Final reflection…

Oh man, a ‘F’, i can’t believe it. It was the marks i got for the journal assignment. My mind suddenly went blank. As i read through the comments, i found out under the last comment that without the dialogue and final reflection, i can’t pass this portion. Well, having a strong mind set that i have to pass, i went to Mr. ryan during the break and talked to him. The reason for not doing is not because i do not want to do it but it is that i’m sick and can’t do it. Finally after much pleading, he allowed me to do and complete the dialogue and the final reflections (which i am doing now). Then, what a relief.  Lesson notes:

Interactive location: 

1. a setting and surrounding that interacts with the characters of the film by adding importance to their actions.

 

2. An environment which impacts the action and heightens the stakes.

 

Location: 

A physical place, the place in your story where events occur and  characters interact. 

Well, thats all for the final reflections. Seriously, i had fun doing the journals. I think i will still continue to post if i have the time to.Thanks Mr. Ryan for the understanding and to let me do the dialogue and final reflections. (“i have to pass the module”sighs) 

Reflections-006

OH…man…This is the week of TESTS. On monday, i just taken my studio production test. Honestly speaking, it was quite a simple test (or did i studied for all the correct stuff?). Then, we’re told during Intro To Film that we’re going to have a second “quiz” next monday. Oh no. Why so many tests? By the way, after the ’3′ days holidays (no school on monday, wednesday only have to be in school from 5pm-8pm for a boring movie and thurday vesak day), we’re going to have two more tests. One would be STORYTELLING. This is one that i’ve never taken any test before. The other is on Art n Design. WAIT! why should there be test for art? I thought that it was only drawing and something about drawing lines and lines…Oh God! Please help me get through these tough week, so i can look forward to the two weeks for HOLIDAYS (at Last!). On the lighter side of things, i’m looking forward to the hoildays as i’ll be going overseas, but i still do not know where. My parents said that it was meant to be told only when the days comes nearer. Hmm…lastly, are you sure that the Singapore Grand Pix is going to work? This island is so small. A look at the track layout and wander how the traffic is going to be affected when the traffic jam rate is relatively high..I just hope that it’ll work and bring our country to another higher level. GO FOR IT MAN..MAKE IT AN SUCCESS!

Reflections-005

Well, shall talk about one thing that have nothing and i mean NOTHING to do with school nor classes at all!!. It was a thursday night when i had my regular jamming sessions with my fellow church musicians. We met up and went for dinner after a day of full jamming. After that, we decided to go for supper and yes we did. We targeted a nearby hawker centre and marched in. I said march in because we have about 16 people to be exact in our worship team. When settled down, we got our food and chit chatted for a long time. Not far from our tables are some bangladash workers who were drinking all the way. i could see clearly that they drank alot and among 3 of them, two were in total drunk mode. Suddenly, while talking away, we heard a crash sound that seemed to have come the breaking of beer bottles. When i turned around, to my surprise, i saw one of the workers bleed on his head. I guessed that the beer bottle sound came from the bottle crashing onto his head. All of the people there turned and stared at them. The other man that was not drunk came and helped the hurt one up and trying to stop the blood from flowing. After awhile, the police and ambulance came and took all three of them away. That was a once in a lifetime experience to me. Wow! what a shock.

Reflections-004

Phew!! Finally, the end of week is here. It is a tiring week for me. First, on monday, we had Introduction to Film and we had to do the discussion board. But the point was that it was a BORING film (as usual). Perhaps its the year that all the film were made. I’m not born till like almost fifty years after the film was made. Tuesday is the only good day, as there were no school. On wednesday, we had our IS modules. In comtemporary issues, we were told that we’re going to have to write an essay of a topic on POLITICAL EPHATHY, and it should be around 1000 words!!! I melted. But since it weighs a great percentage to the overall grades, so i would have to do a good job out of it. And finally, today, our very first lesson of the day, STORYTELLING. We did our presentations and learnt about Aristotle. Well, being in a poly and not secondary school now, i’ll have to suit the enviroment and not the other way, since i have approx about 2 and a quarter years left in this school. In the end, this is only the start of the year if i have forgotten.

PeopleWatchX

As usual, John takes the bus service 154 to school. The bus arrives 10 minutes after. Since its six thirty in the morning, there are many people on the bus. Some going to work, some carrying heavy looking bags in school uniforms, and of course some elderly who gets up early in the morning to catch the morning exercise at the nearby community centre.

Even before the bus arrive at the bus-bay, John has already see the fully-packed passengers inside, but he still flags the bus, hoping that that will at least be a spot for him to stand. The door of the bus opens and it seems like time has frozen. It is because no one in the bus has moved in to allow the awaiting passengers like John to board the bus.

A couple of seconds later, a voice shouted “Move in, or i will not drive the bus”, from the familiar sound, John remembers that the voice comes from the bus driver, Mr. Tan. He is a chinese man about the age of fifties. After that, a reply comes, ” move lor, move lor”, and the crowd on the bus begin to move towards the rear of the bus. And this finally allows John and the other passengers to board the bus to school, and work.

As he boards the bus, he gave a big thank you to Mr. Tan, together with a big smile too. Due to the space constrain, John can only stand next to the driver seat, beside the entrance door. After ensuring that everyone boards the bus, Mr. Tan drives off.
This is where the journey starts to school.

Along the way, John chats with Mr. Tan, beginning with a thank you, and you are welcome. John sees a flask of coffee, a radio and a copy of today’s newspaper. So, he asks Mr. Tan saying that ” you must be really tired working all day? I see that from the newspaper, radio, and the flask of coffee you have”. He replied, “Yeah, i work for almost 6-8hours on the bus everyday. I need these things to keep me awake and concentrate on my driving.”. The chatting carries on along the way.

When the number of passenger decreased, John manages to catch a seat just beside the driver’s and sat down. Due to the early morning, John can be described as half-awake. As Mr. Tan takes a glimpse of John, he knows that he is tired and tells him to close his eyes and take a rest, and that he will inform John when his stop reaches. So, with a hundred percent of trust, John closed his eyes and rested. But as he rested, he heard some typing sound coming from the back, but did not care much about it. The truth is that, the person behind him is actually writing about him, due to a task in school that he must complete.

Finally, the bus stops outside John’s school and Mr. Tan woke him up. With a few thanks and a goodbye, He alights the bus and heads to school. All thanks to such a good bus driver and a good rest on the bus, John is now fully awake and ready to take on the day in school.

Since then, John tries to catch the morning bus that Mr. Tan drives so that he could find someone to chat with and also take the time to rest on the bus, not worrying that he would sleep over and misses his stop.

reflections-003

Okay. Since i’m not allowed to write about class then we’ll talk about something else. One part i liked about the class was the part where i was asked to stand beside Jennifer with a board in the middle to prevent us from seeing each other. Then we were asked to describe the other party’s dressing, to the finest details on them. But we only know a few. From these, i’ve learnt that observation is very important. You’ll never know when you will need that memory. After storytelling, we had art. The only subject that is my worst. Even till secondary school, my mum still draws my art for me. Hearing that might make you picture me as a very lousy drawer. But to my surprise, i actually could draw and was asked to draw 3D drawings with the help of grids. I thought it was a very great effort i have ever put in, in terms of art drawing. Last class of the day was photo. We did a photo clinic and i was surprised that my photos came up quite well except for some which are unknowningly disappeared. Overall, it was great and sleeping was the next thing in my mind.

Reflections-002

The teaching topic of the day is mainly on CONFLICT.  Through the class, I learnt that conflict is the central feature of screenplay, and there are 3 types listed. Man against man, man against environment, and man against self. Variety of conflicts varies of sex, age, religion and culture. Next, I found out that conflict is equals to change. There are many kinds of changes namely bodies change, seasons change, relationship change, lives change, etc. The definition of conflict is generally a serious argument or disagreement. In terms of script writing, it is the interaction of opposing ideas, interest, or will that create the plot. Other than getting the knowledge of the importance of conflict in script writing, we also did a review exercise on the last assignment on opening sentences. We had to write a story out of an opening sentence using someone else’s work. I wrote about ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’. Through this exercise, I got to know to write in a 3^rd person way and in present tense together with visual voice included. Overall, the class was a meaningful one, which ended with 2 short films of ex-Ngee Ann student. 

Reflections-001

Jonathan Peh (s10045147)- FSV T1B1
This is the first day of the Stortelling Techniques class. My lecturer, the coolest Rapping Ryan (Mr. Ryan). Before the lesson started, i thought that is would going to be something bored. But my guess was wrong, from the ‘action names’ introduction to the end was a fufilling one.
The first class thought me many things that i do not know that would be very useful for my future career in the media industry. Some important points was to write using the present tense, which was kind of tough at he start as we usually wirte in the past tense, so our minds has to be “brainwashed” again. The other was to use a 3rd person writing format (eg. she is a attractive girl). Every script that we are going write for the producing of films has to have motion verbs in it to allow the actor to do something. In short, ALL scripts has to be in a present tense, a 3rd person writing, and include motion verbs.
Visual voice is used rather than written voice because it uses strong action verbs, shows the action, uses an immediate sentence structure and present the story in a lively manner. All these are needed when writing scripts too. Lastly, a in-class work was introduced and i was the main issue of the day. The starting of the script was “Jonathan puts on his hula girl outfit and enters the temple”. It was quite a creative subject to do as there were many different kind of script that we could do with the same question. Looking forward to the next STORYTELLING TECHNIQUES lesson, next week. -END-