I get delusional when i start writing. I start to hink not of dragons or spaceships but i start to think of the distortions and exaggerations in a story one is telling. Whenever someone tells a story it's always of him being in the right or of him justifying his case and stuff like that. And that is fine.
Writing is one of the greatest pasttime i have. When i write i transport myself twelve years back in time when i'm in the middle of my room, lying across the floor fixing plastic train tracks together. Then i'd find some way to merge my then-immense Lego sets to this other foreign brand that doesnt snap together like Lego. It's al make-beleive.. and it's all fun. I like that.
My close friends are starting to know me better and what they should do once i start going into this little trance-lke state. When i start relating to them stories i feel like i cant stop! I will blabber my thoughts, smiling throughout, frowning in the middle and bursting into some laughing-disorder. Let's not forget the ants in my pants and animated hand movements. It's like being a conductor.. just much less crazy.
Whenever i wanna write a story for my school work or something... most i'll do is take out a few pieces of paper and start jotting down. If it's not good, i throw it away. I dont care about the trees. I dont care about the mess. I just want to write.
Once i start i hate to be stopped. I find it so much more fun than playing games. So much more fun than going to orchard. So much more fun than building models. Writing time for me is never fixed; i'd get a a really huge strike on my head from the idea-gods while im sleeping and then i'd quicly get up and jot down key points i seem to hear and see so clearly.
Just like my more recent story creation which i so gladly want to share with everyone here, I got a sort of mental image splashed infornt of my eyes while i was reading a book and started to jot down the first step to my story - "Are you my mother?" Later on I went to sleep and from that single frame of image it started to grow and grow... my main character, who is an old homeles lady, started to move, she started to grow, and the people around her started to mumble. Pretty soon i was watching a short film in my sleep, rewinding it, fast-forwarding it, slowing it down, looking at every brick on the road... and so i basically plagiarized my own dream. The next morning i completed my story.
There are actually times i would write and write and write and go on and on for 12 hours straight. i dont eat, i dont sleep, i dont talk in msn, i have Bach, Mozart and Beethoven playing all the time repetitively on Windows Media Player. I just go on and on and on, typing, pacing around the room, looking at myself in the mirror and flexing my face muscles. Right after the time Donald came over and helped me clean my room to its now-spacious glory, I've kept it that way and i replaced my fan with the huge huge blowing one that we put ont he floor and it's blowing cool air from the outside 24 hours.... and all these because i want TIME TO STAND STILL in my room.
Yes.. that's one of the problems when i write or when any other writers who are into their work write. The other pro ones in Hollywood write in dark, windowless rooms under their houses (or in their lawns) or in an office where lookin out of the window you only see the skyline of the city... no humans. It's like a caccoon.
I remember this comic strip from Doraemon. His buddy wanted to draw, so Doraemon gave him a huge tin can for him to sit inside which had everything for him from research books to coffee mixers to a nice table to draw on and perfect ambient lighting. Could you imagine? Ten years down the road i'm citing what i read in a comic and how it applies in the real world.
One of the most irrtating distractions i know of is human voice. More sepcifically, authoritative female voices. I can just hear it! I can feel it coming even before it comes. I can feel that sharp spike rammming itself through my computer, destroying all my hard work and all my focus goes blur like a Club Neoprint point-and-shoot member with an SLR camera. Of course, it pisses me off. Being the abnormal human being I am, my emotions get amplified ten times more than April on PMS follwoing which i get angry. and rude. So there. Now we understand.
A note from a book,"A creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human being creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To him a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tregedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering neccessity to create, create, create - so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, just pour out creating. By some strange, inward urgency, he is not really alive unless he is creating." - Pearl Buck
Of course.. i'm not taking the meaning word-for-word on who i am but there is definitely some resemblance. And i like it... no matter what people say.
"Oh please you're not creative you amatuer sumbitch film student... and stop acting."
I presented my story to Ryan Ingrassia, my screenwriting teacher. I find him to be one of those teachers we would feel nervous with in the beginning.. but start to grow on him. He didnt say much... but the rest did say it was my best story out of another two...whatever that means.
here it is.
A coin is thrown at Helen. She gets up from the sidewalk and looks around but is greeted with endless drones of human traffic. Helen seems to stare through the coin and an idea struck her. She gets up with all the energy she could muster to move her plump ageing body then raises her hands at the first woman she sees and whispers,"Are you my mother?". Shunned and ignored over and over again, she repeats the question to many other anonymous women. She is then taken away by a man where she then finds herself alone in a park. As she walks through a shadow of a tree, the sun gleams onto her and she looks up, only to spot something of amazement. A small smile forms on her face. Helen walks to the base of the statue spotted and places her hands on its feet. In a final gesture of love, she mutters,"Mother..." and lays her head down on the feet of Mother Russia.
I worked with the theme: Love for country.
Ryan looked at me in the eyes and questioned,"Dont you think it will be a problem if your audince doesnt get the significance of the statue?"
and rightfully so. Mother Russia is a statue in Volgograd that towers above the skyline and is a symbol of patriotism for Russia.
i looked at Hui Qing and she had this confused expression on her face. I guess that is enough to proof that my story isnt universal and that is bad. So i turned to Ryan and sighed.
He then went,"But it isnt your fault your audience doenst know better."
Owned!
When i got home i still thought my story was the best there is and should be turned into a film right away. Till that day comes, i left it on my C Drive. Three days ago i looked back at the story, just to boost my ego.... and my god.... what TRASH!
i realised that my story was mundane... there isnt any impactful up and downs. There isnt any variation... my character is so shallow and superficial that noone who reads it would even care for her! It's like listening to a nursery rhyme; la la la la la laaaa la la la la. It's not like a film where it goes' la la LA LA A LA BOOM sha ka ka ka laaaa (whatever) .And i was taught in class that it is essential to create a character that audiences would care. Obviously, Me-one-week-ago is the only person that cares for her. In a nutshell, i have failed to bring my story to life.
But what do i do? give up and just go get another C+ for storytelling? NO.
Rejection rejection rejection. ive been rejected in love, in studies, in acting, in singing, in entertainment, in friendship, in art, in writing, in modeling. Ive been rejected so many times. Some have it worse than me. But what they do have are the right attitude. i dont. All these while... i have always used the status of my father as a false-support for my foundation. I always went,"aww cmon my dad has the money.. has the status.. there's NO WAY those Singapore Idol jerks would reject me! They want people with background! and heck! I have Sly under my belt!" And look what happened. I specifaclly told the judges i was from Ngee Ann FSV and it stilll didnt get me anywhere! I found out that my false-support was actually hardened candy floss; tiny ants ate them all up and caused my castle of solid gold to crumble and get taken away unceremoniously by beggars.
These rejections, more of often than not, have forced me to crawl back into my shell, and make-believe that everyone else are wrong and wish for a better place somewhere in Spain. While that business intern guy has already secured his first deal, i'm still here with my Kenny-Camera snapping pictures of the road and hoping that some day, some news guy will chance upon the pics, thin kit's the most wonderful Mona Lisa he has seen then write me a contract.
In an attempt to bolster myself, i read through some books on what the media entertainment rreally is. Is Mediacorp just the only stuck up place?
NO. a big fat NO. Hollywood, the place where stars have big big big big boobs, even if they're guys, and bank accounts and glamour... where Directors are worshipped. Deep behind the scenes, in the lower gorunds, behind the screen, people are getting stepped on.. people get their works rejected by the loads. No one cares of your family background. No one cares where the hell you came form. No one cares if you are from Ngee Ann FSV. The only way up is to produce, produce, produce and think think think think. The biggest writers on the planet get their work rejected all the time. The probability of getting their made-in-120-days script accepted for production is 100 to 1. And the official quota on how many scripts out of a thousand is accepted is 999 to 1!
Producers have THOUSANDS of script on their desks they in day out. And how would they go through all of them? Read the first page, read the summary. If it's good, maybe read the second page. If it's not, out you go. All in the matter of 30 seconds. Flip flip flip. Even the one which got the second page may not get accepted. And that's just one desk. Equate the number of desks to the number of movies we get onscreen to those that make it big. Isnt Hollywood such a cruel cruel cruel place......
So ive learnt that even Gurmit Singh goes through so many dumb programs before getting his status. Ronaldhino gets so many email askin him to knock in his teeth a bit yet he still scores. I havent made a good video since 2004, the Battle of the Field... and ive made about 20 small and big ones since that time. Rejection overpowers success in numbers. And that's all to it.
The next time my work gets rejected, i'm just gonna shrug it off and continue working on my next project. And keep doing this till someday, I have a girlfriend that lasts, a contract, a small set of crew, and a universal audience.
And that, my friends, was a story.
Writing is one of the greatest pasttime i have. When i write i transport myself twelve years back in time when i'm in the middle of my room, lying across the floor fixing plastic train tracks together. Then i'd find some way to merge my then-immense Lego sets to this other foreign brand that doesnt snap together like Lego. It's al make-beleive.. and it's all fun. I like that.
My close friends are starting to know me better and what they should do once i start going into this little trance-lke state. When i start relating to them stories i feel like i cant stop! I will blabber my thoughts, smiling throughout, frowning in the middle and bursting into some laughing-disorder. Let's not forget the ants in my pants and animated hand movements. It's like being a conductor.. just much less crazy.
Whenever i wanna write a story for my school work or something... most i'll do is take out a few pieces of paper and start jotting down. If it's not good, i throw it away. I dont care about the trees. I dont care about the mess. I just want to write.
Once i start i hate to be stopped. I find it so much more fun than playing games. So much more fun than going to orchard. So much more fun than building models. Writing time for me is never fixed; i'd get a a really huge strike on my head from the idea-gods while im sleeping and then i'd quicly get up and jot down key points i seem to hear and see so clearly.
Just like my more recent story creation which i so gladly want to share with everyone here, I got a sort of mental image splashed infornt of my eyes while i was reading a book and started to jot down the first step to my story - "Are you my mother?" Later on I went to sleep and from that single frame of image it started to grow and grow... my main character, who is an old homeles lady, started to move, she started to grow, and the people around her started to mumble. Pretty soon i was watching a short film in my sleep, rewinding it, fast-forwarding it, slowing it down, looking at every brick on the road... and so i basically plagiarized my own dream. The next morning i completed my story.
There are actually times i would write and write and write and go on and on for 12 hours straight. i dont eat, i dont sleep, i dont talk in msn, i have Bach, Mozart and Beethoven playing all the time repetitively on Windows Media Player. I just go on and on and on, typing, pacing around the room, looking at myself in the mirror and flexing my face muscles. Right after the time Donald came over and helped me clean my room to its now-spacious glory, I've kept it that way and i replaced my fan with the huge huge blowing one that we put ont he floor and it's blowing cool air from the outside 24 hours.... and all these because i want TIME TO STAND STILL in my room.
Yes.. that's one of the problems when i write or when any other writers who are into their work write. The other pro ones in Hollywood write in dark, windowless rooms under their houses (or in their lawns) or in an office where lookin out of the window you only see the skyline of the city... no humans. It's like a caccoon.
I remember this comic strip from Doraemon. His buddy wanted to draw, so Doraemon gave him a huge tin can for him to sit inside which had everything for him from research books to coffee mixers to a nice table to draw on and perfect ambient lighting. Could you imagine? Ten years down the road i'm citing what i read in a comic and how it applies in the real world.
One of the most irrtating distractions i know of is human voice. More sepcifically, authoritative female voices. I can just hear it! I can feel it coming even before it comes. I can feel that sharp spike rammming itself through my computer, destroying all my hard work and all my focus goes blur like a Club Neoprint point-and-shoot member with an SLR camera. Of course, it pisses me off. Being the abnormal human being I am, my emotions get amplified ten times more than April on PMS follwoing which i get angry. and rude. So there. Now we understand.
A note from a book,"A creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human being creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To him a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tregedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering neccessity to create, create, create - so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, just pour out creating. By some strange, inward urgency, he is not really alive unless he is creating." - Pearl Buck
Of course.. i'm not taking the meaning word-for-word on who i am but there is definitely some resemblance. And i like it... no matter what people say.
"Oh please you're not creative you amatuer sumbitch film student... and stop acting."
I presented my story to Ryan Ingrassia, my screenwriting teacher. I find him to be one of those teachers we would feel nervous with in the beginning.. but start to grow on him. He didnt say much... but the rest did say it was my best story out of another two...whatever that means.
here it is.
A coin is thrown at Helen. She gets up from the sidewalk and looks around but is greeted with endless drones of human traffic. Helen seems to stare through the coin and an idea struck her. She gets up with all the energy she could muster to move her plump ageing body then raises her hands at the first woman she sees and whispers,"Are you my mother?". Shunned and ignored over and over again, she repeats the question to many other anonymous women. She is then taken away by a man where she then finds herself alone in a park. As she walks through a shadow of a tree, the sun gleams onto her and she looks up, only to spot something of amazement. A small smile forms on her face. Helen walks to the base of the statue spotted and places her hands on its feet. In a final gesture of love, she mutters,"Mother..." and lays her head down on the feet of Mother Russia.
I worked with the theme: Love for country.
Ryan looked at me in the eyes and questioned,"Dont you think it will be a problem if your audince doesnt get the significance of the statue?"
and rightfully so. Mother Russia is a statue in Volgograd that towers above the skyline and is a symbol of patriotism for Russia.
i looked at Hui Qing and she had this confused expression on her face. I guess that is enough to proof that my story isnt universal and that is bad. So i turned to Ryan and sighed.
He then went,"But it isnt your fault your audience doenst know better."
Owned!
When i got home i still thought my story was the best there is and should be turned into a film right away. Till that day comes, i left it on my C Drive. Three days ago i looked back at the story, just to boost my ego.... and my god.... what TRASH!
i realised that my story was mundane... there isnt any impactful up and downs. There isnt any variation... my character is so shallow and superficial that noone who reads it would even care for her! It's like listening to a nursery rhyme; la la la la la laaaa la la la la. It's not like a film where it goes' la la LA LA A LA BOOM sha ka ka ka laaaa (whatever) .And i was taught in class that it is essential to create a character that audiences would care. Obviously, Me-one-week-ago is the only person that cares for her. In a nutshell, i have failed to bring my story to life.
But what do i do? give up and just go get another C+ for storytelling? NO.
Rejection rejection rejection. ive been rejected in love, in studies, in acting, in singing, in entertainment, in friendship, in art, in writing, in modeling. Ive been rejected so many times. Some have it worse than me. But what they do have are the right attitude. i dont. All these while... i have always used the status of my father as a false-support for my foundation. I always went,"aww cmon my dad has the money.. has the status.. there's NO WAY those Singapore Idol jerks would reject me! They want people with background! and heck! I have Sly under my belt!" And look what happened. I specifaclly told the judges i was from Ngee Ann FSV and it stilll didnt get me anywhere! I found out that my false-support was actually hardened candy floss; tiny ants ate them all up and caused my castle of solid gold to crumble and get taken away unceremoniously by beggars.
These rejections, more of often than not, have forced me to crawl back into my shell, and make-believe that everyone else are wrong and wish for a better place somewhere in Spain. While that business intern guy has already secured his first deal, i'm still here with my Kenny-Camera snapping pictures of the road and hoping that some day, some news guy will chance upon the pics, thin kit's the most wonderful Mona Lisa he has seen then write me a contract.
In an attempt to bolster myself, i read through some books on what the media entertainment rreally is. Is Mediacorp just the only stuck up place?
NO. a big fat NO. Hollywood, the place where stars have big big big big boobs, even if they're guys, and bank accounts and glamour... where Directors are worshipped. Deep behind the scenes, in the lower gorunds, behind the screen, people are getting stepped on.. people get their works rejected by the loads. No one cares of your family background. No one cares where the hell you came form. No one cares if you are from Ngee Ann FSV. The only way up is to produce, produce, produce and think think think think. The biggest writers on the planet get their work rejected all the time. The probability of getting their made-in-120-days script accepted for production is 100 to 1. And the official quota on how many scripts out of a thousand is accepted is 999 to 1!
Producers have THOUSANDS of script on their desks they in day out. And how would they go through all of them? Read the first page, read the summary. If it's good, maybe read the second page. If it's not, out you go. All in the matter of 30 seconds. Flip flip flip. Even the one which got the second page may not get accepted. And that's just one desk. Equate the number of desks to the number of movies we get onscreen to those that make it big. Isnt Hollywood such a cruel cruel cruel place......
So ive learnt that even Gurmit Singh goes through so many dumb programs before getting his status. Ronaldhino gets so many email askin him to knock in his teeth a bit yet he still scores. I havent made a good video since 2004, the Battle of the Field... and ive made about 20 small and big ones since that time. Rejection overpowers success in numbers. And that's all to it.
The next time my work gets rejected, i'm just gonna shrug it off and continue working on my next project. And keep doing this till someday, I have a girlfriend that lasts, a contract, a small set of crew, and a universal audience.
And that, my friends, was a story.
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Audi
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Filmmaking
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