Am I a typical Singaporean teenager??

I would very much like to believe so.

Like many Singaporeans themselves, I enjoy the local food. I love my laksa and chicken rice. I spent my years growing up through the tough education system of Singapore. From the PSLE to the ‘O’ Levels. Like all typical Singaporean teenagers, I lived through my childhood with games like hop scotch, five stones, zero point, catching and “pepsi cola 1 2 3″. I go to places most Singaporean teenagers would go; Orchard, Bugis, and Vivo City! I admit to using sinless Singlish in my everyday conversations. The “leh”s, “lar”s and “lor”s are just so expressive. In the 21st century, average Singaporean teenagers cannot live without the internet. Although I think I can probably do without the internet, I indulge in online facilities like MSN Messenger, blogs, and Friendster! I, like many of my fellow typical Singaporean teenagers, take buses or trains to school because it’s simply the cheapest transport available. Also, although I would hate to admit it, I’m spoilt like the usual Singaporean kids. Throw us into a desert and we may all die there, or just take away electricity, the result is the same.

Ok, but honestly I feel that 90% of why I am a typical Singaporean teenager is because I’m borned into it. Like the rest of us, we have no choice. Anyone who is different is either outcasted or worshipped.

Reflection VIII

Ahhhhhhh! The reflections are going to be graded! I have to get this one last reflection up no matter what, so then I may at least have a better grade. * grins * Oh, and yes I admit, I follow the motto “cheap must buy, free must take.”

In class this week, we had to do some acting activity. It is to teach us dynamic actions, I think. I had to play a shy guy on a first date. Was kind of easy though. I think everyone knew what I was trying to act out. So, I must say, I’m a potential actor! * grins bigger *

The little exercise made me realize that dynamic actions do bring out the message clearer. But sometimes, not many people would behave in response with their feelings. So is dynamic action all good?

I put myself in the role that Sonia played; the one with the boyfriend cheating on her. If ever, one day I catch my boyfriend two-timing me, I would never muster enough courage to pour water into his face. What would I do then? I would hang around the restaurant for a while, remember every little intimate actions and when he contacts me, I will flood him with questions.

I feel that even if a character does not do a dynamic action, the audience will still be able to feel the character’s emotions. Nobody likes to be cheated, so even if we see the victim putting on a smile, we know that deep down, he or she is hurt.

Acting is to take on the role of something else. Everyone acts, or rather everyone puts on an act. We are all guilty of it. But why do we hear of many people disliking hypocrites, when all of us are hypocrites to a certain degree ourselves? Like how u detest a certain classmate, but you don’t go saying “shut up, don’t talk to me, get out of my sight” to him. Well, maybe for those with enough spunk, you do. But nobody does that to their superiors and bosses right?

But hey, I guess all the pretending is to save us the trouble, and as well as for other people. Being nice to even people you so desire they would drop dead the next minute doesn’t take much. It’s all in us. We’re all good actors. And oh yes, Santa’s watching, so be a nice hypocrite. Cheers!

Notes for week VIII

Week 8 Notes

Story is Action
- Action is any kind of activity, movement, interaction of characters with their surroundings.
- Talking about feelings is not as powerful as illustrating why you feel this way through your actions.

Film is behaviour
- Actions are simply the manifestations of behaviour
- Human emotions are understood by watching the actions and reactions of the characters.

Dynamic Action
- Has the potential to enrich the experience of the audience by building an emotional relationship between the characters and the audience.
- Actions that show the audience the characters’ emotions.

3 ways of expressing emotions (the easy way), flashback, voiceover, through dialogue

Lecture Notes Wk 7

Functions of Dialogue:
- Conveys messages of the story
- Explore characters’ emotions
- Explore characters’ personalities
- Creates moods
- Shows relationship between characters
- Makes the film more interesting

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.

Elements of Dialogue
- Good effective dialogue will move the story forward.
- Dialogue communicates faces and information to the audience.
1. It conveys essential exposition.
2. Characters will talk about what happened, establishing the storyline.
- Dialogue ties the script together.

Bad dialogues:
Wrong sentence structure creates ambiguous meanings
Dialogues that show how they really feel

Common Mistakes
- Dialogue should be used sparingly, never telling the audience what they can see for itself.
1. dialogue is no substitute for action.

Hello and this is my 7th reflection

Howdy! Things were mundane this week. I had to finish up the storyboard and complete another assignment for PHOTOGRAPHY!

We watched “Autograph book” during Story Telling tutorial and it had brought about many memories when I was younger. We were all 12 years old then. We were a group of Primary 6 students getting all drama because we would soon leave our beloved primary school and we might never ever ever ever be able to see one another again. Almost everyone had an autograph book, including the boys. They were passing autograph books around, asking each other to write something in their books. Books were even passed to classmates whom they were not close with or hardly know. I guess this is another sign which shows that kiasuism is instilled into our children from young; everyone must have everyone’s autograph.

Reading their autograph books brought me much joy. There were stupid poems like “roses are red, violets are blue, …” probably in more than 50 versions and names with each alphabet representing a quality. For example, Jennifer would probably be “Jolly, Energetic, Nice, Neat, Intelligent, Friendly, Exciting, Righteous”. There were so much sweet little things in there, that if put into the mouth, could cause tooth decay. I get especially excited whenever I came across clues that might indicate who had a crush on who. Why? I don’t really know. Perhaps, I was just trying to entertain myself.

But guess what? I didn’t have an autograph book. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if I’m unfriendly or some sort of outcast, I have my fair share of autograph books to write in ok? So yeah, It’s also not because that I couldn’t get myself a pretty autograph book and only have an ugly one which I’m so embarrassed to take it out. Besides, I think ugly autograph books are cool. I did not have an autograph book because I felt everyone was being plastic about it. They were not like what we saw in “Autograph Book” where everyone wrote things based on their personality and their liking for the person. What happened was there were a lot of pretending; acting as if they know each other a lot, pretending like they are BFF (Best Friend Forever), and writing really nice stuff for each other, when in actual fact, they had never talked in class before. It sickens me a lot.

I remembered this girl whom I don’t know asking me to sign her book and she actually went like “Brandon, can you please write in my autograph book?” I took it from her, looked for an empty page and used the most ordinary blue pen and scribbled “I don’t know you and I have nothing much to say to you, but good luck to whatever you do- “Brandon””. Ahh… Stupid kids.

Lecture Notes Wk 6

Oh, I actually forgot there were notes for week 6 until I wanted to study Aristotle. Here goes!

Week 6 “Writing for an Audience”

Writing for an audience
Screenwriter = storyteller
The cinematic experience is not just made up of words you might put on paper, but the audiences’ emotional reaction to that information.

X Director to people
X Writer to people
X Camera to people
It’s people to people

What is the writer’s purpose?
To connect:
Themselves
Their unique vision
The material
The drama
Others
Audiences want to be transported by a screenplay

Where do you look for a story?
Inside yourself.
Everything you learn about other people is already in you.
Now you need to figure out how to connect to it.

observation- memory- experience

Experience
You learn from experience
Memories changed, they are filtered by reality
All people have fragment of stories
These potential ideas prompt your desire to know more.
Respond emotionally and intellectually to what you heard.
Good stories are born in the heart, not the head.
Remember the role of an audience.
After all, you are the audience.

6th Reflection

Emotions. What an overused word. Everything has got something to do with it. And I realised that in every single Storytelling tutorial, I hear this word very frequently. Is it because we do not know what else to replace the word with and that’s why we always use it as an escape route whenever Ryan asks us questions; or is it because it is really everywhere and there is no escape from it?

Emotions- the key to writing a good story. Emotions- our characters must have, feel, and experience them. Emotions- we need to connect them to our audience.

Emotions. That was what I felt when I hear my friends’ letters to their past. One of which moved both me and Vivian to tears. It’s really commendable. it must have taken lots of courage. You go, girl! The letter must be one of the best ways to get to know our classmates more. After hearing the letters, something struck me. After spending most of our time in school together, having lectures, tutorials, lunch, and discussion, etc., how much and how well do we really know one another?

Emotions. The hate, the anger, the sadness, the disappointment. So much of them in our letters. Whatever happened to the good feelings? Has the ugliness in the world robbed us of that, leaving us with only the negative stuff? Or is it perhaps easier to write about them, as most of us can relate better to them because we have all at some point in life experience them?

Don’t mind me, I’m just thinking out loud.

Next assignment, True / False Stories. I’ve done mine and I think it’s going to be interesting.  Alright off to reading people’s stories,until then!

Lecture Notes Wk 5

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?
= Why is that goal important in the first place

You must create your characters in relationship to other people or things.
They experience conflict in achieving their dramatic need.
They interact with other characters.
They interact with their emotions.

Memory
Storytelling tool 2: 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.

A reflection for Week 5?

Oh my gawd. I actually forgot Week 5’s reflection until now. I was kinda busy with erm… some stuff over the weekend.

Week 5’s Storytelling was rather interesting. We watched this old film, which I suppose has some depth to it (though I really couldn’t see how). We also watched a small part of another film about this guy who seems like he has no life and loves driving a taxi all day, pretty weird person if you were to ask me. Ryan said that the people who made the movie had succeeded in creating a very 3 dimensional character. This is because we were able to figure out the physiology, sociology, psychology, interior and exterior of the taxi driver even though we were only shown a few minutes of the movie. How interesting. So much effort has gone into portraying the character and how most of us don’t even notice it.

Movin on, we were given the task to complete the people-watch assignment saga by linking both people into a situation. It was a easy task. They were ordinary people at an ordinary setting, doing ordinary things, getting into an ordinary conflict, and resolving it just like how ordinary people would.  Sounds simple huh?

Life is so much more than storytelling and so is this entry going to be. Lols. I was enlightened lately about love after sharing all my failed past relationship experiences with someone. Let me tell you a story about love.

You know how everyone is always constantly searching for our true love?

There is this boy who is really curious about love. He wants to know how he is able to find his true love one day. So, one day, he sought help from his deeply respected teacher whom he sees as the wisest and most intelligent person on Earth.

“Please sir, can you teach me how to find true love?” The boy asks.

His teacher tells him, “Go to the forest, and bring me back the tallest tree you can find and I’ll teach you how. One thing though, you cannot turn back, you can only keep walking along the path.”

The next day, the boy returns to his teacher empty handed. The teacher asks him why he did not bring him the tallest tree.

The boy replies “Everytime I see a tree in the forest, I keep thinking that there might be a taller one somewhere ahead. And before I know it, I missed the tallest tree and I found myself out of the forest, and I couldn’t turn back.”

The teacher nods then give the boy another chance, again telling him to bring him the tallest tree he can find.

The next day, the boy returns to his teacher with a tree which isn’t significantly tall. His teacher asks him if it was the tallest tree he could find.

He answers “It isn’t the tallest tree in the forest, but it is tall enough for me. I may not be strong enough to carry other taller trees, but this tree’s weight is just enough for me to carry it back. I do not wish to miss this opportunity again.”

“That is the answer to your question.” The teacher says to the boy.

Isn’t this just enlightening? Lols. I’m sorry if you think it sucked but I thought it was very meaningful and has so much truth to it. People go on this search for true love all their lives, always on the look out for someone “better”. But bear in mind that the person who is perfect for you may not be the best, sometimes you can find the true love you so desired in someone ordinary, someone just like you and me. *winks* =)

4th Reflection

Hello! Hello! Hello!

Ryan was right. My reflection is losing it’s thang. And I shall attempt to bring it back because I’m so hyped up right now. Lol.

Let’s see now, Friday we watched this movie called (The) Election. It’s a pretty intriguing movie though I’ve got no idea why Ryan said it might be disturbing to some another week ago. If a guy watching pornography is going to make me scream “Oh! The humanity!” and pull my hair off, I wouldn’t be 17. Besides, nothing close to privates were even shown. And Asians are not really very conservative people, you know? Well at least not the people in my class that is, I think.

Hmms, I’m trying to write something about the movie, but I can’t even remember their names. I know theres our beloved teacher, this over-achieving irritating blonde girl, this “yo doooooooooooooooood” dude and his cool lesbian sister. But well, we’ve all seen it so I guess theres nothing much to write about.

It’s funny how life can take such a big turn, just like how it was depicted in the movie. So true, so true. But whatever it is, we all hope it’s for the better don’t we? Am I even making the slightest sense? I must be very confused. So true, so true.

But hey, Storytelling was fine overall, nothing much to do, just sit back, chill (literally), and watch a movie. How COOL is that (pun intended)?  Homework was kinda easy though. In fact, I actually did them first before writing this, unlike with all the previous assignments.

Until Friday then, I’m out.

Random ‘me’ fact of the post: Although I really, REALLY suck at Photography, I seriously wish for an AD. =P