This assignment started with one interesting lecture one day with Miss E, making us choose a number and for each number there was a different song connected to it. I unfortunately decided to go with the number two and ended up with the most interesting song Kettering by The Antlers
Fortunately enough I ended up being in a crew with my fellow classmate Cute Mutambara and she was lucky enough to get a very interesting song which was Work Song by Hozier.
This caused for a very exciting assignment in Production Design class. Miss. E gave us one lecture to pitch our ideas and another class to start build our sets. The next lecture we had to photograph our design and dressing for the set. In this treatment I have decided to tell you more about Benji who is the character for this assignment.
Ben also known as his childhood name Benji, went through a big struggle during his childhood. After his six birthday his mother passed away and his father forced him to work on the farm from the age of seven. His father sent him to boarding school since grade one and during the holidays he had to work on the farm as a farmworker.
When Ben realised that his father was not treating him right he stood up to his father at the age of sixteen. Not knowing that his father had lung cancer, Ben stayed at boarding school till his final year and only then did he return to the farm.
During his school years Benji would dress up in some of his mother old clothes which he hid in a trunk under a pile of fertilising bags. Not knowing that he started to make a statement when he walked outside the house in his mothers dresses, Benji started to feel comfortable doing this and he decided to add some finishing touches by using some farmworkers make-up.
The girls didn’t know that Benji would like this and after he did his make-up he went to the barn and looked in his trunk for the best dress to suite the make-up. After playing with his short hair, Benji realised at the age of seventeen if he uses the main of the horses he can make his own hair longer by adding to it.
Today Ben still works on the farm. But during the weekends at night he goes to the trunk underneath his bed and he fetches a dress and wig that he wants to wear for the night. He then goes and sits in front of the mirror and does his make-up with a picture of his mother close by. Trying to escape his circumstances but never wanting to disappoint his mother.
That is the interesting story of how Talisa Viljoen came to life.
