Tinkerer: A Short Film

Above: this is just the preview image for the blog. This is not the video.

This was written for the University subject, BCM115.

‘The House Glows (With Almost No Help)’ used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licensing. See http://chriszabriskie.com/licensing/ for more details.

Special thanks to my Dad by helping me make this by starring in it.

A man sits, tinkering, while thinking about the past…

In this short film, ‘Tinkerer’, my goal was to create an intersection between chronological storytelling and a “mind-scape”, a surreal audio-visual experience - a manifestation of a mind’s wandering: the mind of the Tinkerer.

All right, now with the basic synopsis out of the way, let’s talk about the nuts-and-bolts aspects of this project.

In the vast world of global cinema and the screen media that has evolved out of the internet with many creators using it as a platform for their work, one scene stood out in particular: a scene from the film Ulysses, released in 1967 and based on the novel of the same name by James Joyce. In it, the character Molly Bloom has a soliloquy - a monologue - where she reminisces about when her husband proposed to her. Whilst what is being shown on screen isn’t necessarily a direct representation of what she is saying, it is nonetheless representative of her memory. I attempted to capture or mimic this in my own film with the interview-like voice-over present throughout.

In addition, I also used a song by Chris Zabriskie called ‘The House Glows (With Almost No Help)’. In using this freely available song, I brought online screen media into the project, crossing both traditional and contemporary screen media into a single film. Moreover, the song’s atmosphere added to the surrealism that was being conveyed in the film, furthering this “mind-scape” and drawing the viewer into the Tinkerer’s way of thinking.

Furthermore, the juxtaposition of the clips portraying the Tinkerer’s environment to the chronological narrative assist in ‘breaking up’ the film, shattering the linear story and allowing the viewer a direct insight into the mind of the Tinkerer.

Finally, this Tinkerer is not only my Dad but is also an “everyman”, an everyman who reflects on his life when they perform even the most menial of tasks. Hence why this particular Tinkerer thinks about his colourful past…whilst spending his time switching out a battery on a set of scales.

Thus, it’s these concepts, these aspects of screen media that coalesce into this final project. The intersection of chronological and non-chronological storytelling, the homages to traditional and global cinema, the convergence of said traditional screen media and online media, the implementation of surrealism in partially disrupting the conventional narrative and the story of the piece itself…

It’s these things that make up this project. A summary of all that I have learned so far in creating media.

So, after all of that explanation…

…I hope you enjoy this film of mine.