The End of Violence

On my way walking to the station from UTS tonight in the tunnel underneath George Street, I saw pieces of broken beer bottles on the ground. I also hear scream or yell from girls, sounded like drunk girls from just on the opening to the bus stations. I looked up like a few other pedestrians in the tunnel but saw nothing. As I was walking out of under George St towards the Central tunnel, a group of 5-6 teenagers was walking towards me, I didn't expect anything and then one of them faked as if he was coming at me with a shout as I passed by him.

It wasn't the first time. And I don't think it would be the last. It's just a pain in the butt.

This time I said, "Shittt!" And turned to look at them disapprovingly. Another two small kids were behind them and they were laughing, smirking. They were like 12 to 14 years old, maybe younger. One of them, a small one faked a move too and I think I shot him a pretty pissed angry look, I was angry and he said, "Oh, they are just stupid." Maybe I got the other wrong and I yelled back something like, "Grow up..." and something like that. I probably wanted to say, "What the fuck?!" It did cross my mind to bash them in the head with the old black IBM laptop I was holding and break his nose. I think I could take those 2 small kids easily but then there were at least 3 bigger ones.

Afterward I saw the security guard just in front of the Central tunnel, he's probably to patrol the shops in the area between the 2 tunnels. He asked me if I usually walk this way at this time, and I said yea, I have a class that ends at 9pm. He advised me to not take the underground but go above next time and to tell my friends also. I then understand why Bei doesn't go underneath. I told him that this is pretty tragic and that people are getting beat up, even disables, get beat up by these people. Is there a way to solve this? He told me there are undercover cops but they are not there all the time. He also told me several people got beat up recently here, like 8 of them beat up this dude who was shaking as he approached the security guard. He told me that when this happen, and if that happened to me, he wouldn't be here.

He just didn't want any trouble. As we were talking (I was complaining), a lady told me "They are rotten (or something like that), they got nothing better to do." I didn't like she was kind of proud and happy to give me the information. It was a tragic sight. This whole issue of these drunken violent teenagers is tragic and serious, nothing to be make light of.

Anyway, that gave me the idea to possibly research the story and make a documentary out of it.

A fictional story also came up in my head-The End of Violence.

It would be something like this:
A good kid is walking from school, or just walking at night to train station or back home and is bashed up. Maybe it's about a young sweet teenager couple getting taunted, beat up and raped. Anyway, real tragic. The boy gets hospitalized. The dad get mad and slowly (like Fight Club) organized this informal organization composed of people who are basically just sick of these teenagers. They patrol hot spots of teenage gangs violence, escort people carrying baseball bat, cricket bat, golf club, shovel and etc. This group of people compose of off duty security guards, police officers, former victims from all walks of life but mostly men with a handful of women. They wear masks to shield their identity.

Occasionally they get into fights with drunken teenagers, make an example of one of them. They try to impose fear and order. They are frustrated that they can no longer enjoy freedom and be safe on their streets, which are taken over by violent teenagers with the authority almost useless in maintaining order.

At the end, there is a change. Streets are free of graffiti. People are fearful of one another. Everybody live in fear because nobody knows who will upset who and best to be respectful, thus the end of violence.

IGNITE

IGNITE-Australian Christian Film Festival

December18th

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Ignite is Australia’s premier Christian Short Film Festival

Posted in: Articles, Featured Articles, Newsletter

Ignite is Australia’s premier Christian Short Film Festival.

Started in 2004, its major aims are to develop young Christian film makers and to encourage people to be creative about communicating the truths of the Bible.

The rules are simple:

• Films must be based on a verse or passage from the Bible that contains a keyword
• Films must be no longer than 5 minutes

Entries close on the last Friday in July each year, with the Festival Screening and Awards Ceremony on the first Saturday in September. The following year’s theme is announced at the Award Ceremony.

Previous themes have been:

• 2004 – Parables
• 2005 – Water
• 2006 – Fire
• 2007 – Light
• 2008 – Rock (or Stone)
• 2009 – Animal(s)

Ignite is based in Sydney, but receives entries from all over the world. In recent years films have come from countries as diverse as the UK, Argentina, India and Cambodia.

Competition Format

The Festival Director views all films to assess their suitability for competition – that is, does each film meet the entry criteria noted above.

The films that make it through (which is normally all but one or two) then get sent to a panel of preliminary judges, who collectively select the best 20 films.

The ‘Top 20′ films are all eligible for the People’s Choice award. From 2009, these films will be uploaded onto this website, with the People’s Choice award voting happening online.

The judges then individually choose winners in various categories, as well as one or two ‘honourable mentions’. These decisions are then collated by the Festival Director to come up with the category winners, and four ‘wild cards’ – films that didn’t take out a category but rated highly among the judges.

The category winners, the People’s Choice winner, and the four wild cards are screened at the Awards Ceremony, and all of them are eligible for the major award – the Gold Sparky for the Best Film.

The Gold Sparky is decided on the night by a separate judging panel. Although it hasn’t happened yet, it is possible for a wild card entry to win the major prize.

Ignite Awards

Awards are given for the following categories:

• Best Script
• Best Performance by a Male Actor
• Best Performance by a Female Actor
• Best Cinematography
• Best Sound
• Best Editing/Effects
• Best Director
• Best Entry by a School
• Best Entry by a First-time Film Maker (Bright Spark)
• People’s Choice
• Best Film (Gold Sparky)

An award for Best Animation has also been given in some years.

A range of cash and other prizes are also attached to the various awards.

In 2009, the Gold Sparky and People’s Choice winners will receive a cash prize from our major sponsor, the Mary Bladon Christian Fellowship, while the Bright Spark and Schools category winners will receive a data projector from Christian Multimedia

Writing for the Screen Wk#9

Script (workshop) reading next week.

Week#4, JUNE 1st! Bring in 3 copies on May 24th.

Bring 3 copies of film a week before script reading week for your script.

Key scene: 4-5 pages, not a page.

Key Scene: C27 decides to go against the system as he knows it for Alisha. Destiny for love? There is someone for us all. Fate.
Insomnia: Proto realizes where he is at the end of the story. Unconsciousness, lost memory because of dramatic experience.

Got my screenplay back and Margot told me to drop Cupid and that she just can't understand it. So I at least got Un-wake so it was a good idea to send both. She said cupid is "undergrad, you are postgrad." It felt really bad, especially the way she put it, to drop Cupid. I had and still have a lot of hope for Cupid.

I understand why she said that though, Cupid is not any high drama and I haven't finish it. One thing though I really need to improve my language skills and writing. There's no short cut to writing.

Election Shoot - Encounter

Jimmy-9 The only professional crew on the whole team and was doing several roles including directing, AD, DOP, cameraman and camera assistant.

Token-4 Was lost because Jimmy took over as camera operator, he could've helped then as a camera assistant but just kind of drifted like Martin, could stand around less and make himself more useful.

Martian-5 Didn't have the props ready by 6pm, a big no no. Should've gotten the stuff done by 5:30pm today and didn't do his role on the production and just drifted around.

Lee- 4 At a lost as AD, messed up on casting, couldn't reach Mo and basically wasn't able to do al the tasks under his responsibility.

Train-4 Did alright as recorder but was stationary when others were moving. Could've helped more and been more active instead of being told what to do. Need to be ready on the go.

Mo-2 Missing in action because of special event of a new baby but could've called to tell us at least.

As for me, I don't give myself much of a rating, probably 4-5. But I was disappointed at the crew. I wanted to re-organize the crew and did but wasn't the first AD and producer suppose to do that? The producer didn't even call Mo! That was his job.

The worst was the standing around at the set with most of the crew except Jimmy. I couldn't believe that I was helping to get RTA, getting extension cord, putting down script, getting lights, putting the trolley on as director. I was doing as much if not more physical task than half of the crew and didn't even have time to get snack or finish the other half of my coffee.

Lee was kind of dumb, wasn't aggressive enough. He needed to man up and just do it. I was doing his job half the time. He was suppose to help me out so I can concentrate on directing.

On the other hand, the actors were good. Mike got the role nailed. Melody was good. I feel bad that we went out of film and time. It was just mismanagement and me not being organized. It's my disease. Jimmy saved my butt.