Final of all final drafts

O ya!!! I wanna show u all my story! (:

Mike, S10048903D, T1DA

THE UNFORGOTTEN

Christine’s brother wakes up and walks sleepily towards the bathroom, getting the towel on the way. Christine grabs her little pouch on her dressing table and walks hastily to the kitchen. In the kitchen, she finds her mother cutting some vegetables for lunch.

“Ma, today is korkor’s birthday. Remember to buy a birthday cake for him ok”, says Christine to her mom.

“I am going to bring korkor out to celebrate his birthday.”

Her mom stops cutting her vegetables and slowly turns around, looks Christine in her eyes and yells at her.

“Why do you have to go out with your brother all the time??”

“It is his birthday! Why can’t I bring him out to have some fun for a while?” answered Christine.

“Can’t you leave him alone and let him celebrate his birthday himself?” replied her mom.

While Christine and her mom are quarelling in the kitchen, Christine’s brother hid himself behind the wall of his room.

All of a sudden, Christine storms towards the living room, grabs her brother’s arm and leaves the house.

Happily, Christine holds her brother’s hand and skips towards the door of the house. After Christine closes the door, her mom drops the knife, takes a seat and rests her head on the dining table. She starts to cry.

Christine and her brother skip around the void deck. They play all sorts of things, like catching, hop scotch and so on. They end up in the playground. There, Christine decides to give her little present to her brother. She opens her little pouch and takes out a pair of keychains.

“Korkor, this one is for you. One for you and one for me. This way, we will never get seperated”.

“Happy Birthday!”

Her brother smiles. He then goes on to play the swing. Christine decides to push the swing so that her brother will go higher. Christine looks at her brother and smiles. Her brother smiles back.

Christine looks at her digital watch on her left wrist. She decides that it is time to go back home and cut the birthday cake.

“Korkor, come. Let meimei bring you home”.

Her brother stops playing with the swing and holds Christine’s hand. Both of them skip happily home.

Christine reaches her house and opens the door. She shuts the door after her brother comes inside the house. Christine walks to the dining table and is shock that there is no birthday cake for her brother. She then sees her mom offering joss sticks to an altar at the corner of the living room.

“Hi ma, we’re back. By the way, I’m sorry for the argument this morning. I just want korkor to be happy on his birthday.”

“Eh, where is the birthday cake ma?”

Soon after Christine said that, her mother starts to cry. She gets down on her knees and hugs Christine tightly. Christine is confused.

“Go get a shower dear,” says her mom.

“Everything will be fine tomorrow”.

Her mom then takes another look at the altar. The joss sticks that she offers to just now is his son and Christine’s elder brother, Jason.

Last lesson

This was the last lesson for storytelling. Well, nothing much happened… When I arrived in the classroom at 10am, first thing i did was “Animation presentation do already anot??”

Later, I settled down and stuff and when it was my turn to have consultation with Mr Leslie, I got a little worried. I was worried that I might have to redo or remake my story. Fortunately, he said that it is like a final draft, but it CAN be better. He then commented on how this cannot be here and why I should not do that. Many many important points to take note. (No wonder Mr Leslie is a storyteller ^^)

After the ’serious’ consultation, we watched a film by some french director, I think. It is ‘Leon’. A freaking awesome hitman whos life got changed when he decided to save an 18 year old girl from getting killed by some people. Watch it people!! I think its ranked 84th or something like that.

All the best for my storytelling final or all the final drafts. I want to do well! Oh, what in the world am I saying??? I NEED TO DO WELL!!

My art skills is bad, super bad. Confirm my storyboarding will fail. Like I said, I hate art. It is in my blood. (:

Lesson 7

In this week’s lesson, we were given back our test papers. Please don’t ask me how much I have for the test. Mr Leslie then gave the class back their first draft of their final story. I was happy as my story doesn’t need much ammendments. Later, we watched a show called eating air. It’s a show on the life of teenagers around the 90s. It is a very nice show, but Mr Leslie says that somehow alot of people hated this movie. Sigh…

So next week, although there will be no class, Mr Leslie is going to show us another movie. It is not compulsory for us to come, but I think I will come. I like to show all this kind of movies. I like to watch movies produced by the fsv students.

Week 6

Had to do a storytelling test first thing on a Tuesday morning. I feel that the test is very very easy to score IF I had studied. And, as usual, I don’t study for tests. I don’t know, but this has always been the bad habit for me.

We had our first draft completed and we had to print 5 copies of them. The copies were then given to our classmates for them to comment on them. Hopefully, my story will have alot of negative comments as I like negative comments. Negative comments tend to make me revise my work and, in this case, rewrite the whole story. Oh well…

The class then watched 3 feet apart. Its an animation, on why this couple cannot be nearer than 3 feet as one of them has a speaker and one of them has a telephone on their body and if they come nearer than 3 feet, the one with the speaker will have some very very loud sounds.

Fortunately, we have 1 more lesson of storytelling to go. This means that no more waking up at 7am for class!

Unfortunately, we have 1 more lesson of storytelling to go. This means that the ‘fun-ness’ of Tuesday storytelling lessons by Mr Leslie.

Yeap, so as usual I will be looking forward to the next and final storytelling lesson at 9am. 73-03-21.

Storytelling reflection 5

Today’s lesson is about telling stories using experience.

A storyteller should be concerned with the potential of every experience.

Everything about you – where you were born, what food you eat, the bump on your forehead – your experiences are unique and irreplaceable.

If you dont know what to do with the character, make him yourself for a while.

PLUNDER YOUR OWN PERSONAL BACKGROUND!

We did an exercise on writing 1 true and false story.

So, the purpose of the exercise?
- A true story is not necessarily a good story.
- Good stories have to be worked and re-worked.
- True life stories do not offer neat and relevant endings
- Life is unpredictable
- In a story, we can and must control the events and sequences so that it gives the appearance of being like life.

SUMMARY: Storytelling tools
1) Observation
2) Memory
3) Experience

And for the film we watched, we watched “Autograph Book” by Wee Li Lin. It’s about 2 good friends who fall out with each other for a while because of some autograph book.
Well, friendships are built for 1 month, but it can be broken in a minute.

Lesson 5: The exercise…

Write 1 true and 1 false story.

1)‘Beep beep’. My phone just got a message. I ignored it for a moment and got ready my laptop for my storytelling lesson. After packing my laptop, I search for a pencil in my house for animation lesson. I searched everywhere, in the cupboard, the drawer and my secondary school pencil case. There is not even a pencil in the house! I gave up. I decided that I will go to NP and buy a pencil. Suddenly, I remembered that my phone has got a message for me. I took my phone and opened the message.

‘Pls pass this message to the rest. Today’s session cancelled. I am not feeling well. – Mr. Norman’

2)My dad just bought me a ps3, xbox 360, psp and all the other nonsensical game consoles you can think of. I decided to skip school for 1 week and camp myself in my room to play.

Goodbye, and see you in a week’s time.

Week 4 storytelling lesson

I guess everyone is writing this in their blogs now, and I won’t hesitate to write it too. “Show, not tell”. Bascially, it reminds storytellers or writers not to write what the reader can see. Do not treat the readers as if they are dumb.

I guess I can’t write about what happened on week 4 lesson as Mr Leslie didn’t put the slides on MEL.

But, i remembered something. I was called out by Mr Leslie to act in some scene… I had to act as if I was going to leave the table with Gui Li. So, without hesitation, I whacked or ‘banged’ the table, stand up and leave the classroom. When I looked at everyone else, they were…. laughing!? COMMON! This is acting!! Must act angry all!

At the end of the lesson, we watched 2 short films. Secret Heaven by some Mass Comm student and Sunat by some person.

I feel that secret heaven reflects on Singaporean kids nowadays who are being forced in something that they do not want to do. Eg: Every Singaporean kid have to go through primary and secondary education whether they like it or not…

Sunat, I can say, is quite oldschool. I’ve seen many malay kids long ago who had to ’sunat’ or circumcise as it is a must in Islam.

I guess that’s all. Anyway, anyone wanna join shooting? Its damn fun I tell you… $2 and you can shoot for 3 hrs. Worth it or not!!? Unlimited pallets and target cards too! (:

Random

If you think jc life is tough and poly life is slack, please slap yourself. If you have friends who says that jc life is tough and poly life is slack, please go ahead and slap them.

At the end of week 4, this is what I need to do:

Photography: Assignment 1: 22 pictures

Storytelling: ‘letter to the past’ and begin writing first draft of my story

CATS: 30 problems/ ideas using SCAMPER, etc.

Animation: F.O.C. Full of crap.

Written Comm: Grammer test, and more grammer test. A 250 word paragraph too.

3D-Art: Fun but tiring. Hating art is in my blood. Thank You.

The only thing that doesn’t have assignment is: Sports&wellness!! Basketball!!

So please, to all my friends, all those who are reading this:

Poly life is not that slack. Its a stereotype teenagers and adults have!

Thank You. Bye.

Lesson 3: Characters

I went in class and straight away, I was told to…

Take out a phone book.
1. Point to a name at random.
2. Continue looking for an address.
3. Attach the name and address to a People-Watch character on your blog.
4. Repeat steps 1 – 4 with your other character.
Now ask yourself:

“What would Character A do to provoke Character B to an extreme action?”

My first reaction was “Huh?”

And after much explanation from perry, I finally understand what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to just pick out any name in the phone directory and write how my characters in people watch would provoke each other.

But, but, I was so blur at that time, that i went to create a totally new story. A story which just came out from my puny brain.

Character A: Gay Ah Bee
Character B: Manjit Singh

(GAB): Hello singh!
(MS): Eh hello my friend!
(MS): Why you look so unhappy?
(GAB): Alamak, I see singh with their turban and all ah, I become unhappy la.
(MS): Eh what turban all ah? Later I call my gang all and rembat you, you understand?
(GAB): You where not happy now? You know my nickname or not ah? I am “TURBANATOR!”
(MS): So you think you very proud all ah?
(MS): I also got nickname. “MANJANATOR!”
(GAB): Eh turban you where not happy? You want to fight ah?
(MS: Come ah I scared ah? I call my gang all ah
(GAB): You think you the only one got gang all ah, I also got my own gang ok
(MS): Ok la you steady I steady also. Tonight ah!
(GAB): Okok, you watch out ah. KNNBCCB turban
(MS): What the fuck KNNBCCB all come out. You watch out ah. Tonight I settle with you.

It took me 5 minutes to write this.

So the purpose of this exercise: THE WORLD IS FULL OF POTENTIAL STORIES.

And in stories, characters are important.
What is Character?
A character is the heart and soul and nervous system of your screenplay
It is through your characters that viewers experience emotions. It is through your characters that they are touched.

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

Characters should have these 3 things:
Physiology
Sociology
Psychology

Physiology: It’s basically what sex, age, height etc. of your character.
Sociology: CLASS (lower, middle, upper), occupation, education, home life, religion, race, etc.
Psychology: sex life, moral standards, ambition, personal premise, frustrations, cheif disappointments, its temperament, personality, etc.

SEPARATE THE COMPONENTS OF HIS LIFE INTO 2 BASIC CATEGORIES:

a) Interior
b) Exterior

INTERIOR

The interior life takes place from birth until the moment your story begins.
It is a process that forms character. [when you start formulating your character from birth, you see your character build in body and form]

EXTERIOR

It is a process that reveals character.

Who are they and what do they do?
Are they sad or happy with their life?
Do they wish their life was different? Another job, another wife?

To develop a character: YOU MUST CREATE YOUR CHARACTERS IN RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER PEOPLE OR THINGS
ALL DRAMATIC CHARACTERS INTERACT IN 3 WAYS:

1. They EXPERIENCE CONFLICT in achieving their dramatic need.
[ eg, Need money - Rob and bank, rob a store, rob a person?]

2. They INTERACT with other CHARACTERS.
[Either in an antagonistic, friendly or indifferent way]

3. They INTERACT with THEMSELVES.
[eg, He overcame his fear of being caught by pulling off the robbery successfully]

HOW DO YOU INVENT CHARACTERS?
TRY TURNING THEM UPSIDE DOWN.

A monk who is devoted to his religion …
… but is a football fanatic.

A serial killer …
… whose obsession is to kill other serial killers.

A common street rat …
… who loves to eat and cook only fine food.

We went on in learning about how to create a conflict and why should there be a conflict.

Storytelling reflection 2

This week, lesson was about dialogue. So what is dialogue?

BUT, before we started the dialouge lesson, we are suppose to write someone’s opener. I did Jia Bing’s opener as it sounds interesting. So here is my continuation of Jia Bing’s operner.

Chun Yi opens his eyes. All he sees are in black and white. “You can be discharged today,” says the nurse. Chun Yi is excited. After all the months he has been in the smelly hospital bed, he is finally able to get on his feet again and walk. But Chun Yi is confuse over the black and white scenery, the black and white faces of people. The blackness and the whiteness seem to be everywhere. Chun Yi carries on walking to the exit of the hospital. He looks at the rooms he is passing. All the bloody scenes of operation, the sad faces on relatives. They are all in black and white. Chun Yi carries on walking to the exit when suddenly he trips and falls down. Chun Yi gets up on his feet. Surprisingly, he doesn’t feel any pain. An old man came to him and asked him ” are you okay?” “I’m alright,” says Chun Yi. Chun Yi seems confuse. The old man then asked him.

(Old man): Are you new?
(Chun Yi): Am I new?
(Old man): Are you new to this place?
(Chun Yi): I don’t think so. Why should I be new. I have been living for more than 30 years.
(Old man) Ah.*smiles* You ARE new. Come, let me show you around.
(Chun Yi): I am new? Where am I?

Chun Yi looks at the big banner nearby. It says: “WELCOME TO THE NETHERWORLD”

So that was my short story. Hope it gets you wanting to read more!

On to dialogue.

DIALOGUE REVEALS CHARACTER
A character will talk about himself and other people will talk about him.

DIALOGUE ESTABLISHES RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CHARACTERS
Once you have created your main character’s point of view, you can use dialogue with other characters to show that they have other attitudes, creating opposite/alternative point of views.
This helps to create and sustain the element of CONFLICT between characters.

GOOD EFFECTIVE DIALOGUE WILL MOVE THE STORY FORWARD.
Of course if you don’t write a good dialouge, the story would not move forward!

DIALOGUE COMMUNICATES FACES AND INFORMATION TO THE AUDIENCE
It conveys essential exposition.
Characters will talk about what happened, establishing the storyline.

DIALOGUE COMMENTS ON THE ACTION

“If you can see it or hear it, don’t write it.”
Neville Smith

You WOULDN’T want a script which look like this:
“Oh, he is running to the door!”
“Oh, he opens the door!”
“Oh, after he opens the door, he stops walking!”

DIALOGUE SHOULD BE USED SPARINGLY

NEVER TELL THE AUDIENCE WHAT THEY CAN SEE FOR THEMSELVES!!!

DIALOGUE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR ACTION.

Ok, so after Mr Tan’s short lecture, this is our practice:

EXERCISE: WRITING DIALOGUE

THE SCENARIO:
A middle-aged man returns home from work.
He had stopped for a few drinks with his friends and forgot to phone his wife to tell her he’ll be late.
The dinner is ruined.

THE EXERCISE:
Write a short scene composed of dialogue between husband and wife.

So this is what i wrote:

(Husband): HONEY! I’M HOME!
He looks at the dinner table. His wife is staring at him.
(Husband): Oh shit. Sorry honey. I had stopped for a few drinks and..
(Wife): And you forget to call me again!?
(Husband): Yeah. Sorry honey.
(Wife): Sorry no cure! Got hear before!?
(Husband): What do you want me to do then?
(Wife): Why don’t I take the food and shaft it right up your big white ass!?
(Husband): Oh dear, you’re being sarcastic again..
(Wife): Of course I am. Would I do that to my wonderful hubby?

Wife smiles and hugs husband.

After this, Mr Tan asked us to write it again but replacing it with my dad and mom. And I exactly know what they would say!

(Dad): I am home dear.
(Mom): You are suppose to have dinner with me. Where did you go?
(Dad): Sorry dear. I went to have a few drinks with my friends after work.
(Mom): Okay. Boys, food’s on the table!!
And from there, her 3 children went on eating whatever there is on the table.

After that, we went on to watch 2 videos with little or no dialogue. ANTHONY CHEN’S “AH MA” (2006) and ADAM ROBB’S “SHH” (2001)

Ah Ma was a super great story. It was about this old lady who is dying in the hospital. Her children and grandchildren went to see him. One day, one of her grandchildren went inside her room to find his ball. When he found the ball in the old lady’s hand, he touched the old lady’s hand. The old lady instantly died.

It was quite sad, and I think a few of the girls cried. Well, its natural for girls to cry. Sometimes, guys cry too.

For shh, it was about this baby who cries non-stop. So, the guy had to cut him and cure all his ‘illness’.

That’s all for this week 2 lesson. And of course, I will be looking forward to the next lesson. Tuesday, 9am-12noon, 73-03-21. (: