’t come home.

-        Boy having a vision of his father dying in the mine.  He hears his mother weeping.

-        Woman’s brother arrives unexpectedly, holding a box of chocolates in his hand. 

 

Sub plots: 

-        Narrative about food (boy killing neighbours goat to feed his brothers and sisters).

-        story about two old folk – nobody in the village knew anything about them except that the man used to collect photographs.

-        Narrative about the house being cold. 

 

TEXT BEING USED:

***

She left the light on for him, so he would find his way back.

 

Royal Hotel

 

CHARACTERS IN THIS SCENE:  The brother, the boy, miners, women who entertain at the hotel.  (I might further develop a particular character of a miner who might be friends with the father). 

 

MAJOR NARRATIVE ELEMENTS:

 

-        The boy meeting the woman’s brother at the front of the hotel.

-        The woman’s brother drinking at the hotel and reflecting on his life.

-        The woman’s brother going to the hotel to escape his sadness

-        The boy going to the hotel and getting drunk when he should not have. 

 

Sub plots/ historical facts – to be developed. 

 

FRAGMENTS OF TEXT TO BE CONSIDERED, RE-WRITTEN OR DELETED. 

***

Her son - the boy, too cold and hungry to go to the school and be beaten for the work that he had not done, was across the road from his mother’s house at the (mining office, ) * change to Royal Hotel waiting for the newcomers to offer him the scraps of salted meat they kept in their pockets.  They always had bright eyes when they first arrived, and their skin was clearer and had more colour than the ones who had been there since it had all started.  Seeing how skinny and pale faced that he was they would give him the meat and he would eat half of it and then smuggle the other half home to give to his favourite sister, the older of the two. 

It was Wednesday, the day the coach came that carried twenty.  It let them off down the road in between the General Store and the Royal Hotel, and he would sit at the front of (the office,) change to Hotel looking to the left as they walked toward him.  On this particular day he noticed a tall man, with chapped lips and tanned skin.  He was thin and no more than 27, two years older than his mother. 

***

The man had a deep voice.  Husky, like he smoked too many cigarettes and drank too much Rum.  It was a hard voice and it made him fearful.  It was the sort of voice you could not say no to. 

***

The man’s clothes were much dirtier than his father’s clothes, and the boy could not help but think that the man must not have a woman like his mother to wash up after him and to cook his dinner. 

***

He stared at the man and the man stared back, glance thick, as if he was trying to remind the boy that they knew each other well.  The boy looked at his long, narrow face.  He stopped at the lips, thinking about how much they were shaped like his mothers, noticing the small slug like scar that split his bottom lip in two.  The stayed that way for a moment, standing still and staring, neither one wanting to be the first to break their concentration. 

***  I’m thinking that this text could be changed from the point of view of the brother, who could be reflecting on his life while he has a drink inside the Royal Hotel. 

She (He) remembered:

 (His sister) (Her brother) pink and fleshy crying as her sister slapped his legs.  sHUSHshhhh

Dried flowers hanging in the kitchen

The curious spicy burn of (her) his  father’s snuff

A young girl with a crisp white bonnet offering (her) him  pale red berries

***  (change the ‘shes’ to ‘hes’ here)

When she remembered these things, she felt herself slip inside where she could watch the threads unravel into pictures.  She looked down and saw her hands were those of an old women.  Coarse and blemished with thick blue veins.

Becomes: 

When he remembered these things, he felt himself slip inside where he could watch the threads unravel into pictures. He looked down and saw his hands were those of an old man’s.  Coarse and blemished with thick blue veins.

***

(change the ‘shes’ to ‘hes’ here)

She remembered her brother’s hands: smooth and pale.

Then the sound of her mother’s footsteps, muffled by her skirt running along the floor. 

Becomes: 

He remembered his sister’s hands: smooth and pale.

***

The angry boy went to the hotel that his Uncle often frequented.  A dirty man outside who smoked tobacco and drank whisky gestured for him to come and sit down.  He recognised that he was a friend of his fathers.  The man smelt of manure. 

***

The stench of manure and alcohol put him off and he hesitated momentarily before taking a seat next to the man.  The man pushed his glass over the boy.  It was covered in a thick film of sweat or grease, but the dark amber liquid inside smelled sweet and inviting.

***

‘Want to have a drink of this then’ the man said, gesturing the glass toward the boy.  The boy said know, slightly uncomfortable with the thought of sitting next to him. 

The mans world slurred from his lips, but he was not as far gone as the boy had sometimes seen his father when he was drinking. 

‘I could of sworn I heard yr father’s voice the other day you know, in the mine, under the sound of my pick as it tapped against the wall’ 

The boy stared at him deeply then, trying to see inside his mind, trying to hear what he had heard.  Perhaps it was the voice of his father, risen from the dead. 

***

The boy did not know it then, but his father was standing behind, watching him quietly, thinking of how he could find a way to touch him, to bring him close again. 

But the father had no skin and could not find a way to breathe in.  He just felt like breath all over:  like floating particles that drifted upward and got lost inside air. 

***

He did not want to talk about his father.  The thought of him filled him with helplessness - worry about his family. Since his father had died, everything seemed to fall apart.  He clenched his fists and tried not to think of his father (and death.death. death. death. death. death.) , but he could not… his mind was full of images.

***

The man offered the boy his glass again.  This time he did not resist, but took it gladly and felt the liquid burn as it went down, sending at first a shudder, then a warm glow through his body.  The taste was strange and he could not help but cough a little after taking the swig.

***

The man watched the boy, and let him take a second mouthful of his liquor before he gently pulled it from his hand.

***

The boy heard voices then, of two men talking of gold, how they had gone underground and foudn a nugget that would feed their families for more then ten years.  He wondered if he should become a miner like his father.  He wondered if the drunk man would help him. 

Mine

 

Characters to appear in this scene:

 

Father and other miners.  The mother and children may also appear in the father’s visions.

 

Major narrative elements: 

 

-        A context of the mine might be provided (ie, narrative that sheds light on what it may have been like being a miner at the time).

-        The father dies in this scene.

 

Sub plots:

 

Research into mining can provide historical facts/ sub plots in this scene. 

 

FRAGMENTS OF TEXT THAT MIGHT BE USED:

*** In the morning the ground was covered in frost and the towship was enveloped in thick white fog.  

*** I think that this text could be shuffled around a little, so that it comes from the voice of the father (the man who died) rather than the mother). 

The emptiness was closing in. 

***  His hands were on her face but she could not feel them.  Everything had gone lightweight and cold.   (This could be changed to) He felt his body leaving the black hole, going to her.  His hands were on her face but she could not feel them.  He sensed everything as lightweight and cold. 

***

She remembered his warm hands.  Hands that grew coarse over time.  When he touched her in those last days it was like sandpaper scaping against her skin.  He had cupped her face and told her that he loved her.  (This could be changed to).  He remembered her warm skin, and the way that the feeling of it had changed as his hands grew coarse over time.  He wondered if when he touched her skin during those last few days it felt like sandpaper scraping against her skin.  Last night he had cupped her face and told her that he loved her. 

***  She remembered a time when he was young, when his lips were chapped and his skin was warm.  She was with her mother and father, walking along a dirt street in Richmond, head turned away from him to guard herself from the cold.  He was playing folk music on the mandolin, singing about freedom.  Back then he dreamed of finding gold not far from there in Ballarat, but the wind got strong and sent him elsewhere, past Sydney, past Lithgow, past Bathurst - days of travelling on horses on a hard dirt road.  (The ‘shes’ here could be changed to ‘he’

Then it was just the two of them, young, thin, pinked skin - thinking they could take on the world.  But the world got big and heavy, and the weather in the place they were going was colder and the men in the mines were harder and they dug deeper and darker holes. 

***

The town was filled with wandering spirits, trapped by the quartz deposits that ran like veins through the land. 

***

Sometimes both love and death felt like an opening, and sometimes it felt like a hole

***

Not wanting to get angry at the boy again, he went to the tavern on German-town lane, where one was invited to lick the breasts of whores for even the smallest amounts of gold or silver. He went inside, to drink as much as anything else, when he noticed a woman in the corner who looked a lot like his sister.  For all of his agitated and off beat moods, he realised then that it was his sister who he was here for, and that the very reason he had come was because of the sense he had that she was calling, that she needed him to be here to stop her bad memories and dreams.  And it was she who had the most right to be cold and agitated, for she was paled from the loss of a man who she had known and loved well, and who had been taken from her so unexpectedly. 

And he knew, even before he had come or heard the news that her lover was to be taken.  He had always know, from the moment the two of them met

 

General Store

 

CHARACTERS TO APPEAR IN THIS SCENE:

 

Mother, other women who shop in the village, new woman who arrives in town.  The boy, girl and brother can also come into the shop if required.

 

MAJOR NARRATIVE ELEMENTS:

 

-        New woman arrives in town.

-        Woman (mother) steals something from the shop but does not get caught

-        Something else with dramatic tension but I’m not sure what else?

 

SUB PLOTS/ MINOR NARRATIVE ELEMENTS:

 

-        We could talk about how many shops there were in the village at that time.

-        What sort of things that the shop would have sold. 

 

FRAGMENTS OF NARRATIVE THAT MAY BE USED. 

***  (If we use the following perhaps there can be some visuals looking out the window of the shop). 

She walked down the main street of the village, cake tin in one hand, parasol in the other.  The people of the village thought that she sheltered herself in mourning, but all she could feel was the harsh sunlight on her skin. 

***

At the general store she overheard two women talking about a new arrival in town. 

***

They said it was a woman.  A young woman. She arrived alone late in the evening and moved into the old Murray house at the edge of town.

***

She felt consumed by the new woman.  The mystery of her.  She imagined her: a slender woman, with long dark hair tied up in a bun.  Like the woman on the hair pin box her grandmother owned when she was a child.

***

It went on this way, all day, as she walked down the dusty roads towards the village’s little store.  When she got there there was a woman, wearing black in mourning, waiting for her children who were playing behind the fence.  She heared the men in the black coats talk about her, whispering how here husband had feel in that deep black hole, how she still believed that he would come back.

***

She caught her eye and smiled gently, but the woman turned her head and shrugged her gaze away.

***

The wind picked up, and the woman stepped inside the store, figure following close behind. 

*** Perhaps the mother could steal something from the shop:

His mother was a young woman, still in her twenties, but the lines in her face had already set in.  She had slender, quite beautiful fingers but her hands were dry and coarse.  She had some lavender cream that she used sometimes to take the sting off, when they were chapped and her nails brittle after doing the washing in winter.  She kept it under her pillow and only used it at night. It was the first and only thing she had ever stolen.

Murrays

 

Characters in this scene: 

 

Sven, I’m not sure how we go with this one.  Do we keep it historical or make it contemporary.  If we make it contemporary I think we need some kind of narrative device so that the readers don’t get confused.  Perhaps the family could haunt this house. We need to think carefully about how the narrative will appear here. 

TEXT THAT WE MIGHT USE: 

***

Since then, she often had a sense of him.  A presence. Watching from behind. Trying to draw her attention. 

One morning when washing up at the kitchen sink, she felt her body time-slip.  A carriage, and herself in a pale blue dress.  She felt the coarse woolen fabric against her skin.  The coach door opened and a man hidden in shadow held out his hand.

***

She sits there, sensing.  Sensing the energy of things as she had always done.  In the corner of the room there is a dark patch.  In it she feels the outline of a woman, weeping for the things her husband has done.  There is a boy in her hands, staring at the tears that line her cheeks, not knowing how to comprehend the extent of sadness.  For the boy, sadness is loosing his marbles to the taller boy at school.  It is a small round puddle, sometimes cool and sometimes only partly cool, and partly warm with laughter.

But the woman knows sadness.  Her sadness is a lake, a mountain, a dark black hole in the ground that her lover went into in search of gold. 

She wishes she could get closer to the woman, clutch her back and press her cheek against her chest.  But there is time and distance between them, and if she crosses to the other side she will live in a body that is not her own.  The will try to smother her, try to make her believe that there is no way back.  Even if she told her that her husband was right there beside her, standing in the same dark shadow, the same deep hole, she still would not believe.  Even the time taken between two deaths is cruel enough to part the dead from the dead. 

***  They arrived at the cottage late in the night.  It was dark and cold.  They were used to the city, but here there were no lights to guide them and give them a sense of their surroundings.  

***

They went outside, feeling the cool night dive in underneath their jackets.  They clutched each other, aware of the darkeness, of the presences of a woman whose dress seemed to shake behind them.  They both knew she was there but neither of them was game to say it.  Somehow they knew that if they spoke of her, it would only make her stronger.

***

The man beside him yelled out then, to the pale, dark haired woman who was stepped out of the sulky and turned to the Great Western Store.  It was a crooked yell, filled with lust and heat that the boy couldn’t quite understand.

The small woman wore a dress made of fine silk, a silver brooch pinned in the middle of he chest.  The boy looked at her clothes, wondering how much food he could buy if he stole them from her and sold them.  He felt sad that his mother could not wear fine things like her. 

***

The woman glanced their way for just a moment.  Even from the distance, the boy noticed she had blue eyes.

***

The woman seemed pre-occupied.  Flustered. She took her surroundings in with obvious concern.  A tall man with a ginger beard stepped up to her. 

***

The woman was surprised to see him approach, though from her gestures, it was clear they had not met.  The boy heard the man say:  ‘is there something I can do to help you… to help you find your way?’

The woman smiled, pleased that he had approached her. 

***

They stood together a moment, then the man offered her his arm.  His voice was soft.  Appologetic. The boy could not hear what was being said.  They moved off together to the rear of the sulky. 

Cemetary

 

CHARACTERS IN THIS SCENE:

 

The mother, the brother, the boy, and girl.  The father might appear as a ghost.

 

MAJOR NARRATIVE ELEMENTS:

 

-        the funeral of the father

-        the father appearing as ghost (at the funeral or even afterwards)

 

SUB PLOTS AND OTHER NARRATIVE ELEMENTS:

 

-        In this section we could have some facts about the amount of children who died in the era, and some information about how miners died in accidents.  I have heaps of books that Keri lent me here at the moment so I can probably start looking for this tomorrow. 

 

FRAGMENTS OF TEXT THAT WE MIGHT USE. 

I’m thinking that the man (Noah, the father who died) could be a ghost wandering around the cemetery.  But I think that we will need to add things to the narrative that appears here to make it clear that he is dead, and is a ghost, trying to make sense of the place he is in.  We may need to add in some images to better illustrate this.  Perhaps we can change the girl with the flies to a man, and have some text as well as flies that talks about the fact he is dead. 

***

He remembered only a little of his life.  It came back to him in flashes.  Faces and outlines, strings of
                                   d i s c o n n e c t  e d
                                             moments, 

the feel of different textures against his skin. 

 ***

He remembers the word, as if it was a vein, blistered beneath his skin.  A red pox mark rising to the surface.  Like a stain or a disease. 

He remembers writing the word in chalk on the blackboard, saying the letters in his head.  He prayed that they would come out, one and then the next, all in the right order.  But they did not, he could not remember.  The teacher said that he if he could not spell the word he would never know what it means.  She wrapped her stick against his hands and scolded him because he was poor and un-used to high-class English grammar.  She lifted her stick and wrapped it, telling him the letters R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R. 

He remembers that teacher’s face as a flash, rough and cold like winter sandpaper.  Now he sees her staring at him on the other side. 

 

*** This text could perhaps be used in the context of the woman at her husbands funeral. 

She was tired of the stares and polite,  condescending smiles.  People thought that she was mad.  Waiting for a husband they all believed dead.

***  This text could perhaps be used in the context of the boy at his father’s funeral. 

The boy had seen his father, in the black cloud of a black dream, sometimes still and sometimes breathing.  In the dream he stared at him hard until his eyes disappeared and then his face disappeared.  Then everything went white and he was woken by the sounds of his mother weeping. 

The boy thought of this as he stood behind the fence, watching the woman who looked at his mother.  The woman looked kind, like she would help them, still his mother went dark and cold and turned away. 

*** This could perhaps be used in the context of Dianna’s brother at the funeral.  We could change the voice so it reads:  Dianna’s brother could see a shadow lurking behind her.

***

Behind the woman he could see a shadow lurking.  It had the familiar shape of a man.

***

It was a man’s shape behind the woman.  A man trying to become a woman’s face.

***

He watched the figure as it moved and twisted.  All the dark particles, like small black dots pulled together to form a new shape, but at the last moment they broke apart and scattered back to their original position.  

***

She felt herself going backwards (into her self)

she thought of everything she had lost, of everything she was not.  She looked at her brother and started to cry.  She felt her lover’s warm breath on her shoulder.  Then everything went quiet and they all heard the bell of death ringing (up the street) change to ‘across the graveyard’ 

***

The men in black called her to the church to identify the body, Aida and her sister watching as she walked by.

She wanted to tell the world how her heart felt like an empty hole.  But all the voices were full of sympathy and she could not. 

***

The brother and the sister turned around then to see the sisters son and her daughter coming toward them, the little girl white in the face and walking slow for the fever, the little boy holding her hand, concerned at the sight of her illness.  She coffed a spluttered, and the brother took off his jacket and put it around her shoulders. 

 

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Monday, 9 July 2007 10:36 PM
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 Sunday, 8 July 2007

Cemetary


This is the start of the Cemetary diorama:
Links:
Kukaburra - movie
Cross - links to stories about father and daughter dying
Toombstone - link to story - REMEMBER

Since the fall he sees flashes. He remembers one word, as if it was a vein, blistered beneath his skin.  A red pox mark rising to the surface.  Like a stain or a disease.

He remembers writing the word in chalk on the blackboard, saying the letters in his head.  He prayed that they would come out, one and then the next, all in the right order.  But they did not, he could not remember.  The teacher said that he if he could not spell the word he would never know what it means.  She wrapped her stick against his hands and scolded him because he was poor and un-used to the rules of English grammar.  She lifted her stick and wrapped it, telling him the letters R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R. He remembers now, the letters, the lips, the sound of words.  He remembers the grip of his father holding him tightly during those cold Irish winters.  When he was a boy winter was a word that ate whole days.  His fingers became bruised from pulling potatoes. 

He remembers that teacher’s face as a flash, rough and cold like winter sandpaper.  Now he sees her staring at him on the other side. 

He remembers being twisted, his legs bent in unnatural positions and the coppery smell of dirt mixed with blood.


Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Sunday, 8 July 2007 2:09 PM
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 Sunday, 8 July 2007

Cemetary - Draft 1

CEMETERY:

ROCK/GRAVE SITE:

Roll over link –overlay square of text:

The main graveyard lay at the edge of the town nestled in a thick area of eucalyptus forest.  There were a range of gravestones and crosses, of which the size indicated the prosperity of the deceased. Death was a common occurrence, especially near the mines where they often said “Men are cheaper than rope”1.  Accidents were ordinary with frequent landslides and carelessness brought on by rum.  Stories of children fallen into open, abandoned shafts – that drowned in muddy water, their small bodies broken in the fall.

They say if you listen quietly at night, the sounds of men, women and children can be heard gathering. Their faces lost inside heavy patches of trees.

Hillendiana – p74

TOMBSTONE – TEXT ‘REMEMBER’:

Close Curtain – Open Curtain

Dark Background -> Text fades in, in segments:
Since the fall he remembers little of his life. 
Animation: Images in sections fade in and out
He sees flashes.  Faces and outlines. Strings of d i s c o n n e c t  e d moments, the feel of different textures against his skin.
He remembers the word, as if it was a vein, blistered beneath his skin.  A red pox mark rising to the surface.  Like a stain or a disease. He remembers writing the word in chalk on the blackboard, saying the letters in his head.  He prayed that they would come out, one and then the next, all in the right order.  But they did not, he could not remember.  The teacher said that he if he could not spell the word he would never know what it means.  She wrapped her stick against his hands and scolded him because he was poor and un-used to the rules English grammar.  She lifted her stick and wrapped it, telling him the letters R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R
Audio: Tap, tap, tap as each letter appears.
He remembers now, the letters, the lips, the sound of words. He remembers the grip of his father holding him tightly during those cold Irish winters. When he was a boy winter was a word that ate whole days.    His fingers became bruised from pulling potatoes. He remembers that teacher’s face as a flash, rough and cold like winter sandpaper.  Now he sees her staring at him on the other side. 
 He remembers being twisted, his legs bent in unnatural positions and the coppery smell of dirt mixed with blood.

CROSS:

Close Curtain – Open Curtain

Image to left: Family standing around the grave.
Text fade in: The family stood quietly at the father’s grave marked only by a stretch of loose soil and small wooden cross surrounded by rocks.  They could not afford a proper tombstone, with his name engraved.
To advance the user must mouse over and click on the woman figure. Once clicked the other figures fade out and the image of the woman grows larger and moves to the left.  The text appears in a cloud.  This will probably change when it is getting made.
Text: The woman knew when they died, her husband, like so many others, would not be remembered.
click
Text: She would have to take another husband soon. The odds were in her favour as the men still outnumbered the women by more than two to one, but with no money and two small children, she knew her new husband would not be young or wealthy.
click
Text: Her eyes down, she studied her rough hands and worn skirt and thought of everything she had lost, everything she was not.  She had not wanted to accept his death, but when the men called her to the church to see his body, she could no longer deny it.  Her heart felt empty, like the dark hole in which her husband was found. She looked at her brother and started to cry. 
click
Her body shook with each sob and she felt herself going backwards (into herself). Lightheaded, she felt her lover’s breath – cold - on her shoulder.  Then everything went quiet and they heard the death bell ringing across the graveyard.

GHOST FIGURE OF MAN:

Close Curtain – Open Curtain

Link to ghost man – very faint and dark – surrounded by flies and black dots.  They follow the cursor.  The text appears as part of the image.
Behind his sister, the man saw a shadow lurking.  It had the familiar shape of a man.  A man trying to become a woman’s face.  He watched the figure as it moved and twisted.  Dark particles, like small black dots pulled together to form the new shape, but at the last moment they broke apart and scattered back to their original position.
There was an agony in its movement.  A frustration.  He watched and wondered: Did his sister know? Could she sense it? 
It had a definite presence – much stronger than the others.  They were usually more timid and only came out at night.

CLOUDS: - not sure if you are using this but is listed in the cemetery section you sent ….

Close Curtain – Open Curtain

The night his father died, the boy had seen him in the black cloud of a back dream, sometimes still and sometimes breathing.
Animation: Man hanging from cloud – like in the first version of Diorama
In the dream he stared at him hard until his eyes disappeared and then his face disappeared.
Animation: Face and body disappear.
Red cracks spread out.
Animation: Red cracks –like the cracks between rocks appear and fill the scene – red scene fades to white. (Since it is a silent movie everything will be in black and white except the red cracks).
Then everything went white and he was woken by the sound of his mother weeping.
KUKABURRA:
Close Curtain – Open Curtain
At the edge of the cemetery a kookaburra laughed, but the sound was solemn and echoed through the site.  The air was cool, a reminder that the season was between autumn and winter.  As winter came, the cemetery would become more and more crowded with mourners and rows of lonely piles of earth.

Animation: Leaves falling in piles.

Fade in image of girl with animation.

The girl was younger than her brother, still unsure of the meaning of death.  It’s finality.  Like her mother, she had thought her father would return. Even now with his face fading it was hard for her to comprehend that she would never see him again.  It was this lack of understanding that kept her grief at bay.  The sadness she felt spilled from her mother.  It enveloped her and made her skin icy.

In her hands she cradled the wooden rabbit her father had carved her.  It still smelled like tobacco and sweat. 


Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Sunday, 8 July 2007 01:39 AM
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 Monday, 2 July 2007

A Post from Flickr.com


Camera
Originally uploaded by denniskratz
Camera page...bground will most likely need to be changed again...not sure. May also use images instead of text in the background so it is more like a camera - revealing specific scenes.

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Monday, 2 July 2007 01:33 AM
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A Post from Flickr.com


Journal 2
Originally uploaded by denniskratz
The pages can be flipped...
I am still sorting the text, but thought it may be nice to see if any of the blog text from H.E. is usable, as that way it will weave our experiences into the narrative...

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Monday, 2 July 2007 01:30 AM
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A Post from Flickr.com


Journal
Originally uploaded by denniskratz

Filed under: None | Posted by Dennis Kratz at Monday, 2 July 2007 01:27 AM
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