Stories drive Jessica’s film dreams

AFTER several attempts at choosing a career, former South Gippsland Secondary College student Jessica Marshall seems to have found her niche.
Jessica is currently completing a Master of Fine Art, Writing for Performance at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney.
Jessica said her journey to NIDA was quite a convoluted one.
“After completing my last three years of schooling at South Gippsland Secondary College, I took a gap year in Germany as an au pair,” She said.
“After I had been out and lived in the world, I started a psychology degree, because I thought it was what I wanted to do and it interested me.
“At the same time I did some film club extracurricular activities and thought it was awesome and transferred into an arts degree.”
It was from then when film overtook Jessica’s life and she started making short films, started writing and did honours in film and television at Monash University in 2012.
“I then spent a year in Melbourne freelancing and started an independent arts group with some friends,” she said.
“We shot a whole lot of documentaries, covered Occupy Melbourne and other things that interested us.
“We learnt how to use the equipment ourselves and the more I did, the stronger the feeling became I wanted to write, that I wanted to create stories.
“At the end of 2013 I applied to the Victorian College of the Arts.”
Unsure of what compelled her, Jessica also looked up NIDA but the deadline for applications had passed.
“I gave them a call and within a couple of days I had sent in an application, had an interview and had been accepted,” she said.
“I decided to make the move up to Sydney at the start of the year.”
Jessica said NIDA focuses on playwriting.
“There are eight of us in the course and seven are playwrights. I am the only screen writer in the course,” she said.
“But it is good to have lots of experiences I wouldn’t normally have. Just recently I had an impromptu meeting with a film producer.”
Jessica will complete 12 months at NIDA doing course work and will then spend three months writing a thesis.
“It will be a practice based thesis, to reflect the work done in the previous 12 months,” she said.
“My major piece of work is a feature film script. In just five months, it is up to a third draft.
“In a week’s time we have got readings, where we all sit around the table and read our drafts to the others in the group.
“We will do that four times this year. It is actually quite an ordeal to share your work, and with other writers especially.”
Jessica is now writing a black comedy.
“It is a fun little piece that involves a whole lot of fun elements. The main character is a children’s entertainer who is haunted by a young ghost,” she said.
“The interesting part is both the entertainer and the ghost are deaf.
“I have used a whole lot of original music in the script, juxtaposed with silence to illustrate challenges the deaf world faces.
“It’s about connection between worlds. Just because we can’t see it or hear it, doesn’t mean we can’t connect.”
For Jessica, a career based in Australia would be ideal.
“Given the way the industry works here, and how small it is on the world stage, I might have to travel,” she said.
“It is a hard career everywhere, whichever way you look at it. Choosing the life of an artist is a somewhat stupid thing to do, but it is incredibly important we keep carrying our voices through.”
Interested in both film and television, Jessica’s main drive is to have her voice heard.
“I am really interested in writing for the Australian landscape, but saying that, I believe stories should never be exclusively Australian,” she said.
“If it is a good story, it should speak to everyone on all levels. I want to tell stories through my life that resonate and are enjoyed.”

Creative mind: former local Jessica Marshall is currently studying a Master of Fine Art, Writing for Performance at NIDA in Sydney.

Short URL: /?p=11608

Posted by Sarah Vella on Jul 23 2014. Filed under Arts & Entertainment, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry