Over the last year I’ve been chipping away at writing some short film scripts with a view to put something into production in the next few years. Most of them have been written in collaboration with the talented Will Cox. Tim Goes For a Job was one we wrote in early 2011 when I was knee deep in an interview project based around Australian musicians.
Stemming from a solid year of unemployment and the incessant crawl of sinking expectations, TGFAJ isn’t based on anyone in particular but rather the familiar arts tale of interviewing for a job you don’t at all want, but very much require.
At this stage we haven’t made a plan to work on this film so I’m posting the first 4 pages.
Donwood: Lost Angeles
There is no future. We have evicted ourselves from our own cities, rendered our agriculture poisonous, criminalised the poor, aggrandised the rich, honoured the stupid and ridiculed the intelligent…I have no solutions, no wisdom to offer…Whilst Rome burns, I take up my little chisel and I carve a panoramic apocalypse of my own…and if you want to see it, you’re more than welcome.- Stanley Donwood, 2012
Sourdough, Chilli Beer and Jesus.
Over the last two days I’ve been in country Victoria filming a documentary piece on the founders of Hope Farm - a unique religious collective with a bakery that specialises in organic sourdough. This is a new project I’ve been working on in collaboration with Radio Bombast’s Patrick Hatch. It’s been very interesting indeed.
So far we’ve also found out that Chilli Beer is clearly hot and if you’re looking to play pool, the pub table in Traralgon trumps Yarragon.
More on this to come…
A Theatre Rife with Drunken Romance
You could no longer count the amount of times a family orientated occasion has ended in with boozy swaying circle of MacGowan sing-alongs. It’s an unshakeable compulsion.
The Pogues are as imbedded in my earlier years as school hats with flaps. Never did I think I’d actually catch them.
Mad Men, San Francisco and the Fog
Recently I had the good fortune of spending two weeks in Red Bubble’s American Office. RB is a great company I work for in various capacities that range from copywriting, to marketing, support work and editorial. As the world prepared for the return of Mad Men, I thought I’d get in touch the show’s title designer, Mark Gardner, for a RedBubble interview.
We’re interested in hearing about how you take a creative concept through to a finished work. For the Mad Men title sequence, what kind of brief was supplied to you at the very beginning, what were your initial reactions and how did they differ from the finished product?
The first thing to state is the wide variety of different work that I do. I work on almost anything from re-branding companies/networks to creating content for movies/shows as well interactive work. Therefore the briefs vary hugely from project to project. Sometimes the brief
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Written and recorded when Ivy St was on hiatus earlier in the 2010. There’s no real plan to release this properly so I’ll put it here.
What Have You Been Doing?
To be honest, I’m not exactly sure. Clones originally began as a label with the intention of releasing three compilation album - the first of which came out in 2010. I received just shy of $1000 from the Tasmanian Youth and Philanthropy Society after submitting a proposal to print 500 CDs and send them free of charge into the music ether.
The grant was found, filled out and posted at the desk I briefly occupied whilst working for Hobart’s Centrelink Call Center.
In the the year or two since, the Clones and Clones name has been used to release music, to promote journalistic content, and most recently as well as a production company for film work.
I’ve come to realise the pointlessness of defining or condensing the charter of this website, the name and its affiliate logos. I imagine as the years roll on there will be a bunch of other shiny ‘opportunities’ that I’ll spread myself thin over - finishing only a few. I’m sure I’ll try to slap and the C&C brand over those too.
For the moment, let me just say what I know at this point:
1. We do have a proper documentary film in the works - it’s very exciting
2. At some point we’ll release part 2 and 3 of the compilation series
3. Personal writing may end up on this blog section.
Kind regards,
Thomas
MESS&NOISE
Late last year Mess and Noise interviewed Thomas Hyland about Clones and Clones’ first compilation release - Hobart and Melbourne. Let’s republish it here and use it as the starting point for a new era of proactive C&C blogging.
Art vs Pornography
A few weeks ago I started putting together an article for another website on the relationship between Art and Pornography with former Age art critic, Peter Timms, as my main source. For one reason or another the piece wasn’t to run where it was intended but the topic was too interesting to shelve. Below is the conversation Peter and I started…
Chris Johnson
Clones spoke with former Edge Radio director and current AMRAP manager, Chris Johnson about Australia’s radio landscape, music quotas and the roll-out of digital radio. Like our first chat with Mr Albini, the talk has be left almost in its entirety and goes for around 15 minutes. So once again; pour yourself a drink and go about your business.
Steve Albini
Melbourne-based sound engineer, James Tulczyn, changed gears for a day to interview Steve Albini from his Chicago studio. Left almost in its entirety, the conversation goes for around 18 minutes. So please pour yourself a drink, press play, and go about your business. James’ CV includes White Woods, East Brunswick All Girls Choir, and Paint Your Golden Face.
Angus Tarnawsky
You toured around the US with Bachelor of Arts perhaps a year ago, and given what you’ve learnt from that experience, would you have done things differently? Have you since noted things that you would have had no idea of knowing booking shows as a ‘Melbourne’ band, as opposed to your current ‘New York’ bands?
That tour was a lot of fun. I think that booking it today, we would have tried to play even more house, warehouse and gallery shows. It’s a lesson that, strangely enough, Launceston taught us circa 2005. As a part of the NY scene now, booking shows is a lot like it was in Australia but just with more options to think about. Also, a lot of people here still really relate to actually meeting you. When we were booking the BOA tour, a lot of emails were never responded to.
