Week 8 Reflection

         I read my classmates post, they are making me feel that we are coming to an end and that this will be the last time we will be posting. Oh come on, don’t make Ryan cry. Just kidding. J Its just two weeks of holiday and pooff! We will come back to school in a brand new year. Exciting isn’t it? It will be 2008 in few weeks time! Well I should say 2007 was the best year in my life! Totally! I mean after suffering two years hogging down doing my O level and repeating it in the following year. Seriously I regretted my life. I thought everything have come to an end. My dreams were all shattered and it was very sad to disappoint my loved ones. But never did I take my failure to head. I worked hard and I wanted to prove that I was capable of something. Also I promise to myself I never going to led my loved ones down this time. Finally god answered my prayers. I made it and my long time dream came true. It was to enter the Film, Sound and Video in Ngee Ann Polytechnic. It’s definitely not a dream but a blessing that was worth the wait.

         To overcome the struggle and hardship that I went through, this year I PARTYED! I had all the freedom well not ALL but to at least 80%. I enjoyed this year a lot. I get to go shows, parties and movies and come back home late. I felt that God made this year such a pleasant one for me. I really wish that the coming year will be a fruitful one too.

         Being unable to summarize one year of my life. I shall just post about something close to me, my Drama Friends (Drama Mamas).

         I always look forward meeting my Drama pals, like yesterday (13/07/07). They helped me in my dialogue assignment acting as my Mom and Dad. Well I don’t have to worry much because I m sure they could express the dialogues well. It was fun recording. They were actually so excited about recording their voice in garageband because they don’t use Mac like us. Anyway last assignment for this term hoping to make a good one.

         Well back to reminiscing the past. As from reading my posts you can see that I have contact with all my past school friends. Simply, I love spending my time with them. I can vibe with them more than my current friends in poly. Maybe in time to come I m sure to have a well bond with my schoolmates. It just takes time. J

         Back to the subject, one day my drama pals and I decided to meet just to camwhore. That’s what we do best. Strike pose, edit in Photoshop and upload it in Friendster or blogs. I know it’s so typical but the excitement never goes it always grows.

         So we decided to go Laselle the new building. We call it the black building cause the building is in black colour. Duh! It is situated near Tekka, unglam people might think but it is near the other art school, NAFA. I have never been to the old building before so this is my first visit there. We were not going there like some strangers; I have my friend who is studying there. His name is Ridhwan, a very interesting character. He loves being in the local art scene. He is more of an arty farty person, that’s why he chooses to be in Laselle. There were three of us meeting him. One was Ahmad. A normal guy who loves art but he chooses to take bio-medical course because his parents think it will bring good future. Next is Mathana, my best friend. She is like my twin, we think alike but we do have our different opinion. She is more into writing and journalism. Lastly it is myself, future filmmaker. But I am still in the midst of exploring my own character.

         When the four of us from the different background get together it is a total chaos. We talk about anything under the sun. But coming from different backgrounds but the same kind of passion we can relate things with each other very well. So it is quite interesting to catch up with these people and talk about random stuffs. We get together and share our experiences about our school, current life and issues. Of course not leaving the gossips. We will be like “ Oh what happen to Matthew your gay partner?” silly things like this. I guess we are still fresh college students; so we still have a long journey ahead of us. In years to come, I think we will still meet up and recollect our memories.  That’s why they say friends forever.

 

 

I m still searching for a good tamil movie to showcase to Ryan. So I guess my post wont end here. J 

 

Happy holidays everyone! Merry Christmas! And a Happy New Year! 

Dialogue

Dialogue

Dialogue reveals character.

• A character talks about himself or herself
• Other people talk about that character

Dialogue establishes relationships between characters.

• Characters express attitudes and opinions that are in opposition to one another.
• Good effective dialogue will move the story forward.

Dialogue communicates faces and information to the audience.

• It conveys essential exposition
• Characters will talk about what happened establishing the story line.
• Dialogues ties the script together

Bad Dialogues

      Using too much of dialogue.

·      Dialogue should be used sparingly, never telling the audience what they can see for itself.

·      Dialogue should not match conventional spoken dialogue, “real talking.”

Film is a visual medium.

A script is a story told in pictures.

Character

Character

A story starts with character.

The character is…

The heart, the soul, and nervous system of your story.

It is through your characters that the viewers experience emotions.

It is through your characters that they are touched

Without CHARACTER you have no ACTION

Without ACTION you have no CONFLICT

Without CONFLICT you have no story

Without Story, you have no screenplay.

When developing a character, ask yourself

• Who is my character?
• What does he want?
• What is her quest?
• What drives him to the resolution of the story? 

Review

3 storytelling tools

• Observation
• Memory
• Experience

Aristotle’s storytelling theories 

• 3 act structure
• Developing 3 dimensional characters
• Writing for an audience

 3 Dimensional Character – physiology, sociology and psychology.

exterior – what happens in the movie

interior – what happens before the movie

Memory

Memory

Your memory is a wonderful cabinet of past incidents which you have experienced or been told.

 These memories are points of references to your own past experiences.

 Screenwriter= storyteller

 The cinematic experience is not just made up of words you might put on paper, but the audiences’ emotional reaction

 It’s people to people

 To connect:

• Themselves
• Their unique vision
• The material
• The drama - Emotion
• Others

Audiences want to be transported by a screenplay.

Where do you look for a story

Inside yourself

Everything to learn about other people is already in you.

Now you need to figure out how to connect to it.

Week 7 Reflection

Salihin chooses to write his favourite top ten movies and Ryan is in disagreement about his choices because all are Hollywood and coloured flicks. Well Salihin, I respect your choices because those are the movies that you like and list it in your top ten movies list. But like Ryan says everyone has different opinion and I agree that there are greatest movie made in other languages and also during the black and white era.

Well I m going to share my views on other language movies. So far I have watched Tamil (of course!! That’s my mother tongue), Hindi, other Indian languages, Malay, Chinese, other Chinese dialects, Arab, Korean, French and German. As long there is subtitle I don’t think language is a barrier for us to watch other language movies. J

I feel that some Non-English movies are better. But sadly it is not acclaimed like the Hollywood movies. Even though now the Chinese and Hindi movies are being introduced to the global market. I still feel that there is still space between Hollywood and the rest. I just hope that in time to come, the other language movies should receive a better recognition. Therefore it might be the reason I prefer Cannes Film Festival than Oscar. Cannes gives recognition to global movies but Oscar is an award ceremony catered for the Hollywood. Just to ‘show’ some acknowledgment, they have a category for the best foreign movie. Therefore I fell that getting award in Cannes is better than getting an Oscar.

To move on I want to pacifically touch on, Indian movies. Indian movies are classified as BOLLYWOOD!! That is totally WRONG. I strongly disagree with the statement that all Indian movies are named Bollywood. The one and only truth is Bollywood is only for Hindi movies it does not represent all INDIAN films. Bollywood is for the north Indian people to be more precise Hindi speaking people. But the world believes that Bollywood is Indian movie and Shahrukh Khan (a famous Hindi actor) is the superstar of India. No way! Indian films have more to it than being labelled as a Bollywood flick. Not to offend the Hindi filmdom. But I seriously do not enjoy Hindi movies. What they show you give the wrong impression of Indian movies that it is only good for the glitz and glam.

Most important thing I will really want to address here is that Indian movies are not about running around the trees. For god sake, please stop this stereotyping it is not funny people. Seriously I find it so dumb that people don’t tend to analyse movies. Their ideas are being narrowed because of the wrong impression Hollywood and local media have fostered on the people. What is it with running around the tree? Just because all movies include song sequence that doesn’t mean that Indian movies are good at dancing and singing only.

I prefer Tamil movies to Hindi movies. Tamil movies have a better variety of storyline and characterisation than Hindi. Some Tamil movies are foolish but some are very good in terms of story. There are many types of genres in Tamil. There are commercial, Love, Family, Epic, Comedy, Action and Thriller/Suspense. The first one I mentioned will not be that familiar to many because that genre is associated from Tamil movies. Commercial films are those films with all the other genres included and not much of storyline in it. Commercial movie is mostly based on big budget, with a lot of songs, fights and heroism. Commercial movies welcomed by most of the people and it runs well in the box office. So that is why when you watch Vasantham Central, you will see the hero fight one scene the next scene he will start dancing. But there are certain movies also well received by the box office because of its story, content and performance of the actor.

Talking about good movies, there is a movie called Ghajini. It is a box office hit movie in Tamil and it ran well in Singapore too. This movie is actually inspired by the movie Memento. But definitely Ghajini didn’t follow the narration like Memento if not it will not have ran well in Tamil because we love commercial element in movies, abit of these and that. Therefore, the concept is the same as the original but the story is a different one. Ghajni was different for the Indian audience because of story and the memory lost character. OH YES Ghajini is a classic example of Aristotle Tragedy too.

I didn’t know about Memento before watching Ghajini. After knowing that the movie was inspired from Christopher Nolan’s Memento I watched the original. Memento is a brilliant movie I have nothing to say more. Ghajini is also a nice movie but the ending was bad. Now they are going to remake Ghajni in Hindi. The actor of the Hindi version said the ending of the Tamil was not that good so they will make adjustments to the last part of the film. So now I am waiting for the Hindi version of the movie to see how it justify the previous two.

 

                    GHAJINI           

                                             

               MEMENTO

Week 6 Reflection

After reading Ryan’s post I recalled the time I worked for a production company. It was really tough working as a production assistant. But than now I have a wider knowledge about the media industry in Singapore and how it actually works.

 

One of my reasons to choose this line is because of its nature of work. In media industry we get to go places. Well I mean we get the chance to explore the unexplored. What am i trying to say is that.During my attachment I got to go Changi airport runway, Jurong port, got to ride on police stunt car and police coastal guard and not forgetting filming in Changi prison. These places are definitely not easily being entered by anyone. So it was really an enriching experience for me, as I was pretty lucky enough to go to these places.

5th week Reflection

” Why me Josh?”

My first line from the play Bang Bang you are dead when I played the role of Emily.

I can still remember those lines and actions after that. Especially my solo part when I drop dead dramatically. It was well received by the audience and the judges. Still could recall those moments. It has been two years since i perform on stage. I dearly miss my drama days. Actually my love lies not only in filmmaking but performing arts too.

Drama is something close to my heart always and I m still proud to talk about the performances I was involved. Most memorable ones are the Singapore Youth Festival (Syf) and my secondary school’s Musical performance. My school got gold with honour and became one of the top 4 for the play Bang Bang you are Dead for syf. The musical was to commemorate the school’s annual 10 year anniversary held at Nanyang polytechnic. It was called “ Club Gangsa” it involved the entire performing arts Drama, Dance, Choir and Band. I played the lead character. It was really a roller coaster ride for me during those days. The best moments I had in life.

But what I want to share here now is about my thoughts about stage acting. I always felt that stage acting is better than on-screen acting. In film, we can have as many takes as we want to get the right emotions from the actors. But in stage everything is live. You can’t do mistakes and there are no retakes. In film, actors do not act continuously. Only editing brings the whole movie as one piece. But in stage the actors act continuously. They portray emotions very well.

Not saying that cinema actors are bad. It is just that both are totally different. There are certain rules you have to follow while acting in movie and acting in theatre. In movies the characters must be natural not dramatic. But in theatre it’s totally a different story. The more dramatic you are the more impact you create. I personally feel that theatre acting improves an actor’s modulation. It helps us pronounce our words well and make us use our voice from the diaphragm and not stomach. Theatre acting is a good way to learn acting skills.

Acting is also a form of art. We need to cultivate the art first in order to excel in it. People often misjudge that acting is a natural talent. I will not say their perception is totally wrong but the passion for acting brings out the natural talent. But no matter how good you are, you have to polish the skill right? Acting should come natural and have to learn it too. So for those who want to take acting seriously, I will encourage them to go for acting workshops, classes or join a theatre company. It can really help a lot.

On a last note, I want to say that I hope I could once again act on stage. I don’t want my talent to go wasted. Just waiting for the moment to come true.

Drama MaMas In Action

After our performance with MR Mark Waite our director

4th week Reflections

How many people out there still remember their first day in primary school? Those are few events in life, which are hard to erase. The reason I am digging about the past is because I want to share about my thoughts of the yesterdays. There was this recent Tamil movie called “Pallikoodam” means “School” it’s about old students having a reunion before the school closes down and protest not to close down. Okay why am I talking about this movie? Cause as on 16 November it will be the last day for my primary school Pandan primary. After 25 years, the building is going to be brought down and going to emerge with another school called Fuhua. So the building and the name will be gone. All my siblings including me had our primary education in that very school. So the news was a bit emotional for me.

So my primary school friends and I decided to go and visit the school for the last time. We are not going to do any protest like in the movie. We wanted to give respect to the foundation that taught and gave us beautiful memories and friendship. It is a small school filled with love and warmth. In the middle of a small neighbourhood place called Teban Garden. After going to the school and meeting my tamil teacher who still works there gave me a experience I will never forget. After the visiting it really made me think and feel about certain issues. Even there was a second; my eyes were filled with tears. I felt the feeling of leaving a loved one. I could see in my teacher’s eyes and could feel what she was feeling. It was like writing a full stop to the last chapter of a book. The feeling was more than that.

It’s like everything will come to an end. I could feel that she was actually very sad deep inside about the leaving the school. She is being teaching there since the day the school was started. Almost half of her life was spend there and now she is going to move on to a school nearer to her home. Also the thing that really made me memorable was that she could still remember my name even I left the school earlier at primary three. So these small incidents affected me a lot and made me think about the things which we love in life. I found my old school as one of my loved one, which can bring back memories that often teaches me lesson in life. It is very hard to see someone you love or you look up leaving you. But they will often stay in our heart and keeps us reminding about the life that we live and lived. The moment of departing is often hard but it makes us stronger as a person because of the fact it makes us reflect on the reality of life. These deep thoughts came to me when I step out from the school for the last time.

Aristrotle

Who is Aristotle?
- Greece
- 384 BC – 322 BC
- First person to put around philosophy in play/story

What were his poetics?
- Attempts to explain poetry and teaches that poetry is divided into three genre; Tragedy, Comedy and Epic Verse: since these are the most common ones
- Not all his words are existent in his book on Poetic

What is Greek Tragedy?
- A dramatic action that might cause the audience to feel emotional imbalance
- Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the seeral kinds being fond in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.

An example of a movie or a play that follows Aristotle’s definition of tragedy?
- The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer; from bad to good – how he suffered to get over the flaw to turn good.

Aristotle’s 6 parts of Tragedy
1. Plot; the complete content of the story – with beginning, climax and conclusion.
2. Character; Main character MUST be rich and famous, so that at the end he’ll be taken off the high place that he originally was.
3. Thought; the writer’s overall thought to be conveyed to the audience, main purpose of message in tragedy to be well-conveyed.
4. Diction; the characters’ script.
5. Song or melody; rhythm to voice or sense of music to captivate attention and portray mood better.
6. Spectacle; not to be distracted by simple stimulations, but also look at the change in atmosphere, etc.

The “Cause-and-effect” Chain
- Makes up the plot
- Playwright should have effects in mind before writing causes.
- Both Causes and Effects must not be neglected when writing on the climax, since this series of event and incidents have to have organic unity.
- While writing on the resolution of the play, the “cases” have to be stressed because the playwright is writing on the effects.

How a good plot creates a “unity of action”.
- Events happening in a story must be running smoothly.
- Action that lead to each other must remain undisturbed.
- Must remain in same chain.

Episodic Plot
- Just a small part of the story
- Storyline has highs and lows but no complete turns into story.
i.e. Jean gets home, then finds a robber has broken in, calls the police and the robber gets caught.

Difference between a Simple and a Complex Plot
- Simple plot: “change of fortune”
- Not tragedy, just something sad

VS
- Complex plot: has to have “peripetia” and recognition “anagnorisis” connected with the catastrophe

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS PERIPETIA?!
ANS: A REVERSAL OF CIRCUMSTANCES

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS KATHARSIS?!
ANS: KATHARSIS IS WHEN A CHARACTER HAS AN EMOTIONAL EPIPHANY, A COMING TO AWARENESS OF AND RESOLUTION AND REMAKING OF SELF – ** EMOTIONAL CLEANSING **
- Audience goes through Katharsis – feeling an emotional epiphany

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS MIMESIS?!
ANS: MIMIC – RECREATING LIFE IN THE FAKE FORM.

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS ANGNORISIS?!
ANS: RESOLUTION – WHEN CHARACTER LEARNS FROM HIS ACTIONS. FROM BAD TO GOOD.

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS HAMARTIA?!
ANS: THE TRAGIC FLOW – WHAT CAUSES THE CHARACTER TO GO DOWNFALL.

I cope the notes from Fat blog… hehe thanks fat!

2nd week of reflections

Today’s topic is about how conflict creates a movie. Yes imagine a movie without a story? and a story without a problem it will not be that interesting to watch or to read right? So that is why a movie is done based on conflicts and a solution to it. Not the typical war, fights, and gangsters kind of conflicts. There are many conflicts, which can be created by the environment and the changes around the character itself. Interesting right? We even listed down the movies. For e.g. like Spiderman it is about the environment changes, body changes, live changes and feelings changes.

And back to our normal story writing, now we had to choose an opener from the other classmates and had to write a story in 20 minutes. I found it hard to select from a vast number of openers. Did not know where to choose from, so i wasted my time deciding on what to choose. I feel it will be better like the first lesson if we had minimum number of choices maybe it can save more time.

I actually wrote a story with I think from Fatimah’s opener
“With a bouquet of red roses in his right hand, Samuel stands motionless under the heavy rain.” I wrote a few lines and I find I could not write much so I decided to choose another opener from Finaz,
“Edmund slowly begins to turn blue as the pressure around his neck grows tighter.”

Edmund slowly begins to turn blue, as the pressure around his neck grows tighter.
He cries for help but the robber was still strangling Edmund’s neck. He was a big built man wearing a helmet and a black jacket. So Edmund was not able to see the guy’s face. The robber gives Edmund a strong grip with his big muscular hands that chokes him down his throat. The other robber was taking all of Edmund’s money and snatching his big black suitcase of jewelleries and throwing them all inside in a big brown sac bag. It was a small alley behind an old shop house. There was no sight of anyone passing by. Edmund pleads the guy, “ I will hand over you everything just don’t kill me”. But the robber pulls a gun out from his pocket and tells his friend “ You get him on the floor and I will shoot him.” Edmund’s eye becomes red; he is not able to breath anymore. His visuals were getting blur. The guys knock him down the floor. The guy who strangled him pulls the trigger and shoots Edmund three times and runaway with all they have stolen from Edmund.

Lastly I will like to share my thoughts about the two short films that we watched during the class. First is “A call home”. I agree like we have discussed in class the starting was too draggy with unnecessary scenes the important part of the show is only when he is making a call to his home. The other scenes did not have much dialogue. The phone conversation scene tells us the overall story and answers our question about the film. It is simple way to tell a story in one scene. Not bad!

The second movie I forgot the name, but I enjoyed it except for the ending, which disappointed many of us. Happy ending! Bad after all? No! I found it good cause I will have no heart to watch the girl dying! The story is simple but it puts across many messages about dreams, live, persuasion and passion. It can happen to anyone’s life. But the ending can have put a stronger message. Like the mom gets to know her child’s desire or the girl decided to learn the piano. But sadly nothing happened.