-I’m actually interested in politics and not politically apathetic
-i’m passionate about my beliefs
-I dare to disagree with the government and question their policies publicly
-I support the opposition in the elections
-I say thank you when someone holds the lift for me
-I don’t join a crowd simply because there’s a crowd
-I don’t queue up for freebies
-I don’t care for cca points
-I have a general disregard for rules
WEEK 1
-present tense
-3rd person
-active voice
eg. Mark picks up the gun and holds it in his hand. It begins to tremble as if alive.
Passive- weak verbs
-tell rather than show
-distances reader
Active-strong verbs
-shows
-immediate sentence structure
-conveys story in lively manner
something i remember about procrastination: its the weekend and thats no time for homework
WEEK 3
Aristotle: the father of storytelling
-born in stageira macedonia
-came up with a set of advice for contemporary poets
Greek tragedy
-imitaion of action
-in language that embellished each kind of artistic ornament in the form of action and not narrative with incidences arousing pity and fear wherewith to accomplish its katharsis of such emotions
WEEK 5
Character
- a story starts with a character
-heart soul and nervous system
-it is through characters that audiences are touched
-no character-no action-no conflict=no story=no screenplay
Questions to ask myself
-who is my character
-what he wants
-what is his quest
-what drives him to the resolution
We create characters in relationship to other ppl and things
-they experience conflict in acheiving their dramitic need
-they interact with other characters
-they interact with their emotions
Memory
-your memory is a cabinet of post incidents which you have experienced
-memories are points of reference
By writing about things we know and don’t know we use things we know to strengthen parts of the story we don’t know
WEEK 6
Writing for an audience
Screenwriter = storyteller
- The cinematic experience is not just made up of words you might put on paper, but the audience’s emotional reaction to that information.
Not true:
Director to people
Writer to people
Camera to people
It’s people to people (TRUE)
Writer’s purpose?
-to connect:
-themselves
-their unique vision
-the material
-the drama
-others
Audiences want to be transported by a screenplay.
People watch a movie for the escapism it provides
Experience
-needs to be a memory
-memories are not necessarily true
-memory is filtered through reality. When something sits in your mind it merges with other details and over time your memory of that incident changes.
WEEK 7
Dialogue
-portrays emotions
-creates mood
-expresses thought
-builds a connection with audience
-defines the character
-indicates relationships between characters
-moves plot forward
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
-Dialogue ties the script together
Dialogue should be used sparingly , never telling the audience what they can see for itself
We took a test in class this week. And I was the last to hand in my test sheet. So Ryan asked if I found the test difficult. That little incident led me to a reflection on itself. I have sat for an exam or two in my time and every single time the majority of studentssitting for that exam are always done and off in a huff. I mean what the hell was the hurry. I have never understood why people hand in exam papers in early, especially when they still have plenty of time to look through it. I mean it could save you a good few marks and I’ll testify to that. So what is it guys? Is it uncool to be seen checking through your test papers or am I just being typically Singaporean.
This week we did this true or false story thing in class where we wrote two stories and had to figure which was true and otherwise. It made for a hilarious lesson. I mean the ridiculousness of those stories, you’d have to read them to know. It sure reminds us like that old tv show that the fact is more often stranger than fiction. And yes i agree quite a decent bit with what Ryan had to say about memory. SELECTIVE MEMORY to be precise. When we recount incidents from our past more often than not we tend to glorify and dramatise incidents, linking things that have nothing to do with each other and so forth. I don’t think its so much a conscious decision we make though. After all we all tend to remember interesting stories better and maybe its just the mind’s way of helping remember at all. But it isn’t necessarily a bad thing either, I mean who wants to know what I had for dinner on my first date not that I remember but I’m sure nobody’s dying to know. But what about how I touched 2nd base on that same date… Oooh now everyone’s interested. It’s a great flaw to have for a writer, this SELECTIVE MEMORY.
And finally I had to say something about Ryan’s letter to the past. I talked about Naresh’s last week and completely forgot about Ryan’s. You know the first thing that hit me was the pure rawness of it all. The emotions were put out there for us all to see and that either took a lot of guts or a lot of alcohol. Those who’ve read my letter to the past could probably say the same thing about it. But I wrote it and I’ll tell you as I looked at it again and compared it, that it was never in the same vein as Ryan’s. Yes it was personal, but look at it deeper and you’ll find a thin veil of concealment as I found to my surprise, I am the writer after all. There was this consciousness in the writing, saying less than what could have been really said. In Ryan’s letter there was none of this unconscious self censorship or at least no sign of it. It was really all he would have said to his dad.
Let me start by saying that if there are any of you who read my post last week and didn’t like it, felt I’m totally delusional or just plain daft, you can stop reading here. I’m not out to convince anyone who won’t be convinced. And anyway this post is after all a continuation of the last one.
My battle with technology is a daily one. Even today I had two major skirmishes. First I had to “write” an essay in class for an IS module. Despite my hitting a personal best for typing speed I still couldn’t manage to reach the minimum number of 800 words in the given hour an a half or so. And yes it would have never been a problem had I used the conventional and now forgotten pen and paper.
Yes one could argue that its my own ignorance and obstinate refusal to adapt to technology that has landed me here, you reap what you sow goes the old adage. But let me take this issue beyond the surface. You see me learning to type faster is never an issue. With a little practice it can’t be beyond me. For the real problem however there is no quick fix or may be no fix at all. So what is the real problem you ask, its just that I simply cannot think looking at a computer screen. My mind just goes into bouts of blankness. Its something I’ve never encountered with the proverbial pen and paper but with the computer it is my undoing. It just isn’t a very inspiring thing to look at. I can’t tear out a page from the screen and crush it can i? I mean can you imagine type writing a love letter? Oh gods knows, there just might be those of you who can. I can’t. Not now, not 10 years from now. Its just something I can’t bring myself to do.
And now to talk about class on week 6, we had this very interesting assignment that we had to do over the previous week. The much raved about letter to the past. I read a few letters but nothing blew me away the Naresh’s letter did. The very concept he came up with, writing to himself in the past was just pure brilliant. If you haven’t read it yet you should.
I’m going to begin this weeks reflections by reflecting on all that i would have reflected on in my earlier reflections had i done them. The first storytelling class started out just fine with introductory games and what not but it turned really sour the moment it became apparent to me that i was going to have to write a blog for the class. You see i’m not the biggest fan of blogging. In fact i hate the idea. I cannot understand the motivations behind a personal blog, i just can’t(objective social blogs and political blogs excluded). I mean who needs to know who you slept with last night(unless it was Madonna), who needs to see what a freak your new dog looks like or who really cares if you’re feeling shit. What’s the deal here. Are you that desperate for attention or do you just have nothing to occupy your time. I’ve a suggestion, why don’t you volunteer ar the children’s charity or the Spca or at a million other places where your time would be better spent, where the rewards and attention(even if only from animals) received would be far greater than those from blogging. Whatever happened to writing a diary, to be held in secret and to be found only after your death upon which if its exciting enough it’ll be published or made into a movie. I’m averse to this whole age of technology and no don’t misunderstand me its not the technology i’m averse to. Its peoples overuse and overreliance of it that annoys me. We’re all guilty one way or another. And before you go “not me”, ask yourself when was the last time you sent someone a forwarded sms greeting? I’m betting it wasn’t too long ago. I use the phone instead of email and smsing as much as i can. And hey that’s technology too, but at least i’m physically talking to the person, i can hear him and its really quite different from staring at a screen i assure you, i’ve tried. Our abuse of technology is leading to the disintegration of society as we know it today. The battle i fight is a doomed one but as long as there’s resistance there’s hope. Watch this space next week there’s more anger left in me. So Ryan now you know why the reflections took a while coming.
And now to talk about class and this week. We had to write a story in which both the people we people watched would meet. And to be honest it really wasn’t that hard, what was hard though was to have to do it on a schedule of 30 minutes. Despite the trouble with time it was really interesting to imagine what the emotions and reactions of these 2 people i didn’t know would be. Maybe this is really how great stories are written, the author see’s two random people and decides he’d put them in the same story and from there its all his understanding of body language and culture that either makes it or breaks it for him. I don’t know for sure but its good way to start when you’ve got nothing.
Today’s lesson was in principal a real wake up call. Well it started off pretty nicely enough with the screening of The Election in class. But once the movie and discussions regarding it were done, the honeymoon that was this second semester was effectively over. Ryan brought up to speed nicely enough but the truth couldn’t be hidden no matter how sugarcoated his words were. He found that at best were being sloppy with our work and it couldn’t closer to the truth for me. I’ve been a total bum thus far this semester. The word sloppy couldn’t have better described me and my actions these four weeks. In the good spirit of honesty I’m ashamed to admit that this semester I have delivered neither the quality nor the quantity I expect of myself.
For the better half of my relatively short life I’ve wanted to come here to Ngee Ann, to Film Sound and Video. What began as a childhood fantasy to emulate my dad gave way to an adolescent obsession and over time matured into a true passion.
My father spent a good twenty years with what is now Mediacorp. I started following him around to work from about the age of ten. And since then I’ve never wanted to do anything else, never considered another career and never considered another course. But despite all the undying interest, unquestionable appetite and undeniable background my road to fsv was a winding rocky one. On my first attempt I was told I had to pass maths which was to me rather ridiculous but this being Singapore ministry requirements are ministry requirements. So I went off and did my o level math again and enlisted in the army since there was nothing else to do anyway. As it turned I cleared it so I went on and applied for the second time. To my utter disappointment, I didn’t even get called up for the written test. Since there was nothing else I wanted to do I just waited for the following year’s intake to apply again and sat for the written test, went for the interview and promptly got accepted.
So after all that trouble and anxiety I took it upon myself to do justice to this god given opportunity, to make the most of this exclusive program that is fsv. To be fair my performance in the first semester met all that I asked of myself but this semester something’s just been missing. The intensity was just not building up and I have been slacking off. I’ve been taking up more days at work than I can truly manage and it has without doubt affected my productivity levels with school work. I’ve been falling behind. Maybe a kick up the rear was all that I’ve been really missing this semester, and Ryan couldn’t have picked a better time to deliver it.
