Saturday, July 25, 2009

Mad Mad Crafts

In my previous post I was talking about doing paper mache of a giant cat for a project. Well, this is not a follow-up of it, because I was being taken away from it to be involved in another project since mid last week.

This time round, I am working with a children education and entertainment company to conceive and produce crafts based on a specific festive theme where they'll produce videos teaching children how to make them. Initially I thought it would be easy for me, but it turned out elsewise. No doubt I have interests in arts and craft, but coming out with ideas for crafts that is easily manageable for kids is not really easy. According to the creative director, they have to be simple for kids to handle on their own with little supervision, yet have to look sophisticated. Sounds very oxymoronic, but that's how kids craft are like, as I've found out. Not only that, there're many restrictions to the construction too: no potentially dangerous stuffs like hot glue and saws, and materials used must be very easily available in homes (including homes in some middle eastern countries where these videos will be aired).


Sometimes, the creative process is frustrating as ideas just don't come easily, but at times it's fun though, as it forces me to think out of the "convention". Hence, despite this project has got nothing to do with scenic design, in a sense, through engaging in this project, it makes me think more and to challenge myself in terms of creativity. At the end of the day, I still learn something, and that's more crucial.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Hey You Guys!!!

Suddenly out of the blue I decided to do a search on "Electric Company" on Youtube (don't ask me why I did that; I always do strange things for no reasons) and found some videos on this old-skool children programme.

To be honest I couldn't quite remember the contents of this programme already; all I can remember clearly is a woman screaming "Hey you guysssss!!" at the start of the opening credits, and that back during my childhood, I liked this show more than Seasame Street.

Time to recollect the past!

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Working Against the Forces of Nature

Today I went to a quiet part of East Coast Park early in the morning.
The quiet East Coast Park on a Tuesday morning...

Rest and seclusion you may think, but it's not! I was supposed to meet up with some of my colleagues (actually school mates and lecturers) to do a scenic design project. What we were supposed to do is to build a 1.7m tall cat, which we had to first built on sand, then do papier-mache on it.
Our sand model of the Japanese doll cat; the reference cat was on there on the sand.

Our finished sand model.

Alas, the forces of nature (tidal waves) were too strong for us, and we had to abort halfway. It was a pity, but what can we do? We can only try again tomorrow, and hopefully it will be better tomorrow...

The waves were coming in and the legs of the cat were almost gone; we had to abort because the waves would just wash everything into the sea before the papier mache can even dry...

Crewing After-thoughts

Finally, I have something to blog about.

I had just finished two school productions in a row, and it was real hectic. Being a stage crew and assistant stage manager respectively for both these shows, I finally had a chance to see how a school production (out of LASALLE context) works. To be honest, I don't think school productions are my cup of tea due to various reasons. First it's tough working with students and school teachers, and secondly school productions usually have an unusually large number of performers which can be a nightmare at times. However, there's one thing I do like about school productions though, and that is the finale. With the amount of performers on stage, plus the naturally-high energy level of students in general, curtain calls are always loud and fun.

At the moment, I can't say for certain if I'd ever crew for school productions again. I might if I'm in desperate need of money, but I think I can consider doing scenic design. Although school performances generally have nothing artistic for me to really take pride in, but I believe it is a challenge, to design sets based on limited budgets. Well, I'll see...