Second receiver.

I think I missed out a lot on last week’s class because they learned about the dynamic action and moving pictures. I guess one thing that caught my attention in Zidd’s notes would be this “talking about how one feels is not as powerful s illustrating why one feels the way they do through action”.

They learned about the difference between story and film. Story is action and it encompasses any kind of movement, activity, and interaction between characters and their surroundings. It talks about how one feels is not as powerful as illustrating why one feels the way they do through action. While film is behaviour; action is the manifestation of behaviour. The complexity of the human psyche and interaction is better understood when it is possible to watch the actions, nuances, and the reactions of the characters.

Another thing they learned was about dynamic action. It has the potential to enrich the experience of the audience by heightening the stakes and increasing the tension. And as for moving pictures, it is the power of any story that lies in the narrator’s ability to project a mental picture for the audience.

If you ask me do I understand anything that I just typed, my honest answer would be no. Nothing beats hearing it first hand.

Sidetrack a little, I hope my knee heal soon. I never knew the tore of ligament hurts so much. I have another three session of visitation to go, and each time it just gets more and more painful.

Emotional talk.

To cut the long story short, dialogue reveals character. In dialogue, it reveals character who will talk about himself/herself and other people will talk about himself/herself. It helps in establishing the relationship shared between characters. For example, when you have established the main character’s point of view, you can use dialogue with other characters to show that they have other attitudes, creating opposite/alternate point of views. This helps to create and sustain the element of conflict between characters. Effective dialogue will move the story forward.

Dialogue communicates faces and information to the audience. It indirectly tells people facts, conveys essential exposition, and characters will talk about what happened, establishing the storyline. Dialogue ties the script together. One guideline would be “if you can see it or hear it, don’t write it”. It is true, but many a times we all forget about it. We often repeat the actions in dialogue, making it seem as though the audience are dumb people. At least it happened to me.

Despite the importance of dialogue, it should be used sparingly. It is never a substitute for action. We, or perhaps myself, thinks that good dialogue is the ability to write authentic speech as heard in real life. If it is so, then all I have to do is just to record down all the conversations I have with people! But no, a good dialogue is the illusion reality. It is the art of editing what people say without losing any of the spirit (or emotion) intended.

With such knowledge added, I would say that it would take a lot of myself to write a story. Why? I think too much, too fast, and locked my thoughts too much for them to be voiced out. I often try to put them out in the most simplistic terms, but they were never understood; only the closest understands. Yet, if you know me enough, you should know that I prefer emotional shows than comedy. I like how life and emotion intertwine between me and the audience; how I can tell them that they are never alone in whatever they are going through.

To me, (serious) talk is emotion. I cannot talk without the help of emotion. If I can, I have become a hypocrite. Emotion constitutes my heart and my soul.

Eight – Fight.

I just remembered about not doing my last week’s reflection because this has been a busy week by far. In fact, my mind’s moving so fast I have to try very hard to gather my thoughts.

In last week’s class I was reminded again that every story starts with a character, which constitutes of the heart, the soul, and neervous system. This reminded me of what was shown in Wizard of Oz where there were three characters; Scarecrow wants a mind, Tin Man wants a heart, and Cowardly Lion. This kind of amazed me because although I see the point of what the show wanted to bring across, I didn’t link it to storytelling.

Secondly, it is through characters that the viewers experience emotions, which is where it is important for the careful choice of talents used. It is also through characters that they are touched thus, everything in storytelling is a tool. For example, if I want the audience to cry, I have to do something that will bring out the intended emotion, action.

Thirdly, I was taught the four important steps:

1) Without a character, there is no action

2) Without action, you have no conflict

3) Without conflict, you have no story

4) Without story, you have no sreenplay

Also, there are four questions I need to ask myself when I develop a character:

1) What does he/she want?

2) What is his quest?

3) Who is your character

4) What drives him/her to the resolution of the story

And to establish a main character, characters should have a 3 dimensional structure

1) Physiology

2) Sociology

3) Psychology

To go in deeper, we have to separate the components of the character’s life into two basic categories: interior and exterior. Of which, the interior life takes place from birth until the moment the story begins. It is a process that forms character, when you start formulating the character from birth, building the character in body and form. Whereas for exterior, it takes place the moment the story begins of it’s conclusion. It is a process where the character is slowly revealed, which reminds me of The Usual Suspect. And as a writer, I chose what I want to show. I must remember to create my characters in relationship to other people or things. And all dramatic charaters interact in three ways, which are..

1) They experience conflict in achieving their dramatic need

2) They interact with other characters

3) They interact with themselves

I think reflection helps me to see what I am learning every week, and all these stuffs build up gradually into writing a story of my own with characters of my own. Well, I think I am incoherent in this post. I am very tired.

Experience and Memory.

In last week’s class we were told to read out our Letter to the Past within our group. Mind wasn’t done yet so Bel and Cass read theirs first. Before class when we were having our lunch, Cass asked to whom am I writing for, and I said a friend. Apparently she had asked the entire table who their letters were for, and said that I am the only who is writing to a friend. Oh wells.

Bel started reading hers and stopped after two sentences; she couldn’t continue on and asked the both of us to read it from her blog. But Mr Leslie specifically said that we have to read out, and I kind of get what he meant, I think. I suppose that to many of us, Letter to the Past is an emotional piece of letter that would evoke much emotion – may it be happy or sad, painful or joyful. Whichever it is, Bel gathered herself and read to us her letter to her grandmother, who had died. While she was reading, I wondered how come I felt a tad bit of emotional even when I never seen my grandparents before. Perhaps it is because I have always hoped to see my grandparents lived, but never had the chance to see and experience it. I almost tear, but I swallowed it real hard.

It was Cass’s turn and I already knew whom she was writing to. Despite the fact of knowing, she still managed to touch me with the careful usage of words and appropriate emotion used. She said she lost her innocence, which made me stopped and pondered if I did too. I think I did. I think we all did lose a bit of our innocence. I enjoy reading her stories because her approach in writing is different from the majority.

Then, Mr Leslie got me to read whatever I had. Yes, I felt a bit embarrassed to read something that is still so fresh for me, but I read it anyway. Cass asked if it was my ex-boyfriend, and I laughed. No, never had one before and that was for one close friend whom I have gone through with a lot, I suppose.

Mr Leslie wrapped up the exercise by sharing that it’s good to write Letter to the past because it serves as a good way to start writing a story with emotions that are real, and fresh. This is what Cass and myself believes in. in fact, we don’t write what we never experienced before. Yet the both of us are afraid to write them at home because we would just end up being emotional.

After that we learned about the differences of experience and memory.

Experience. All people have fragments of stories and these potential ideas prompt our desire to know more. It compels us to respond emotionally and intellectually to what my head says because it will make us start thinking of our experience, what I had gone through, etc. And I was enlightened to my belief that good stories are born in the heart, not the head. Sometimes when we draw stories from our head, it gets all too logical, and it’s something I always tries to avoid. Personally, I like to write stories that evoke emotion, which people can identify with. I was also reminded that when I write a story, it’s people to people, not camera to people nor is it director to people. I need to communicate the emotion I want the audience to feel very tactfully.

Memory. Mr Leslie illustrated an example of how at times, especially when we were young, people kept telling us something we cannot recall, yet because people keep repeating it, it forms itself and becomes a memory. Similarly, we can create memories ourselves and be very convicted about it, but in actual fact it doesn’t exist at all.

Speaking of this, I experienced it last Saturday when I conversed with my friend, L. He was giving me some feedback for the mixing of a song and sad that the mixing was bad. But in my memory I remembered him saying that the mixing sucks, and I was very sure (even very convicted) that he did use the word “sucks”, which he explained that he would never use that word to evaluate. I clarified with another friend of mine and realized that L didn’t use it all. It, then, dawned upon me that it was a false memory I had created and I was very convicted about it. I was quite happy that I could remember that I learned it in Storytelling class. I guess I am picking up.

We also talked about how memories are points of reference to our own past existence. It shows us the things that happened. I supposed this year has been quite an eventful year (I know the year has yet to come to an end) and many sweet and painful memories have been etched to my mind. I am thankful I went through them, for I am very sure I have grown a lot through it as well

At a point in the class, I thought of how we are always discovering ourselves daily, in a very subtle way. Sometimes we discover ourselves through the things we see, things that we like, and things we don’t like. I believe that to a certain extent, it does reflect a part of myself, my character.

A virginal heart has it’s own logic. It’s a phrase in one of the two shows we watched last week. It talks about our own thinking of how to love and what love is it. Well, I haven’t really thought much of how and what love should be in a relationship. Just hasn’t hit so hard on me yet.

I hope I am doing well.

Last week was my second time that I missed Storytelling. It wasn’t my intention to miss, but I was held up at the polyclinic for a very long time, so sigh! Yesterday when I entered class for Studio Production, Miss Hong talked to me, telling me that I have missed Storytelling twice and should not miss it anymore. She also said that Mr Leslie had told her my work is of good standard (I wonder if it’s true?) and that caught me by surprise. Why? Because all along I have no idea on where I am standing in this module and it became something worrying to me. So, is it true to what she say?

And on Wednesday, I received a comment from Mr Leslie of the reflection I had done for Aristotle. He said it was excellent reflection and I was quite happy. It was a motivation, an assurance, so to speak. At least I know that I am on the right track and that I have to keep improving on it weekly. To be honest, beyond the desire of wanting to score for this module (I hope I still stand the chance though), I really want to grasp the concept of storytelling techniques. Why? I hope that in the rear future, I can be of some help and produce better short film in my church, and next time when I move on to the working industry, I will be able to touch the hearts of people with the stories I want to tell them.

Life and technique work hand in hand. I can have tonnes of life stories and experiences, but without the technique foundation, I will never be able to bring the stories and experiences to its fullest experience.

Speaking of which, I remember being very excited about writing Letter to the Past last night. There is one person I love and treasure a lot, and I hope I will be able to express the emotions, which are still rather fresh, well.

And uh huh, no more missing of Storytelling class!

* edited.

I have gotten the notes from Bel for the class I missed.

- storyteller should be concerned with the potential of every sentence
- Everything about you! Your experiences are unique!
- Many of your experiences are universal and translatable and can be used in any location.
- If you don’t know what to do with a character, make him yourself for a while. See how he relates to the world he has been thrown into.
- Plunder your own personal background!!!
•    Things happen to you as you grow up an things currently happened will make terrific story source.
Life is unpredictable! We must picture the events and sequences like real life.

Well, I would think that in many stories that we right, they are either out of the experiences we got from our own or what had happened to people around us. I suppose that explains why so many of fifty words and openers are similar because I got them out of my own life. And yes, they all read emotional, no doubt.

But wait, I don’t quite get this – storyteller should be concerned with the potential of every sentence. How to achieve that?

Aristotle.

In last week’s class, we started class with watching all the people watching clips we have captured down over the week. There were a few clips that were quite funny and disgusting, like Maybelle’s and Marjorie’s. Maybelle’s one was about a lady scratching her thighs and the angle taken made it even disgusting. And I thought that Marjorie’s clip was rather interesting. It was about an uncle who was in the same bus as Marjorie, acted like a tyrant by occupying the seat beside him whenever people board the bus. He occupies it by resting his arms over the seat so that people would not be interested in wanting to take that place.

Then each group presented their parts about Aristotle except mine. Jordus was absent and our slides were all with him, but many did not believe. It was after the presentation that I learned a lot more on who Aristotle is and the theories he has set.

From Adilah and Adilin’s presentation, I learned that Aristotle attempted to deduce poetry using mathematical formulae. He is a Greek, a philosopher, a student of plato and teaching of Alexander the great. The Greek tragedy is an analysis and constitutes of core discussion from Aristotle’s Poetics. After their presentation, Mr Leslie presented his answers and I learned that definition of Aristotle is to create a cause and effect chain that clearly reveals what may happen. It arouses not only pity but also fear, because members of the audience can imagine themselves within the cause and effect chain.

After theirs was Syafiqa and Marjorie’s presentation. I felt that their presentation was the best because it was very detailed and they presented very well. I learned that tragedy is the “imitation of an action” according to “the law of probability or necessity”. Aristotle indicates that the medium of tragedy is drama, not narrative; tragedy “shows” rather than “tells”. And there are six required parts; plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and spectacle. And I learned that plot is the way you arrange it; the way it builds up to the climax. I also learned that the thought is important as Aristotle associates how speeches can reveal a character and that everything the character say should show the theme.

Hafiz and Zidd’s presentation revealed to me that in Aristotle’s point of view, he finds that when one plot doesn’t link to another, they are disorganized. And Aristotle likes it when people react to the action, which conveys to them what the characters, feel, so that they may be able to relate to the characters and “feel” for them in return.

I have also learned about 3 act structure. It is an advantage of breaking down the story, making it more manageable. In the first act, it is set up where story begins with a goal-oriented character introduced at a point of crisis. The character would meet roadblocks thus, producing a plot and antagonist. The second act is about confrontation where action intensifies and an event happens which forces the character to make his or her choice. In the last act, which is the resolution, the level of effort rises to new heights. The stakes has to go higher. One of the examples he gave was: if in the first scene the boy kills the father, in the second scene, the boy has to kill more than one. This is also where both plot and character are resolved, but the main character either achieves or does not achieve his goal.

When the lesson came to an end, my perspective of writing a story changed. I have always felt that I would never be able to write a story because I do not possess a good command of English and that my ideas are not creative enough. They are as plain as water, so to speak. However, last week’s lesson really opened up my eyes to how I can still learn and try to write a story with some simple guidelines. Personally I feel that a plot is more important than character because a plot tells a story, gives the character emotions to express, and communicates values and learning points across a show. Plot can spark of people to identify with the emotions as more often that not, the emotions are either faced daily, or they could be emotions that have been hidden underground for too long.

…

It is a public holiday, and Karen is out alone because Keane has to work and she isn’t exactly in the mode to called up friends to be out with her. Or rather, it is difficulty to find the right one besides Keane, for now. All alone, she decided to head down to Plaza Singapura since she needs to get some stuffs from Spotlight as well. But of course, Karen starts to walk around the mall instead of heading straight to Spotlight.

As Karen walks, Karen gets more and more irritated with the crowd as it is a public holiday. Karen came to the level where Spotlight is, but she just didn’t feel like walking in. Feeling irritated and bored at the same time, Karen decides to stand outside the shop to observe the rest of the shoppers in the mall. Besides Karen stands two girls, with one holding the camera and Karen wonders if she is taking her. Karen figured that they don’t look notorious, so she let them continue with what they are doing.

After awhile, Karen decides to get into Spotlight and purchase her stuffs and to head down to Burger King for a snack because she is hungry. Karen ordered her food, found her seat, which is quite near the window and started observing people again. This time round, she stares at this woman who is standing in front of her, scratching her lower part of the body. Karen feels like puking as it is very unsightly to do such things, in public. Moreover, a place where there is a crowd. She heaves a sigh, and left Burger King with her half untouched burger.

Of love and life.

On Monday, Aloysius came up to me online and said that he scored full marks for his second reflection. It struck me as I did not know that we could actually score full marks for reflection, so I visited his wordpress and read it. The comment Mr Ryan left for him struck me of this boy I knew slightly more than a year back. We belong to the same church and we serve in the same ministry.

Anyway, I shall start to strive for a better score in my weekly entry.

Last week was my second lesson in storytelling. We began with Mr Leslie choosing some of us to read out our fifty words stories. All the time I was hoping I would not get chosen because I had a very strong feeling that mine were wrong and were not appealing. And thank God that I wasn’t chosen. After which, we were told to do a research on Aristotle until 2pm and to present. I found it boring upon seeing his picture because he looked weird to me, or rather, the sculpture. My part of research was on the definition and this was what I found:

Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotlēs) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on diverse subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry (including theater), logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology. Along with Socrates and Plato, he was among the most influential of the ancient Greek philosophers, as they transformed Presocratic Greek philosophy into the foundations of Western philosophy as it is known today. Some researchers credit Plato and Aristotle with founding two of the most important schools of ancient philosophy, while others consider Aristotelianism to be a development and concretization of Plato’s insights.

Well, the result looks very confusing to me, but I suppose to it has got to do with him being a philosopher and I suppose it has got to do with some artsy fartsy stuff.

When the clock struck 2pm, we thought we had to present, but NO! Hooray! We were to prepare last week, and present it this week! So well, we went for half an hour break and returned back to learn about observation. This was what I took down when Mr Leslie was going through:

Observation
• Whom am I writing about
• Who is m character
• What is he/she/it like
• What does he/she/it do
• What happens to him/her/it in the story
• Mindless observation vs true observation
o Observe in a conscious way
o Develop the ability to see and record people
• Their movements
• Their physical characteristics
• The setting/places they’re in
• Notes
o People are generally boring, but a person is not boring

Awareness level
• People rarely observe familiar people or things closely
• Most people pass through the day with 20%-30% awareness
o Generally we don’t notice the things around us, we take things for granted

Assignments
• Reflection
• People-watch
• Record
o Using camera phone, digital camera, video camera, etc
o Any person you don’t know
o Record your comments on the person’s physicality, action, and your opinions on it (using garage band, etc)
o Put it all together in iMovie, etc
o Videos to be posted on the blog via YouTube
o Make sure your presentation is ready to be presented next week

When I was typing the first part, I felt that I would enjoy it because it has always been my interest to know more about people with the way they talk, they interact with others, and the emotions in them in responding to different situation. Sometimes I find myself being very oblivious to the surrounding around me and have always felt that I have not observed enough, but I wonder again if I actually chose to keep mum about everything I see and feel, and developed a perspective I have never shared with another soul.

Then I went on to think if I will ever write a good story that will touch the hearts of people. A story that will be close to their hearts, together with the appropriate emotions used. I hope I will though, with those sealed thoughts I have in me. And it is true when Mr Leslie said:

“People are generally boring, but a person is not boring”

 

I could never agreed less. In a person, you find his/her strength and weaknesses. In a person, you see the thing that drives him/her to wake up every morning and to battle the battles ahead. And in him/her, you see what makes him/her cry. Speaking of which, I always have this secret desire to capture people crying. I felt that it will be the best representation of life because tears doesn’t just show the sad side of a person’s life, but it could also mean that a heart that has been utterly touched be expressed out in tears.

 

Like me.

 

A short story of what happened to me. Two weekends back I was sick and did not attend church. Back then, the only thing that I do all day long was to sleep. I slept the entire Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. On the second weekend, my closer friends came to my house to visit me and brought me out for a walk. Back then, I was very appreciative and touched because I have been sleeping all day long on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It felt as though life has been taken out of me, and all I have is to battle with my own sickness. Yet when they came on that night, not only did they bring life to me, but together with abundance of love as well. On Sunday, when I came home from caregroup, I counted my blessings and tears just streamed down my cheeks. I was overwhelmed by love.

 

 

Back to the lesson.

 

Another thing that struck me was the awareness people have daily. I did not know that most people pass through their day with 20-30% of awareness, but I did know that people often take things or another soul for granted for I am guilty of this as well. Then, Mr Leslie issued out our assignment that is due this week. Maybelle quickly called out to me that I would enjoy it because she thinks that I stalk people a lot! Well, I thought that the assignment would be very interesting since we have to observe a person and comment on what he/she is doing. Yet, I still feel very risky because we are to video it down.

 

Today is already Wednesday, so I will be doing it tomorrow since it is Deepavali! Good that there is a public holiday this week for I have been quite stressed out by the increasing workload in school, and the goings in my life as well.

 

…escapist I shall not be; a rising warrior for Him I shall be.

Sick.

The sick that I had last week taught me much about being a FMS student – you cannot afford to always miss class if you want to get the most of it.

Truth was, flu bug attacked me two weeks back and together with the occasional uninviting fever, I was bedridden at home together with the drugs. I took all four and indulged on more sleep over the weekend. Yet, when I was back in school for Monday, I was still dreamy – I thought the medicine had not worn off, fine. Yet it happened on Tuesday so it got me worried. Finally on Thursday I gave in and visited a doctor and got more medicine; I have stopped eating them, by the way.

Despite being sick, I know very well that I have missed out a lot of work and knowledge and I was prepared to face the doom when I am well again. Somewhere along the week I found out what I have to do for Storytelling and that really pumped some pressure in me because I have yet to fully recover, but has to continue with the workload lest the unneeded stress piles up later.

So here I am, typing this entry and trying to formulate my fifty words stories before I head for class tomorrow. But seriously, my mind and body are drained out. I shall hope that I will be given stories in my dreams as I shut this computer down now for some rest for us both.

First..

Thanks to Mr Leslie for being so gracious to this girl here to redo her first reflection for first week!

In week one I was greeted with all the new lecturers and tutors I have got for this semester. And for Storytelling, we nearly not have class because Mr Leslie got the timetable mixed up thus, we were all left outside the cold seventh floor for twenty minutes until Marjorie took the initiative to inform him at office. When he entered, the first impression I had was “wah, cool teacher with so many piercings and cool hairstyle! he should be a fun teacher!”, and there I entered the classroom – my very first time.

Mr Leslie started the class by playing two ice breaker games; BIG FAT LIAR and Introducing ourselves with an interesting action. Oh wells, I had played umpteen times of these two games in church, so I found it very familiar. Nevertheless, it has always been a good game to break.. the ice, so to speak.

After the games, we got back to our tables and started on some light work. We all had to do a short write up of a story with one sentence he provided, and boy I spent a lot of time to come up with something decent – it was a few lines only! He then went through the course syllabus and got us all to sign up for a wordpress account, the one you’re reading RIGHT NOW, and said our future assignments will be posted here. How cool!

Not forgetting what teachers always likes to give before they release us for homesweethome – homework! We were given a tast to come up with twelve openers..