Archive for March, 2006
Wed, 29 March 2006 10:54 am
Opening shoot for Chinese drama tomorrow, TWELVE SCENES, all of them full of dialogue, even monologues. I think they’re trying to kill me OMGWTFBBQSAUCE.
Shoot also on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
Hadn’t had time to prepare much, what with my data entry job and other commerical jobs and trying to go to the gym every day (but not succeeding very well due to lack of time). I’ve been carrying around my gym bag with the same set of gym clothes (fresh ones lah) in it, for a week now.
That explains why I’ve been so quiet here.
Forgive me. Now I need to return to my script.
* * * * * * *
Addendum: Wah lau they’re bringing forward three of my scenes from Sunday to tomorrow so I have to do FIFTEEN SCENES TOMORROW. WTFCRAZYLAH. I is not robot! Where got lidat one!! Liewz! O_o
Categories: Acting Journal
12 Comments »
Thu, 23 March 2006 12:30 pm
Mon, 13 March 2006 11:34 pm
I just got myself a part-time data entry job so I can pay for singing lessons. (Suits me better than waiting tables.)
Two years from now, perhaps, I can watch American Idol and not feel sad.
My new job is super flexible. I can work any time, any day and I get paid an hourly rate. The pay is nothing to write home about, but I can make enough to pay for my lessons every month. And it is flexible enough to allow me to go off for shoots and auditions whenever I need to.
I might even have enough after a few months of working to replace my lost camera so my blog can stop looking like a boring law textbook.
Which means I now no longer have the luxury of sitting at home all day doing inconsequential stuff at my computer. Such as blogging.
Then again, I think blogging has less to do with the availability of time than it has to do with inspiration.
Sometimes I just don’t feel like writing. Sometimes I want to but nothing comes out. Sometimes everything comes out as gibberish asking for a tight slap.
When that happens, a new blog entry doesn’t.
Then you, who are reading my blog, will get upset, as blog readers are wont to do when they visit a blog and don’t see a new entry.
But I think my new job will make many people happy.
- My dad. He’s always saying that sitting at home all day doing inconsequential stuff at the computer is boring so it’s good to go out and do stuff, no matter work or play. I don’t agree because I think being at the computer 24/7 doing inconsequential stuff is fun. Well, it’s just one of those differences. But my dad puts up with me being a poor duck who sits on her ass all day, without a single complaint, so he’s a great dad regardless!
- People who envy my decadent, no-Monday-blues life. They don’t have to envy me any more because I am now part of The Big Grind. (But these people don’t realise that I pay a high price for my workless lifestyle. It’s nothing like decadence. No work = no money, no shopping, no indulgences, and feeling embarrased when you see people wearing cool, fashionable clothes while you’re wearing some old thing you bought 10 years ago.)
- The Goonfather. Because our offices are like 150 metres apart and we can go to work together and have lunch together.
- My employer. Because he benefits from having another pair of hands complete all the work.
- Myself, of course. Because I can attend singing classes, dance classes, acting classes, martial arts classes, Japanese classes OMG classes! Then again, if I spend all my days attending classes, I won’t have time left to make the money with which to pay for them.
Hmm.
To be honest, I really hate working life. That’s why I quit my cushy journalism career to pursue an acting career. This data entry job pays me about half of what my journalist job used to pay (based on an hourly comparison) but it feels more fulfilling because I’m doing it for a worthy cause (to support my acting career). Therefore I am excited and happy about it.
I love money. But I love peace of mind and soul more.
Categories: Random Musings
22 Comments »
Thu, 9 March 2006 6:50 pm
Thank you all for your well wishes and encouragement.
It’s always good to know that I don’t have any enemies who laugh at my misfortunes. Or maybe I do, just that they’re not vocal enough to notify me of their hatred towards me.
Well, contrary to popular opinion, actually, I’m not really depressed. I’m mostly just feeling numb. Abstract ideas floating around in my head, here then gone, intermittently distracting me from reality.
But not distracting enough to stop me from enjoying a chocolate bar.
I am getting a sugar-overdose fix now. Can of Pepsi Twist and bar of Cadbury Twirl.
Life is good when you’re caught up in a moment of pure hedonism.
I need more chocolate, though.
Just got home from two auditions and going through denial (again).
Noooooo….! I didn’t do that at the audition. That wasn’t me. OMG Noooooo… delete DELETE!!!
Have I ever mentioned that auditions are evil?
I bet I have.
Some auditions are fun. I like the acting part, the part where we have to act out a scene. What I hate are the profile shoots and the self-intros.
Profile shoot:
Look into the camera. Smile. Good. Now, turn right. Okay. And now left. Good. Turn back to the camera and give a big smile. That’s it. Great!
This makes me feel like a criminal or a camera-shy geek. I do not feel glamorous or sexy or pretty or charming or anything positive during this exercise.
Self-intro:
Hi! My name is Qiaoyun and I’m an actress. You may have seen me on TV recently… blah blah.
Now, I really, really, REALLY hate this. If I’m not wrong, the purpose of self-intros (talking into the camera) is to show the client how well-spoken you are and how you carry yourself and, probably, how natural and photogenic you are on screen.
Still. I hate it.
I feel stupid talking about myself. Who really wants to hear me talk about my life, my experience, my hobbies, my skills or whatever else there is to talk about?
If I can’t sell tickets to a performance entitled “Shen Qiaoyun — The Self-Intro”, then I can safely assume that the client is not going to be entertained by my little speech. That makes me feel apologetic when I’m doing the self-intro, which in turn totally dissolves any charisma I might have.
I would be a very very happy person if I never have to do mug shots and self intros again, and still get acting/modelling job offers. I think only superstars enjoy that privilege. Superstars are exempt from such indignities.
So I guess I’ll have to work on becoming a superstar.
I need help.
Two posts are now open for application.
1. Big shot who can make me a superstar (1 vacancy)
2. Adoring fan (limitless vacancies)
Please apply here. Kthxbye.
Categories: Acting Journal
11 Comments »
Wed, 8 March 2006 1:24 pm
Actually, I really love this new layout.
I must thank the creator of this blog skin for his great work. It soothes me and makes me dream of all things pure and beautiful. It turns me into a narcissist, visiting my own blog 20 times a day.
The downside is that it also makes me quite melancholic. But that’s probably due to the rainy background on the header, which was my own doing.
But it could also be said that this creation was a result of my already melancholic mood. My moods feed on each other.
My favourite colours have always been white and blue and I feel happy when I see white and blue things.
This melancholy and happiness confuse me. I am both at once.
I feel happy for the things I have now, for the small blessings I’m given on a daily basis.
But I feel trapped.
I have fallen into an abandoned manhole and the world passes by above me. I look up and I see the sun replaced by the moon, replaced by the sun, replaced by the moon, in the endless, unrelenting cycle of time.
I can’t climb out without help. But nobody sees me.
I can’t cry out because my voice was lost in the fall.
I try everything I can. Nothing. I wait and I watch.
I watch people go past above me, each caught up in his own world of joys, sorrows, challenges, triumphs.
I feel lucky to be sheltered from the trials of life.
Over time, I make my own life in the manhole. I get comfortable. I grow lazy.
The world outside becomes a foreign, scary place.
People say that being alive is the greatest blessing.
I say it depends on where you are.
And who you are.
Categories: Random Musings
10 Comments »
Mon, 6 March 2006 2:07 pm
Now that I have spent an entire morning and my lunch hour setting up this new blog skin, I have no more time to blog.
I must now continue with my Chinese reading after a weekend spent in a stupor of denial.
Chinese! Aaaaah!!
I might come back to blog after I’m done pulling my hair out. Or I might be inconsolable by then and will have to spend the rest of my sad life in a white, padded cell.
What’s with white, anyway? Is it supposed to have a sanity-inducing effect? Is it because white is cheaper?
Regardless, I sometimes think insanity is a blessing. But I don’t want to be a parasite and make my loved ones pay for me to live in a white, padded cell until I die.
So, unfortunately, I cannot afford to be nuts. Sorry.
Categories: Random Musings
17 Comments »
Fri, 3 March 2006 1:31 pm
I am stoned out of my skull.
Yesterday, I put myself through something worse than the time I had a job packing brochures into envelopes.
I spent an entire day reading 10 episodes of a Chinese drama script.
Chinese! Aaaaah!!
Each episode is about 65 pages, so that’s 650 freaking pages of Chinese text I made myself read in one day.
My head is still swimming from squiggle overload.
And I have about a thousand pages more to go.
(On a side note, though, I found the plot really intriguing. That’s why I couldn’t stop reading until about two in the morning, despite the difficulty of reading Chinese and the nausea from reading nonstop an entire day.)
This is what a typical page looks like. I’ve shrunk and blurred it so you can’t read the words, haha (assuming you can read Chinese). Scripts are confidential lah.
Anyway.
This is in preparation for an upcoming drama series. I don’t have a huge role. It’s a 25-episode drama and, out of the roughly 1600 pages, my involvement is only about 50 pages’ worth.
But it’s an important enough role for me to want to read the entire script, although I don’t really have to, since my character is only involved in one small sub-plot.
I don’t know what the industry norm is, but I personally like to read the entire script whether my role is big or small. Even if it means having to struggle through 1600 pages of Chinese text.
I like going on set feeling familiar with the environment, story and characters, and knowing what’s going on every step of the way.
Because of the way I get involved in stories, I like big roles.
Small roles depress me because they are one-dimensional and don’t give me a sense of ownership in the creation process. It’s like being invited to a party where you are only allowed to sit in the courtyard and watch the activities in the house through the window. You’re there but you’re not really part of it.
One of the big reasons I so love being an actress is because I love stories, whether in books or the movies. I get personally involved with the main characters in the story so much so that I want to BE them, step in their shoes, live their lives, share their triumphs, taste their disappointments.
Getting a big role is a chance to satisfy this deep yearning I’ve felt since I was a child.
Even when I get a small role, I try to get involved by reading the entire script (if I’m given it) and imagining an untold story for my character. But because I do not get to act out my imaginary story, I will go to the shoot, do my job and then go home and get depressed because the party is over for me.
In contrast, the sense of fulfillment I get from playing leading characters gives me a high which doesn’t go away for weeks.
This is the high I live for. This is the high that I suffer through countless auditions and humiliating small roles for. It’s a gamble because I can never be sure where I will end up. I get depressed whenever I imagine that my payout never comes. But I am still compelled to take the gamble.
That’s why, I think, I will be an actress till the day I die.
Categories: Acting Journal
17 Comments »
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