Acting - Make Believe

Actors get quickly into character of the script during shooting. When in character, his performance is assured. Words, emotions and actions will flow naturally unimpeded.

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As much as it is important for the actor to get into character, it is also important for him to get out of the character.

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During one of my recent film shoot, I played the tough army warrant officer during the day, running around the tracks and collapsing upon an excruciatingly painful torn ligament on the right knee. And as in film making, this collapse had to be repeated many times (at different camera angles), during each time which I was to demonstrate more and more convincingly that I had collapsed due to a right knee ligament injury.

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Then when the shoot ended at 7pm, I had to rush down to another production studio for a rehearsal where I played the sobbing taxi driver father during an emotional separation from his daughter. I managed to get out of the warrant officer role and immediately became a caring sobbing taxi driver father.

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I thought I did well transitioning from one character to another, until the next morning when I woke up with a painful right knee. Apparently, my repeated auto-suggestions the previous day had resulted in a painful right knee manifesting. In other words, I had managed to bluff my sub-conscious that I had a right knee injury and finally really got one!!

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Our mind is powerful. It can believe in something and make that something manifest. So be careful with your thoughts, as positive thoughts manifest, but so do negative ones.

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ps. The pain faded after one day. I had to wish it away!

If you like to visit my actor's blog, click here.

Amid The Haste

Today, I was in a hurry on my way to my acting audition. Actors are usually a tad more nervous before audition, as they don't know what to expect and also (ironically) their need to remain calm so that it is conducive to remember the lines and get into character. On top of that, I was lugging a camera, a tripod and a spare laptop as part of the logistics for a talk on "Learning Difficulties" that was to start right after the audition in another venue. Rushing and finding my way around for the correct exit in the subway amid the crowd, the tropical heat and humidity was thus very daunting.

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Amid this whirlpool of rush and haste, my phone rang. It was John. John seems to have the habit of ringing at the wrong time and wrong place. What's worse, I could hardly hear him as the signal was poor and he mumbles his words, this despite him being an English language teacher. To make matter worse, John was bidding around the bush as he talked and there wasn't any coherence.

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Frustrated and now even getting angry, I retorted, "John, can you get to the point and get on with what you want to say?!"

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There was a pause of silence. Then John softly replied , "Mike, I just wanted to speak to a Singaporean whom I can relate easily to, to say how lucky and grateful am I to be in Singapore alive and well, as if I had been in Christchurch, where I was born and grew up in, I might have been dead by now or had my house completely destroyed, as one-third of buildings there have been destroyed by the earthquake."

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At that point, it was my turn for the pause of silence. I was embarrassed. Amid the haste, we often forget... Haiz.

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Education Therapy: Learning Difficulties

Education Therapy: Learning Difficulties: "Speaker: Mr Pang Kong Eng Date: 25th Feb 2011 Time: 7-9pm Venue: International Plaza, 10 Anson Road Here are some of the video clips I capt..."

Tolerance

Today, I thought the makeup girl at the film shoot was over-the-top. She had 6 metal piercings around her mouth and painted her hair red! I wanted to ask her if water actually leaks out of her mouth whenever she drinks!

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After the shoot, I described her to my friend and to my surprise he remarked, "Isn't it cool?!!" He feels that she is just one of those mischievous creative types, that likes to experiment with ancillaries but is still out there doing a job and is being responsible.

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I am somewhat surprised with his tolerance, but more so, of his tolerance with my contrasting views. Not once did he try to argue that I was wrong or that I was intolerant, as it didn't matter to him. Intrinsically, he had accepted that there was a different view of the same thing. In other words, he was even tolerant with my intolerance. Isn't that cool? :)

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Cats' Play - Mother's Love... the saga continues...

The story didn't quite end happily ever after. Soon after adoption, two of the five kittens died. The mother cat then took the remaining three kittens away, and all four of them - mother and kids have again vanished into the wilderness.

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For other posts on "Cats' Play", click here.

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Bliss Kitchen

There is a Bliss Kitchen in Malacca. It serves up free vegetarian lunches every Tuesday and Friday.

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It is run entirely by volunteers. There is no roster, but the turnout for volunteers are just about right everytime it is opened.

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The founder, Dr Aaron Lim said that there are many who are ready to express their kindness and we just have to get something started and there will be people coming to serve. Dr Lim had intended to pay for the kitchen himself, but soon after the Kitchen's opening, a charity organisation pays for the rent and then sacks of rice and vegetables kept coming, and the operations now does not need money out of his pocket. So there are plenty kind souls around, someone just got to get it started.

Cats' Play - Mother's Love

Look at these cute little kittens. These harmless little creatures, how could anyone possibly be afraid of them? Isn't it surprising to know there are people who have such phobia?

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I was called upon by one such petrified person to get these little creatures out of her storeroom where the mother cat had secretly delivered them and housed them in.

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Two other guys were called prior to me. The first one dared not handle kittens so young as he felt that they were too delicate and so he left. The second one went there and tried grabbing them out by brute force one by one, but they (all five of them) clinged tightly together and refused to be removed.

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When I arrived, the kittens meowed and crawled out to me. I didn't even have to lure them out. They all happily came to me and allow me to pick them up. Somehow, they trusted me and volunteered themselves into my hands. Clearly, the kittens had sensed that I love them and wouldn't harm them. I then gently took them one-by-one and put them in a box, and brought them away from the petrified person.

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That was step one completed - bringing the kittens away from someone with a phobia. The next step was to find them a new home. That needed time, so we wanted to leave the kittens in a temple a few doors away temporarily before we can find someone to adopt them, but the temple caretakers said that the kittens were too young and that they will die without the presence of their mother. Without a better option, we left the kittens in a box with some water just outside the house where they were born, just to keep them near enough for the mother to find them and far enough from the petrified occupier of the house.

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Soon after we took the kittens out, the desperate looking mother cat came and quickly picked up her kittens away. She was very apprehensive and stared at us to check if we would harm her litter while she took them away one by one. Realising that we were causing the anxiety to the cat, we decided to leave them alone.

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The next morning, the kittens were in the house again, probably brought in by the mother cat who felt that was the safest place for her litter. The house owner was again petrified. Something hard for normal people like us to understand, but it was a commotion.

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Luckily, for the kittens, a friend of my niece came and decided to adopt all the five kittens including the mother cat; and so the story ended happily - for the cats and the petrified person.

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For other posts on "Cats' Play", click here.

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