In Continuum.

So it began with five out of seven members at a table, discussing what we should present in two days' time. After seeing Ximin and his group's presentation, I must say, I felt a little threatened. I was entertained of course, and it is always good to have a good laugh in the morning. Still, in school, it all comes down to the grades at times, and you really don't want to be losing out all that much. Which was why I really wanted to get it done right, or at least have the right concepts and ideas to stir us in the right direction. Joyce had some UGC meeting (oh, I do dread that module very much), and Sarah had to meet her father for, well, something. So it was down to the rest of us to come up with a plausible way of presenting our chapter to the class without it looking like a sad imitation of the presentation we saw only hours before. I am pretty proud of the group, I must say, to have ideas just sprout out of nowhere and have some of the best stuff being developed on the go. It's kind of like writing songs on a road trip to nowhere, and you are just writing those lyrics down on an old pieces of tissue paper in the backseat of a car. This is a great group to work with, though I cannot say that the ride was a smooth one. 

By that, I don't mean they were a bad bunch of people, but filming just sucks the life right out of you. It was decided that we should film at Felicia's house, and I was all for that idea, since I really only live a few minutes away from there. The thought of us working late into the night did not sit well with me, but at the same time I was rather excited to be involved in this project. I mean, the last time I actually had to film something was all the way back in the first semester, and my involvement was minimal and, thus, less tiring. A daunting task faced the whole group, really, but I was rather excited to meet the challenge. It is that childhood dream of mine, I suppose, to be in the director's chair and figuring out how to tell a story in the best way possible. I am not sure when that childish dream emerged, when or where I started to become interested in filmmaking. Maybe it was that giant V8 camera my parents used to own, those old school handheld camera that had to be carried on the shoulders to film even the shortest home videos. It was bulky and, in retrospect, stupid. Still, I was infinitely fascinated with how the moving pictures could tell a story, even when there isn't a dialogue to begin with. 

I have been a movie buff for the longest time, and the expression "movie buff" was taught to me by Krishna, my fellow movie buff in high school. Only we knew the movies the others didn't know of, only we knew what the "classics" were and talked about it in class. I was thankful for him to have been situated right across the aisle for me, because that was the only way for us to get a healthy dosage of movies from each other. It became somewhat of a competition over the years, to see who has watched the most movies, or the best movies, and watching those movies gave me a new perspective on things. It is kind of like how you would listen to a song when you know basic music theory, you just attack the song from a completely different angle. That is also why I detest Jay Chou so much, knowing a little bit about music myself. You realize just how formulaic and boring his music is, and it is the same thing over and over again in the entire album - and it isn't a winning formula in my books, in the first place. Anyway, films are like that too, there are a dozen different ways you can look at it. I started to look deeper than the story itself, or the actors and the actresses. I started to notice the music, the lighting, the cinematography, and all the little details in a shot and how I would have done it. 

It is a geeky thing to do, though I do not hold myself against that. It came to a point when it wasn't enough to just sit in front of a television or in a cinema, and to critique. That is one of the things people say about reviewers, in general. They say that reviewers cannot do, and thus they critique - which is not exactly true but, I am pretty sure most reviewers are also geeks who'd like their shot at something bigger than just submitting reviewers all the time. So, as a child, I really wanted to be a filmmaker, though that ambition was usually met with a lot of laughter amongst my friends or my relatives. It's just not very realistic in the Asian context, since I was aiming for the hills of Hollywood. Of course, as adults, they treated my childish ambition with a lot of encouragement, but they were so condescending now that I think about it. It's not that I would have done it differently to myself, I wouldn't want to squash the dreams of a young child either. But seriously, I suppose, I should have know just how difficult it is to put up a movie, let alone a good movie. 

Drama club made me realize how difficult it is to put up a stage performance. There is a chinese saying that goes something like "A minute on the stage involves ten years of hard work off the stage". Drama club involved a lot of hard work, and we are talking about long hours in the drama room, working on the props and the rehearsals. Rehearsals lasted deep into the nights sometimes, and it was only us versus the empty school hall most of the time. Every scene lasted for a few hours at times, and the ones who were not involved had to entertain ourselves in the backstage, one way or another. I remember those games of Snake on Timothy's Nokia cellphone, and those times when we just made a fool out of ourselves in the back. They were long and tough to endure, but we've all come so far with drama club. I am not exactly proud of the productions that we churned out in the end, but at least I am glad to have learned so many things from there. Not just the comfort in front of a big crowd, but also this realization of how far away I am from the dream of being a director. It was a dashed dream, but there is beauty in breaking away from a fool's hope and moving on, too. 

Yesterday was part one of the video production, and I am glad that Felicia pushed for some filming to be done. It'd be impossible to accomplish, if we were to have squeezed everything to today. Anyway, we spent most of the time working on the camera angles, working out the lines, overcoming the fear of cameras, and stumbling over lines and starting a shot all over. It is possible for tempers to flare during a production like that, which was why we all tried to keep the atmosphere as light as possible. I don't suppose anybody really threw a temper back then, and everybody had a good time at the end of all things. But we were all really tired by the time we called it a wrap for the day, and the thought of having more scenes in the following day was just too daunting for us to even think about. Still, no matter how difficult filming may be, I suppose no one could deny that it was a whole lot of fun last night. A part of me just want to get this over and done with, while another half cannot wait to get into the whole filming thing tomorrow, all over again. In fact, I was so tired last night that I have decided to give the morning class today a skip - I am that tired. 

So, here's a little preview of what it is to come tomorrow. The logo above was photoshopped by Felicia, since our video clip is going to have some sort of relation to the format of Survivor. I, play the devil himself, or Mr. S.A. Tan, if you will. I suppose it is only natural for me to play that role, and Jeremy would vehemently agree. And here's a picture of me as the devil, with my pitchfork, though a little small. That's Felicia's hairband with the horns made by Joyce - she is a magician with crafts like that, it's amazing. I cannot wait for this week to be over, I really can't. But I know, at the end of it all, the sigh of relief is going to feel so so good.