This is part two of my October recount.
I had two interesting encounters that were related to films. Firstly, and I still can't believe this, I had gone to Hollywood Film Institute's 2 Day Film School! Looool. It is really amazing to think that Guy Ritchie, Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee and Christopher Nolan had gone to the same class... and from there started their careers! In short, the 2 Day Film School (by Dov Simens) condensed the nitty gritty of making a film of 4 year film school education to 2 days! After the course, I did feel like I can putting on a parachute, having a free fall and releasing open my parachute (in a literal sense)... until I came back to reality and realised I still need to finish my school properly first -.- Nevertheless, the course motivates me more than ever to make a film. I feel fortunate of being able to attend the class (and at such an early age! Majority of the class participants were working adults, and only 2 other people are of my age). I am motivated to write a proper script during the upcoming December holiday. I don't know why after the class I felt tears in my eyes. Maybe I just didn't want to the class to end? Maybe I just felt so inspired by Dov? When I thanked him after the class and told him I hoped to do filmmaking in the future, he said that I would be able to make it as long as the script is right. It still gives me chills to think of those words of his.
The second film-related encounter is more weird (and, I realised later, profound). Helping out in organising my school's film fest reunited me with Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF) Festival Director. I never thought that this would eventually led to me having a more thought-provoking and in-depth conversations with him. Yes, he did ask me some critical questions during Film Festival, but not as critically as this time around. It all started with him recommending this film titled "The Art of Flirting" by Kan Lume as the Gala Night movie. I watched it, and thought that it would not really be appropriate for the opening night, though I liked the movie. The problem was, the movie was driven by dialogues, and it took a mighty amount of patience to see such types of movies (eg. Before Sunset). Most people are more visually stimulated than audially stimulated when watching films, as such I felt this movie may not provide enough hook as an opening night. I told him that the movie somewhat reminded me of the opening film of SIFF opening film, Princess of Nebraska, which was an unconventional choice. That same evening, he smsed me, saying on the line, "So the question is, should we have opened SIFF with princess?" That was the first time I was placed in a really awkward position of having to be honest but respectful at the same time. I had a lot of respect for him and his works, and was really afraid what I would say would offend him. But I decided I should just be honest (with "No offence intended" line added on the 5 sms reply, which took me half an hour to figure). Waiting for his reply was quite daunting. The reply came next morning, with a new question,
"So if Princess was that inaccessible, why did Golden Village ask him to come back and do restropective on him?"
I replied, "Princess may be a more experimental work of his. I have not seen the rest of his films so I cannot say much. But probably his other works are more accessible to the mainstream compared to Princess."
Another day wait, then comes the first cryptic message. It goes "'i've never seen a child who didn't want to build something out of blocks, or learn something new... And the only reason why adults aren't like that is... they've been sent to school n other oppressive instituions which have driven that out of them.' the lsson is that the arts need to be innocence. In your case u perhaps need to rediscover the "baby" in you." I didn't reply.
The next day comes the second cryptic, and last, message of this story. It goes "we social scientists would do well to hold back our eagerness to control that world which we so imperfectly understand. The fact of our imperfect understanding should not be allowed to feed out anxiety and so increase the need to control. Rather our studies could be inspired by a more ancient motive: a curiosity about the world of which we are part. The rewards of such work are not power but beauty." by Gregory Bateson.
What I derive from the last two messages was that sometimes it does take more effort to appreciate art. Or less effort, depending of how you see it. Now I kind of realised that having no expectations when watching films ('innocent mind') allows you to taking a stride as you watch a movie. So far I have tried this method once and it works. Somehow when I read the first quote, the first thing I thought of is the Michelangelo Antonioni's restropective, whose films I found hard to comprehend. I do think that one has to expose more to films of the same genre and era to be able to understand those films completely. I am willing to give Antonioni's movies another try a few years down the road. Yes the first time I saw it I had the conformed idea of how movies should work (mainly from school's teaching of story writing and current movies). I have to have a clean slate of mind when I watch those movies again in the future. The second quote reminds me of how scary the world is getting with humans trying to make everything they and the nature does perfect. It is this drive of making everything perfect that creates new problems, and kills our appreciation for flaws. I strongly believe that these flaws are the things that make us human, and these flaws are reminders of the good things that exist among us. Without these flaws, everything will be good, and then it will get tough to appreciate something. There are some films that one may perceived as flawed, but then again another person may perceive these flaws as beauty. With regards to film, I relate this quote as being as much as possible open minded towards films that are from different genres and eras.
The episode somewhat increases my respect for the Festival Director. I am thankful for him putting me in such a thought-provoking position (I think it was a more thought-provoking position than any of Margaret Chan's Creative Thinking class lol). Yes, the first time I got the messages I was kinda freaked out. But now thinking back, I see those messages of his way of advicing me on how to curate SMU film fest, and beyond that, how to perceive films of unfamiliar grounds.
I had two interesting encounters that were related to films. Firstly, and I still can't believe this, I had gone to Hollywood Film Institute's 2 Day Film School! Looool. It is really amazing to think that Guy Ritchie, Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee and Christopher Nolan had gone to the same class... and from there started their careers! In short, the 2 Day Film School (by Dov Simens) condensed the nitty gritty of making a film of 4 year film school education to 2 days! After the course, I did feel like I can putting on a parachute, having a free fall and releasing open my parachute (in a literal sense)... until I came back to reality and realised I still need to finish my school properly first -.- Nevertheless, the course motivates me more than ever to make a film. I feel fortunate of being able to attend the class (and at such an early age! Majority of the class participants were working adults, and only 2 other people are of my age). I am motivated to write a proper script during the upcoming December holiday. I don't know why after the class I felt tears in my eyes. Maybe I just didn't want to the class to end? Maybe I just felt so inspired by Dov? When I thanked him after the class and told him I hoped to do filmmaking in the future, he said that I would be able to make it as long as the script is right. It still gives me chills to think of those words of his.
The second film-related encounter is more weird (and, I realised later, profound). Helping out in organising my school's film fest reunited me with Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF) Festival Director. I never thought that this would eventually led to me having a more thought-provoking and in-depth conversations with him. Yes, he did ask me some critical questions during Film Festival, but not as critically as this time around. It all started with him recommending this film titled "The Art of Flirting" by Kan Lume as the Gala Night movie. I watched it, and thought that it would not really be appropriate for the opening night, though I liked the movie. The problem was, the movie was driven by dialogues, and it took a mighty amount of patience to see such types of movies (eg. Before Sunset). Most people are more visually stimulated than audially stimulated when watching films, as such I felt this movie may not provide enough hook as an opening night. I told him that the movie somewhat reminded me of the opening film of SIFF opening film, Princess of Nebraska, which was an unconventional choice. That same evening, he smsed me, saying on the line, "So the question is, should we have opened SIFF with princess?" That was the first time I was placed in a really awkward position of having to be honest but respectful at the same time. I had a lot of respect for him and his works, and was really afraid what I would say would offend him. But I decided I should just be honest (with "No offence intended" line added on the 5 sms reply, which took me half an hour to figure). Waiting for his reply was quite daunting. The reply came next morning, with a new question,
"So if Princess was that inaccessible, why did Golden Village ask him to come back and do restropective on him?"
I replied, "Princess may be a more experimental work of his. I have not seen the rest of his films so I cannot say much. But probably his other works are more accessible to the mainstream compared to Princess."
Another day wait, then comes the first cryptic message. It goes "'i've never seen a child who didn't want to build something out of blocks, or learn something new... And the only reason why adults aren't like that is... they've been sent to school n other oppressive instituions which have driven that out of them.' the lsson is that the arts need to be innocence. In your case u perhaps need to rediscover the "baby" in you." I didn't reply.
The next day comes the second cryptic, and last, message of this story. It goes "we social scientists would do well to hold back our eagerness to control that world which we so imperfectly understand. The fact of our imperfect understanding should not be allowed to feed out anxiety and so increase the need to control. Rather our studies could be inspired by a more ancient motive: a curiosity about the world of which we are part. The rewards of such work are not power but beauty." by Gregory Bateson.
What I derive from the last two messages was that sometimes it does take more effort to appreciate art. Or less effort, depending of how you see it. Now I kind of realised that having no expectations when watching films ('innocent mind') allows you to taking a stride as you watch a movie. So far I have tried this method once and it works. Somehow when I read the first quote, the first thing I thought of is the Michelangelo Antonioni's restropective, whose films I found hard to comprehend. I do think that one has to expose more to films of the same genre and era to be able to understand those films completely. I am willing to give Antonioni's movies another try a few years down the road. Yes the first time I saw it I had the conformed idea of how movies should work (mainly from school's teaching of story writing and current movies). I have to have a clean slate of mind when I watch those movies again in the future. The second quote reminds me of how scary the world is getting with humans trying to make everything they and the nature does perfect. It is this drive of making everything perfect that creates new problems, and kills our appreciation for flaws. I strongly believe that these flaws are the things that make us human, and these flaws are reminders of the good things that exist among us. Without these flaws, everything will be good, and then it will get tough to appreciate something. There are some films that one may perceived as flawed, but then again another person may perceive these flaws as beauty. With regards to film, I relate this quote as being as much as possible open minded towards films that are from different genres and eras.
The episode somewhat increases my respect for the Festival Director. I am thankful for him putting me in such a thought-provoking position (I think it was a more thought-provoking position than any of Margaret Chan's Creative Thinking class lol). Yes, the first time I got the messages I was kinda freaked out. But now thinking back, I see those messages of his way of advicing me on how to curate SMU film fest, and beyond that, how to perceive films of unfamiliar grounds.
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