Why am I a typical Singaporean teenager

Singaporean teenagers always go for what’s in fashion nowadays. For example, handphones, bags, clothes etc. That goes the same for me too. When I shop for clothes or bags, I tend to go into shops that carries a brand which is somehow expensive. It does occur to me that I’m wasting money on something that I can definitely get it from elsewhere cheaper. But I still stood to the fact that having clothes and bags with brands look better compared to those without. Therefore, no matter how much money I have in my bank, I’ll still spend without much thinking. I will look out for things that are in the trend now and will never wear things that are outdated. This is one thing I believed what a typical Singaporean teenager will do. Handphones are a gadget we use everyday. I only had mine when I was in Secondary 3. (incomplete)

Tutorial class 9

LECTURE NOTES
INTERACTIVE LOCATION
- What is a location? eg. Siberia
– a physical place.
– the place in your story where events occur and characters interact.
- a setting and surrounding that interacts with the characters of film by adding importance to their actions.
- an environment which impacts the action and heightens the stakes.

*Location- Jurassic Park is a zoo/amusement park located on an island off the coast of Central America.

*Interactive Location- the island is completely isolated, and anyone on it will be trapped until assistance from the mainland arrives.

Tutorial class 7

I’m starting to get so lazy to update blogs. I don’t even update my personal blog every now and then. Why do I begin to feel that blogging is a chore?

Ryan showed us a short clip of a local film by Tan Wee Lin (Autograph book). Quite impressed that the director was a female. Probably because I’m used to directors being males. Haha okay I’m being random. Ignore me. Actually every week, I always look forward to the “watching film” part of the tutorial. I always liked watching movies and TV programmes. Even if its a short film, I’ll just watch it if it’s nice. That’s probably one of the reasons why I came to FSV.

Hm, creating dialogues wasn”t a very difficult task for me. It didn’t take me very long to come up with those dialogues in class. However, I will not say the same for the grammer errors etc.

Sigh, why do time pass so fast. I don’t even feel that it’s the middle of Semester 2 yet. Instead, I feel as if school just started not long ago!

MY NOTES
1st December 2006

Functions of Dialogue:
- Conveys messages of the story
- Explore characters’ emotions
- Explains characters’ personalities
- Creates moods
- Shows relationship between characters
- Makes the film more interesting

Elements of Dialogue:
- Dialogue reveals character: – a character talks about himself or herself.
– other people talk about that character.
- Dialogue establishes relationships between characters- Character expresses attitudes and opinions that are in opposition to one another.
- Good effective dialogue will move the story forward.
- Dialogue communicates faces and information to the audience: – it conveys essential exposition
– characters will talk about what happened, establishing the story line
- Dialogue ties the script together

Common Mistakes
- Dialogue should be used sparingly, never telling the audience that they can see for itself.
- Dialogue is no substitute for action.

A scenario
*Husband returns home getting tipsy
Wife: Oh my god, what happened to you? *helps him up
*Husband pushes her away
Wife: Have u forgotten about our dinner tonight? I spent the whole day just preparing for our dinner.
Husband: Ok I’m sorry.
Wife: Sorry? Do you know I was so worried about you?
Husband: Then what do you want?
Wife: You should at least call home and inform me you won’t be back for dinner.
Husband: I forgot.
Wife: I put in so much effort in preparing dinner and you just went drinking instead? I was waiting for you the whole night!
Husband: What’s the matter with you? It’s only dinner afterall!
Wife: We’ve already agreed beforehand that we’re goin `g to have dinner together. How can you break your promise?
Husband: You don’t understand the amount of stress I’m having at work. Never mind if you don’t understand. Now you don’t even allow me to go for a drink to de-stress?
Wife: I don’t mean that. You should at least call home right?
Husband: Ok, I’ve already apologized, what more do you want?
Wife: What kind of attitude is this?
Husband: *Sigh* I can’t be bothered with you. *whispers* women are ridiculous
*wife weeps

Wife: Where have you been?
Husband: Oh, I went drinking with my friends. It’s late, why haven’t you turn in?
Wife: Haven’t you forgot? We’re supposed to have dinner together.
Husband: Oh…. I’m sorry.
Wife: What? How could you forget?
Husband: Maybe it’s because I’m too busy during work recently.
Wife: You actually forgot our dinner and went drinking with your friends instead.
Husband: I”m sorry I didn’t mean to.
Wife: Just a “sorry” and thats it? Do you have any idea how much time i spent in preparing for tonight’s dinner?
Husband: I know, but I’ve already told you it wasn’t intentional. What do you want?
Wife: Why do you sound so irritated? I should be the one irritated instead!
Husband: I don’t understand, it’s just a dinner. We can have it some other day right?
Wife: You make it sound so easy. Why not you make the dinner instead?
Husband: We can just simply eat out.
Wife: Look, it’s not the dinner that matters do you know? It’s the amount of effort I put in for preparation for dinner!
Husband: Ok Ok, my fault alright? *walks away

Tutorial class 6

Class shared “Letter to the Past” with each other in their assigned groups this week. I was grouped with Vani, Yixuan and Dominic. Amongest the few of us, Yixuan’s story was the most emotional. (Luckily for me, I didn’t write about something else. Otherwise I’ll definitely break down into tears.) Honestly speaking, I’m not one of the emotional people so I didn’t express my feeling through tears. However, I definitely feel with her. I also learnt from her story that we should really treasure our loved ones because nobody knows whats coming in the future. “Regret” is the most painful process for me. I’m sure nobody likes regretting too. For me, I’ve always been rude to my mum. I know its wrong for me to do this to my mum but I can’t seem to control. But well, I must try to change my attitude!

MY NOTES
Writing for an Audience
- Screenwriter= storyteller
- The cinematic experience is not just made up of words put on paper, but the audiences’ emotional reaction to that information.

Director to People
Writer to People
Camera to People
It’s people to people

What is the writer’s purpose?
- To connect:
- Themselves
- Their unique vision
- The material
- The drama
- Others
- Audiences want to be transported by a screenplay

Where do you look for a story?
- Inside yourself
- Everything to learn about other people is already in you.
- Now you need to figure out how to connect to it.

Experience VS Memory
-> Experience is something you learn from whereas Memory is something which remains in your heart without much learning.

Are memories true?
Memories filtered through our reality while Experiences is something we have gone through.

Experiences
- All people have fragments of stories.
- These potential ideas prompt your desire to know more.
- Respond emotionally and intellectually to what you heard.
- Good stories are born in the heart, no the head.
- Remember the role of an audience.
- After all, you ARE the audience.

Tutorial class 5

This week, we watched 2 short films, “Taxi Driver” and “Brats”. I liked “The Brats”. I think it was quite an interesting film. Instead of having conversations between the characters, The film used voice-over instead. I think the number of films I’ve watched this semester are countless! It is good as when I go to the movies now, I tend to look out for the different elements in a film. Before I came to this course, I always wondered what are done behind the scenes. Now, I definitely get a clear picture of everything!

This week’s assignment is Letter to the Past. I have to agree with Ryan that “This assignment may be the easiest thing you’ve ever written.” I probably agreed with him because of all the assignments, this is the longest I’ve written. I didn’t spend a long time writing too. However, I couldn’t find someone whom I totally last contact with to write about. So I chose someone whom I haven’t been keeping in touch with recently. A little confusing? Ask me for the password and read that entry to find out more! (:

MY NOTES
Character Analysis

Character
- A story starts with character.
- The character is… the heart, the soul and nervous system of your story.
- It is through your characters that the viewers experience emotions.
- It is through your characters that they are touched.
Without CHARACTER, you have no ACTION
Without ACTION, you have no CONFLICT
Without CONFLICT, you have no STORY
Without STORY, you have no SCREENPLAY

When developing a character, ask yourself:
- Who is my character?
- What does he want?
- What is her quest?
- What drives him to the resolution of the story?

(Refer to MeL- Course documents- 3 dimensional character)

You must create your characters in relationship to other people or things.
- They experience conflict in achieving their dramatic need.
- They interact with other characters.
- They interact with their emotions.

Memory
Storytelling Tool 2: Memory
- Your memory is a wonderful cabinet of past incidents which you have experienced or been told.
- These memories are points of references to your own past experience.
WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW
- also write what u don’t know

Tutorial class 4

<b>Election</b>

This week, we watched a Greek tragedy, Election. When I heard we were going to watch a tragedy film, I really thought of it to be a film where there will be physical injuries to the characters like what happens in other tragedies. However, this film turned out to be otherwise.

I do agree with the class that there are some episodic plots in the film. When Ryan asked if there was some parts of the film relating to what Aristotle mentioned about tragedy films, I wanted to say about the episodic plots. But I did not. Maybe I was in a daze as I was having a tummy ache at that time.

Some thoughts that ran through my mind while watching Election: People actually harm others(even innocent ones) in order to gain victory. Why should they try all ways and means the get things that they had always wanted badly? I think it’s all up to thier own ability to own. If by hurting people in order to gain victory, won’t the sense of guilt remain in them for the the rest of their life. Is it worth it and will they be truly satisfied?

No assignments for this week’s tutorial and that was something which consoled me. I was expecting some story writing assignments though.

Sigh, it’s already week 5.

Tutorial class 3

Hello again.

In class, we did sharing of some of our 50 word stories. Really hilarious ones. Whenever I hear everyone’s stories, I can’t help but feel embarrassed about my own. Well, I guess it takes time! I’ve also learnt more about Aristotle after all the presentations (at least I had known that he first started stories!) If not for those presentations, I might not even know Aristotle existed!

Ryan told me to try writing about why I don’t like writing. Ok here it goes..

I feel that writing is a chore. Because when you write, you have to think alot. Honestly speaking, I dislike thinking analytically. When I write, I get all my tenses wrong too. Back in secondary school, whenever we were told to write compos, I’ll just finish it as quick as possible and I’m usually the first few to finish in class. It is quite bad as I didn’t think serious enough before writing. Before I start writing everytime, I’ll have trouble starting off. One thing that I would choose poly over jc is due to writing. I thought poly dosen’t need to write. But this module proved me wrong. Infact, this form of writing is definitely more challenging than before. I’m definitely not one who appreciate poetry (unlike kane. haha) too. I hope this module dosen’t do poetry!

Ok, I better get started on People Watch…

MY LECTURE NOTES
What is a plot

- Plot is the arrangement of incidents
- It is not the story itself, but the way the incidents are presented to the audience
- The structure of the play

Beginning
- The incitive moment
- It must start the cause and effect chain

Middle
- Climax
- It must be caused by earlier incidents and itself cause the incidents that follow it.

End
- Resolution
- Must be caused by the preceding events but not lead to other incidents.

EPISODIC PLOTS
- According to aristotle, the worst kind of plots
- The acts (episodes) succeed one another without probability or necessity
- The only thing tying together the events in such a plot is the fact that they happen to the same person.
- Stretches the plot beyond it’s capacity and usually breaks the community of the story
- No connection between events that occur except that it happens to the same person.
- Playwrights should avoid coincidences from their plot
- However in tragedies, such as coincidences serve to evoke fear or pity from the audiences
- Large impact and irony

Important vocabulary
- Hatharsis
- Mimesis- imitation
- Anagnorisis- moment of recognition
- Perepeteia- change of events
- Hamartia- lack of self knowledge

Second tutorial class

Hello everyone!

Tutorial was fine I think. Ryan assigned us each our partners and choose any of their openers to start a story with. Again, it was a 20 mins long story. My partner was Vivian. Initially, I had trouble choosing the Openers. My first choice was “The doctor heals Alice’s injured arm, but no one heals her broken heart.” I wrote a few sentence from there and I realised I was stuck! So I settled with another of her Openers, “The introvert waves to everyone he sees in school.” However, I only wrote 3 paragraphs. Time constrain and partially I didn’t haven much ideas to it. After this exercise, we were then given new partners to work on a presentation about Aristotle. Presentation is held next week.

Actually I always dread writing stories because I’m lousy at it. But I see that this module is all about writing! Oh well, its STORYTELLING afterall.

First tutorial class

I think this is quite an essay-writing module, am I right? Anyway, first lesson was interesting. I think the name “game” that Ryan got us to play was rather fun. But I couldn’t even remember the first few names and actions to go with it! Bad memory…

Next we learnt about first person, third person, passive voice and active voice. It’s good to be learning all these notes over again because I’ve forgotten most of the stuff learnt back in secondary school!

We were then given an opening sentence to start writing a short essay within 20mins. The sentence goes like this, “Dominic puts on his hula girl outfit and enters the temple.” When we were told to start writing, I totally had no idea how to continue. I thought for quite a while before I started writing. When I was almost halfway the essay, I realised I didn’t link it to the idea of a “hula girl outfit”, and time was running out. So I simply added a few words about the “hula girl outfit”. Finally, it was sharing time. I was one of the “lucky” ones who are told to read our essay. I must say, I got my tenses all mixed up! Hopefully through his module i can brush up on my tenses!

Overall, I think this module is interesting. Well, I might be able to tell better stories next time! (:

MY LECTURE NOTES

Storytelling techniques

1) Screenplay uses 3rd person format- it presents a more immediate and urgent feel to the material.

PASSIVE VS. ACTIVE VOICE
Passive voice- uses weak verbs
– tells rather than shows what’s going on
– distances the reader from the story

Active voice- uses strong action verbs
– shows the action
– uses an immediate

TIPS FOR WRITING:
- If you have a work in progress, never stop for the night is you’re stuck
- Always solve the problem and keep going until you are in safer water. A good night’s sleep is important. Sleeping on problems is a myth
If you can’t get started on a project, start writing anyway. To do this you have to have some words to type
- It doesn’t matter what u write. You’ll soon begin to think and move in your own rhythm/pace

Note down questions you were asking yourself as you wrote it.
-Whose story am I telling?
- What is the point of this story?
- How can I engage the attention of the audience

ASSIGNMENT
-reflection
-Write 12 opening statements, ones that should let people feel creative in their writing
– James paces around the empty halfway……
– karen opens the envelope. Her hand shakes…..

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