Why am i here?

Finally the 2 weeks break is here. We all sure need a breather after 8 long weeks. But for me, it wont be a time to rest during the break. I still have to start shooting the video which I mentioned in the previous post and I am really looking forward to start shooting it.

Anyways, I realized that things do not just appear from no where. Like if you want to be successful, you have to work for it, so that you will be both successful and respected by others. I’m working towards my goals, by constantly producing shorts and submitting for competitions and hope to win any one of them. Besides being able to only do all these in school as part of the module, I really need another platform where I can do these kind of things. Like that, I would have more things done than everyone else in school.

Like in the article JJ brought to school few days ago, whether students like us, studying for this diploma would get a job in this industry? They answered that it would be best if we had connections to those already in the industry. That is one of the points.

BUT, the point is, I did not come into this course thinking that I want to have this job, or that job when I graduate. All I did was just do what I want to do. I’m not too sure about the rest of the class. I just thought of myself becoming just a small time filmmaker in the local art scene. Where I do these things as an interest. Whether or not I will be famous, I don’t really care.

Seeing how local filmmakers win awards in festivals overseas, definitely serves as a motivation to me. When I am just so damn sick about what I’m doing, seeing this filmmakers winning awards just pushes me to move forward. They then become something I would like to accomplish as well.

All these started in secondary three. While doing chalk drawing on the walls around the school, my art teacher came to me and asked me: “What do you like?” and I immediately replied: “I don’t know”. He went on and told me how could it be that I don’t have anything I like. After that day I went home and thought about it seriously.

Then one day I just came across this short film called tak giu, which I found it to be really interesting. And I don’t know whether it is pure coincidence or what but our school is building a mac lab. And around the end of the year, my art teacher invited Juan Foo to conduct this workshop on film in our school. Which eventually led to me doing a video for o levels art, choosing poly over jc and finally here at fsv.

Oh last but not least, I did not know you were know as Ryan Grassman, Mr Ryan. Haha.

Nil Sine Labore: Nothing without labour

Victorian Challenge is round the corner, and it’s a once every 4 years event that even appears in the papers. I remember I was only sec 1 when we first did it. My class did a collage of the old school, using torn bits of magazines. The objective is to complete the task that we wanted to do within 24 hours, meaning we have to stay in school overnight. I cant remember the theme of 2003 but I think it has got something to do with the old school campus, because Victoria moved from Geylang Bahru to Siglap Link that year.

Anyways, this year’s theme is ‘Victoria I give to you’, I THINK. I cant remember because I don’t care about the theme. I’m just going back to do as an Art Elective Alumni.

I intend to do a short film, a video of the AEP dudes, with the theme of Band of Brothers, yeah I know I watch too much of BoB already but incorporating this 2 things together to create a short film, would be something cool to watch. I shall not disclose anymore of what I am going to do for the video but all I can say is that, I’m doing this so that I can get the gang together and do something together. Because I felt that our secondary 4 years were rather dull. Our whole year, we were busy rushing our coursework for art that we don’t have time to do funny things. Its funny to see how other schools have their own videos done by their students when you search in youtube. However, I realized that the quality was pretty bad, and decided to do something more ‘professional’.

Then again, this video doesn’t really fit the theme of this year’s challenge, so I decided to add on: to do a wall painting with the last scene of my video just outside the media lab in Victoria School. A painting that would represent us, the first batch of AEP students who used the media lab. I want the juniors to know that there is a group of AEP students who were proud to be an AEP student despite all the shit we’ve been through. Theory, coursework, and those long afternoons.

So really looking forward to the 2 week break, so that I can start shooting the video. And I really hope that everything turns out well, as I don’t wish to disappoint any of the teachers. Now that I’ve posted what I’m going to do, its like a commitment, something to push me to complete what I’m going to do, because if I give up halfway, I will lose all my face. Haha.

Although I don’t really love my school that much, it has been fun studying there and I really would like to contribute to the school. Nil Sine Labore.

its not too late!

I know this is kinda late, but here it is anyways.

Here are your interview questions:

1. How many screen names do you have?

Hmmm. there’s Ben, Blen, theLJs.BeN, [ theDICKS ] BeN, and last but not least, Sianzationalisticallism. Well, the origins of these are rather stupid and lame but I’m quite proud with one of them. That would be Sianzationalisticallism. I came up with this word that NO ONE in this world has though of. It started with Sian, meaning bored in a dialect and spelling it out the way it is pronounced. Then, combining it with the word ‘sensation’, forming Sianzation. Therefore, that makes one Sianzational. Of course, that’s rather Sianzationalistic don’t you see? At last, touching it up with what I learnt in art, art movements. There’s the expressionism, impressionism, post impresstionism, the fauvism, and others, all the isms. Thus the ultimate creation of, Sianzationalisticallism.

2. If you were to run a small island dictatorship, what rules would be different from Singapore?

This is a difficult questions. I don’t think of this kinda things much. I’m the sort of person that really suck at having leadership jobs. In case I screw anything up, I’m steering clear of them.

If there is something that I really must think of, its probably lifting the law of no selling of alcohol to people under the age of 18.

3. Do you remember your nightmares?

Nope. I cant really remember the last nightmare I had. Probably the one on the day before the release of O levels results, I dreamt that I scored 54 points to my horror.

4. Have you been in a fistfight? If so, did you win or lose?

No. I stay away from trouble, except the troubles where I don’t hand up homework and stuffs like that.

5. Dieting or exercise: explain your preference.

Exercise. It is cheaper and benefits your body. Not to mention that it is a longer process.

Here are the rules for you to post….

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by e-mailing you five questions. I get to pick them, and you have to answer them all.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Anyway again, back on track. This week’s reflections. I revisited Band of Brothers. Wonderful show I would say, if you can stand the blood and gore violence. I especially liked part 1 : Currahee, where the soldiers of Easy company were being trained to be the best of the paratroopers. And they have a commanding officer, Sobel, who is a total son of a b*tch and is very demanding of the company. From his point of view we realize that he is trying to train easy company to be the best they could be and was very proud of them, whereas the soldiers hated him. The comical part was that Sobel was an elite in physical training but is a complete noob when it comes to field combat. He cant read the map and gets the company lost in the woods. That was the part before the war, when there wasn’t any bloodshed at all.

As the show progresses, I’m currently at part 6: Bastogne, comrades dies one after another, its no wonder how all of them become so close with one another. There is this very interesting quote said by Captain Winters when the land force were retreating and having the airborne paratroopers to take their places. The land force was warning them that the enemy comes from all sides and that they would be surrounded. Winters immediately replies: “We are paratroopers, we are supposed to be surrounded.” I thought that it was a very true comment.

Lastly, for the coming Saturdays, I would be going out for basketball trainings, on my own. I’m not going with the team for awhile. It is to brush up skills before I rejoin the team. I would then check back with them once every month to see if there is any improvement made. All this is done just so that we could break our losing streak. With that, I think I’m ending off here.

The next reflection

Right. Back here for this assignment post. Now to answer Ryan’s comment he left me last week:

“It also propels me in a direction: what are your reactions to feel-good movies, the ones where the soccer team overcomes all the odds to make it to the championships, or the one where the girl finally gets the man of her dreams? Are you easily moved by movies? Do you have a soft spot for happy endings?”

Basically, in a “the soccer team overcomes all the odds to make it to the championships” or “the girl finally gets the man of her dreams” type of movie, I won’t be moved a bit. Instead, I have a soft spot for old people. That is why I usually stick to the theme of old people whenever I feel like making people get emotional. I’m not sure if it is effective though.

Anyways, back to the question. What are my reactions to feel-good movies? Well, for these kind of movies, I would usually just go by and say “ Good for them “. For those where the girl gets her dream guy, I just don’t dig into these kind of story. It just feels so unreal. I’m more interested in what would be more practical or what we see in real life. You might say that what we see in everyday life is so dull and boring, why would we want to watch it happen again? BUT! But I’m one who is very interested in the littlest things that happen in life. How these little things come together and create something we experience: this dull and boring life.

I felt I’ve gone off-topic but never mind. Back to the reflection. I’ve re-watched 2 of my favourite short films by Royston Tan, “Sons” and “Mother”. Notice how similar the focus of this 2 films is? That’s right. Old people. Haha. Although I may not be a very filial son, but these 2 film encourages me to be one. I like how this kind of film instills guilt in us and change us, to become a better son/daughter. I like how the be-grateful-to-your-parents theme is presented in this film, using pure narration. That’s why my film seems to be similar to Royston’s work. I’m simply just inspired these 2 works of his.

For my upcoming film projects in NP, I just hope that I would be able to produce works which could move people easily, without having an oh-so-complicated plot. That is, my ultimate goal. For now. Right. So I shall end here ->.

Passion

Last weeks post been kind of sucky. So anyways here’s this week’s post. Regarding Ryan’s lesson last week. I must say it’s pretty boring compared to the previous lessons. We had to answer the questions regarding Aristotle. The question I was in charge of was :

What is the responsibility of characters in an Aristotelian tragedy?

Characters are ranked 2nd in place in importance in and Aristotelian tragedy. Characters are responsible for supporting the plot, for example, personal motivations will be intricately connected parts of the cause-and-effect chain of actions producing pity and fear in the audience.

The protagonist of an Aristotelian tragedy should be renowned and prosperous, thus his change can be from good to bad, becoming a tragedy. This would generate pity and fear in the audience. In the ideal tragedy, Aristotle claims that the protagonist will mistakenly bring about his own downfall—not because he is sinful or morally weak, but because he does not know enough.

Also, the qualities of characters in a tragedy, a character needs to be..
• Good or fine because Aristotle relates this quality to moral purpose and says it is relative to class.
• Suitable to their roles, for example Valor is appropriate for warriors but not for women
• Realistic
• Consistency of characters throughout the story. For example, if a character’s personality is established, it should remain same throughout.
• Characters must be necessary to the plot.
• Characters should be presented as perfect or at least better than reality

Reference from http://www.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/poetics.html

I’m not sure if this is a good answer but that’s what I got.

Ok, now regarding the reflections. It has been tough choosing CCAs in Ngee Ann Poly. Up til now, I’m still CCA-less. Dragonboat clashes with my 3rd language lesson on Thursday. Basketball was too hard to get into the team. Congrats to those who made it.

Regarding basketball, it’s a sport that has been with me since primary school. I could spend the whole afternoon at the basketball court with my friends. We could play until sometimes our parents wonder why are we not home yet.

Then, we had to proceed to secondary school. I was posted to Victoria School. At VS, there was no basketball CCA. Therefore, I sort of lost contact with the sport. Though there wasn’t any contact with the sport, the passion for the sport is still burning, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Then to Ngee Ann Poly, due to lack of match experience and skills, I didn’t make it as well. I was wondering could it be fate that I should not play this game.

However, this time, I did not do nothing about it. I managed to get into an outside team through my best friend. So now, I’m basically playing in an outside team despite my lack of skills and match experience.

From this incidence, I realized that if there is something that you want to do badly but still unable to do it due to certain obstacles, never give up. Find alternatives that can get you across the obstacle and proceeding with what you want to do. Follow your passion, for it is something I know which can never be wrong.

noob post

I’m kinda enjoying Ryan’s lesson although my English aint that awesome. Last week going through the conflicts in films totally changed me. Now when I watch a movie, I don’t just watch it for the sake of watching it. Maybe Melanie’s class helped too. I pay more attention to details.

And here’s last week’s story, can be seen at Bryan’s page:

All was near perfect as Jake, dressed in his best suit and tie, strided with such confidence into the interview room. His head high up in the air, he opens the door.

As the door swings open, Jake notices that the room is empty. He looks around, scanning the surrounding of the room. As he makes his first step into the room, a tall man hiding behind the door smashes Jake’s head with a dustbin.

Jake falls to the ground. He looks up only see a sly grin on the mysterious man’s face. Jake tries to stand up, but felt dizzy and sways left to right until he trips over a lamp wire and knocks his head backwards on the edge of a table. Jake blacks out.

The mysterious man, who is about to make a next strike on Jake, stops and walked to the back of the room. The mysterious man then walks back and covers Jake’s face with a black bag and tied his hands to the back. Then, as though Jake weighs like a piece of paper, the assaulter picks Jake up and drags him to the back of the room and stuffs Jake into a gigantic luggage bag.

After Jake is packed, the mysterious guy picks the luggage out and walks casually out of the room. He takes a lift to the car park. Still with the luggage in hand, he proceeds to his pink mini cooper.

The mysterious man stuffs the luggage into the back seat of his mini cooper and slams the door shut. At the same time, cursing Jake with profanities, he walks to the driver’s seat and drove off.

Jake regains consciousness and could not see anything. He starts to panic by squirming in the luggage bag. Just then, the mysterious man gets out of the car, picks up the bag and unzips it. He took out the black bag covering Jake’s face.

As the bag is being removed, an explosion quite a distance away is heard. Jake looks back and then at the mysterious man. Jake realizes that he is jus being saved, starts to thank the mysterious man, only to realize that the mysterious man was actually Mike, his personal bodyguard.

I didn’t meant for it to be funny but apparently that was what I had in my head.

Anyways, this week has been rather hectic although there wasn’t much schooling. Tuesday was labour day and Wednesday didn’t have school because it was E-learning week! Lots of typing to do.
For example now, doing my so called reflection. And the 50 word stories.

I must say my week had been pretty bad and I’m kinda pissed about it but I hope I pull through and get my act together.

Sorry for the lousy post.

Some old grandmother story

Everytime I look at my grandmother, she reminds me of the video I did for her last year. Well, it was dedicated to her and at the same time, was for my O levels art examination.

It started off simply wanting to do a video to remember my deceased uncle who combated cancer and lost last year. It was quite a big change in my life when he passed away. My grandmother moved out of her house ( she was living with my uncle before he passed away ) and went to my aunt’s house and sometimes my house. I could see that she was trying to avoid that place because it would remind her of uncle Jed. It was hard for her.

Until then, it struck me that why don’t I do a video for someone who is still alive? I’ve always believed that media is a strong medium such that it can evoke feelings into someone.

Thus I began writing the script for the story. It was a letter. A letter from a grandson to his grandmother:

“ Dear Grandmother.

How have you been? Been taking care of your health? Have you been taking your medicine regularly? I am doing fine over here, but I missed the times when you were by my side. I could share my joy when I was happy, and you were always there when I was feeling down.

Remember the time when you brought me to the market? It was smelly. But with your presence, I did not notice the stench.

Remember the time, you bought me breakfast? I didn’t like rice vermicelli, but you bought rice vermicelli. I wanted soup noodles, but you bought me dry noodles.

Remember the time, you cooked for my birthday? I said that it was tasteless in front of my friends.

Remember the time, I took your money? I said it was for school but I bought sweets instead. Eventually you knew, but did not reprimand me.

Remember the time, you fetched me home from school? You held on to my hand as we took the regular path home. I sang happily as we walked.

Remember the time, when I was ill? You took me to the clinic. I cried. But you still took me to the clinic patiently.

Although I was a brat when I was young, I still remember in my heart what you’ve done for me. I would like to thank you for being with me all these times..

Grandmother, I love you. ”

Please note that this is the original script I wrote last year so I don’t think there’s plagiarism and whatever.

Anyway, I just went ahead and shot the video. Actually my grandmother was acting in it. But she doesn’t know that it was for her. Until the day I finished editing and bringing home a copy, I showed it to her.

I was hoping that she would cry after watching it, but sadly she didn’t. she just told me it was good and gave me a smile. That smile made me proud of what I have done. I knew she understood what I meant.

Through this, I understood that it is never too late to do something for others. You just need to be sincere. This is proven because my relationship with my grandmother improved, although we were already very close. Like what people always say, that there is still room for improvement.

Jacky Is The Man

Jacky puts on his hula girl outfit and enters the temple. As Jacky skips into the temple, statues of gods and goddesses were staring at him as though he is an idiot. Jacky ignores the statues and continues skipping down the hallway of bronze statues, like what he would do in a dance party.

Soon Jacky realizes that he is being followed as he can hear footsteps other than his own skipping steps, and quickens his pace. By the time Jacky knows that he is in danger, he is in the main hall of the temple, where all the most fearsome looking statues were placed.

All statues look at Jacky with their glowing red eyes. Jacky starts to panic and start running around the hall like a sissy girl with his hands in the air swaying left to right with every step he take. As Jacky is running around the main hall, crying, the mysterious stalker revealed herself.

She step into the hall, only to have the shadow covering her face removed, showing that it was Jacky’s mother. The sissy boy Jacky soon realize that her mother is here for him, broke into a hysterical laughter as a sign of relief.

The mother and son embrace each other and walked slowly out of the temple. Jacky’s mother begin to reprimand him while sissy boy Jacky start to cry again.

As their silhouette fade away against the light coming from the outside of the temple, the door of the temple closes, and everything becomes pitch black.

One particular statue from the main hall’s eye turn red and made a disturbing sound…

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