It’s been a crazy couple of months juggling work and research that I haven’t had much time for creative writing. Luckily, one of my short stories just got published on Antipodean SciFi which gives me the slightest semblance of still being industrious. Ha! I actually wrote the story months ago and it’s taken this long to send it off to be published.

Antipodean SciFi has been running for ages thanks to the efforts of the editor Ion and his team. They’re really strict on the 500 words or less approach. It’s a lot more challenging than you think writing less than more. Also in the creative writing world, there’s no cheating to get around the word count using appendices like in academic essays.

Anyway, here is a link to my submission The Shadow’s Puppet

http://www.antisf.com/the-stories/the-shadows-puppet

I’ve made two new breakthroughs this week with regards to limiting my scope of research.

The first happened after a meeting with GFS guest artist Myrna Gawryn.

Myrna’s background is in choreography for theatre but her specialty in human movement and expression led her to work with animators from studios such as DreamWorks, LucasFilms and Gobelins.

Myrna’s just one of those awesome people whose name will slot into sentences like ‘When I grow up, I want to be just like (insert name)’

Anyway, the Honours students were given the option of consulting with Myrna about their projects. Given my project was a live-action/ animation documentary I didn’t really think I’d have much to talk about with Myrna.

It turned out she’s a wonderful art therapist and a great sounding off board for any creative project. We ended up chatting for over an hour just on pure concept development. She really got me thinking about what was my motivation for this project. After our consultation, I realised I had major anger and cultural pride issues which could impede on the sympathetic male point of view I wanted to portray, and which would probably lead to disastrous interviews.

The second breakthrough came after a phone meeting with Dr Nicki Saroca, whose work in sociology/ cultural studies focuses on trans-cultural marriages between Philippinas and Australian men.

Nicki gave some practical advice as to how to recruit subjects for my study as well as how to apply for ethical approval with Griffith. She was also convinced that my idea to use animation to explore the ‘The mail order Bride, the chimera’ was a unique perspective that hadn’t been looked into before.

As this was also the view of both my supervisors, this is where I’ve decided to narrow my research.

Refinement of Research Question

Key words:

-Social stigma

- shifting context of the chimera bride

- hybrid animated/ live action filmmaking techniques

Further refinement of question:

How can hybrid animation/ live action filmmaking techniques be used to depict the social stigma of the mail-order bride in contemporary Australian society?

How can hybrid animation/ live action documentary techniques be used to portray the shifting context of the social stigma attached to the term mail order bride?

I’m pleased with where my research is going and feel confident I will begin the practical experimentation side very, very soon!

This week I’ve been working on refining my research area by watching a lot  ( A LOT) of documentaries and reading heaps of reference material. Here are some of my ideas in week two:

Refinement of my research question:

How can the issues surrounding the exploitative practice of mail-order brides be re-contextualized by using a combination of the male perspective and hybrid animation/live action filmmaking processes to create a documentary film?

How can a documentary about mail-order brides written from the male perspective integrate hybrid animation/ live action visual style to expose Australian society as complicit partners in this exploitative practice?

Key areas of focus:

The Male Perspective

Current media portrayal of mail-order brides are usually approached from a victimized female perspective. Portrayal from a female point of view easily gains sympathy from its female audience yet it is not this demographic who are the consumers of the mail order bride trade. Furthermore, the traditional portrayal of Australian male as aggressive, uneducated chauvinists driving this trade sets up a culture of blame which does not inspire action or change amongst the core demographic.

Regardless of whether the aggressive chauvinist archetype is the norm amongst men who participate in this exploitative practice, by researching and presenting the experiences of a range of mixed cultural couples, I will identify positive behaviors and outcomes to model future policies and attitudes of Australian society towards this contentious issue.

Animation in live-action documentary

There is a trend to use animation in hybrid live-action/ animated documentaries to portray an ‘other worldliness’. This may be a fantasy landscape such as Jessica Wu’s ‘In the realms of the unreal’ or as a dysfunctional character that flits between realities in ‘Ryan’ and ‘Grasshopper’.

I will experiment with the aesthetic style to incorporate animated elements in the depiction of the bride. The mail order bride has been described as many things: a sexpot, domestic goddess, queue jumper, social climber and prostitute amongst other stereotypes. To different factions within Australian society, she is an object of derision, pity, predation or anger. The idea that the animated bride is an object which is seen throughout the documentary and can shape-shift to suit the opinions of the interviewees is a constant commentary of the failure to realistically represent this marginalized group.

Updating/ re-contextualising the mail-order bride in contemporary Australian society

In his thesis ‘The representation of Filipino women in Australian film: The case of Mail-order bride’, Larry Marshall argued that the film introduced the characters John and Ruth, two school teachers on rural rotation so that the audience could have a safe vantage point as urban middle class Australians blaming the bride’s mistreatment on the country yokels.

Research needs to be updated to capture the views of a broader cross section of Australian society.

Subjects I’d like to interview include:

Policy makers

Advocacy groups

White Australian males

White Australian females

Asian Australian males and females – raises the issue of cultural pride?

Business owners of online matchmaking websites – raises the issue of ethical responsibility?

In a way, this documentary is less about the experience of the mail order bride and more about how the mail order bride as an object exposes Australian society as complicit partners in an exploitative practice that is anti-feminist, classist and racist.

I’ve been intending to return to uni to complete an Honours research project for the past couple of years but work commitments always got in the way. As enrolment dates for 2012 loomed, I bit the bullet and enrolled.

There’s been a story I’ve been wanting to tell for the past few years – something I’ve observed in my frequent visits to my family in Hong Kong every year. It’s something I’ve always wanted to talk about but avoided because the topic smacked of social injustice and I’ve been notoriously lazy in this area all my life, preferring instead to make monetary donations to organisations willing to put in the hard work.

Here is my initial research proposal for Honours;

INTRODUCTION

The negative portrayal of mail-ordered brides from Asia has a negative impact on the integration of this group into Australian society. There have been many cultural and feminist studies in this area intended for written dissemination but no recent Australian documentaries addressing this practice.

For my honours project, I plan to research and write a documentary exploring how the portrayal of mail-order brides in the media perpetrate a culture of racism, sexism and classism which isolate and can potentially expose this group of migrants to danger.

RESEARCH METHODS

To identify potential interviewees, I’ve been in touch with Dee Hunt, editor of Kasama and head of the Brisbane branch of CPCA (Centre for Philippine Concerns). She has offered to put me in contact with potential subjects.

Potential interviewees include:

-   Young women in the Philippines with the attitude that marrying a white Australian man will improve their economic and social standing

-  New migrants from the Philippines who have arrived because they have married a white Australian –  how did they meet – online matchmaking sites, tourist holidays, family connections (less than 3 years)

- Older Australian- Filipino women who migrated more than three years ago for the purpose of marriage with a white Australian male

-  Australian men who have participated in matchmaking sites with the views of sponsoring a wife from an Asian country

- Australian men who have participated in sex tours

-Australian men  who own some sort of a bar/ club/ lounge in the Philippines which functions as an unofficial brothel to enable other Western men to meet up with Filipino women

- Australian females unconnected with the mail order brides expressing their views on the trade

- Australian males unconnected with the mail order brides expressing their views on the trade

- Representative from SPAN (Solidarity Philippines Australia Network)

- Representative from IWSS (Immigrant Women’s Support Service)

In addition to interviewing people involved in this area, I will also research case studies and recent film/ television/ digital media works to assist in the development of my feature length documentary script.

SIGNIFICANCE OF RESEARCH

As an Asian-Australian filmmaker, I am passionate about telling Asian stories as this cultural group is under-represented in the arts and media. ‘Mail order brides’ may be a minority group in Australia but it is a practice that every Australian has an opinion about, and exposes the unsettling truth that as a society, Australia may still be classist, sexist and racist.

A large volume of resources have already been developed but only for written dissemination.  Given the popularity of television documentaries at present (reflected by both broadcast hours and the level of state, national and private funding available), I believe that a documentary production is the most effective way to tell this Australian story.

REFERENCES

1.       Saroca, N 2002. Hearing the voices of Filipino women: violence, media representation and contested realities. School of Social Sciences, University of Newcastle

2.       Marshall, Larry 1997. “The Representation of Filipino Women in Australian Film: The Case of the ‘Mail Order Bride’”. Master of Arts Degree, School of Arts and Media, Latrobe University, Victoria.

4.       http://cpcabrisbane.org/Kasama/2007/V21n1/IWD2007.htm

I’m addicted to reading advice blogs from creative people who’s been there and done that. I know everyone’s path is different and that flexibility and tenacity is the key to building a rewarding, creative career. Be that as it may, whenever I’m in a writing fug I’ll look up a few words of wisdom from fellow writers, editors, artists and other creatives.

This is the latest link to some golden advice by the writing Greats.

http://www.openculture.com/2012/01/writing_rules.html

My personal favourite comes from Neil Gaiman

Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

I’ve been reading this article for chuckles and procrastination today

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/94ihTv/www.infobarrel.com/10_English_Words_With_Unexpected_Definitions

The trouble with being an emerging writer is that I read too many blogs from established writers and then get confused about their contradictory advice.

To self-publish or not? To e-publish or not? To write about what you know or write what you want?

My latest confusion is whether I should continue to accept contract work or just throw myself  into getting this novel finished. I recently extended my writing contract with Yelp.com for a couple more weeks just because it was offered.

Even though I was writing more than ever for this contract, I realised that my own personal writing projects were suffering. I was barely spinning out 1000 words a week. I just couldn’t write all day for business and then come home and write some more on my own stories. My brain just shut down.

I’ve heard many established writers advise that the best way to get started as a writer is to find a rewarding part-time/ full time job that isn’t too mentally or physically draining to allow themselves to focus on their writing in the evenings. This can go on for five to ten years before a writer (if they are lucky) can support themselves full time in their profession.

Other writers I know work furiously to save up money in a  job that’s completely unrelated to writing and then take a year of two years off to focus completely on their writing.

I think every emerging writer needs to work out their own approach based on their lifestyle and situation. For a lot of emerging writers, I think the problem lies in validating your decisions – especially when your family and friends may all have flourishing careers and may not understand your choice. It’s all very well once you’ve had a few publications under your belt but to make the initial choice to take a year off work to write or to accept an uninspiring job so you can make more time to write without any guarantees of publication or monetary gain at the end – well that’s enough to keep me up at night even without the copious amount so green tea ice-cream I’ve been consuming of late.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve only just bought a kindle. When it was first released, my family thought I’d embrace the new technology given my phobia for old books. It is a strange phobia. As a child I loved hanging around second hand book shops but somewhere in my adolescence, the smell of old books made me want to retch and soon I was unable to even handle any book with browning pages. It’s a two sided problem  because at the same time I developed a love of smelling new books. Especially the ones with shiny pages  which are mainly text books.

This was my main excuse for not buying a kindle. Plus being an avid reader, my bookshelf is my trophy cabinet. I like to run my finger along the spines of all the books and reminisce about the time I read this book and that book.

Well, I’ve taken the plunge now and bought a Kindle or should I say, my husband got tired of my hogging is Kindle and kindly went out and bought one for me. Here is my list of books I absolutely need to get through before I start any other book.

1. Job: A comedy of Justice by Robert A Heinlein

2. Horn by Joe Hill

3. Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody

4. The Piper’s Son by Meline Marchetta

5. American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Woohoo! I’m going down the Rabbit Hole all weekend for a writer’s retreat at Queensland Writers Centre.

Technically, we are meant to be trying to write a novel in three days, but as I was only notified of a space availability two days ago, I don’t have a novel planned. I will attempt to finish two short stories instead.

So excited to be doing some creative writing for a change.

Here is a 30 second gestural I wrote while watching the staff at the State Library this morning.

‘Her head lolls on top of a frilly organza collar, like a defunct lightbulb on my grandmother’s lamp.’

Aaaaaand – done!

My seven week contract as a writer/ reviewer for Yelp is finally up leaving me in a  bleary eyed fug which nothing but deep sleep can penetrate. My left wrist has also started making a strange cricking sound which could be the onset of repetitive strain injury.

Oh well, worsening eye sight and onset of arthritis is a small price to pay for this great writing experience with the lovely people at Yelp.

Writing forty five reviews a week certainly teaches you to think on your feet, to write quickly and articulate your points.

One of my writing lecturers from uni told me that gestural writing is a useful writing exercise. To try and capture the essence of a person in one sentence in thirty seconds. I use to do a lot of gestural drawings when I was in art school, but this was the first time I’d heard the technique applied to writing.

Anyway, gestural writing comes in handy when you’re trying to pull of forty five reviewsa week. I started thnking about stuff like how a place smelt, what was its texture, how did people react to it. Stuff like that makes an interesting opening sentence.

Well, I won’t say I wrote anything of high quality but this contract was a great eye opener. It was the first time I scoured the internet looking for good content – well structured articles, intelligent reviews and opinion pieces that weren’t just flow of consciousness rambling.

Here are some links to my…..er, more passable reviews.

http://www.yelp.com.au/biz/mater-mothers-private-hospital-south-brisbane#hrid:aBXRfGWpaDFB5KKvRK-_Gw/src:self

http://www.yelp.com.au/biz/sizzler-toowong#hrid:B3Wl1VFWLCnEwQYTme0Yvg/src:self

http://www.yelp.com.au/biz/templex-nursery-algester#hrid:prRMjJ2UUw6o3W5q72JbVg/src:self