Bibliography 2

AS Coursework piece Colonel Fawcett and the Lost City of Z Screenplay

The Lost City of Z
by David Grann

A Reporter at Large: The Lost City of Z
by David Grann
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/09/19/050919fa_fact_grann

Exploration Fawcett
by Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett

Amazonia
by James Rollins

Grindhouse: The Sleaze-filled Saga of an Exploitation Double Feature
By Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez

Bibliography

AS Coursework piece "The Woods" Bibliography

-The H.P Lovecraft Literary Podcast
 by Chad Fifer and Chris Lackey
 http://hppodcraft.com

-The H.P Lovecraft Archive
 www.hplovecraft.com

-The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia
 by Daniel Harms

Stories that have been analysed:

"The Colour Out of Space"
"The Shadow Over Innsmouth"
"The Call of Cthulhu"
"The Dunwich Horror"
"The Haunter of the Dark"

All by H.P Lovecraft

AS Coursework Commentary: The Woods Mark 2.0

This piece is based on the literary style of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, a renown American writer, known for his short horror stories and novellas in his own created "Cthulhu Mythos", a fictional universe that was based within New England (called Lovecraft Country), using extraterrestrial creatures and forbidden texts. Many other writers, most famously Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, used and contributed to the Mythos. In this vein, I have referenced some of Lovecrafts stories and creations, possibly the most apparent and famous of his fictional creations is an important plot device within the piece, is the Necronomicon, called "the Book" in the story. This makes the story inclusive to the "Cthulhu Mythos", and also as mentioned, and if the reader is familiar with Lovecraft's works, then is evident to the reader.
A noticeable literary feature that appears almost constantly within my story, and Lovecraft's is a very heavy use of adjectives, which I have tried to use as much as possible. Examples include "twilit bush", "unsuspecting swimmer", "cyclopean masonry" (a common feature in Lovecraft's work when describing the architecture of alien creatures), "baleful grove" and "brick-lined basement". These adjectives perform their function as descriptors, providing plenty of information for the reader to pick up upon, thus painting a finer, clearer mental image, and to further clarify the scenery. As with most Lovecraft stories, my piece, it is not about an extensive plot, or character development, but about atmosphere and creating well-described scene, in the case of my piece, it is the "Woods", of the titles.
Archaic words or wording also feature in Lovecraft's writing, and so it also makes an appearance in my work. Examples of this include; "unhallowed","jaunt", "ill-repute", and "sunken veil". "Sunken veil" is used to describe the shadows within the tumulus, but the term veil itself, is to denote death, as veils are often worn by the deceased in many cultures during religious ceremonies, so it would be apt that an ancient tomb containing a body should be compared to such. Why I used archaic terms as Lovecraft did comes from his longing to become an eighteenth-century gentleman, but due his wish unable to come true, he opted to use spellings from the eighteen-century. Often this was Anglicised, due to the author being a self-proclaimed Anglophile, but unfortunately, I did not adhere to this structure, as I write in a mixture of both Anglicised and Americanised spellings.
Area-specific lexis is also evident, for example, scientific lexis is shown through "Pareidolia", which is when a person sees faces or people in objects or patterns. I have used this example of scientific lexis because it was also a common feature in Lovecrafts own work, including in an example of which I had analysed previously, "The Colour Out of Space" (note the Anglicised spelling of colour, instead of the Americanised color), where he details different scientific tests used to trying to classify a meteor. Lovecraft wrote these lengthy passages because of his own passion for the sciences, most notably chemistry and astronomy, but also archeology, anthropology, and the exploration of the continent of Antarctica. I kept the science to a bare minimum in the story, because as stated earlier, the story is about atmosphere.

AS Coursework Commentary: The Woods

This piece is based off of the unique writing style of Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), a horror author from Providence, U.S.A, famous for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos. While the story that I have written is not technically a "Mythos" story, I do reference many stories, or Lovecraft's creations. Examples of this include, "the brick-lined basement of the building" is a reference to the opening of the story, "The Curse of Yig", in which a man visits an insane asylum, to see a possibly half man, half snake creature. "One old man, whose house is built on top of a cliff overlooking the sea" is a reference to the story, "The Strange High House in the Mist", where there is a house which is on a high cliff, overlooking the sea. Finally, the book that is constantly referenced throughout the story is the Necronomicon, possibly the most well known of Lovecrafts creations. The Necronomicon is an ancient, evil book written by Abdul Alhazred (one of Lovecrafts many alter-ego's, and also a pun, Al-Haz-Red or All Has Read).
In the story, to mimic Lovecrafts style, which is adjective heavy, and almost every noun and verb has an adjective, to further describe the scene, or to create a sense of unease. For most people, the writing is difficult to read, due to the nigh-labyinthine writing. So, I felt that it was nessacery to do so. Examples of the adjective laden writing; "twilit bush", "fated jaunt", "gaping maws", "ill-repute" (a hyphenated adjective, which is in extremely common usage in Lovecraft's story, "The Lurking Fear").

I find myself to be influenced by a wide variety of things; including cinema, literature, the natural world, and other artists. In cinema, I find myself drawn to the films of Guillermo del Toro, whose films are often dark fairy tales, like "Pans Labyrinth", or "Cronos". Another filmmaker that inspires me is Shinya Tsukamoto, whose bleak and abrasive "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" has inspired wonder and awe at his twisted allegory of urban degeneration. I read many books, but no author has drawn me in as much as H.P Lovecraft, whose indescribable, and horrible mythos left me to try and recreate these colorful worlds and characters to which are often supposed to be "unimaginable". In fine art, I am most inspired by the turbulent, sensual sculptures of Auguste Rodin, to me, he raised the bar of what a sculptor needs to accomplish. Also, the Black Paintings of Francisco Goya and the work of illustrator Mike Mignola are gorgeous, with their pools of jet black, that veil the subject, leaving the imagination to play tricks on the viewer. Finally, I am influenced by the world around me, namely exotic places that I have been to, and have not yet been, ancient cultures, marine life, and wildlife.

I hope to improve my sculpting in future, to encompass a wider range of materials of which I may not have had the opportunity to use in the past, and to be able to use the materials that I have already used to greater skill and more complex pieces. As well as this, I hope to also improve skills in other media, such as drawing, so then I can create more ambitious works.

In the future, after completing the foundation course, I would like to get a degree in Fine Art, and then to do a course in Archeology or in

Bibliographies

For Lovecraft Piece:

-The H.P Lovecraft Literary Podcast
(http://hppodcraft.com/)

-H.P Lovecraft.com (All texts are in the public domain)
-The Colour Out of Space
-At The Mountains of Madness
-

English Coursework Part 2: Colonel Fawcett and the Lost City of Z Screenplay

COLONEL FAWCETT AND THE LOST CITY OF Z

EXT. Jungle

Open to a close up shot of a raindrop on a leaf.

As the raindrop moves downwards, the leaf is cut away by a machete.

A figure then moves past, indistinct, followed by other indistinct figures. Suddenly we see all of the figures distinctly. They are men in explorers kit. The men are all spread out in a triangular formation, with FAWCETT at point.

TITLE CARD

Mato Grosso, Amazon Rainforest, Brazil

There is one man trailing behind, this is RICE. He looks like he was once a plump man, but has lost a lot of weight, so skin hangs off of his frame, and his limbs are covered with BOILS and MAGGOTS, and he does not looked pleased.

RICE

tired

"FAWCETT! Slow down! We've been walking for almost ten days now, and we need to rest!"

FAWCETT

"No, we don't need to rest, we'll keep going until we find a good place for us to camp, and then we'll rest. But we have to ration our food from here on out, as I've told you already, considering that we lost Stevenson to that jaguar."

RICE

annoyed

"Well I know that, you fool! But why are we out here in this jungle again? To find your accursed lost city, is what! We've been out here for two months now, and no sign of the city!"

FAWCETT

"DAMMIT RICE! It's out here, I know it! There IS a city out there, a city that no white man has EVER SEEN! We'll find this city, and show it to the world! We'll be rich, and start a new age of enlightenment! We'll be richer than kings when we return, but ONLY if we find that city!

RICE

"But we've spent two months out here chasing wild Indian legends and what? NOTHING! No city! No gold! No enlightenment!"


#1
"Yeah! Wheres the city of gold?!"


#2
"Wheres my gold?!"


FAWCETT
"Men, we will find this city, and you will get your gold! I swear we are only a few days out from the city, believe me! Now get moving, we're deep in Quehaxi territory, and their known cannibals!"


The men continue on.

EXT. Jungle


The men are all tired and soaked, it's raining heavily. None of the men are looking happy. Fawcett is at point, leading the group looking stern and angry from the confrontation earlier with Rice. Suddenly he stops and raises his hand, silencing the explorers.


#1
whispers
"What is it?"


FAWCETT
whispers
"Quehaxi. Tread carefully boys, I think that their near."


Suddenly, a six foot long arrow shoots through the throat of #1, turning his scream into a bloody, frothy gurgle. As soon as #1 hits the ground, a rain of massive arrows pelt the expedition, hitting some of the men. A few of the men who get hit writhe on the ground, as the area around their wounds blacken and blister.


RICE
yells
"Poison! The arrows are poison!"


FAWCETT
"Fire! Exterminates the brutes!"


All of the explorers let loose a hail of gunfire, killing a few Indians. Suddenly, more Indians appear, running forward with clubs, screaming war-chants.


FAWCETT
"Keep firing boys!"


FAWCETT is then knocked to the ground by an Indian with a club, who then tries to drag FAWCETT away, by his beard, into the jungle. FAWCETT fumbles for something at his belt, finds it and pulls out an old service revolver, promptly shooting the Indian.
FAWCETT picks himself back up, firing at all the Indians he can see.


FAWCETT
yells
"Quickly boys, to the river! We'll swim across the river!"


All of the men tourn around and run through the rainforest to the river. It's wide, but there doesn't seem to be a current, so all the men immediately run in and start to wade, ford, and swim, across, all the while being shot at with arrows by the Indians. As they swim across, some men are hit by arrows and one is dragged under by a giant caiman, and a few drown under the weight of the kit they are carrying.
Rice is struggling under his kit, barely being able to lift his head above water, trying to stay afloat. He is screaming, and flailing his arms around.


RICE
panicked
"Help! Help! Someone, please help me!"


FAWCETT, who had managed to make it to the other side, turns back and sees RICE in trouble. FAWCETT gets back into the river, and swims to RICE, and tries to removes RICE's bag. RICE puts up a fight and tries to push FAWCETT's head under the surface. After a few seconds, FAWCETT manages to overpower RICE, and punches RICE in the face, knocking him out cold. FAWCETT then removes RICE's bag, but he pauses, pondering if to choose the man, or the bag. After a beat, FAWCETT lets go of the bag, letting it sink to the bottom of the river.


FAWCETT swims back to shore, pulling an unconscious RICE behind him. The few surviving members of the expedition is watching FAWCETT.


FAWCETT
worried
"Is everyone okay?"


#2
"MacReady's been hit in the leg with an arrow, we're not sure if he'll survive for much longer. Sam's got a nasty gash on his head, but he'll pull through. We've lost a lot of the men, though."


FAWCETT
"Who?"


#2
"Statler, Isley, Hill, Burns, Rodriguez, Stenson, Smitt, Jones and Beausoliel. Most of them to the Indians, except Isley, he was killed by a caimna."


FAWCETT
angry
"DAMN! Thats half of the expedition! And our supplies as well!"


#3
"Stenson had some of the maps as well...."


#2
"Really?"


#3
depressed
"Yeah"


FAWCETT
sounding drained
"Don't worry, I have copies, so we won't be lost. Let's set up camp here, I don't think we're in any state to go anywhere today, and it's starting to get dark."

Bruce House Cabaret

BBC Bruce!

Hello Pretty Ladies! Oscar

This is my sexy voice. Mikel

Hi I'm Psycho Jono...

Hound Dog+Gay Bar. Fraser

Sport with Mikey with his picture

Winfield: Asian Correspondent, with subtitles

Vidur: Weather, with its raining men. REALLY strong accent.

Crimewatch (?) Me.

Cumming vs. Bruce Chase

Wham news intro: after bruce intro: will and gregor

Dance-off: U6
Songs:
Vanilla Ice: Ice Ice Baby
Check Yourself

Dances Must be sexual, over the top and cringing.

Two teams of 5. 4 U6. one has miguel, and other 5 U6.
Grease up guys team with baby oil.

Group One; Girls
Sebbie, Robbie, Gregor, Will, Calum

Group Two; Guys
Mikel, Nick, Winfield, Vidur, Taylor

Afternoon Delight
Robbie, Will, Calum, Gregor

Whats Going On

Well, it has been a few weeks since I have updated the bog...I'm getting slack...
nah, I've just had a shedload of work to do, with my art portfolio deadline approaching, and a sculpture half done,  I have had very little time to do anything...so here is what I'm up to;

What I'm Reading;
The Black Angel by John Connolly
Haunt of Horror by Richard Corben
Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto
The Crooked Man and Others by Mike Mignola
Nocturnes by John Connolly
Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft

What I'm Watching;
"Dumpling's"
"Ichi the Killer"
"Marebito"
"Pan's Labyrinth"
"Seven Samurai"
"Aguirre, The Wrath of God"
"Freaks"
"Videodrome"
"Tetsuo: The Bullet Man"
"Jigoku"

Got my Art Exam paper on Monday, it's theme being "Exploration and Discovery", so I'm pretty excited for it! So here are some of the artists that I was thinking of referencing in my project;
Richard Corben
Francisco Goya
HR Giger
Heironymus Bosch
Auguste Rodin
Mike Mignola
Ray Harryhausen

AS English Language Coursework!

Lovecraft Homage Piece:
The Woods

I.

School is a strange place. It lies far to the north, hidden amongst the darkened woods of the Boreal climes that enshrouded it from the rest of the world. It is those unhallowed woods into which no wise student has dared to set foot, lest he or she be lost amongst the nigh endless tangle of brambles, whose sharpened thorns claw at the lone walkers underneath the malign canopy.
We were always told to never enter those woods, and many chose to listen, and many chose to oblige the sage wisdom of the staff, for none wished to risk their hides in those trees, but some students, dared to tread to untread paths, whose entrances loomed into the treetops, and yawned like the gaping maws of the hell-mouths of Medieval bestiaries, beckoning all into the twilit bush, rustling as though they were possessed.
There were, apparently, paths that lead into what some of the older students deemed as Hell's Orchard, and those who walked those paths never returned quite the same, if they did return at all. Those who did, though, were not in a right state of mind. They spoke of things that lurked in the corners of their vision, faces in the trees, and of things. Flabby, gelatinous things that flopped and writhed over the half rotted logs, and the thick carpets of mosses. We all dismissed those claims, accusing drugs, or possibly pareidolia, but we still feared of what may lurk in there. All of us, that is, except from my friend, Salazar Cake.

Salazar Cake was a relatively new arrival in school, and he had already gained a peculiar reputation in such a short time. He was known for his lust for odd going-ons, the unusual, and expanding his already vast repertoire of strange knowledge, and pioneered his classes, leaving all in the wake of his formidable intellect.
It was unsurprising that I often found him staring into woods, as though in deep thought, and so began to find out as much as possible about the baleful grove. He spoke with the Headmaster, a man of advanced years, who had been at the school longer than any other member of the staff. He spoke with the older students, who have been there since the earliest years. He spoke also with the gossipers, the grounds man, and even to those who had returned from their fated jaunt into the woods, who now resided in the medical centre, locked away in the brick-lined basement of the building. And so, it was through this line of inquiry, that he found himself in the Library, looking for school records, when he found mention in the earliest text of a book kept by one of the owners of what was now the campus.
This man was a magician of ill-repute, and had done many deeds of which had entered the legends of the area. Practicing black magic, said the patriarch of the Mackenzie's,  consorting with the Devil himself, said the grand-dames of the nearest village, but according to one old man, who's house is built on top of a cliff overlooking the sea, had said that the wizard had ownership of a book. It was this book that had been the source of the wizard’s power, and also was behind the veil that was drawn by the woods. So it was then that Cake had an idea.
To find the book.

II.

It was a few days later that Cake and myself standing at the edge of those woods, gazing into its gloomy abysses. I do not remember quite how Cake had managed to persuade me into joining him into the arboreal nightmare, but yet I felt an unusual compulsion to see what others have not seen, to discover the undiscovered, and to travel upon paths whose mystery was infused into the earth, like flavourings in a tea blend. 

And so, we began our trek into the woods. It seemed idyllic enough at the time, I suppose, but there was a strange taste to the air their. It was metallic and heady, and seemed to drain our energy, like a leech on an unsuspecting swimmer, but we continued on anyway. The interior was heavily overgrown, and the path that we walked on was covered in thick, lush grass, but nothing else grew there. We moved in deeper and deeper, moving briskly, but with as much care as we could muster, for we did not wish to stray off the path. Later, it became apparent that the only noise in there was the wind rustling amongst the breeze. No birds. No insects. Nothing. Just the wind against the leaves. But we still continued deeper into the woods.

It was a few hours into the undergrowth when we stumbled upon an ancient tumulus, to which we stared at in amazement. There wasn’t supposed to be anything out there, but there was, and so Cake began to climb up the barrow, and at the top he noticed a entryway at the top. I scrambled up behind him and as I reached the summit, Cake began to climb down into the blacked depths of the mound. And all alone in the forest I decided to follow him down into what could be hell, for all I knew. 

It was cold down there. Not cold like a midwinter chill, but the chill that you get when the clouds cover the Sun on a cool day. It was damp too, as though the stones that lined the walls have been sweating gently over a long period of time. And I still continued downwards into the darkness. Upon reaching the bottom, the only light was the faint glimmer that shone down from the heavens, but was obscured by the canopy far above. Cake suddenly pulled out a small pocket torch from his pocket, and began to move deeper into the tunnels that surrounded us. The walls where lined in cyclopean masonry, which made me suspect that the structure had been built by the Celts in the time of Sulla. There were no cobwebs down here, just stone, dirt and the shadows which enshrouded the caverns like some primal sunken veil. We continued. Then before us the tunnel began to open outwards, becoming what felt like a dome, in the centre of which was a raised area, which Cake began to approach immediately. I followed closely after him, for I did not wish to be caught be something that haunted the dark. As we drew close to the dais, it became apparent that it was an ancient wooden seat, in which was sitting a shrivelled, desiccated husk of what could have been a man, but as I gazed in shock at the figure, Cake gazed at what it held in it’s hands. What it clutched was what Cake had been searching for ever since his visit to the strange old man whose house was by the sea. For it was the book. 

Sculptural Stuff!

Book Review: Every Dead Thing

The Travelling Man is on the move,

Few will survive the journey.

Charlie Parker is a man fuelled by revenge. A revenge so strong and powerful that it consumes his very being. The cause of his need for violence is The Travelling Man, an enigmatic, demonic man who has taken his wife and child, blinding them and peeling off their faces. This book is a modern Dante's Inferno, following one mans descent into Hell.

The protagonist, Parker, is a private detective, known for his violence and ability to get the job done, but he is a man with a dark past. His wife and daughter where brutally murdered while he was drunk at a bar, and now is a broken man. Until the day where he is drawn in to investigate the disappearance of a young woman, and the mysterious killer begins to kill again, and Parker is thrown back into a world of grief, pain, and suffering. 

As a general rule, I'm not big into detective fiction. Maybe a bit of Conan Doyle, but not a lot else seems to interest me there. Until one day, I picked up a copy of the fifth book in the Charlie Parker series, The Black Angel (also to be reviewed later), and I was hooked. Here was a beautifully crafted story, so brilliantly written, and nigh poetic in it's structure that I fell into it's smothering embrace.

John Connolly, the author of the series, paints a world that at first glance is peaceful and idyllic, but as soon as you turn a corner, bang! The world becomes a dark and dreary thing, populated by criminals, killers, and horrific deeds.

This book, being the first of the series, is also one of the best, with it's gritty labyrinthine narrative,  believable characters and flowing structure.

The author does a fantastic job of making his characters human, but at the same time, making some of his more vicious characters less human, more like supernatural entities driven by some dark power, and all somehow connected, each of these man-monsters all seem to be dragging the world around them into the darkness, maybe pushing others into the darkness of their being, or the darkness of their graves, from which there is no escape. 

And he makes one point clear throughout his books.

Here be monsters.

Fim Review: Tetsuo: The Iron Man

"Game Over"


When you first watch this movie, you may do as I did and rub your eyes, and stare at the screen with astonishment, wondering "What the fuck just happened to me?" This is a natural reaction to Shinya Tsukamoto's seminal cyberpunk classic, Tetsuo: The Iron Man.  This cerebral, black and white mind-fuck was released in 1989, when the once glorious Japanese film industry was floating dead in the water, and the only director who was churning out half-decent movies, Sogo Ishii, was suffering from a creative crisis. Times were dire, and the nations film-makers needed a miracle.
So out from the dark, came roaring and screaming in metallic tones, Tetsuo, a hyperkinetic, surreal, bleak, sterile, and overly mindblowing piece of art, was born, and sent it's father Tsukamoto into the international spotlight.


The basic plot of the film starts off with a man, The Fetishist (played by Shinya Tsukamoto himself), cutting his own leg open and inserting a piece of rebar. Seconds later, he finds the wound infested with maggots, so he runs out of his junk-filled home, into the street, where he is run down, by the Salaryman (Japanese cult actor Tomorowo Taguchi) who's presence is announced by loud and trashy jazz. Then, later in his home, the Salaryman cuts himself while shaving, discovering that a chunk of metal growing out of his face. From there on out, the film descends into some pretty surreal territory, with a five minute phone conversation consisting of nothing but "Hello?" being spoken, the Salaryman being chased by a woman with a metal hand in a train station, some seriously Giger-esque erotic dreams, a giant metal drill-penis (!), and the grande finale, the showdown between the Fetishist and the Salaryman, in what can only be described as the most overly trippy piece of cinematography ever, period.


This movie covers themes that Tsukamoto will return to in his later films, including heightened eroticism as portrayed by the sodomy dream sequence, urban decay shown through the various sets on in the film are cluttered and strewn with junk, how an urban environment is a hostile environment with the harsh black and white film, the near abandonment of the streets in the film, and also the fusion of man and metal, the final metamorphosis into the Iron Man. Sound is also a very important factor in this film, the soundtrack, composed by Chu Ishikawa, is loud, and abrasive, filled with the metallic noises of industrial machinery, combined with synthesiser and drumbeats. This soundtrack is in turn juxtaposed against the relative lack of dialogue, creating what I can guarantee as the loudest silent movie you'll ever see. Spawning two sequels, Tetsuo: The Body Hammer (1992), and Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009) which have met mixed reviews, Iron Man is by far the best of the the three.


If you want to even dare to compare this masterpiece with the works of others, I guess you could say that  if David Lynch (Eraserhead, Blue Velvet), and David Cronenburg (Videodrome, The Fly), accidentally got fused together by the Telepods in Cronenburg's The Fly, and they decided to make a movie. While on acid. Apart from that, I don't believe it is actually possible to compare Tsukamoto's films with any Western film, let alone, any film.
Shinya Tsukamoto is a god. 'Nuff said.

First Post!

Greetings!
This is the first post I've posted on this blog, so I'm feeling pretty good about myself right now.
 So, I feel like introductions are in order!
My name is Nick, a globe-trotting Australian with a perchance for the weird and wonderful, I've lived in many countries, including Australia, Pakistan, Thailand, Uganda, and Rwanda, so it's fair to say that I've seen a lot in my brief time on this earth.
An aspiring artist, I hope to do a foundation course in London, and then go on to get a degree and move into the art world, as well as make some films along the way (hopefully)!
So the idea is to be a bit of everything, a space where I'll put up links that I find interesting, personal art, book and film reviews, opinions, mini-essays, and other odds and ends. I don't know how often I'll update this blog, but I'll try to do it as often as I can.
So, as we have been introduced, I hope that you enjoy this blog, and my ramblings through the things that I find inspiring!

Nick Curnow