SOMEWHERE

at the end of your last standup special, you said, “If you can live your life without an audience, do it.” If you can imagine 16-year-old video-making Bo watching a 25-year-old comedian he admires saying something like that, how does 16-year-old Bo react?

Bo: It’s so funny because I don’t think the thing I was responding to in that special existed in 2006, when I first started posting videos. I did standup for a long time, the first five years I just sucked, and then I was like, OK, well, I want to be honest on stage, and if I’m being honest, I’m a performer, so I have to be honest about that. So I’ll talk about the show, because that was my main stress. I was having panic attacks on stage, I had stage fright, all the stuff. I was like, No one’s going to fucking get this! I will only have actors and comedians coming up to me. And I did it, and 14-year-old girls would come up to me after the show and—more than men my own age—would go, “I really got what you were saying about the performer thing.” So, if there was a bridge between us that I had to cross to write this movie, it was built by them, to me, first! I felt understood by people like Kayla before I presumed to understand people like Kayla, and I think that journey has to do with the internet. Because of the internet making kids feel like performers, giving everyone an audience. I was seeking an audience when I was 16 in 2006 because it wasn’t just naturally afforded to everybody, and now it is. So if I heard that in 2006, I would think that guy was tired of just performing, but the narrative of that really did develop in the meantime, if that makes any sense.

“We’re confused. We’re unsure of what this moment is.”

speak your fears into the world

I have been blessed with remarkable comrades and collaborators: Together we organize the world for ourselves, or at least we organize our understanding of it; we reflect it, refract it, criticize it, grieve over its savagery and help each other to discern, amidst the gathering dark, paths of resistance, pockets of peace and places from whence hope may be plausibly expected.

youtube as the truman show:

My nephews that are three years old watch a YouTube channel of a kid and his dad playing with his toys, and—I told this story and multiple people said their kids do this—my nephew will be playing with toys and he’ll turn to my sister and go, “Tell the subscribers!”–and my sister has to pretend to film him while he talks about his life? That is a dissociative state, to float around yourself and view yourself while you live yourself, which is very similar to a camera following you or something. It’s way weirder than The Truman Show. Way weirder than The Truman Show is to know you’re on The Truman Show and be chill, you know?

lately i’ve been struggling with development+ storyline for my short idea- particularly when it comes to forming a script or narrative structure. i've worked with moving image before and am pretty familiar with editing but I've never created anything that isn't either mostly autobiographical or entirely experimental. I showed Kate some of the test footage with Sabrina in the country that I'd worked on and she warned me of the risk of making something that isn't actually fine art. Basically i’m just totally lost overall!!!! there are so many possibilities n i have no clue where to begin. how do you approach writing a short film? how narrative-based do i want it to be? how experimental? location? actors? plotline? etc etc etc ……….i’ve watched a lot of movies but i have no idea where to begin! in primary school i really vividly remember having this short-story-task and writing twenty two pages for it…i called it the never-ending story lol! i think forming a good short story is always tricky!

anyways i hear people say the best way to do get something done is to just do something and allot you can’t make any progress unless you make something n decide either you like or hate or learn from it yada yada so i decided to just square one it n play around a bit to switch shit up when it comes to how i’ve been approaching collecting footage. i think i just need to collect more footage in general as a whole. i’d previously been experimenting a lil with the flip cam, but i decided to instead just get talking to people in a casual and less aesthetic oriented sense instead of trying to stage shit just to see if anything interesting comes up & in order 2 explore any ideas i might wanna run with. levin gave me these paul thek questions some time ago when i was feeling uninspired (see above)… anyways i decided to develop some of my own n hit the general camberwell population with them incase anyone had anything slightly interesting to say!

SOME QUESTIONS I ANSWERED

Name, age, birthdate, place of birth, position in family,

nationality, religion, education, hobbies, career plans,

parents’ education, parents’ birthplace, parents’

religion

Ophelia, 19, 21.10.1999, 100 frien road, person, british, faithless, art student/recovering narcissist, embarressing myself, prolonging death, “engineer” & speech therapist, perth, western australia, atheist / traumatised catholic

Where and whom with do you live now? London, my mom (since I came out) her Italian boyfriend (circa 2018) and my sister (circa 2007) What income do you have? None What property do you own? A lot of junk What do you read? Anything that doesn’t bore me before the first 4 sentences How often? Less often than I should Do you buy books? Amazon Records? Yes but my record players broken What is your favorite color? Dumb question What are your politics? Inconsistent and probably flawed Have you ever been seriously ill? no Serious accidents? Fell out a window What do you do on a date? Get drunk and not stop talking What is the purpose of dating? company Do you believe in premarital sex? Always What happens after death? Something, I hope How many rooms are there in your home? Too many Do you take baths or showers? Long baths or neither Are you interested in sports? No, sometimes swimming because it’s the closest you’ll get to being back in the womb haha Do you believe in abortion? yes Do your parents? Clearly not What annoys you the most in others? Oblivion What kind of teacher do you prefer? human If you were a teacher what would you propose? sitting next to the cutest person in the room What is eternity? Naïve What is love? forever What is art? Now and then Who are your role models? Everyone I know and some I don’t Who is the person closest to you at the moment? Me Who is the person physically closest to you at the moment? Me What in your life is your greatest source of pleasure? not thinking How do you know you love someone? Shit hurts How do you know that someone is interested in you? You ask them What is the most beautiful thing in the world? The beach. Shit makes me wanna cry everytime lol What is the surest way to happiness? healthy balance of doing whatever you want all the time versus compromise to make other people happy to make you feel better about yourself lol Why are you here? Because my mom settled for my dad and my dad settled for my mom and Singapore got too hot What does tactile mean? Touchy feely? I think? Can you show me an example of tactile sensitivity in your personal life? no What do you do to make yourself more attractive sexually? Have your tits out whenever possible or at least imply the presence of them >:- ) Why do you do this? because I can Do you like very beautiful people? Yes Do they really have special privileges? Yes How much time should you work on a class project? Depends how much you care What do you think of money? Necessary evil, or at least something like it

SOME QUESTIONS I THOUGHT ABOUT

What are your requirements in a friend? Lover? Tell us about other members of your family. Tell us about the most exciting thing you ever saw, did. What does this school need? This room? You? What is sacred? What is an icon? Who is your favorite character in the Bible? Add a station of the cross. Design something to sell on the street corner. Design something to put over your bed when you make love. What is the purpose of art? What is the most difficult thing in life for you? Can art be helpful in dealing with this difficulty? What is attractive in a woman? A man? Illustrate your strangeness, act out your most frightening perversity. What do you think are the qualities of a life fully lived? What is capitalism? Communism? Socialism? What is leisure?

One point made during group-crit was how important of a character the interviewer inadvertantly becomes. Not only in steering the conversation, but also as an affluent presence against subjects who are in view, ironic considering their scarcity in view. I hadn't really considered my own role in the interviews, but found it an interesting point to be made about who the intended protagonist is. It was also noted that it might be interesting to interview a wider variety of people rather than just camberwell students / friends. Although in terms of practicality & consistency the more calculated rather than caught-by-surprise structure to the question-answer pre-tense avoids running risk of footage turning into one of those like...youtube series where they stop random people 'profound' questions and it's called like...asking strangers about their first love, I'm not totally against going billy-on-the-street- but i do think there's an intimacy to the conversations that went down in my initial footage as a direct result of the fact that the people in question know- and are comfortable around each-other. Also, though I am into the the behind-camera protagonist indirectly playing such a weighty part in directing the dialogue, I do feel the collaborative aspect of the group in the second situation adds something to the experience of watching what unfolds, almost as if you're a bystander or part of the conversation. I might be interested in exploring an even more-obviously constructed atmosphere in which one set group of people (a range of ages) discussing a number of ideas & notions- perhaps in one room in a circle of chairs or something. Like an even more clinical feel. Anyway I experimented a little further with the question-answer stuff and used a range of ages this time, asking my mom, sister and step dad their thoughts on marriage. Here are some stills.