Lecture VIII

Dialog is the issue of the day.

Dialog reveals character. Though that may be, surely it is advisable to use it when needed. Not too much, not too little. Just right. Also, dialogs aren’t to be used “literally”.

“Please don’t kill me! I’m scared!”

What’s the problem here? “I’m scared” is the bone to pick with. Let’s say that that’s from a murder scene. The victim is bloodied, and probably is cornered like a rat.. in a corner. The murderer advances and brandishes the knife. The fatal blow is about to be struck when the victim shouts “I’M SCARED!! NOOOO!!!”.

Stating the obvious, right? Such a turn off.

For some things, it is better off left un-dialoged. For example, expressions. Audience prefers showing rather than telling. An emotion is more credible when shown (by a facial expression) than mere description. I can’t agree more.

Week VII

I wasn’t in school. =(

But from what I’ve read.. *ding ding ding*

Character might possibly be more important than the plot. In my opinion, what good is a plot if there’s only lukewarm and vapid characters to be found? Come on, bring on the spicy stuff. Nobody wants to see little Miss Perfect getting along with life with all its perfect-ness. How far can it go?

What I would say is that we have the power. The characters we create can be as powerful as we want him/her/it to be. We determine his mannerisms, his speech, his psychology, his abilities.. the whole package! These factors determine how he interacts with his surroundings. This factors can be an advantage, in a sense that the plot can be developed further. “Exploitation” might be the word buy I say yay. An awesome story is constituted of a good plot/good plots, which is developed/constituted of complicated and deep characters.

Anyone who up for creating a character who went through a life of torture and hate? =D

Lecture VI

For today, we read out our Letters To The Past to the class. We learned and discovered things about our friends through the stories they had to tell. Busting open new wounds? Maybe.

Memories. They can be authentic. They can be planted by others. Memories can be made up. Most of us are not able to remember our lives when we were three years old. People whom are older than us may tell us of the things that we did when we were three years, yet we can’t truly verify their claims. So much so, we begin to form memories based on the images or tales that people tell us. In the end, we believe that it’s true. Perhaps it is time all of us do an embracing reality check?

When writing from memory, we should consider heightening the memory so that it becomes bigger. The two films, “Les Mistons” & “Sunat”, are built using someone else’s interpretation when they were young. Difference between these two films is that “Les Mistons” is about the first a child experiences love, where “Sunat” is the experience of circumcision by a young boy. These two experiences are built upon to create an interesting story that will engage the audience. Times, it is good to exaggerate the memory to a certain extent to create interest. That is not to say that it should be embellished to the point of being inane.

 Quote Of The Day:

“A virginal heart has its own logic”

 

Lecture V

I’m not in the best of moods, so let’s just get this done. And don’t badger me regarding why.
We watched  a movie called “Election” starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick. A hapless teacher by the name of Mr McAllister (Broderick) tries oh-so-desperately to intervene in the efforts of perfectionist albeit over-achieving Tracy Flick (Witherspoon) in the school election campaign for Presidency. His efforts backfires as destiny seemingly is in favor of Tracy. Fiasco after fiasco, McAllister had a tryst with his neighbor, who rats him out to his wife. He gets kicked out of his own home, returned back to school to teach, tampered with the balloting and eventually got himself evicted from Carver High School. He starts life on an entirely clean slate in New York City. While on business in Washington D.C., his past catches up with him as he inadvertantly runs into Flick, who is now a lawyer. Bummer.

The movie was just a ‘ploy’ in getting our memories refreshed with regards to Aristotle’s six parts of tragedy that we learned the week before. And yes, Election is an example of a classic Greek tragedy. It was kind of solving a puzzle, come to think of it. Then again, I’m still no fan of Aristotle though I understood the concepts.

Moving on, the issue of the day coming up with stories based on personal experiences. Apparently, it gives the story a more personal and emotional touch. Field practice came in the form of writing two short (or seriously skimpy) stories. Catch was one had to entirely be the truth, and the other had to be total hogwash. The game was to befuddle everyone as to which is the real McCoy. I nearly succeeded though..

Daymn.

Lecture IV

Let’s dive into Lecture IV, and see some action:

Pamela walked through the hustle and bustle of Ang Mo Kio Bus Interchange. Some distance away, she walked past a Caucasian female tourist who was wearing the gaudiest top Pamela has ever seen. At once, she felt the urge to insult. She had this compulsive need to pass off audibly acrid comments at every ugly object or person that she sees. She threw the a dirty look at the tourist. Unfortunately, the tourist caught her stare. Amazingly, she smiled and started to talk.

“Guten tag, mein Freund! Mein Name ist Andreas! Ich komme aus Deutschland, ich wohne in München. Ich spreche Deutsch und Englisch. Wer kommst du? Wie heißen Sie?” the tourist, apparently German, ranted while scratching her nose incessantly.

Pamela somehow was offended by this total stranger talking to her in a language she didn’t understand. Yielding to her compulsive need, she retorted “And just who the heck are you? And that is the most disgusting top I’ve ever since. With a face like that, you shouldn’t even be seen in public!”

Andreas, the German tourist, understood every word Pamela said. Clearly taken aback by Pamela’s compulsive reply, shot back “Do not flatter yourself, Weibchen! You are not a pretty sight yourself! Go and look at yourself in the mirror!”. Andreas than paused to scratch her arms.

“Well at least I don’t go around scratching myself silly and leave a trail of dead skin flakes everywhere I go! You disgust me!” Pamela shouted back, refusing to back down.

That was the last straw. Andreas lost patience, dropped her shopping bags, and launched herself at Pamela. The two women hit the ground, and started to pull each other’s hair. Once in a while, both women would slap each other’s faces. All the while, they grappled and rolled around the floor. Neither women wanted to take the high road and back down. A noisy scene builded up nicely as a crowd suddenly materialize around the two women. The crowd buzzed with excitement as they watched the scuffle going on. It was a good five minutes that the women punched, scratched, tugged and slapped each other. Suddenly, the crowd started to break up, with the presence of two police officers. The fight soon dissolved as the police officers acted as mediators.

“She insulted about my looks, accused that I kept scratching myself silly, and that I’m disgusting!” Andreas hollered.

“Don’t be a cynic, you wench! I have every right to insult every unsightly thing that I see because I’m Pamela Tan!” Pamela shouted in a scandalized tone.

“That’s all? You punched her because she couldn’t stop scratching? And you attacked her because she has a compulsive need to insult? Gee, you two women have serious issues..” one of the police officer replied with an exasperated tone.

 Okay, so we had a brief video presenations about the People Watch assignment that we did. It was quite funny (and to a certain extent, disgusting) to see some of the characters in the videos. For example, there was this woman who scratched her posterior in full view of public. What can I say? She was such a turn-off. We learned about and discovered the things people do when they’re in public, yet disconnected to the goings-on of the world.

 We then had a short activity where we had to come up with a story featuring two characters that were derived from the People Watch videos we have seen. For me, I chose OCD Woman and the Scratching woman. The story is above, y’all! Anyway, I learnt that as a scriptwriter, we shouldn’t explicitly mention when a conflict is about to escalate and also that we should keep dialogs as realistic as possible, if there’s any. Now I know better!

At the end, we had a presentation on Aristotle. We learned the various aspects of Aristotle’s beliefs regarding a tragedy. It was really the nitty-gritty details. I admit, I still have not internalized what was put on the table. Oh well. But I guess I have to get it right if I want to write a good story!

 

Lecture III

Okay, so we learned about Aristotle.

I was partnered with Zid, and we had to research on what is an episodic plots, the definitions of catharsis and mimesis. Those stem from Greek words. Come to think of it, I don’t really understand it fully. Nevertheless, we did some work and researched from the Net for materials to put in our blogs. Guess not much that I can write about Aristotle. Gee, he’s really a boring man who dislikes Shakespeare!

In continuation with the previous post, I found somewhat hard to come up with fifty story word entries. Usually, this is not the case. Given topic, I can rant and rave for miles of parchment or paper. Then again, it’s probably my ‘internal editor’ that is causing the mental block. As Mr Leslie said, we can just write about anything that comes to mind. For example, I can write a story about a guy who is trying oh-so-desperately to come up with something to write for his assignment which is due in half and hour! It worked to some extent. After much thought, I finally got my fifty word stories. True what Mr Leslie said, the hardest part is getting started!

(p/s: Damn! My People Watch video is gone!!!)

Lecture II

Didn’t attend school. From what I know, the class learned about writing fifty-word stories or entries, that is supposed to be the gist of a whole story.

Even though absent, still managed to get it done, somehow

Lecture I

Okay, so it’s a fresh new Semester. A whole new slate for us.

Storytelling was definitely a whole new ball game. One that is less hectic, methinks. Or predict, rather. We started off the lesson with introductory games. The incentive was a fashionably-late pass to Storytelling lessons. And after that was this charade-ish game where we had to come up with actions that associates with our names. The first letter, more like it. I daresay that the charade game was a little necessary seeing we knew each other. But hey, it’s for fomality’s sake, I suppose? Who am I to argue.

Moving on, maybe it’s too soon to say that Storytelling is ‘less hectic’ as compared to the other modules. We dived into the topic of openers, how to kickstart a great script. Before that, we got acquainted with the active/passive speech department. Why do I have a voice inside screaming “WRITTEN COMMUNICATION! WRITTEN COMMUNICATION! WRITTEN COMMUNICATION!”? Drama aside, I think it’s good that we’re getting informed about active/passive speech and all that jazz. A refreshing course, to say the least, to the infamous and painful English lessons back in Primary or Secondary School. Works for me, so far (right thing to say? It has only been one lesson!).

To Mr Leslie: I daresay Storytelling is going to be fun. But I assure you, I’m not planning to be a script writer!