During this stage, we encountered quite a few obstacles such as conflicting ideas and editing styles. During production, I have asked my DP to shoot extra coverage and pick up shots in addition to the master shots to give my editor more choices and options to play around with during the post-production phase.

There has been quite a number of mis-communication between me and my editor as his vision of the script is different from what I envision my story to be like. The rough cut that he showed me did not match with the emotional beat and the pacing I have envisioned for both my script and the screen play. He preferred using negative space and master shots to express the dynamics between the three siblings in the story, while I actually preferred cutting to a tighter shot to let audience experience the emotions, the angst and the regret experienced by Dr Ng and Kelly.

My editor is more of a technical guy who is sensitive to cutting to shots that might look awkward and ugly and hence he proposed the usage of a wide shot to smoothly tell the story. I personally feel that a wide shot does have its own positive side, but overall while watching the film, I realised that it actually does not bring the audience into the story itself. A wide shot does establish the dynamics but it fails to let audience relate and empathise with the characters in the story.

I feel that as a director, I have to give some creative space and freedom for my editor as he is ultimately not a button pusher and I cannot tell him which frame exactly do I want to see a cut and so forth.
I communicated my intentions of the script to my editor and told him that he needs to feel the beat and pacing of the story itself, before deciding on which is the appropriate time to make a cut. I suggested that he should put aside technical aspects and issues and fully concentrate on the content that he needs to present for screen-play.

I realised that an editor always have the tendency to let technical aspects and issues to motivate his decision while making a cut. At times, they are too clouded by technical aspects that they fail to feel and see the final project as an emotional piece. Our edit has yet to be refined and it still has a lot of room for improvements given the amount of coverage we shot during production.
During this phase, it’s crucial that I help the editor break the barrier of technical thoughts and immerse himself into what I envision the story would be presented on screen. I need to advise him not to strictly follow what is written on script and explain to him that the most important decision to make a cut is never motivated by technicalities. It should be motivated by his emotions and his gut feelings.

Throughout the weekend, I am going to try to do a rough director’s cut to give my editor an idea of how I would want the final product to be like. I also have to help him source out appropriate music that actually matches the emotional beats of the script. I realised that if you compromise on using what you can find for the music, it actually taints and tears down the entire screen play, converting something that is touching, into a total comedy.

As a director, I feel that my job for post-production has just begun and there is still a lot of potential for the editor to create a convincing final product.

As this is one of the first time and last time I have actually had a chance to take up this directing role, I made a lot of mistakes and at the same time learnt a lot of skills from the invaluable experience. I had been a sensitive introvert all along, seldom willing to impose and assert my opinions and ideas on anyone in the fear of offending people and hence I had been always behind the scene, creating a story and writing the script to the best of my abilities. Writing a script has always been more comfortable for me as logically speaking, the paper or the celtx will never back-stab or gossip about you if you impose too many ideas on them.

From my memory of the years in FSV, I have never tried directing as people around me has always told me that I have no talent or what it takes to be a director in the first place, hence I bashed myself and stuck to roles such as a storyboard artist and a script writer, in fear of offending people. I was very surprised that for this project, I actually have a chance to translate what I wrote on script into something vision for the last time in my life. In reflection to the entire production of “Always There”, I am incredibly thankful to my group mates, Ding Jie, Joel, Serene, Aileen, Peiyi and Michelle for putting faith and confidence in me for letting me give it a shot, something that has never happened in my three years of stay in FSV. I wanted to express in this journal that I appreciated the experience a lot.

The day before the production, due to the work load given by other “shouldn’t be named here” modules, we didn’t have time to do a proper location survey and location setup. When I was about to compromise the art direction and the location design, I suddenly thought of what I have learnt in “Directing for Camera”. Mr Boo has always told me never to compromise anything from the script, but learn to fulfill more than what’s required on screen. Directing for Camera has given me confidence that I can do things that may seem impossible for one person to do it in the first place. For my first MOS project, I actually transport and return equipments, get location permit, gather the talents and the props all by myself, something that I didn’t know I can achieve.

But for this project, I am glad that I have wonderful teammates who are willing to put in the extra mile to get the location set up to something that is appropriate for my vision. Right after the equipment unloading, I arranged a last minute Ikea trip at 7pm and told my art director and assistant director to get what’s appropriate for the set design. My editor, Joel also went along for the trip to lend some muscle power. It was a hell of hard work for the night where we get what we need for Ikea, get what we need from each of our house and transport all of them back to the loft. Our efforts paid off and alas, we get the loft decorated into something that looks like a home rather than a student hostel.

Above gallery records the last minute trip at Ikea, the setting up of props at the loft and the final product achieved. (All pictures are copyrighted to Assistant director, Michelle’s Facebook ©)

On the day of the production itself, I faced a challenge of directing three talents at the same time and I also did talent blocking for camera for the first and last time in my life. I realised that the blocking for camera is something that shouldn’t compromise the acting; blocking is always a time for the director to decide and prioritize the subject of a frame and the amount of action that is gonna be expressed visually within the limits of a frame. Blocking for camera sets film making and theatre directing apart.

Ever-since I have the luxury of showing everything in a frame with the use of wide-shots and master takes, I often made a mistake of taking talent blocking for granted. As a director, I often get carried away with the performance of the talents more than the technical issues such as blocking, line of action and framing. Through working with my efficient and experienced DP, I realised the importance and significance of character blocking and how I should design a blocking in a way that doesn’t make the performance look awkward and at the same time capture all the action within the framing limit given by the DP.

I also discovered that my style of directing is largely different from the other directors in my directing class. After incubating the talents with the back story and information about their characters, I would always straight away call for a rehearsal and let them interpret the performance of their respective characters based on what they know about their characters from the incubation and the script. I will never stop them halfway during their performance and will first let them perform based on their interpretation. After the rehearsal, I will then point out things that I hope to control and manipulate during the actual take. The things that I usually manipulate will be the facial expressions, the way they deliver their lines and also most importantly their line of action. Unlike most directors who instruct and direct, I have the proclivity to give actors their “freedom of speech” to bring out their acting potential to the fullest. I have always believed that their performance would be more innate and self-propelled if I gave them more space and choices to interpret the acting for the particular character.

From my experience on set while taking up roles of grip and gaffer during the two years, I have noticed that most of my directors often over-control and over-limit the potential of what their actors can do. They are often preoccupied in their own vision that they failed to realise that actors do not necessarily empathize or share the same vision that they have. You need to give them some space and freedom to interpret and perform based on their knowledge of the story given.

After all, my style of directing can always be said to be nonsensical and wrong by most people as I have the danger of losing control over the performance given by my actors, especially some who are still amateurs. Throughout the years, lecturers have always reiterated that directing is subjective and there is no right and wrong in it but yet, it’s an irony that my directing style has been criticized the most all the time. In my personal opinion, I strongly disagree to the fact that directing is something that can be marked as wrong or correct. Nevertheless I have always believed in developing my style in my own direction, something that I strongly believe would be the way that works in terms of getting truthful and natural performance. However, I also have to take note of the various ways whereby actors might give a performance that might ruin or jeopardize the overall vision of the film.

The philosophy of performance is not something that can be controlled or calculated like some of kind of mathematical problem or some science theory paper, it should be embraced, appreciated and also developed from within the heart and the soul. A certain amount of respect has to be given to the abilities of your actors and faith has to be placed in their abilities to act with the proper guidance that do not totally control and restrain their form of expression. Look at how Milos Forman place his faith and trust on those non-actors that he use for his films such as the Fireman’s ball. There are about over 50 of non-actors that are on set during the wide shot, do you have time to concentrate on each of their acting abilities and tell them that their performance is over the top or bad? There is more to story-telling or movie making than oppressive directing. Non-actors bring out flawed performance but at the same time, their performance is their innate way of personal expression, something that is valuable to the audience. It is tantamount to the freedom of speech whereby each individual has the rights to express and interpret things in their own way. Yet again, it should be guided by the director to a small extent to make sure that they are moving in the same path as the vision of the film.

I learn a lot from my experience in directing, in terms of guiding my actors and communicating my vision to them. I will always give them respect for their performance and never tell them what’s wrong or what’s correct as I have always believed, if you put in right or wrong in terms of acting, all you achieve is the mere scripted and artificial performance that is prevalent in local films.

In terms of group work in production, I felt that my team mates are very efficient and on the ball, something that sets them apart from the preproduction stage. I have always believed that our preproduction phase has been disrupted by an endless flow of projects and therefore it will seem unorganized and unprepared. Nevertheless during production, everyone has performed to their fullest potential and everyone is focused and enthusiastic about their roles. Even though we are doing last minute work such as the trip to Ikea, we coordinated and worked hard as a group to design and setup the loft in accordance to what we hope to achieve in our collaborative vision. I have always believed that film making is never about what the director wants, it is always a shared and collaborated effort, it is more of what the entire crew wants to achieve.

During the day of the shoot, my assistant camera man, my DP and my assistant director has been very efficient in terms of reminding me about the number of films we have left and keeping track of the shots we have taken. My producer and my art director are always there to help me with the wardrobe and costuming while I communicate with my DP about the framing. My sound engineer is always communicating with the DP in terms of the positioning. My editor is always there to help me keep track and take note of continuity with his DSLR. Everyone on set is actually doing something and although we over-run quite a bit, we managed to make full use of the time given and complete the shoot within a single day. I feel that as a team, we have been very efficient and organized during production, something that is a far cry from how we behave during pre-production.

Things we need to improve on should be the plannings and organization during pre-production, other than that, during production, I feel that everyone has put in their very best to execute the screenplay.

In the pre-production phase, my role is obviously to get a script done and written. As they have always said and reiterated, it is always easier to describe on paper my role than actually doing it. In screenwriting classes, my script is always written with a tag-line but never with an intention to create a message or procure a meaning to strike an impact on the reader. My scripts were written based on stories I want to tell and show, more than a message I want to convey. It’s rather conflicting when I have a sensitive character when I am dealing with friends, and yet when it comes to writing scripts, I adopted a rather oblivious stand point.

Therefore my initial script was written with an ending that double-twists the audience and gives them all the confusion that they deserve for all the chaos they produce in today’s society until Dingjie starts to question me in terms of message, intention and reason. I realised that I am a kind of person that hates to answer with reason, because I am still a young and naive boy with ideas that are wild and illogical. However I tried my best to rationalize my thoughts and slowly squeeze out the last bit of brain juices for four days to conjure a meaning for the story out of thin air. I admit that the meaning and intention of the script was kinda of forced rather than felt and I was particularly guilty for it.

My initial purpose of doing a double twist kind of hallucination story in a tight relationship of 2 brothers and one sister is to create a sense of escape for people who has been already watching films that are already giving them all the emotional impact, the heart-warming cheesy romance or bromance. I simply just want people to have their own revelation by the end of the story, to put puzzle pieces together and interpret the ending on their own.

After much discussion with Ding Jie, I have decided to change it into a heart-warming tale that emphasizes on the reason to live for someone that needs you. I eliminated and took away all notions of confusing and leaving an air of suspense for the audience and converted the ending into something that actually touches people a bit. The story isn’t about twists and turns anymore, I have to guide the story’s arc into something that procures a meaning of sibling love.

After the script was written, before I went on to worry about the screen play, I did a two column script, stating the purpose of each and every scene and their relevance to the theme of the story. Aside from a forced story intention, I realised that the column script ironically helped me to understand my own thoughts and my own “forced” intentions better. I learnt how to justify the reasons and intentions in each of the scene I have created. I realised that there is always an underlying reason behind every scene I create, the only hindrance is to put forth the reason from the back of my mind on paper.

After I have understood and known the story arc I am trying to achieve in accordance to the theme of sibling love, I started to do the usual line script with the beats and also the shot list for Ding Jie. Visualizing what was on paper is a new challenge for me who is new to directing. I had to take into account the amount of coverage I need based on the importance of the details within the scene. I learnt that it is always best to express what you need within a long take than to break them up into cuts. In my opinion, I figured that it is more comfortable for the eye to follow an action within a take, than to let the cut visually guide the eye to follow. I need to know when I should guide the audience along with multiple cuts and when do I need to let them follow the action within a single long take. This is when I realise that screen play and purpose of each and every scene are highly interdependent.

I have to communicate and express the purpose of the shots I have designed in the shot list to Ding Jie who is my DP and my casting director. I referenced OZU’s style and felt that his strong points were the usage of wide-shot and stage theatre kind of establishing shot. I didn’t like his POV pick up shots as it brings audience in forcefully into the emotional tone of his films. I wanted wide-shot coverage to show the overall dynamics between the three siblings. Close-up shots that I have designed are always meant for the beats I have stipulated for the script.

Overall, I felt that the pre-production stage was an opportunity to reflect closely on what I want to achieve and what I want to express. I was disappointed with myself to have done something for the sake of pleasing people. I should have been more assertive and opinionated with what I initially sought out to express and work on it instead of tweaking it into something that has already been done before.

My teammates are very helpful people who is willing to go the extra mile to get things planned during pre-production. Once my shot list is done, the rest of my teammates would help with the shooting schedule and the storyboard and efficiently get them done in a single day.

However , the group was rather unorganized and there was minimal time for communication as everyone was busy with the mad rush of projects and open house consistently. The lack of communication often breeds misunderstanding especially when your teammate is always trying hard to guess what you might want. Hence, I think that our group can improve in terms of communication. We as a group should have been more prepared during pre-production. I felt that it is always very important for everyone in the group to open up and convey your ideas and opinions in front of your group members to ensure that there are no misunderstandings. There shouldn’t be any middle man to relay messages from one person to another, I feel that my team mates should have communicated and confronted the respective person if they have things that they wish to criticize about.

A few paperwork had to be accounted for such as the location check-out release form and the camera report. I made a mistake by not photocopying the two camera reports for the two rolls of films before sending them for digital imaging at Black Magic Design.
I realised that the two camera reports were important to the documenting as it helps the editor to keep track on the important notes in terms of continuity taken for the shots during production.

Other than the accumulation of finalised paperwork, I had to schedule a day whereby my editor and sound man can synchronize an assembly of the clips. I also had to remind my audio engineer to come up with a rough music track sheet for the sound design.
I also ensured that my director actually sat down during the rough cut edit to discuss the cuts with my editor. Supervision at the editing room was important in the event that my editor needs me to contact anyone or book any stations.

My role as a producer during post-production was not as busy as pre-production and production, but yet I had the responsibility to ensure that it is properly done and executed. Collation of post production paperwork is not as significant as the completion and quality of the edit done. Communication between the director and the editor was also crucial to produce a good final cut. My job was to ensure that the things and person they need during post-production are easily reachable and contactable. My scheduling of post-production was also important as it helps to dish out time for the editor to make amendments before locking down the edit for the audio engineer to put in suitably music and sound effects.

Overall, I feel that the group’s synergy is rather strong and we remained calm during times of adversity such as the EXPLOSION OF LIGHTS during the setup day. We worked in a professional manner and we didn’t push the blame for anything that went wrong. I feel that I have picked up quite a few problem solving skills, something that I have neglected for a huge portion of my life.

I helped to call for a Maxi Cab and decided to send the whole load of equipments from Ngee Ann Polytechnic to my aunt’s place in two trips.

As a group, we took the lights we needed, 2 arri 650W and 2 arri 350W and also some gel-filters and the flag up to the fourth floor attic.
We lit up the room we have decorated a few days ago, and asked Clement to stand in as the model. Since the logistics portion have been settled after the equipment transfer, I helped the director of photography in the setting up of lights. As a group we discussed and finalized the basic setup we need for the shoot.

Here’s the initial setup we had for the setup day. A 650W on the right for the key light, a 350W on the left to soften it slightly and also a 650W with a diffuser as a back light. I actually suggested using an orange filter to make the overall colour scheme look orange but after a second thought, I realised that this type of colour tweaking can be done during DI and post-production. Hence I focused on eliminating unnecessary and harsh shadows by putting diffusers and 1/4 flags.

While we were measuring the light temperature with the light meter to make sure we get a balanced F-stop of at least around the 4.0 – 4.5 range throughout, two of the light fuse went out and caused a sudden short circuit for all the six power plugs on that level.
I panicked for a moment as these were the only lights we brought for the setup day and the rest of them are in the mobile cage. I also recalled that we have tested all lights before taking them to the location. It was basically an unlucky event and we initially suspected that we have made a mistake by using the six power plugs that lead back to the same power source on that level.

Beatrice, the director of photography called Mr Lau for consultancy in terms of short circuits and voltage per power source. I learned that it is actually alright to use the same power source for the fourth floor as it should be distributed evenly in smaller voltage for each of the 6 three pin plugs. The short circuit was indeed caused by the overheated fuse for the 2 650W arri lights and this eventually caused the circuit switch to trip, shutting off power from the fourth floor’s power source. We turned on the circuit switch and as it was explained by Mr Lau, we managed to get some of the lights back.

Clement and I cabbed our way down to Ngee Ann Polytechnic mobile cage to return the faulty lights and replace them with the two 1k arri lights and also took the box of Kino-flow in the event that more light fuse will go out during the shoot the next day.

From this incident, I have learned that unexpected accidents might occur out of nowhere and calmness is required of the producer to sustain the morale of the team. I was glad that I didn’t over-react and I managed to solve it calmly by volunteering to get more lights from the mobile cage. Additionally, I realised that we should have brought everything in the mobile cage, regardless of whether we might need them as it was definitely safer to have back-ups in the case of incidents such as light fuse going off, lights overheating. I should not take convenience for granted and learn to for-see unexpected incidents to happen in the future.

The setup day was useful as we locked down the position of the lights for the shoot on the following day. I ordered Pizza yet again for the entire group for their hard work and even asked my aunt’s family if it was okay for my group mates to stay over in the room on the fourth floor.

The shoot started at 7am and everything went smoothly according to the call sheet and shooting schedule stipulated by the assistant director. I bought two cartons of mineral water in case people fall sick on the set. I figured that I should be efficient in making my teammates comfortable by catering to their thirst and hunger. Water and food are the two important things to keep the hungry director  and the rest of the crew members going. The shoot was paced out evenly and yet we have the tendency to under-run. Towards the lunch time period, we have already used up the first roll of film and we have only shot the first portion of the three occurrences.

I was quite worried that we might not enough film to cover the last portions of the three occurrences and hence I asked the Director and the Assistant Director to balance out the shots that they feel it’s more important.

The shoot was carried out at a slow but steady pace since we happen to be over-running and at the same time having insufficient film to cover all our shots. We have to decide carefully and take our time to rehearse before we go for an actual take. I feel that by shooting on Film, it trains us to be more decisive and analytical in terms of priority of shots and also intention of shots. For the rest of the shoot, I helped out to flag the lights to ensure that there is lighting consistency. I took note of the levels of shadow caused by the key light and made sure that the shadow cast was not ridiculously ugly by moving the fill light and back light. 1/4 flag helps to soften the shadows cast by the key light a little but it also reduces the brightness of the light and at the same time limiting the depth of field since we have to open up the aperture. Our A.D helped to measure the incident lights using the light meter while I shift the flags and the diffusers to achieve something slightly harsh but not over the top.

By being the grip and the gaffer and the producer at the same time, I learned to judge the aesthetics of the shoot. The experience that I got by helping out in the lighting decisions were priceless. It was something that I didn’t get to do during the course of the internship. Being a grip and gaffer in the working world, you only take orders by the director and camera man and you shift the lights in accordance to their command. However in a collaborated student project, even as a grip and gaffer, I got the opportunity to control the lights based on my own judgment. This film production has taught me quite a few life skills such as decisiveness, logic, common sense and also rationality, especially in the midst of an unprecedented incident. Shooting on film is different from my preference of shooting on HD. For my projects in directing class, I have the proclivity to take it for granted and plan quite a lot of coverage and safety shots and this results in my dilemma and indecisiveness when it comes to editing. However, while I am shooting on film, as a producer, I realise that I play an important role to remind the director on the importance of his shots and make sure that he does not overshoot or spend too much footage on covering a particular scene. During internship, I was constantly told off for my lack of rationality and common sense due to inexperience. I learnt that as a producer in a student shoot, I cannot afford to be hesitant as it will disorientate the morale and thoughts of the entire team. I had to decide on the most sensible and logical method to solve any obstacles that might drive the shoot off course.

I was glad that everyone put in their best to analyze and balance the importance of the shots. We worked hard and we were satisfied that we have completed the production in a single day. Only major problem we encountered was the addictive nature of my uncle’s signature chicken curry. I preempted my crew not to take too much of the alluring curry as it has the proclivity to cause ulcer growths and sore throats. After the shoot, a couple of them fell ill .

Okay down to the technical terms, the role of the producer is simply, as you all have guessed it, “to produce”. Being one, you have to produce and procure something for the group to work upon and get the things started and going. Pre Production is the stage whereby the engine start and the idea of the film breeds.

This role has been a task of huge responsibility and time management, something which I know that I am unduly poor at during my times in FSV. I have been a slacker, a lazy bum, a last minute person who likes to leave everything undone towards the very last hour during the midnight. I stepped up my game this semester, went out of my comfort zone in order to discipline myself as a producer, before I am capable of managing the group in terms of logistics. Since I am a starter as this (I have been the A.D, Director, Storyboard Artist, Scriptwriter for the past two years), I clearly struggled at times to get the paperwork done.

At the initial phase of pre-production, I had to organize quite a number of meetings. I did that as advised concurrently with my production schedule, it’s like killing two birds in one go. Before the first meeting even start, I did quite some research into a topic of my interest, Dejavu. I came up with a raw concept of the possible reasons that might explain about Dejavu. I explored possibilities such as, what would happen if everything did not happen by chance and there is an entity manipulating the time of events. What happens when Dejavu is just an occurrence and consequence of resetting the particular said day repeatedly by erasing the memories of everyone. Something that the higher entity did not for-see: the brain’s innate retention of the erased memory coupled with human’s repeated action after the reset.

On the day of the first meeting, I proposed this idea to my group mates and my director and to my surprise, they were in favor of it. What goes on in the discussion will then be a short story that will utilize this concept. We had a brainstorming session and thus we came up with the idea of an entity passing down hints to a young adult who is attempting to kill herself. We decided to use the cassette tape player as a motif to progress the bizarre events of the story. During the session, we had lots of other ideas as well but we decided to keep it for the next project. I also considered the width and length of the project, in terms of logistics, location and talent. I was glad that our idea is simple and concise whereby only one location and one talent is needed to bring the message of the film across within 5 minutes. My director, Clement, will then start to visualize the story itself as he writes the script for the script check point.

For subsequent meetings, we made use of the time to find a suitable location for the shoot. We confirmed a location, that was an empty apartment of Clement’s aunt. That’s where I made a mistake, I was so confident about that location that I called off other possibilities for the following week, I even planned my schedule around that location. On the day of the casting, I was told that the apartment has been rented to some strangers, that was where I realised the stupid mistake I made. I apparently did not think of a back-up location for the shoot. This was something that I did not make as a producer for internship. In internship, once the first location is confirmed for the corporate shoot, the agreement is signed almost immediately and there isn’t any change in it. However, this is a student short film with a basic plot line, not a corporate shoot whereby everything such as the location is given.

After the casting, I gathered my group members to finalize the script ideas and also the location. Everyone helped to source for a suitable location. I called up a couple of hotels to ask for sponsors and at some point in time, I even used my parent’s membership card to ask for a location at Marina Bay Sands. During the next few working days, I received negative replies that hotels only allow filming if the contents of filming are used to advertise the particular hotel itself. Since I had been constantly on my feet for the location, other than hotels, I sought help from my relatives and friends, pitching the concept of the film repeatedly through phone calls in mandarin and English (at times they weren’t even impressed by it). I understood the importance of pitching as it can make and break a desperate situation such as the location agreement. I finally found a suitable location at my aunt’s landed property.

I held a location survey at the landed property with my group mates. Everyone was okay with the empty fourth floor, we tested each of the eight 3-pin power supplies. I designated respective jobs to my group mates before the pre production paperwork check point. I helped to do the script coloring, the script breakdown sheets to keep track of what I need for the prop and costuming list. Subsequently, I planned a detailed budget list with the prop list and transport fees in mind. I updated my production schedule with more details such as who have attended and what did we do. Most importantly, I learned my mistake and I decided to use Aik Hwee’s house or my girlfriend’s house as a back up in case my aunt decides to not let us shoot in her apartment. On the day of the paperwork review, I collected the call sheet, the shot list, the lighting plan, the line script and the director notes from my group mates and filed them in accordance to the assignment brief.

During the review, I was told that the budget list was too detailed and some of the heading were weird. I went to calculate the budget in terms of how each group mate has to pay for each item on the list. I admit that I did that for the sake of my own understanding and convenience and hence it looks weird to someone outside my group. Mr Lau laughed and pointed it out. I learned that sometimes I can be too naive in planning a budget list and at times things were not done in a conventional way that abides to the standards of society. Si Pei was kind enough to offer a hand in re-doing the budget list and I learned the way she label the headings and the way she allocate reasonable and realistic amounts to the overall budget.

After the hectic paperwork checkpoint where the entire group has been juggling with other projects and burning the midnight oil over it, we finally had some fresh time to shop for props and decorate the empty location.
We organized a trip down to IKEA to get things that were within the budget, such as Christmas decorations and simple furniture. All of us were the art-directors of our project as we shared our thoughts and opinions freely as we went on a shopping spree. I had to take note of the prices of things realistically and most of the time I had to communicate with my director and DOP to see if the prop plays an important role in the project.

Everything went as planned and everyone put in immense effort in decorating and setting up an empty location. We had to make sure items from IKEA were handled with care so that we can return it within 100 days for monetary refund (IKEA POLICY ROCKS). Everyone in the group was motivated to set up the location as ideally as possible. The motivation ultimately comes from the story itself and how we were dying to produce it properly for the director and the DOP. I encountered problems with my uncle and aunt as they were at times disturbed by the shifting of props to the fourth floor. I had to communicate with them nicely over a nice dinner and assure them that everything is accounted for and we would be careful not to scratch or damage the walls and ceilings of the empty room. I learned that it would be dangerous if at some point of time my own relatives went back on the location agreement that they sign. I wanted to seek assurance and at the same time assure and make my own relatives comfortable with the project.

In a nutshell, I feel that the skills I have acquired from internship are useful to my school projects to a certain extent. In internship, you are answerable to the employer but in a school project, especially when you are the producer, you are the employer who is only answerable to yourself. I learned to make decisions without hesitating or escaping (I used to escape from my fears by staying inside my comfort zone, being afraid to bear responsibilities). I was glad that I am even attempting to break that social barrier by tapping the communication skills I have learned during internship. I learned that although I am an introvert, I am also potentially capable of pitching ideas even though my speech is at times hampered by poor pronunciation and stuttering. I hope to be more confident for my next project in whichever role I assume.

I need to improve on my paperwork and my budget list planning and think in terms of practicality when it comes to logistics. In other words, I need to kick off my creative juices and learn to be down to Earth and practical when it comes to paperwork. I learned that I can be quite irresponsible at certain points in time as I was busy with other projects, however that is not an excuse and I have to learn how to plan my time well and be responsible for the job I am undertaking. In producing, I was glad to have undertook that role for corporate shoots during the internship and I always referred back to the industry standard of paperwork when it comes to school projects.

Overall, I feel that our team’s synergy is brilliant as all of us are purely motivated by our passion to produce and shoot this story. We helped each other out in times of need, went out of our comfort zones to take up more tasks unknowingly. Everyone showed up during the trip to IKEA and everyone stayed up late at my aunt’s place to set up the location. We know when to have fun and when to work hard, or simply put it, we had fun while we worked hard as art directors. The nights with pizza dinners were indeed rewarding after our hard work for the set up days.

On the dark side, our group needs to improve on our time management. We need to set aside more time from our school days for meetings. I admit that I did not want to put pressure on my group mates as all of them are my friends and therefore I only planned minimum but efficient meetings. I learned that I should not be doing that and at times I need to balance friendships with work. I need to realize that as a producer, I should be constantly pushing and keeping my group mates updated. It is the reason why they often call the producer in the media industry, “the pressurizing, stress imposing devil”. As a group, we need to meet up more often to get things done on a daily basis rather than cluster them in consecutive days during the week before the shoot.

For instance, social butterflies enjoy the company of others and have this habit of seeking interaction. The need of being self conscious actually drives them to establish the kind of friendly appearance and image that will leave a good impression on people they make. Being ostracized is never their policy as it actually plagues their pride and qualities in life. Morals in an individual usually manifest from their behaviours, appearance and social persona and this is actually the factor that essentially drives them to become sensitive to the opinions of the world. Think about this, do you bask in social influence and let the world drive you? Or, do you actually have sufficient control over the values imposed by others. It’s rather controversial on the fact that it’s either the world revolves around you or is it the other way round.

On the other hand, people who deviate from social acceptance and their subjective definition of norms are usually isolated and avoided. The pretext of this unfortunate phenomena is the way others focus on their social status, rather than your existence. It’s not about you affecting them, they just didn’t want you to affect the image they are trying to portray. If you put it optimistically, they care more about their status than your existence. If you want to kick up a fuss about social acceptance, they have already done that from the very beginning. By acknowledging you as a person who can affect their social avatar, they have accepted your reason of living. Deviants aren’t there to contemplate and question their concrete vindication of living, because by doing so, they have already created an introverted and reticent personality that justifies their cognition of living. Their characteristics define them and make them unique individuals that have this sheer strength of imprinting influential thoughts on others; those thoughts don’t necessarily have to be good. Basically, if you manage to leave an impression of yourself on others, you have earned yourself a right to live, that is your existence and people acknowledge it. Their sheer mental and physical response is sufficient to justify your worth of living on a surface level.

During your existence, to actually build up a positive image, you tend to invest a lot of thoughts into ways to make others satisfied and comfortable. You are like a provider, trying to make your consumers contented with your products. In that process, you actually excise and neglect your happiness for euphoric experiences you get by trying to gratify everyone. Ostensibly, you try to make yourself happy by making others happy, but you fail to make yourself happy for the pure sake of yourself. That’s how true self happiness is gradually decimating as the population grows, we tend to pursue happiness from the involvement of others rather than individually. To foster and upkeep a relationship, we become too dependent on others for jubilation. If we take away something or someone that we have a propensity to be contingent on, our emotional aspects will suffer a major dissonance that might resonate for years, thus influencing our personalities. It’s like a parasite and a host, we are essentially freeloading others for happiness while they are doing the same thing since a parasite and host are interdependent. By extirpating one from another, the latter will suffer a malignant fate. If we actually learn to personalize our exultancy before we try to leech on others for more, we might actually feel independent and self sufficent.

Anyway, I was having conversations with a few cliques of friends who are of the pisces horoscope. I can easily discern a parallel trait that most of them share. They tend to attribute the blame to either an object or some environmental deficiency that is out of their control. If there isn’t, they will just shove the responsibility to another person. The victim who is affected will inevitably notice when and how they are actually manipulating the conversation to actually suit their flow and style, and they will never put themselves into embarrassing situation, even if they inadvertently did, they are able to weave something good to actually veil their flaws. This kind of subtlety works when people are already drawn into their never ending conversations , especially when they are the ones who have this loquacious tendency of going in circles. Confabulating with them on a certain controversial topic, they will have the tendency to interrogate you wholly by imposing questions that are clearly subjective. No matter how hard you would have tried to elucidate things objectively or in concrete manners, they will pounce on every single sound you utter and actually turn the tables back at you even if they are in the wrong. They are able to deal with their fallacy flawlessly by denying and supplementing statements would have a high probability of leading to another digressive subject if you tried to intervene.

For example, if you explicitly state that they are denying, they will hound on you for more concrete reasons. Be mindful that the reasons that you give them can not make any citations or references from what they have said earlier on, owing to the fact that this will predispose them to actually repudiate those quoted quotes. I am not trying to be superstitious, but most of them fortuitously use this phrase before each time I confront them, “When did I say that?”. Subsequently after using that phrase, they will proceed to restructure what they have said earlier on to actually suit the flow of their subjective mentality. They will never ever give up by respecting the true definition of subjectivity and objectivity, they will delve deeper and even try to deny that their idiosyncratic beliefs are pragmatic.

I have always believed that they deliberately do that to actually embarrass myself in the public, or to fervently prove my theories and comments wrong but this appears to be my shallow beliefs. They are in fact people who doesn’t remember things that easily and needs a certain shelter to actually release themselves from the intense emotional pressure they are going through in certain conversations. Their hyped up temperament can be the ramification of their confused and contradictory characteristics. To actually lower their anxiety and prevent themselves from out bursting, they actually weave ‘gospels’ which inadvertently mutated a simple exchange into that of a heated debate. This is also precisely why you can never shoot the breeze with them, they will actually lure birds for you to snipe after the breeze has gone by.

Those are my personal views on friends who are Pisces and after I flipped the “Dark Zodiac” book on the chapter of Pisces, I realised how consistent they are to my shallow thoughts. This quoted paragraph is from the chapter about the negative traits of Pisces written in second person (pretend as though you are Pisces)

“Anyone who has to deal with you should always carry a tape recorder. For anything mutually agreed two minutes ago you will deny utterly two minutes later ( although you will then deny that it’s your voice on the tape). Your instantaneous mood changes make Cancer look like an emotional MT. Rushmore. You set out on a sentence (e.g. pass the salt, please) full of optimism, and jollity; by the time you get to the end, you are one with Eeyore and everybody else has lost the will to live” (Stella Hyde, 2004, Pg. 364, Darkside Zodiac)

To be honest, after each round of strenous debate with them, especially after they have added animals to make your casual sniping of the breeze more tedious, I will feel as though my brain has been taken out alive, squeezed dry and placed right back again in one emaciated piece. Needless to say, even after I feel exhausted, they will continue to deny what I have written in this article, how whimsical can they be?

We conferred thoroughly and came across something that was rather controversial. It was ostensibly the difference between a professional gamer and a game designer and which one would we prefer to be. My cousin abruptly mentioned about the economy and the matter of money, but that did not really thin down the number of deviations to something that is imperative. By negating the financial aspects of both jobs, we eventually narrowed down to that of passion and hard work.

By inventing conventional contexts for both jobs, essentially we find that designing a game pertains to our interest more and went indepth to actually justify it. I think I might need to explain a little about the life of each.

For a professional gamer, you get sponsored by companies or in other cases get hired to represent the specific employer in worldwide game tournaments. You will start out as a mediocre gamer who will be thrown into a competitive community. Subsequently, it is prudent that you remain consistent in terms of your skills or talents to actually fuel your climb up the ladder of ranks. Getting into the top 10 of the community list, will render you the eligibility to go for national tournaments. The E-Sports community is actually growing in Singapore and your performance in those competitions is of momentous. You need to capture the attention and interest of companies or investors that are more than willing or confident to employ you as a professional.

That’s not the sigh of relief you hope to get, it is just the dawn of your career. Similar to any Sports Career, you have to spend at least 10 to 15 hours daily to hone your skills, train up your prowess in your particular field of game. Every second is vital as every competitor is improving daily and you have to profusely keep yourself updated. Your job is to make sure that you are always at the upper tier and ‘falling’ will never be imprinted in your dictionary.

On the other hand, for game designers, you either start from a normal programmer or a graphic designer. You will be tasked with simple jobs such as programming the interface of a particular game, or designing the visual effects such as the weather. Employers will promote you based on your skills and talent. It will be a journery paradoxically parallel to that of a professional gamer to actually reach the threshold of being able to publish your own games. It is essentially the rise to become the director of the company.

We came across certain issues such as passion, skill, talents and hardwork. Passion actually fuels our hardwork and prompts us to pursue a certain direction. Professional gamer is a feasible job if you are actually passionate about it.

Being passionate isn’t just having mere interest in that field. As the saying goes “if you have interest in something, it is not necessarily that you have passion in it”. Unceasing hardwork and effort in a particular field, even it’s after ten thousand failures will prove the amount of passion you have. We often ask people “how confident are you in beating the other competitors? don’t you have doubts in your skills?”

Most people reply as “I am not very sure, I will give it a try”

We come to a conclusion that the reply reeks of the weak stench and we can justify that they are lacking passion. Weak skills, slow progress is definitely not the problem to that particular question, it is actually your mentality and your love for what you are achieving. Once you have the unwavering passion, you can conquer difficulties by sheer hard work, you will never give up honing your skills not matter how many adversaries stand infront of you.

The correct answer should be. “I will give it my all to be the top”

Passion should be held as priority in your state of mind, giving you the subtle barrier against demoralising strikes from opponents and competitors. To actually survive in this tough situation, your confidence level and pride have to be fortified with the strength of titanium.

There’s also a distinctive contrast between talent and skills and people have the tendency to actually perplex these two sensitive concepts.

Talents cannot be judged as sharing some parallelism with skills just because people subjectively don’t wish to term it as a controversial topic.
To actually define talent, it is the ability to accomplish something without putting in much effort, it’s more of an innate strength that is manifested like you are breathing. For instance ,have you ever heard of people who draw as if they are inhaling oxygen, never fail to stop drawing for every second. It’s not of passion, it’s just so natural that they can do it without putting forth much thought. Hard work when you have talent is superfluous but laziness can actually render your talent inapplicable in this fast paced context of degrees and diploma priority. This can be an exception to the professional gamer context as you do no need any conventional and official qualifications to actually determine your fortification.

Skill and talent are not parallel, this distinctive difference can be spotted but yet it remains subtle for people who are so caught up with the variations in life that they inadvertently neglected it. Their ignorance of this sensitive subject actually gives them the excuse to lump these two into one big quality. When someone is good at something, it is not necessarily talent, you need to analyze and know him at your finger tips. The most probable way is to task him something totally foreign and see his capacity to actually solve it. Observe closely like you are to a caged creature and see his growth and progression in the particular task. He might be merely honing skills to provide some resolution to the situation. Innate talented individuals might not be good in their skills but they are able to grasp the upper hand of a certain task at the fastest speed as possible. They are able to analyze without the help of skills the situation and provide a most feasible way to complete it. Their lack of skill actually hinders their progression as they are not adept to actually manifest and carry out what their talents normally oblige them to.

I am sure those are some idiosyncratic theories about these three qualities, I am truly guilty to say that I tend to touch upon these immature topics when I am obliged to squeeze something out in the hectic weeks of projects such as the poster and the podcasts.

Man:”Hi, good day sir, are your parents at home?”

Me:”No, they are at work”

Man:”Ah, it’s okay. Do you mind if I take up some of your time to…”

At this point, I arbitrarily nodded, probably feeling that conversing in discretion will be the most conventional way. I should have said NO!, Saintsora’s life is in mortal peril if those Shattered Sun Offensive Guards move away; an Undead Mage had a conspicuous bounty on my head after I have killed and corpse camped him like a Narcissist for 30 minutes.
On a side note, this obliteration of hordes was started by a fellow alliance mate who was dying of boredom. Well, narcissism feeds our euphoria and furthermore, I have my share of prejudice against certain races of horde.

Man:”How well do you know about life and the future it has, with human technological advances…”

He’s a priest and he’s here to preach about Christianity and how it saves us from mortal perils, pain, tribulations, sufferings, hardship, adversaries and distress. Those are caused directly and indirectly by humans and their own technological advances, I regurgitated, having a moderate knowledge of Christianity from reading internet diaries.

Man:”Imagine if you are free from those physical and mental predicament and misery, do you think it’s possible?”

Me(monotonously):”Yes, it’s possible if you put your faith in God”

Man:”How do you define your faith in God?”

Me(monotonously):”Like any other existing being, you have to be able to feel him and his existence, treat him like he’s an acquaintance or friend, who is always there to aid you in times of need. To put faith in him, you have to believe and respect his feelings, his thoughts and his actions, understand his benevolence in his actions.”

Me(Thoughts):”SHIT!, THERE’S A GOD DAMN BOUNTY ON SAINTSORA, THEY ARE HUNTING ME AS THOUGH I AM SOME MALICIOUS CRIMINAL! I can’t let those mongrels dirty my shining armour!”

Man:”Here, I would like you to read for me this line and comprehend” as he took out the bible.

Man:”By the way, what’s your name?”

Me:”….John” (I always screw up and use that. Should have been more innovative, prepare aesthetic names or maybe use my classmates’ names as surrogates.)

The conversation lasted for 30 minutes with him giving examples using my ‘name’ in various context and predicament, asking me to picture how I would be saved if I believe that God is always there protecting. Ironically, Saintsora’s pride is in imminent danger of being slaughtered and that’s my existing plight!
It ended when my father came home from the coffee shop, disrupting the conversation.
I limped back to my MacBook , to be greeted by the corpse of Saintsora after taking profuse damage from a certain Undead Mage.

No offence to Christians and other anchorites, but to put it subjectively, I prefer to be suffering, without pain, there’s no accomplishment, when there’s no misery, there’s no euphoria. The balance is there for a purpose, by disrupting the equilibrium, you are trying to create a utopia. The various predicament we are in, as humans, we face them as challenges that will enrich us and fortify us for future ordeals. Attaining perfection instanteously breeds monotony and monotony indirectly propagates insipidity, I mean, where’s the pleasure in that? It’s analogous to gaming in the World Of Warcraft. It’s not the loots that matter, it’s the content, the raids, the boss encounters and the unique strategical resolution behind each encounter waiting to be executed with precision and efficiency by 25 online players. Even if you have all the best gears and weapons, you will grow restless of the game without consistent content. Euphoria doesn’t come from materialism, it comes from spiritualism, self enrichment and the process of achieving your goals.
People tend to underestimate spontaneous convalescence.It has the capacity to resolve the dissonance and conflict within ourselves. Ultimately, we caused most of our discomfort and distress, shouldn’t there be some uphold of responsibility?
There’s a cliched quote “The only one capable of lifting your soul, is no one but yourself”.

Speaking of which, fortuitously in World of Warcraft, there’s A’dal and its revelations to the refugees taking refuge in Shattrah City. The concept of religion is similar just that there’s a minor difference in context. The imminent plight of Azeroth and Outland is the arrival of Fallen Titan, Sargeras and the Burning Legion.

Behold the great A’dal, the Naaru that is with-holding and protecting Shattrah from the repressing forces of the Burning Legion. Its light coruscating the city walls, signifying hope, its comforting voice encompasses the entire city, reaching out to each and every follower of the light, such alluring and assurance of peace and harmony.

There’s a preaching session going on in A’dal’s residence by Grand Anchorite Almonen in Shattrah City. Some lore background, A’dal was an entity bestowed to the Draenai Race before the arrival of the Burning Legion. Kil’jaden, Archimonde and Velen were proud leaders of the Draenai back then, upholding the prevailing peace and harmony. Unfortunately, Archimonde and Kil’jaden were drawn towards the great power promised by the rhetorical voice of Sargeras. Sargeras proposed a capacity to create Utopia. Their lust for power drew them towards the legion, manifesting them in demonic powers, betraying the trust of the entire Draenai race. Velen watched in horror as his honorable brothers shed their skins and undergo diabolical mutations. Just when faith was gradually seeping away, Velen and loyal followers remained true to their existance. A’dal was one of the entity by the origin “naaru”, that saved them from their seemingly inevitable death.

Omitting other details of the lore (If you are interested in the lore, go Google “World of Warcraft: Rise of the Horde”, it’s a must read novel), here’s the sermon that Saintsora chanced upon, while flying around the residences of Shattrah City in his Viridian netherdrake. Look at the frightening influence and persuasiveness in the words used, tantamount to the rhetorical words used by Sargeras in the novel.

Grand Anchorite Almonen says: Friends, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the temple today.
A’dal has been most generous in his revelations to me, a humble servant of the Light.
In accordance with my divine calling, I must share these revealed truths to all who would hear.

It has been made known to me that inside each of us, the Light resides…
…that it is a gift, given freely to all naturally born beings.
It manifests itself as a feeling, small at first and easily ignored, that confirms truths and subtly prods one to do good.
Simple kindnesses, charitable deeds, service to those in need. These are all fruits of the Light.

It rewards those who heed its promptings with blessings, both seen and unseen.
Personal Reservoirs of hope and faith are strengthened, and one’s capacity for greater light increases.
Sadly, there are those who wander through mortality in defiance of the Light.
From these the Light withdraws, until only darkness remains.
Where there is no light, despair, loathing and rage thrive.

We are born into a perilous age, where the forces of darkness are determined to bring about our destruction.
These are the times to find yourselves in unison with the Light.
Hear my words, and let the Light inside of you confirm the truth of them.

Embrace the light that is in you, my friends! Deny yourself all darkness….
We must endure these trying times faithfully, and one day we will find ourselves victorious.
By the naaru, may it be so.

Such correspondence to the conversation given by the priest in the morning! Substitute the “Light” in the given sermon with the word “God” and notice the compelling tone. Is it really true that those who are ignorant to the “Light” are being termed as the “darkness” without measuring the capacity for them to do good? Are benevolence and kindness truly co-related with the belief of the “Light”. [From here onwards, the analogy of "Light" is NOT "God", it's a metaphor to something else easily open to interpretations] No doubt, people vilify me and condemn me as an abomination, to put it blantantly, they term me as the “darkness” when I did not embrace the prevalent “Light” in their eyes, unintentionally or intentionally. Light is relative and subjective to people who hold veritable beliefs in it. This strength and vehemence might cloud them to consider things in an objective manner. Again, there’s no right or wrong in this world, but believing makes it so. I should say no further, I believe that quote by Shakespeare has been fortified thoroughly.
On the contrary, I too, hold some belief for the existence of God. I believe that he’s there to provide aid and watch over us. But, we are ultimately responsible for our sufferings and therefore reliance should never be abused. Believe in our capabilities and resolve things internally with the most faith in no one but ourselves.

To be honest, I think this post is equivalent to the preachings and sermons given by the Christian and by Grand Anchorite Almonen in World of Warcraft. This IS SUBJECTIVE and so read at your own discretion please. These are my personal opinions, there’s no persuasiveness stealth-ing(World of Warcraft Rogue Context) in between those lines!