nyu tisch asia

Too busy to think of title

- Sheylara 15 Comments

A few days ago, Princess from the Cowboy Bar said to me, “Can you please quit your temp job?!”

“Why?” I asked.

“Your blogs were better when you weren’t busy!”

…

Well, I can’t help that. Who’s going to feed me if I quit my day job? And don’t say the Goonfather because it’s almost impossible to feed two people on one salary these days. Not if you want to live pretty comfortably, that is.

Anyway, the reason I took up the temp job was because I forsaw a slow year for acting. So I thought I’d better pad up my bank account while I can, in order that I may sustain a longer period of time without acting income.

But as fate would have it, after more than a month of bumming around at home, the very moment I committed to the temp job, I started getting busy in the acting arena.

Fortunately, my temp job is very flexible and I can work any kind of hours as long as I meet project deadlines, so I can schedule my temp job around my acting. The downside is that I’m killing myself in the process and my blog is suffering.

If something has to be sacrificed, it has to be the blog, since blogging doesn’t pay the bills. Not yet, anyway.

But don’t worry. I’m not killing my blog. I’ll kill it only when people get tired of reading junk and start to leave because I haven’t got time to write more quality posts. Haha.

One of the things I’m involved in right now is with NYU Tisch Asia. There’s a new module this semester on directing actors, taught by Hollywood director Rob Schmidt, who has made a few award-winning films.

I attend all the classes (six hours a week) and act for them. That is, the film students get to practise directing real actors. I love the classes! I get to learn so much while being able to play at acting, at the same time.

The campus is damn far, though. It takes me an hour to get there and another hour to get back home.

But it’s all good. No one’s ever died from being busy, so I’m sure I’ll survive.

Will update on other things when I have more time.

Here’s the video

- Sheylara 37 Comments

I deliberated for a few weeks whether to post this up.

I finally decided to do it because I’m so busy these days that I need to employ more lazy blogger tricks.

Today’s lazy post is a YouTube video. Haha.

I didn’t want to post it up at first because there are some physically-intimate shots in it involving me and it’s weird posting something like that knowing that family and relatives read my blog.

But, what the heck. I’m sure they can handle it. It’s nothing sleazy, anyway.

A quick background first.

This is one of the films I did for NYU Tisch Asia graduate film students last year. It was their very first project and shot on Super 16 mm film.

(If you were reading my blog three months ago, you’d have seen my posts about it: Flat 7-Up doesn’t taste very good and Last day is for camwhoring.)

The requirements of the project: 4 minutes, black-and-white, no dialogue, no music.

The video you’re about to watch is the director’s cut. It’s in colour and has some musicky stuff in it, but it’s otherwise the same film that was submitted.

It’s called Mara’s Playground and I play the role of Mara.

So, here it is! Hope you like understand it.

Making kissing sounds alone

- Sheylara 12 Comments

I have officially gone into Hysterics Mode because I feel totally unprepared for my performance on Friday and I have 1,360 words to memorise by then.

So, here’s a quick and dirty post before I go back and bury myself into my script (which has been totally rewritten by my mentor-director, which raises the performance difficulty bar of the piece by 3,000%).

Anyway, I went to NYU Tisch Asia yesterday to do ADR. (That’s short for Automated Dialogue Replacement, which is the process of dubbing over voices or re-recording lines for film and TV.)

That’s the ADR studio. It’s also used to record sound effects, so you can see samples of different terrain in the ground as well as random props to create everyday sounds.

It’s dark because I had them turn the lights off so I could get into the mood easier. I was there to do mood sounds — breathing, panting, screaming, kissing — for my two short films.

It’s really weird simulating kissing sounds alone, without the help of a partner. But I enjoyed the challenge of making it sound convincing. I used my right hand. It was a challenge alright because hands don’t kiss back.


Standing in front of the microphone and watching myself on screen so I can synch my sounds to my screen actions.


The lights were turned on for a bit so I could have my photo taken.


Can you see me doing the victory sign through the glass panel?


My directors overseeing the recording.


Previewing my films in the theatrette.

Can’t wait for the official screening on the 19th when I’ll get to watch the final product with the newly-recorded sounds!

Now nursing a strained throat from all the screaming.

I’m so busy I’m turning psychotic

- Sheylara 25 Comments

And now, I’m going to recap my past two weeks, in case people don’t believe me when I tell them that I’ve been busy to the point of psychosis.

Starting with a party.

Nov 24 (Sat) — Drunken Guitar Heroes

I organised a party for my delinquent friends, luring them with Krispy Kreme donuts (all 3 dozen of ’em, courtesy of my favourite Hong Kong-based cousin who goes by the endearing moniker of Monster).

At the party, I made everyone play battle mode in Guitar Hero 3. The loser of each battle had to drink a shot from an unwanted bottle of raspberry vodka that had followed our group from party to party for two years because nobody ever wants to drink it.

We all ended up pretty drunk (because I made sure everyone took turns to play and lose) and had to crash at J&J’s place overnight. Was planning to blog about this (I have incriminating videos! Wahaa!) but haven’t had time to sort out the pics and vids yet.

Nov 25 (Sun) — Free And Easy (Not)

I say free and easy because I had no appointments. But free and easy is not as free and easy as it sounds. It just means I could stay home to nurse my hangover work on any number of things piling up on my metaphorical in-tray — advertorials, scripts, blogs, rehearsals.

Nov 26 (Mon) — New Project In The Works

Met up with some folks to discuss a video blogging project that was supposed to have started this week but got delayed due to technical setbacks. (Which was actually fortunate because I don’t know how I would have found the time to work on it otherwise.)

Nov 27 (Tue) — Playing Truant To Work

I skipped ABT (gym) class for the fifth consecutive week. Not because of laziness (as is usually the case) but because I’ve been so busy meeting deadlines that exercise has to wait.

Spent the day slaving over my script for 3 Men Meet 3 Women, instead, because I needed to cough it out, pronto.

Nov 28 (Wed) — Anti-Smoking Crusade

I’m acting in this anti-smoking play designed to persuade staff in the civil service to quit smoking. Yes, it’s an educational play but we try to make it funny so that it distracts our audience into forgetting to be annoyed by the messagy nature of the play.


(Rehearsal picture taken at Health Promotion Board auditorium)

We go to exciting places like airbases to perform. (Actually, it’s a pain to go to those places because of all the security procedures at entry and exit points.)

On this day, we had two shows to perform at two different locations, one of which was Tengah Airbase. I made a discovery there: If you park your car backside in, it will get towed away. An officer kindly alerted us to that fact when we made the mistake of parking our vehicle like normal Singaporeans do. But he didn’t want to explain why.

Nov 29 (Thu) — First Rehearsal

I had my first rehearsal for 3 Men Meet 3 Women, which I already blogged about.

Nov 30 (Fri) — Trying To Plug Holes

I was able to get properly psychotic today because I didn’t have any engagments. So I was forced to stay home and work on the damn script, which had just been shot full of holes from the previous day’s rehearsal. Spent all day stressing over plugging the holes. Didn’t make much progress because I was too panicky to concentrate properly.

Dec 1 (Sat) — Crying At Auditions And Laughing At Parties

I auditioned for a feature film and cried real tears when performing a monologue which I only had 10 minutes to prepare. It’s really liberating and fulfilling when that happens. Actually, I always find it easier to cry on fresh material than on prepared pieces. I don’t know if other actors are that way.

After my audition, I rushed to Morte’s birthday dinner. (Late again.) The plan was to surprise him with dinner and a birthday cake. But because Morte is an inquisitive dongo who likes to sneak up behind his wife and peek at her MSN conversations, which, during one inopportune night, involved secret birthday party plans, he already knew everything even before the day arrived.

After dinner, we came to my place for Drunken Guitar Heroes Part 2.

Don Juan de Porko (picture, left) showed us the alternative way to mash buttons. (Check out his left hand.)

The Goonfather commented on this photo: “F**king Stamford Raffles or guitar hero, siah??”

Well, I don’t know who or what The Goonfather himself was trying to be when he struck this pose (below).

But I do know it’s the best pose to strike if you’re in the mood for cramping both your arms before the song is done.

Dec 2 (Sun) — Meeting Ate My Social Time

A technical meeting was held to discuss – duh – technicalities and logistics for 3 Men Meet 3 Women.

I wanted to discuss my script with the director, producer and my partner, but there wasn’t enough time and I had to rush off to watch the Slingers. I even sacrificed half the basketball match by leaving the meeting later than I’d planned.

Dec 3 (Mon) — Mission Complete

Today was the ultimate do-or-die day. I absolutely had to rewrite a passable script even if it killed me. Countdown to performance: 11 days.

So I sat down and forced myself to keep working at it no matter how many times I got stuck. I would write one page, then get up to walk around my room complaining, “I’m stuck!” and pulling my hair out, then sit down again and write some more.

Using that method, I finally completed the script despite being horrendously tired from lack of sleep. I did-and-didn’t-die!

Dec 4 (Tue) — Happy Big Project

Met up with a bunch of happy people to talk about starting a new theatre/media group so we can create our own platforms to do the things we love to do. There are already several ideas we want to work on as soon as we have time. This is the way to live life, is it not!

Dec 5 (Wed) — Hobnobbing With Elites After A Long Day Of Work

I had a corporate photoshoot at Singapore Polytechnic. Not for SP but for Ministry of Manpower (related to my Promoting Singapore video). Photoshoots are generally boring because they don’t engage me actively, since I have to stay still in specific poses. Staying still too much makes me want to jump and dance and run around a football field yelling at the top of my voice. But photoshoots are easy jobs that pay well for minimal effort so I like them for that.

From the photoshoot, I had to rush to NYU Tisch Asia for a party. I was half an hour late. Then again, is there such a thing as “late for a party”?

Wasn’t really a party, actually. It was a mixer, the purpose of which was to allow potential future hotshot actors and potential future hotshot directors to network. Many of those potential future hotshot directors came up to me to say they recognised me from the two short films I had acted in for their coursemates, and to congratulate me for doing a really great job. I hope they were all genuine compliments.

Dec 6 (Thur) — Qiaoyun The Blogger, Qiaoyun The Model

Was invited to Samsung office, together with a small group of bloggers, to talk about blogging, new media, gadgets and yet another project, which I can’t reveal now. It was a fun meeting. Strangely, no one took any photos.

Right after that was a 3 Men Meet 3 Women rehearsal. We did hotseating today. In theatre terms, that means an actor gets into character and has to answer questions thrown at him by the director and/or other actors. All questions must be answered in character. It’s a cool way to explore a character deeper and to test how much an actor knows his role.

Throughout the hotseating, my director claimed, the way I physically sat screamed “Qiaoyun the model” instead of my character. Well, I sat the way I thought my character, a high society lady, would sit, like all proper and posey, you know?

Dec 7 (Fri) — OMG Reshoot

We had to reshoot an episode of Snap! (the kids drama now showing on Channel 8, Sundays, 10:30 am) because one episode was dropped for inappropriate content (which is subjective, in my opinion). So we had to shoot a new episode with a new script to replace the dropped one. My hair is now four inches longer than in the other episodes. I hope no one notices.

Today — No Rest For The Weary

Attended a Philips press event for bloggers (I’m really tickled and a little disconcerted that bloggers are more and more being recognised as an alternative for conventional press). I’m sure you’ll be reading about the event pretty soon from some popular blogs in the Singapore blogosphere. I can’t talk about it now because I have to rush off (yet again) for a rehearsal after posting this blog.

SEE I NEVER BLUFF YOU ALL.

I’m working on so many things at the same time that I don’t have time to tidy up my wardrobe, which is now looking like a tornado hit a clothing store and dumped its spoils into it.

I don’t have photos for many of the activities I mentioned above because all the rushing about saps my energy. I don’t have any strength left to even take my camera out. Haha. I mean, I do enjoy every meeting, every rehearsal and every project. But the fact that they’re all clamouring for my attention at the same time is killing me.

I’ve been rushing from one thing to another so much that it’s a wonder I can keep track of what’s going on.

When I bump into people recently and they ask, “How have you been?” I give a tired look and say “Busy.”

If they ask, “Busy with what?” I’m speechless because I don’t know how to start answering.

Next time someone asks again, I’m going to answer, “I’m so busy I’m turning psychotic” and then give them the link to this post.

Last day is for camwhoring

- Sheylara 16 Comments

You would think a morning shoot at the beach would be a pleasant way to spend time. I suppose it is, except that there’s nowhere to sit if you’re wearing a dress.

So I kinda just stood around while the others sat all over the place.

On a tree root:

On the ground:

On the camera case:

It wasn’t too bad, really. I had a tree to lean on. My scene at the beach involved leaning on a tree with Fish.

The guys went to check out the tree and the scenary before the shoot started:

It drizzled a bit in the middle of the shoot, so the umbrellas came out.

Thankfully, the drizzle petered out after a while. I was worried about having to lean against a wet, slimy tree trunk.

Fate was in our favour. The tree didn’t get wet and our scene went smoothly. We were able to troop back to the food centre by noon to avoid being sand-baked on the beach.

Somewhere to sit down properly!

Of course, being perverse, I didn’t really sit down during the times I was able to rest between scenes. I went off to the side with Fish to camwhore while they were shooting Jan.

This is Jan, with Alexa:

This is Fish and me:

Next, me in my full costume, which I think is a little large for me, but which I quite like because it’s different and I think it makes me look more innocent than I actually am. Haha.

Fish in close-up:

Fish and me again:

There was so much camwhoring because it was the last day of shoot.

Fish even got a picture of me photographing myself. Duh.

He said he was very impressed by my camwhoring skills. Double duh. I don’t know if I should feel flattered or embarrased.

But camwhoring is tiring, to be honest, so I didn’t do it for too long. I turned my camera towards the set and got a picture of Shivani holding out the slate and grey card in front of Jan’s face.

Heheh. She looks a little harried.

I think it was because, at that time, a huge mass of dark clouds was seen heading our way and the crew went into a mad rush to finish up before the looming storm broke.

It was a sad time for me. The end of last days of shoots always is. I’ve gone on about post-production blues enough times, so you know what I’m talking about.

It was fun while it lasted, but that’s the whole problem.

The more fun it is, the harder to say goodbye.