Entering the Borderland: Creative Process and the Quest for Mythic Resonance in the Work of an Australian Screenwriter

Abstract

This exegesis explores the challenges I have faced as an emerging Australian storyteller attempting to write myths for domestic and international television audiences. The exegesis focuses specifically on four creative modalities that I have either developed or adopted in order to gain a better understanding of myth’s foundations, the archetypes. These modalities are: meditation, hypnagogic immersion, archetypal dream work and active imagination. The exegesis considers the hypothesis that an emerging screenwriter can gain a more instinctual and intimate understanding of myth from a ‘direct’ dialogue with the archetypes within one’s own body, than can be garnered solely through an intellectual understanding of the mythic storytelling frameworks that have been popularised within the screen industries. The creative works with which I’ve developed and tested this hypothesis include two short films Interview (2006) and The Weight of Sunken Treasure (2007), and the pilot script for Borderland, a proposed 10 episode serial drama for television.