Excursion

Abstract

The short drama Excursion is currently a work-in-progress, at rough cut, that evolved from the two producers’ complementary research pathways. Under Broderick’s supervision screen practitioner Bender recently completed his PhD concerning the aesthetics of screen violence, and Broderick has increasingly applied his theoretical articulation of mass human suffering and trauma to screen praxis. Between the period of Bender’s completion and publication of his dissertation by Cambridge Scholars Press, two major mass shootings occurred in the USA: Aurora Texas and Sandy Hook Connecticut. We observed familiar tropes played out in the media coverage of these events that invoked “vicarious trauma” and “empty empathy” (Kaplan & Wang 2004) but little else. As media practitioners we agree that we were in a privileged and timely position (theoretically, praxiologically and institutionally) to attempt a mediated response that could address themes of concern. Given the constraints of budget, resources and time we considered a range of approaches, from highly experimental to mainstream. We decided that a mainstream approach that subtly offered cues and hints of action and response, as well as constructing problematic choices and their consequences, that could leave lingering traces of uncertainty and doubt, and something of the affect of trauma while not alienating audiences, was the best path for our objective.