Feels so unnatural, Peter Gabriel too.

Ok, so I was feeling a little precious about my writing, but I realised I'd forgotten what the intention of the blog was. I'm sorry, blog. I'll never hide anything from you again. I know, I know, that's what Serena always says in Gossip Girl and is forgiven by her current boyfriend only to do it again season after season, but you can trust me, blog. I'm not a fictional blonde socialite belonging to Manhattan's elite...is Gossip Girl on tonight?

I digress. As previously mentioned, The Great Gatsby episode for me seems to be writing itself. The other night some inspiration struck and I wrote a scene for this episode, kind of commenting on that thin line between reality and critique, crap versus crap-on-purpose, in other, smaller words. My colleague, Laurie to my Fry, if you will (unless you'd prefer to be Fry. I'm not picky) and his concept of Cheap was just such a perfect location to explore this idea. Not only that, but the kind of people that have been making their way about our town seemed to fall under this idea as well. I call them scenesters. Do NOT get Hey Scenesters by the Cribs get into your head, by the way. It might never get out. Very dangerous.

If you want to get really pretentious about it I suppose it's an exporation of Baudrillard's Simulacra - the idea of objective reality being essentially a nonexistent thing, that we exist only in the realm of the image. I think modern culture could be seen as an example of this, but anyway. I'll stop lest I cross the line from being pretentious to misinformed. Warhol references entirely welcome. But I'll let Laurie go into more detail about that particular tidbit.

So I've written a couple of scenes for this episode and in the spirit of throwing my creative output into the void, I thought I would share them with you, John Q Public. Oh, and other people can read it, too. See what I did there?

Please to enjoy, copied and pasted almost directly from Celtx itself, or in other words - this is why the format is shite and I gave up trying to format it and everything is aligned to the left even though that's not standard...oh, just read it and shut me up.


INT. CHEAP. NIGHT

Samantha is stuck between three male scenesters drinking red wine. They are all wearing the same black glasses. Samantha is staring at one of them. SCENESTER 1 is making some sort of statement.

SCENESTER 1

I mean, there really is this idea that this underground arts scene is merely a group of children with no deeper understanding of popular culture than what is operating purely on the level of image. Which is just...so...disingenuous?

He turns to Samantha.

SCENESTER 1

What are your thoughts.

Sam stops staring at his glasses.

SAMANTHA

My thoughts?

She says nothing for a while, appearing to struggle with the topic.

SAMANTHA

I think that...I have to go to the bathroom. For a while.

She walks away.

EXT. CHEAP - BATHROOM. NIGHT

Samantha sees Daniel fowllowing her into the bathroom.

SAMANTHA

What are you doing?

DANIEL

Oh, apparently gender is arbitrary, so the bathrooms don't have signs on the door. You choose which one you feel comfortable using.

SAMANTHA

Oh, Jesus.

They walk in.

INT. CHEAP - BATHROOM. NIGHT.

Samantha and Daniel continue their conversation within their respective cubicles, while we wait outside.

DANIEL

So I've heard five times now that this place is a 'venue with a sense of humour, and it's a biting comment on society's concept of worth.'

SAMANTHA

Oh, I thought it was a biting comment on the concept of wanker.

DANIEL

How has your experience been tonight, Samantha?

SAMANTHA

Well, I've heard several regulars in the Sydney social pages talking about throwing up their ridiculously overpriced meal. And I just had to listen to scenesters talking about how they've been wrongly labelled as a group believing they are the self-appointed cultural elite obssessed when in reality they appear to have no deeper understanding of popular culture than the image, or some bullshit like that. God, I swear none of the people wearing glasses out there have lenses in them.

Toilets flush and Samantha leaves the cubicle, only to be confronted by Scenester 1. He doesn't look impressed.

SAMANTHA

Bathroom's free.

She moves around him, going to wash her hands in the trough. Daniel walks out.

SAMANTHA

I'd call them pretentious hipsters, but surely to be pretentious you have to know what you're talking about. You can't pretend to know, then google it later on your iPhone when the smarter person you've been talking to walks away. Or liking Jack Kerouac's On The Road on Facebook and never cracking the cover.

DANIEL

But you've never read On The Road.

SAMANTHA

Yes, but it's on my Visual Bookshelf as 'Want to read.' There's a difference, Dan.

DANIEL

Hmm.

Oliver walks in and looks confused.

OLIVER

What are you doing in here?

SAMANTHA

Oh, gender is a construct, Ol. It's arbitrary. You can use whatever bathroom you like.

OLIVER

Uh, no, the sign's just fallen off.

He points to where Samantha and Daniel are standing.

OLIVER

That's not a washbasin.

They stare at it, and realise it's a urinal, much like the boy's bathroom in a public school.

SAMANTHA

Oh.

So I know this is a very rough draft and I'm using character names that aren't set in stone yet and etc. VERY FIRST DRAFT. Blanket approval to be slightly crap.

The only thing I'm not certain about is - I have a scenester voicing perhaps a criticique of his own scene in quite an intelligent way and Samantha, in relating the conversation back to Daniel essentially just echoes his argument to ridicule him, but it seems like an interesting point for him to make. I guess that could possibly be explained by him quoting an online news article word for word, checking it every now and then on his iPhone, or Blackberry or similar?

Also, it's undeniably modern, which is something I think we'll be playing with in the future and again I must defer to my colleague on this point. So I guess the direction I'm heading has the potential to date our series and the writing quite severely. Then again, if done well it can be film as archive rather than something dated and irrelevant and still speak to the modern age even if it is a pronounced snapshot of a particular era in time...much like The Great Gatsby itself...oh, Mylanta I'm so clever!

So anyway, speaking of undiscovered genius, I think Australians have been sorely underexposed to a pop phenomenon the United Kingdom has been enjoying and keeping to itself for far too long. But all that's about to change. May I present to you...

JEDWARD

I know what you're thinking. But they're not just a treat for your eyes, they're also a treat for your ears. Fully endorsed by the intellectual elite among my friends. Start gettin' acquainted, Australia.

- S

CDs and T-shirts, promos, God knows.

I feel as though we're at a stage I like to call 'early years Charles Foster Kane and Jedediah Leland.' We're idealistic newspapermen, not drunkenly finishing each other's work because one is alcoholic and the other has achieved fame and wealth at the cost of his own morals.

So, the title's looking pretty good - I like The Innocents. A LOT. The characters are starting to become more realised - I think Daniel and Samantha can become our Tim and Daisy quite easily - I can see similarities between their situation in life and their attitude toward it already (more on that later, I feel). And I feel our characters and ideas are informing each other.

With the aid of further character development/brilliance I feel like the Great Gatsby homage is emerging as one story idea that seems to be, well, not writing itself, that would be weird since it's already been written by F. Scott Fitzgerald...erm.

I think Francis, our musician, is our Nick Carraway. I think Dan's willingness to embrace new things (or his need to be willing to embrace new things) makes him an interesting candidate for our Nick, but I felt that Francis would be that person before I knew more about Dan, and I also think that as a struggling musician he'll be drawn to fame and the sort of events that go with it, but he'll secretly hate it and feel apart from it - as an outsider wanting to be on the inside and as someone who can see that it's a shallow, superficial world. I also think his presence as a performer and his non-judgemental air will draw others to him - a lot of people he feels indifferent toward will think the world of him - like Tom Buchanan.

I think D'Arcy, the underground artist, is such an interesting peripheral character and would be perfect as our Gatsby (or Goldstein? Maybe that's her absent surname?) - we don't really learn much about her, as people are perhaps too afraid to talk to her, worried they'll mention her father, or will take such pains as to be unfazed by her that they won't talk to her. And perhaps Francis's nature will lead her to open more than she has before.

This homage definitely has to be a few episodes in, because it's definitely Francis's episode and I feel like, as with any sitcom about young people or single female lawyers or birdlike medical interns, you have to establish your protagonists first. It could be the first time we move our focus from Sam and Dan and their relationship.

Anyways, those are my thoughts on these characters and my love of Fitzgerald. In the meantime, I feel like this will be useful in thinking about D'Arcy and her character.