Reflections-20th Nov 2007

This week we went through the 3rd and final storytelling tool: Experience.

This brings up a question in me, how about those people who do not have as much experience in life? wouldn’t they be at a disadvantage with this tool?? well, the letters to the past was quite fun, but its really very emotional though, its really nice to reminisce about the past once in a while. For me it does get very emotional, thats why i password protect it. And i would very much like to delete it after grading…

Everything about you – where you were born, what food you eat, the bump on your forehead – your experiences are unique and irreplaceable.
How could anyone not agree with this, i feel that this is what makes the world interesting, imagine if the everyone is identical, we’d all be freaks! everyone will live in peace(maybe, not saying its a bad thing though) and we would never be able to enjoy happiness/peace/love why you may ask? because we need the downs to feel the ups.. don’t understand? basically, we need darkness to have light, if there is no darkness, we would never know what light is. get it? (still dun get it, come and find me,i’ll hammer your head! haha)

After that we each wrote a true and false story,mine is at “storytelling assignment”, do give your comments=)haha.. it is really true that real life never ends, it just goes on and on and on and on and..you get the point. well, i guess the purpose of films is to give people a fixed ending to a story. And as it was once said, real life is boring, which is true.

True stories are not always good stories, good stories need to be worked and reworked and reworked

“that means  we will never truly be ever satisfied with our story?”(perry)

“yes”(mr tan)

“then like this how?”(perry)

“thats why you work and rework until your deadline”(mr tan)

“oooohhhh”(perry)

Well, there is really nothing much focus on right now except finish up our stories=) and this is my final draftdraft=)

“ Why does she always get doted by you? What about me? Ain’t I your daughter as well!…” On her bed, a tear makes its way down her cheek. Charlene lies in her bed; she rubs her eyes as she holds on tightly to the family picture. The argument never seems to end.

Her sister, Chantale rebukes her mother again and again, they are both in tears and with every reply, Charlene worries for her family. She remains motionless as her sister enters the room, grabs her handbag and jacket and stomps out of the house.

The gate slams, and her mother’s weeping amplify the hallway. Charlene walks out and sees her mother’s back facing her; Charlene walks up to her mother and hugs her.
“I’m ok darling, go to sleep.” Her mother pats her head and goes to the kitchen.

Charlene looks out of the window, and down to the roof of the multi-stories carpark. There she sees her sister alone, crying. Charlene turns around and stares at her family portrait, hanging proudly, all smiles. Tears erupt from her eyes, she runs to her bed and hugs her Winne-the-pooh soft toy. She stares at the ceiling “ None of this would have happened if i wasn’t born. But I think she’s just jealous. But mummy and daddy have really been bias against her…”

On the roof of the multi-storied car-park, Chantale sits with her back against the barrier, stretching her legs with her feet pointing up towards the night. She gazes across the cold concrete, and sets her eyes finally onto the misty sky. The stars peek at her from yonder, as though sparkling a game of hide-and-seek.

“Coke?” Peter comes from behind and offers her.
“Thanks” Chantale wipes her eyes and smiles, “I’m really sorry that I have called you out at night, I just nee..” Peter hugs her, interrupting“ No worries, what are friends for?”

Chantale clears her throat; all that crying has rendered her unable to speak. Peter looks at her and says “take your time, we have the whole night” Chantale, wipes her eyes and looks down, saying
“I feel so unloved by my parents, I can never meet up to their expectations! So many a times I try, but I get blamed for everything even when it’s clear that my sister’s at fault. I really hate my family..” Peter sits there, not interrupting, nodding in acknowledgment.

Charlene rolls around on her bed, there’s too much on her mind. She sits up and gazes out her window, she picks up her phone and dials for her pillar of support and family friend, Hosea.
“hello?”
“hello, argument again?”
Hosea could hear Charlene’s shaky voice
“yes”
“feeling better?”
“why does she hate us so much?”
“I guess perhaps its because she doesn’t feel loved? Most of the time, attention is on you instead of her?”
“that’s my parents fault already, is there anything I can do?”
“perhaps you could..”

She glances at the lift as Peter smiles at her while the lift descends. She enters her house finding her sister sleeping on the sofa. Chantale walks pass ignorantly but something catches her eye. A piece of foolscap in the shape of a heart with her name written on it sits on the table.

Chantale turns around and picks up the letter. Chantale removes her jacket and places it over Charlene. She walks to the kitchen table and sits down.

Hi sis,

I really don’t know what happened to make you hate us so much, hate me so much. But I just want to let you know that no matter how much you detest or loathe me, I will always love you

Love,
Charlene

Charlene comes from behind and embraces her sister.
“I love you sis”

-perry

 

 

 

Reflections-6th Nov 2007

Okie Mr Tan, I got your hint! Well, from now onwards instead of just paraphrasing whatever Mr Tan has said into my blog, I guess I should really do some reflections=)Thus I have decide to tear down Perry’s corner and use the quotes to reflect=)

FOCUS ON THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS
i have a real life recount of something that happened to me last year… I was playing basketball with my friends at one of the basketball courts in Bishan and up came this young Chinese dude, 165cm, small build, dribbles the ball and shoots, then scores. Seems like quite a pro, yet when he challenged me, I beat him easily.. why? No I did not physically beat him, hell! I did not even get to use my size. He was out of stamina by the 3rd ball.. thus I outwitted him with stamina and skill=) so the moral of the story? This dude here focused too much on just getting the ball into the hoop that he failed to focus on the essential element of any sport, stamina! More importantly, because he lacked stamina, he couldn’t use his skill to his advantage. Life is about balancing everything you commit yourself too, just like a story, there has to be a balance of everything to make a good story.

KEEP IT SHORT AND SHARP(kiss)

This ‘kiss’ idea came up during one of my meetings where the i/c actually said he would kiss the meeting, and all of us were like ‘huh?!?’ then he said “short and sharp maahhh” Yesyes I know most of you would be like “Wah lao! Pretty perry damn lame!” Damn! You guys/gals have no sense of humor! Anyways, it is important to go straight to the point with what you want to say, that’s why I really detest SOME literature books because they are really longwinded. Like what Mr Tan said in previous lectures “SHIT! ITS FREEZE THE CAMERA TIME!”

DYNAMIC ACTION
-MOVEMENT
-ACTIVITY
-INTERACTION

Everybody likes action! Right?? Imagine a story without action; it’s called a painting I think, HELL! Even some paintings have actions!! The three ingredients needed for DYNAMIC action is movement, activity and interaction. Like the example Mr Tan gave was about licking the bottle, I felt that though it was disgusting(and still is) it really helped my remember his tutorials well, I really enjoy the tutorials because I feel so free to express myself. Back to the topic, haha, I feel that dynamic action is what keeps the audience interested in the movie, for example imagine if for starwars, all they had was R2D2 and 3CPO talking throughout the movie, it’ll be boring! But with Anakin and Obi-wan fighting on the planks above the burning lava raises the bar for action to a whole new level!

WHAT YOU DON’T SHOW MAKE A CHARACTER

“What is your character’s dark secret that he’s trying to protect?” I feel that it’s the secrecy and mysteriousness of a character that makes him interesting. See that when Star Wars 4,5 and 6 came out, no one knew about Darth Vader’s childhood and teenage, thus when 1,2 and 3 came out, its was Pancakes man! I mean hot as pancakes! Because everyone is dying to know how he came to be who he is. I feel its not only in the movies, even in real life, its what we don’t above each other that keeps friends going and surprising, its about the new things that you stumble upon about your friends that boosts the initial acquaintances to friends.

Reflections-30th Oct 2007

Today, the first thing we did was pick on some really innocent people. Muahahahahahaha.

we flipped open a phone book and randomly picked out two names and beautify them with our made up stories.

here is the story..

Name: Lawe
Address: River Valley

Gates is eating his favorite plate of kway tiao when Lawe approach him with a piece of you tiao in his hand saying “ my tiao nicer can! You nicer than KWAY!”

Gates stands up and looks Lawe in the eye, speaking sternly ” having Kway tiao for dinner is a Family tradition!”
Lawe rebels “say who?”
“says Ah ma!” Gates rebuked
“Ah ma is dea..”

a furious punch accelerates towards Lawe’s face!
Gates stares down upon Lawe who’s down on the floor, with crimson from his nose.

Immediately the Kway Tiao uncle comes out and holds back Gates, pulling him to the side saying “this would not be how Ah ma wants rite?”

Gates coming to a realization, replied “ I guess you’re rite pa.”
Just when everything seems to be well, Lawe gets up and runs towards Gates and swings his you tiao at Gates.
Gates catches it with his mouth and bites a piece of it off.
Just as Gates was…

(end)

Mr Tan also said the “World is full of POTENTIAL STORIES”

Today’s lesson was on the most important part of the story, the CHARACTER, without the Character, a story cannot start.  Next comes my favourite Sentences of the day!

 “without a Character, there is no Action

without Action, you have no Conflict

without Conflict, you have no Story

without Story, you have no Screenplay”

Mr Tan went through on some of the points we should ask ourselves when we develop a character such as

who is he?

what does he want?

what is his Quest?

What drives him to the resolution of the story?

 Well, one thing is for sure, (i Quote from Mr Tan) ” real life has no ending, its boring!” which is quite true, we all end our day lying down at the same place we’re going to get up from and repeat that cycle till we die. LIFE S***s! haha, next what was discussed about was the 3 Dimensions of the character, mainly the PHYSIOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY and PSYCHOLOGY.

Physiology is mainly about his physical self, his sex, age, height, color of hair etc.

Sociology is mainly about his stand in society, for e.g. class, occupation, education, religion etc.

Psychology is mainly about his sex life, moral standards, personality, abilities and what is the deep and personal secret this character has which he is desprate to protect and hide?

Next we went through the interior and exterior of a character, after that we were given the 5  Fifty words story, at first i thought Mr Tan was joking, however he said he was serious about having exactly fifty words. darn..

CONFLICT

What is conflict? Conflict is Change,  Change is universal, Change is Constant! well a conflict is (i Quote) “the central feature of the screenplay” well, i do agree that people are afraid of change because they are afraid to be left behind after the change. but hey! everything CHANGES!

We were also told that the more evenly matched the protagonist and antagonist are, the “stronger the battle will be and the more suspense will be aroused” this only reminds me of 1 show, “The Matrix” How Neo and Mr Smith are the best of  both worlds, how they collide and created a beautiful show.

We also went through many points on the craft of writing, how good scenes write themselves(not literally) and how structure is critcal. Some tips on THE CRAFT OF WRITING

-Write down a list of scens

-Use only keywords

-Each word is supposed to remind you of a scene that helps you promote the story

PERRY’S CORNER!

-”For sale; baby shoes, never used”.

-All Characters have goals, and conflict happens when they oppose.

-Put whats important, “101 boring facts, 1 cool tip”

Reflections-23th Oct 2007

This is my reflection for my storytelling class…

I was quite happy that one of my openers made the best few list=) its was fun thinking of ways to start a story.

For the first exercise, we were told to pick one of the best openers other then our own and spin up a story in 10 mins.

Mine is
“Chris is bleeding profusely but there is no one there to help him. He struggles out of the door, leaving behind a crimson filled car. Vultures circle above him, anticipating his death. As he lies there in the middle of this dust bowl, he starts to hear the cries of his children, he starts to see faint images of his wife.

He looks up into the cloudless skies, for a moment, he thought he saw a circular door into heaven, formed by the movement of the vultures. He trys to keep his eyes open, but..”

Then Mr Tan said something that really made sense “when openers fall into another writers hand, it becomes something else”

He also said that a Dialogue reveals the character and the relationship bet characters.
I realize one thing that Mr Tan said that I really agree, a good effective Dialogue could carry the story forward or destroy it. Ok, maybe not destroy it, but just ruin it.

“SHIT! ITS FREEZE THE CAMERA TIME!” hilarious it is, haha, I’m not quite sure if the people in Hollywood actually do it. Do they? Haha, they must really be funny people.
Some of the really meaningful phrases would be “You’ve got to know how to edit what people say without losing any of the spirit.”
I think its really quite true, somewhat like just capturing the essence of the conversation. It is very difficult because most of us are blinded by our ideologies and beliefs to be able to think clearly and edit “fairly”.

Next was my favorite, I believe it was everyone else as well. It was a second exercise, we were suppose to write a dialogue bet a husband and wife. Mine was..

“Darling, I’m home, how was your day?”

“it could have been better..”

“I’m really sorry I didn’t phone you to say I’ll be home late..”

“what are you talking about hubby? Aren’t you always home at this time?”
“you mean you’ve always ended earlier? Where did you go with all that spare time? not with Jimmy and gang to the strip clubs I hope!”

“errr..no”

“why are you so guilty? Are you cheating on me!”

“Of course not!”
trying to lightens the mood (Jokingly)
“None that I can remember”

Tight slap!wife walks off..

“does that mean I’m sleeping in the hall tonight?”
hmm, I think I shld stop..

After that we were told to imagine the husband and wife was our parents. Mine was..

“what happened? Called your phone, you didn’t answer”

“oh, went to drink with my friends”

“not good for your health, dun drink so much”

And finally it’s the part everybody wants to read about it! The part where Edwin and Rui Ting play husband and wife=)
Well from the “performance” I can conclude that they both can’t act well. SORRY!

I sincerely apologize if this blogpost is not up to standard as I have misplaced my notebook.

ANYWAY KIDS ITS YOUR FAVOURITE TIME NOW!!
ITS PERRY’S CORNER!

“Screw originality, there’s no such thing as a true author”
(Mr Tan)
“If you can see it or hear it, don’t write it”
(Neville Smith)

“Do we want to recreate what we can see?”
(Mr Tan)

“Dialogue can never be a replacement for action”
(Mr Tan)

-ppy-

Reflections-16th Oct 2007

hi, i writing this on the assumption that the reflection for every lesson goes here, perhaps i wasn’t paying attention during lesson, correct me if i’m wrong ok Mr Tan?

Now today was the first lesson on Storytelling, to be frank, i was very enthusiastic about this lesson. Some of the reasons would be that i love to express my ideas, my imaginations and myself. Furthermore, if my memory serves me right, during the writcom lesson, Mr Patrick said that Storytelling would be fun, though i’d never know if he was being sarcastic.

How do i feel about storytelling you must be asking? well, for starters, i feel that storytelling is far more then gathering in a circle and sharing our favourite stories.haha. Storytelling is about writing(or typing for my class) a good story with (i quote)”Hooks.” so as to grab the attention of any curious reader. Some of the things Mr Tan said was that for all his assignments he would want them to be in Present tense, 3rd person and visual voice. Mr Tan gave really good reasons for wanting it to be in this way.

Firstly, he said that by writing in present tense, it gives the reader a sense of being in the story, (i quote from my ex-english teacher) “its like being FREAKin there! Put yourself there and smell the grass, touch the walls, FEEL PERRY!.” I’d always remember this thanks to my naggy teachers, haha. Next, Mr Tan mentioned that he wanted his assignments to be in 3rd person, i feel that by writing in a 3rd person point of view, it gives the readers the freedom to guess the possibilities of the story’s plot or character’s thinking for that matter. If i wrote in a 1st person point of view, i’d be forcing the readers to see from my point of view and it wouldn be really unfair to the readers, unless of course the writer intends on using this effect, hey! who knows? Lastly, puting it in Visual voice, i dun really understand that part of the lecture but from what i can infer, it basicly means to “show not tell.” For example, instead of “he walked pass the park” use “he strolled passed the park” am i right Mr Tan? more or less?

Up next would be some of the things which i wrote down from the lecture/tutorial in which i found really meaningful.( it would consist of things Mr Tan said or things i just suddenly thought of. i call it, PERRY’s CORNER)

PERRY’S CORNER

WORD OF THE DAY
-Mr Tan said that that we should write a word a day and place them in a shoebox, and when we need words/inspiration for our essay or a story, we could just open the show box and use it
(i feel that it’s a wonderful idea, and no Mr Tan, you’re not old fashion by using a shoebox)

“IF YOU HAVE A WORK IN PROGRESS, NEVER STOP FOR THE NIGHT EVEN IF YOU ARE STUCK”
(you can say that i’ve already learned this lesson while i was writing songs, i used to go to bed once i’m tired esp when writing my songs, but when i awoke i forgot the melody and the beautiful phrases that i had the night before)

RULE OF THUMB
-”with an -ing, it weakens the word”
(its kinda a “duh..” thing but we often dun notice it, well i didn’t notice it until Mr Tan said it)

STRINK YOUR SENTENCES
-”Steps of thunder” to “STORMS OFF”
(well after Charis corrected my sentence, i realised that what Mr Tan said was right, we are often contented with what we wrote, at least till we hear other’s opinions)

With all that, i end this reflection=)

-perry

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