Party Season is about sex and speech and employs some of the conventions of the
porn film. Apparently inconsequential 'filler' scenes and dialogue link the pay-off
scenes of vividly depicted sex. Except that, in Party Season, this relationship is
gradually reversed - the scenes of excessive behaviour becoming 'filler' scenes
linking the pay-off moments, the latter often embedded in deliberately extended
'unrealistic' dialogue. A key component of this as a piece of inquiry-based practice is
the exploration of this altering balance and of how action and dialogue can function
to produce such a reversal of conventionality. The intention with the accompanying
essay is to sustain a progressive interweaving of reflective commentary and analytical
vignettes. There is also an intended symmetry here - an 'excessive' essay (long,
without conventional subheadings, breaks, etc.) will sit alongside the 'excessive'
screenplay as its twin of sorts, a different style of invention. The essay is to speech
what the screenplay is to sex.
