London Filmmakers Studio Sdn. Bhd.

Man of the arts

2010-05-05T21:18:00.000+08:00

One man's passion for film is translated on screen, writes MICHELE LIAN.

NOT many people can lay claim to having four professions at one go – accountant, businessman, filmmaker and, now, acting coach – these are the professional hats Ike Ong wears with ease.

The 50-year-old Malaysian shuttles between London – where he lives with his 45-year-old psychotherapist wife and four daughters – and Kuala Lumpur to teach aspiring filmmakers and actors the finer aspects of his craft.

If you think his name resonates well within the local literary circle, you are right. Ong is also the pioneer of the second-hand book haven called Skoob Books, which opened its doors in Kuala Lumpur 14 years ago.

"I started Skoob Books in Covent Garden, London, in 1979, Skoob Two near the British Museum in 1986, Skoob Books in Brisbane, Australia, in 1988, Skoob Books in Singapore in 1989, and Skoob Books in KL in 1990.

"Thor Kah Hoong (director of Skoob Books, Kuala Lumpur) was told that he was not allowed to smoke in the bookshop one day so he bought the shop. Now, I'm not allowed to smoke in the shop," says Ong, displaying his candour via an e-mail interview.

Ong now runs Skoob Books in Russell Square, London.

Born in Penang but raised and schooled internationally, Ong's passion for the arts is the result of being exposed to the cultural melting pots of Britain, Australia, Greece and Malaysia.

"I had wonderful teachers like Joseph McNally, Colin James Andrews, Bosco de Cruz and an amazing storyteller in Penang named Chong Chiang Chee.

"My teachers in Britain were the unsung heroes who took me to Barcelona to study Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi, and Amsterdam to study Vincent van Gogh. Basically, we experienced what is expressed in (playwright and Booker prize-winning author) John Berger's Ways of Seeing. We learnt what beauty is.

"This is the inspiration that makes us want to know more. It resulted in my reading philosophy. I extended my studies to indulge in accountancy as a departure from a spartan existence," he explains.

Ong's father, now retired, taught Business Studies while his mother "researched the game theory particularly in its application to mahjong".

As he was an only child, his brothers and sisters were the characters found in books, and writers such as Hermann Hesse and Sylvia Plath.

While growing up in London and Brisbane, Ong soaked in the different cultures and nurtured his love for rock ‘n' roll, British pop, film and literature.

"One film that will remain with me is Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thieves, a landmark of Italian neo-realism. We used to frequent a cinema in St Lucia, a suburb of Brisbane where deckchairs were available at the back of the cinema for the dads to snooze while the mums went shopping, and the kids kept out of mischief. The afternoon repertoire usually was limited to swashbuckling fandangos and Tarzan adventures," he recalls.

Fuelled by a passion for film, Ong wrote his first script, which he describes as "a film without dialogue based on a song about a man who is depressed, and found the cure in a woman." Later, he wrote – and sold – two feature film scripts: Assassination in Suzhou, and Dr Sun Yet Sen.

Assassination, a thriller inspired by (Dutch diplomat and author) Robert Van Gulik's Judge Deestories and Ong's own visit to Suzhou, China, was sold to film producer Thomas Tang who made it into an action flick.

Dr Sun, he says, is a historical drama hinged on the main event of Dr Sun (pioneer of the Chinese Revolution) being kidnapped in London in 1896, and the political intrigue that followed. Negotiations for the film, to be made in Hong Kong, are still in the works, and as Ong puts it: "I live in hope that, one day, the film will materialise."

Ong and his wife also spend much of their time in Greece ("My wife is very fond of the islands") and Spain, where he recently produced two local films. One of them, Pequena Paloma Blanca (The White Dove), was the Official Selection for the Venice Film Festival 2003 in the New Territories Section.

Pequena is about a young Chilean woman who goes to find her brother in Barcelona. Along the way, she discovers that her brother has a gay relationship and is a male prostitute. She has her own problems as she is recovering from an abortion. An incestuous relationship adds the twist to the story and, to complicate matters, the brother's boyfriend falls in love with her.

There is a particularly erotic scene in the film, which caused certification problems in some countries. Ong says that it was the result of "Extreme Theatre being carried away in the application of the Method."

"They (the actors) were supposed to represent various couples in a public park in intimate relationships. To achieve spontaneity, the couples were selected at random from the theatre company. A young actor chose to be in the heat of passion and descended on the actress on the lawn. She got into the swing of things and encouraged him.

"We are having problems with certification and most countries would rate this film as a triple X because of this scene. I have been told that they have pulled such stunts on stage. They have also asked me if I could take them on a tour of Malaysia. My reply was that such stunts are no longer sensational in Malaysia."

The most stimulating aspect of labouring over a film, says Ong, is working with actors.

"Film is a collaborative process and the actor is an assistant storyteller who is in charge of only one character in the fictitious world we are creating. The actor is in control of the character, and he has to source from his emotional memory and experiences to simulate the emotions re-quired in the scene. Some actors bring with them their personal experiences, which contribute to the character, and enhance the emotional charge of the scene beyond the expectation of the writer.

"This is movie magic. There is no greater joy than the self-gratification achieved in the creative arts. Some see it as a religious experience."

It is this magic which Ong wants to share with budding filmmakers and actors in Malaysia.

"The students in KL are amazingly good and have the potential to succeed anywhere. Some of them helped me out by demonstrating in a workshop in Singapore, and they were surprised that they were offered jobs in the TV industry. I have been asked to teach in KL again this year, and I look forward to dealing with students of a similar calibre."

Fact File

Name: Ike Ong

Age: 50

Hometown: Penang

Education: St. John's Institution, Kuala Lumpur; apprenticed in Calder & Co, one of the oldest Chartered Accountants firms in London; studied filmmaking at the National Film and Television School, Beaconsfield, Britain.

Profession: Filmmaker

Current base: London

Years abroad: 35 years

Howard Gruber

2009-11-28T20:29:00.001+08:00

Gruber is representative of the “knowledge as sufficient or useful” approach. In the “evolving systems approach” theory of creativity developed by Gruber and his colleagues, creativity is a developmental process associated with a person’s interests and work.

The creative person is thought to be composed of three loosely related systems which have evolved coincidentally throughout the person’s life. The three components are a system of knowledge, a system of affect or emotion, and a system of purposes.

Here knowledge is considered to be the individual’s organization of self-selected cognitive structures. Gruber defines the term “creative” as accommodating all sorts of effective extraordinariness.

Gruber claims insight comes to the prepared mind; but that this preparation is not done to the mind but by it. Thus, Gruber predicts that the processes of knowledge acquisition and use may be more important and inouential than the knowledge bas, volume, or contents. Therefore, Gruber is representative of the “knowledge as sufficient or useful” approach to creative thinking.

http://books.google.com/books?id=_dK79AdKmIoC&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=intuition+creative&source=bl&ots=R9dwd7ja1o&sig=dfzAunM0ifvg6mdlQdRKJGs3LZ4&hl=en&ei=9qHySoKxE8j-kAXhq520Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CCEQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=intuition%20creative&f=false

Evolutionary Progression Of Invention

2009-11-28T20:27:00.002+08:00

Because of the fact that inventions and designs are tied into the temporal realm, one can make easy assertions about how each one has a precursor that is modified to make the present object.

George Kubler said, “All things and acts and symbols or the whole of human experience consists of replicas, gradually changing by the mind’s alterations more than by abrupt leaps of invention.”

One of the principal advocates of the evolutionary advancement of technology is George Basalla. He argued that technology is the summation of previously invented ideas. Basalla stated that one can “define invention as combining existing and known elements of culture in order to form a new element.

The outcome of the process is a series of small changes, most of them patentable but none of them constituting a sharp break with past material.” Basalla also felt that the speed at which technology proceeds is tied into the past developments. Not only is invention a successive line tying into all that has come before it, it is also speeding up because of the amount of previous material is growing exponentially.

This acceleration of invention development can be explained by the term biassociation. Biassociation is the unconscious coming together of previously disparate ideas. The more blocks one has to build with, the more new objects one can create.

Basalla acknowledge that there is some strong support of the idea of revolutionary invention. He stated:

The source of this outlook is threefold: the loss or concealment of crucial antecedent; the emergence of the inventor as a hero; and the confusion of technological and socioeconomic changes.

The theory boils down to the idea that the reason why objects appear to look revolutionary is because their antecedents are either not obvious, hidden or lost.

If those who study invention are able to have all previous antecedents, then it would become obvious that technology has moved in a straightforward and continuous fashion.

Another one of Basalla’s ideas that is of considerable importance is the notion that there may be a tendency to think that technology is a process that cannot be stopped. Basalla wanted to emphasize that the role of the invention is not removed from the situation. Bsalla was not taking anything away from the inventor who makes something great.

Invention And Design

2009-11-28T20:25:00.000+08:00

Another distinction that needs to be made is between invention and design. Arnold Pacey stated, “Invention is creation of a new form, while design is the adapting of existing forms to present constraints.” In contrast, it has been stated that to design is to invent.

Designing often entails taking objects that already exist and arranging them into some sort of useful object. It has been suggested that anytime someone looks at an object and thinks of how the parts could be arranged into different forms and therefore adopted into a “reasonably obvious alternative4,” they have both designed and invented an object.

Twilight of the Longhouse's 2nd Award In America Reported In Director's Guild Of Great Britain Newsletter

2009-11-19T23:02:00.002+08:00

Ike Ong’s Twilight of the Longhouse wins 2nd film award

A London Filmmakers Studio Sdn. Bhd’s production, Twilight of the Longhouse has won a second film award in the USA, the John Muir Award for Documentary in the Yosemite Film Festival California.

Written and Directed by Ike Ong.

"ONE Malaysia means everyone in Malaysia. The Iban may live in the jungle but basic amenities like pipe water, electricity, should be available to all children. These communities are moving to the cities for the benefit of their children. Malaysia will lose this wealth of cultural heritage."

For further information on The Yosemite Film Festival please go

to:

http://www.yosemitefilmfestival.com/Festival/2009FestivalWinners/2009JohnMuirAwards/tabid/384/Default.aspx.

For further information on London Filmmakers Studio Sdn. Bhd. visit

http://londonfilms.blogspot.com.

Excerpt from Director's Guild Of Great Britain Newsletter November 2009:

http://www.dggb.org/files/DGGB%20Newsletter%20November%202009.pdf

THE CREATIVE INTUITION

2009-11-05T18:16:00.003+08:00

Some individuals seem to have an intuitive sense, as they begin their creative work, about what their final product will be like. Indeed, evidence from several sources confirms the role of intuition in the creative processes of artists and scientists; among these sources are autobiographical testimonies, analyses of historical evidence, psychometric assessments, and experimental studies.

In combination, this evidence supports the notion that early intuitions may guide decision making in the process of attaining creative results. But at least three issues remain. First, there may be various forms of intuition. Second, there may also be various forms of creativity. Third, it might well be the case that only certain forms of intuition are related to certain forms of creativity. It is important to develop a clear conceptual framework for distinguishing various forms of intuition as well as for explaining whether and to what extent they interact with one another and with various forms of creativity.

It is also relevant to distinguish intuition from insight, although the 2 phenomena sometimes overlap. Intuition entails vague and tacit knowledge, whereas insight involves sudden, and usually clear, awareness. In the context of creativity, intuition may precede insight. (See INSIGHT)

Earlier intuition was defined as a tacit form of knowledge that orients decision-making in a promising direction. In the context of innovation, a promising direction is one that leads to potentially creative outcomes. For example, Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, and medicine refer to their own scientific intuition as “a metaphorical seeing of the phenomenon searched for, an anticipatory perception of its shape or its gross structure.”

In time line between an early intuition and its final articulation might very from a brief period to many years, depending on various factors, such as the nature of the problem or the subject’s knowledge base. Jean Piaget, for instance, commenting on the creative process of Charles Darwin, said that he found two results most interesting: the time that Darwin needed to become aware of ideas already implicit in his thought, and the passage from the implicit to the explicit in the creation of new ideas.

In fact, Darwin seems to have implicitly prefigured some of his most relevant ideas in his early writings. Highly creative individuals in other domains, such as Picasso (visual arts), Freud (psycho-analysis), and Cantor (mathematics), appear to have moved along their own creative processes in a similar sequences – starting off with generative intuitions and ending up with more explicitly articulated products after long periods of persistent work (See FREUD, SIGMUND)

This leads us to a further question. If some individuals have an early intuitive sense about their final product will be like, why does it take them any longer to reach the ultimate goal? In other words, how can we explain a creative process in which the beginning is in a way also the end, given that we have a tacit estimate of the end state right from the start?

Perhaps the creative process unfolds as a developmental sequence of representational changes, from vague, syncretic, and implicit forms of knowledge into more differentiated, integrated, and explicit ones. In more technical terms, it is conceivable, at least, that the creative process might operate as a developmental translation – from an implicit code of associative strengths among neural units into an explicit code of symbolic rules. In this cognitive system, implicit neural networks might precede and constrain the generation of symbolic rules.

INTUITION AS CONSTRAINT

A number of scholars hold that divergent thinking (multidirectional and open ended) is the essential feature of the creative process. But, we may wonder, what prevents divergent thinking from becoming mere rambling as the person considers an infinite sequence of potential alternatives? (See DIVERGENT THINKING)

As we all know, any creative process involves a long series of choices: each decision one makes will affect future options, and one’s alternatives at any given will depend on previous decisions. If individuals had to consider each option that arises in any creative search, the growth of alternatives would become astronomical. In other words, the sequence would lead to what cognitive scientists call a “combinatorial explosion,” and it is very unlikely that the creative process would get to the desired result in any reasonable amount of time.

Creative intuitions may fulfill an important cognitive function: By setting the preliminary boundaries for promising exploration, these initial intuitions may keep the creator’s divergent thinking from generating a combinatorial explosion. That is why creative intuition may be technically defined as a tacit form of knowledge that broadly constrains the creative search by setting its preliminary scope.

Although cognitive scientists have widely acknowledged the need to check a combinatorial explosion in a problem space, they have not considered intuition as a potential constraint for the creative search. Instead, they have focused on heuristics.

Creative intuition may fulfill a similar role to that of heuristics by making the search for possible solutions more selective and efficient. Heuristics, however, are explicit rules of thumb, or particular strategies that, for example, deliberately move away from an old path and look for conflicts and resolve them. Conversely, creative intuitions appear to be implicit rough estimates of the final solution or goal, and advances in this problem space might be measured in terms of how close the subject is to achieving a clear symbolic representation. (See HEURISTICS)

Creative intuition has always been difficult to define, explain, and measure. Conceptualizing it in terms of search in a problem space may be a valid and operational alternative for investigating this phenomenon. But it still leaves many questions unanswered.

Source:

Encyclopedia of creativity, Volume 2

By Mark A. Runco, Steven R. Pritzker

Publisher: Academic Press (9 Aug 1999)

Link:

Alexander Mackendrick Talks About Cinematography

2009-10-20T17:20:00.000+08:00

WORKING WITH THE DIRECTOR

Ideally the cinematographer’s relationship with the director is a symbiotic one. The cinematographer embraces the director’s vision and uses his visual talent and technical knowledge to capture the director’s inner thoughts and put them on the screen. Needless to say, the process of choosing a cinematographer is of no small importance to the director.

It is my impression that most of the cameramen I know have developed a highly personal style. They have an individual character that becomes their stock in trade. During the planning for Sweet Smell Of Success, the producer, Harold Hecht, suggested James Wong Howe. I remember Jimmy as extremely good with strong, melodramatic material and felt his hard-edged approach would be ideal for this particular subject, so I was delighted.

Often a director will screen several films shot by a prospective cinematographer.

In effect, I believe you have to trust the taste and temperament of the cameraman as you see it in his previous work. Obviously, you should take care to see a number of his films to see how he handles different genres; to see what range he has. Wong Howe had considerable range: I looked at both Body and Soul and Picnic which was in color and much more sentimental. But what I asked Jimmy for was the black-and-white harshness I’d seen in his melodramatic movies.
Once the director finds a cinematographer who interests him, he sends him a script.

BLACK-AND-WHITE AND COLOR

A cinematographer cannot separate the problem of light from the problem of color. Through the film stock he is using, through the filters on lights and lenses, and through the printing in the lab, he cooperates with the art director in the orchestration of colors or in the modulation of the gray scale in the black-and-white films.

I’ve always felt that melodrama and satire have characteristics in common. Ideally, I would prefer to shoot both of these genres in black and white. Distributors nowadays declare that black-and-white movies are unsalable. A compromise may be the kind of cinematography where there is a very emphatic range of tonal values, black to white, at the expense of hue values; strong directional lighting of chiaroscuro, which underlines the architectural structures at the expense of the local colors of the surface.

When the first Japanese color features arrived in Britain, I remember well their impact on British filmmakers. Accustomed to the brilliance of Californian light, the bright hues and crisp shadows, we marveled at the subtleties of shades and tone produced by the mists of the Japanese scenery. With the coming of color and more sensitive film stocks the sunlight, which was the original incentive for a migration to the Californian West Coast, is no longer quite such an essential.

There are personal idiosyncrasies when it comes to particular colors, for both aesthetic and practical reasons.

WORKING WITH THE ART DIRECTOR

Ideally all the major contributing people should be brought in early on the project. Those fortunate enough to work on Ingmar Bergman’s films have the luxury of a 2-month intensive dialogue with the director, actors and other members of crew. As well as watching rehearsals, Bergman’s cameraman Sven Nykvist (ASC) has the opportunity to shoot extensive tests and discuss the sets and costumes with the art director. This relationship with the art director cannot be stressed too much. He is an invaluable partner because he supervises the designers of sets and costumes.

The positioning and intensity of the practicals on the set is something the cinematographer should established with the art director. These visible light sources of various kinds serve to visually enrich the scene, to justify the directions of studio lighting and to contribute to the level of illumination on the set. They may even serve as the major modeling lights for the scene.

The shape of the set and certain architectural components such as beams or moldings help the cinematographer to hide his lamps, stands and cables. The shape, texture and color of the walls and furniture have understandable impact on the visual organization of the frame. The way in which the set is positioned on the studio floor, for example, how much space there is outside the windows, will also influence the lighting directions and angles. For these reasons the production designer, art director and all the people involved in shaping and dressing the sets, or in choosing locations should work hand-in-hand with with the cinematographer. He, in turn, can either enhance their efforts or diminish them with his lighting.

If the casting of key talents has not been done wisely, there can be misunderstandings between the production designer and the director of photography. An assertive designer may hanker after lighting that is diffused, general and unobtrusive, so that tone and color values in the settings and costumes retain their pictorial values. Equally assertive cinematographers may prefer the set, costumes and furniture to be neutral in color and tone so that the scene is left for him to ‘paint with light.’ If there is discord between the production designer and director of photography, the director and producer should resolve the disagreements at the earliest stage of production planning.
Filmmaking is not only teamwork but the team is composed of people with strong creative egos. This makes it doubly difficult to keep on an even keel.

COMPOSITION

The basic need to represent a three dimensional reality on a two dimensional surface is certainly not new in the visual arts. What separates film from the other visual arts is that it is kinetic. The filmmaker is composing motion.
Composition of movement in time can be broken down into several dynamics. Movement of the camera is called intraframe movement. Screen sizes and angles of view can be manipulated in this way. Interframe movement is created by editing, cutting from one angle to another or from long shot to close up. The combination of camera movements and editing becomes a truly powerful system for manipulating the film reality. Whether static or moving, the frame represents spatial depth, or three dimensions, on a 2 dimensional screen.

We’re told by those who have studied the psychology of perception that shadows are one of the clues by which the brain recognizes spatial depth. The fact that the projected image is always seen as a window into a 3 dimensional world is one reason for the filmmaker’s use of these dark and light areas for ‘designing in depth.’

The figurative painters and engravers of graphic illustrations in the 19th century are worth study by filmmakers. Gustav Dore’s work is an example. He used a formula enormously effective in emphasizing design in depth. In the foreground a subject might be lit strongly, with an emphatic key light and strong modeling. But behind this would be figures more or less in silhouette, in shadow and 2 dimensional. These, in turn, would be outlined against a brighter area in middle distance, a part of light illuminating features of architecture or figures in an area of light. These were again silhouetted, light against dark, against a further background of shadow, gray but still dark. Each recessive plane contrasts with the one beyond it or in front.

The Spanish painter Francisco Goya wrote some 200 years ago. “I see (in nature) only forms that advance, forms that recede, masses in light and shadow.”

Composing in depth isn’t simply a matter of pictorial richness. It has value in the narrative of the action, the pacing of the scene. Within the same frame, t he director can organize the action so that preparation for what will happen next is seen in the background of what is happening now. While our attention is concentrated on what we see nearest to us, we are simultaneously aware of secondary activities that lie beyond, and sometimes even of a third plane of distant activity the dramatic density of the scene is much greater.

Design the blocking of the actors, the framing of the shot, with this sort of thing in mind and the cinematographer with a grain of sense will instantly realize your intention. He will use light to assist the eye path of the audience and to give dramatic depth to the scene. Most cameramen I’ve worked with have been very intelligent, quick to pick up on t he director’s intentions without the need for explanation.
Composition, both in framing and lighting, directs the viewer’s eye to the appropriate part of the scene.

In the 1950s a real problem cropped up when the framing of the image became ambiguous, unpredictable. Were we working just for the cinema screen or for television? When the framing has to be a compromise the result is often disastrous.

When any of my films were reframed – the film image rephotographed for television broadcast – I could not help feeling a sense of outrage. If I remember rightly, Augustus John, a well-known British portrait painter, discovered that after he had sold a portrait, the new owner cut nine inches off the bottom of the painting so that it would fit a space on his wall. John sued for damages, even though the painting was no longer his, and, as I recall, won his case. I feel the same way about screen images. And it’s not just aesthetics; it affects the narrative.

In ‘A High Wind’ in Jamaica one of the key shots was a wide screen shot of seven children sitting in a row as they are interrogated by the lawyer; the point of the scene was the silent reaction of 2 children who happened to be on each end; neither of them appeared in the television version.

It is the unfortunate lot of filmmakers that they are not in charge when their work is being projected. A visit to a local theatre can at times be a heart breaking experience, let alone seeing one’s film on television.
In spite of this uncertain future, the film crew puts all its talents and skills into producing a well-composed picture.

WORKING WITH THE CREW

There are three people on the crew ultimately concerned with composition of the frame: the director, the cinematographer, and the camera operator. The balance of power among these 3 individuals is affected by many factors: personal experience, the subject matter or genre of this story, the individual background and national tradition. An American cinematographer who also directs discusses his interpretation of the balance of power.

I distinguish between the way I work with the lighting cameraman and way I work with the operator. As Director of Photography, and boss of the whole camera crew, some cinematographers will probably challenge me on this, insisting that they are responsible for all of it. However, my temperament has been to feel that I have to design every camera angle, every screen size, every camera move. I have to work directly with the camera operator on this and cannot afford to go through the Director of Photography, though, of course, he will be present as the decisions are made. This is because, as director, I am, above all things, concerned with narrative content, the story. Other values are very important, but they come later. Since the story is told through positioning of the actors in relation to the camera, since the blocking of camera moves within the scene is inseparable from the design of camera operator and I are concerned with narrative. He is the director’s right hand and he is my man.

Mackendrick’s description of the role of the operator stems from the heyday of the British studio system. In this tradition the cinematographer is known as the Lighting Cameraman and his role is to predominantly light the set. The operator is more concerned with the narrative. Hollywood tradition is different.

BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE UK FILM INDUSTRY

2009-10-09T03:58:00.001+08:00

Good morning, and thank you for coming. Today I want to set out some new thinking from the Film Council about the kind of film industry we’d like to see in this country. I want to set out a vision of an industry that is a strong and confident player in an increasingly competitive world. An industry that evolves, and reflects, the new realities of today’s global market. We can never be the biggest film industry in the world, but we should be right up near the top of the league, not permanently hovering in the relegation zone.

The UK film industry is not in need of quick fixes and band-aids if we are to succeed on the world stage. I contend that it needs nothing less than radical re-invention. So my speech this morning is in three main parts:

• Firstly, how did this industry develop and what can we learn from our
recent history?

• Secondly, what kind of film industry does the UK have now?

• Thirdly, what kind of film industry should we be aiming to create in order to fulfil our creative and industrial potential, and how do we - Film Council, Government and industry - work together to create it?

Cinema is an immensely powerful medium at the heart of the UK’s creative industries. It combines artistic creativity and technical innovation to entertain, inspire, challenge and inform. Films help to shape the way we see and understand the world, how we see ourselves, and how the world sees us. It promotes ideas and understanding in a way that no other medium can or does.

Half of the world’s population - that’s three billion people - have seen a James Bond film. Films made by a UK company, using UK creativity and ingenuity. Hundreds of millions more have seen our films - from Chariots of Fire to The Full Monty, from Notting Hill to Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Film is the key driver of the creative industries. The same creative industries that in the US are already worth half a trillion dollars annually. The audience for film, in virtually every country in the world, continues to grow - at the cinema, on television, and, especially, on DVD - the fastest- growing consumer electronics product of all time. This year, UK cinema admissions are likely to increase by 12%. 174 million tickets sold. This was unthinkable 20 years ago. We owe most of that rise in admissions to investment by exhibitors in our cinemas. The exhibitors deserve real credit for the turnaround of cinema-going in this country - though doubtless, like us, they would like to see admissions go even higher - because if you compare cinema-going in other countries, there is still room for considerable growth.

Over the last two years, the Film Council has concentrated its efforts on the better use of public subsidies – principally Lottery money – which, as you know, was failing to deliver what was promised. This we have completely reformed and overhauled.

First of all, we have concentrated on creativity – encouraging talent and skills by helping new and established filmmakers by completely restructuring production and development funding. This has resulted in many distinctively British films: from Gosford Park to Bloody Sunday. From The Magdalene Sisters to Bend It Like Beckham. The process of change was tough, but now it’s starting to pay off.

Second, we’ve supported our existing industry – primarily by fighting to protect and extend the existing Section 48 tax relief for film. We’ve also pitched aggressively for inward investment – mainly from the US – helping to deliver over £1 billion to the UK film economy. We’ve established to improve script skills across the industry and we’re also delivering training for film business skills. We’ve put down deep roots in each English region by co-financing the new development agencies and we’ve also cemented strong partnerships with the national film bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

At the same time, we’ve kept our focus on film culture and film education. We’ve set up programmes such as First Light – our highly popular scheme which has introduced filmmaking skills to hundreds of kids from Oldham to Exeter, from Barnsley to Belfast. Most recently we set up the single largest initiative ever mounted in Britain to improve the distribution and exhibition of specialised films on screens across the UK.

And of course we inherited responsibility for the bfi. Over the longer term we intend to support this very valuable organisation to enable it to more widely reach out to everyone in the UK with an interest in film culture. But whatever our efforts to date, we should recognise that all of us – industry, Film Council, Government - are prisoners of history - whether we like it or not. That’s why, until now, the Film Council has focussed on what we could most directly control and reform – the use of public subsidy. But that, in itself, is not enough. Not nearly enough. Now it’s time to raise the bar of our ambitions. For despite the Film Council’s considerable success in putting public subsidy for film on a sensible footing, to be honest, there is still a mountain to climb before we can help to create anything like a truly sustainable film industry.

This is something the Film Council cannot do on its own. Because bluntly, direct subsidy solely to production will never, ever form the basis of a successful film industry – ev programs en if we double, triple or quadruple the money presently on offer. In three years, we’ve created an organisation that is a model of its kind - anywhere in the world. But to state the blindingly obvious, the Film Council is the interface with Government. We exist to serve our industry and to advise Government. But we can’t be the industry, we exist only to encourage an environment in which the industry out there can flourish and thrive.

Our job is to help build a stable and growing industry - not to run one - and it’s in that spirit that I’d like to look at the history of film in the UK over the past two decades, and see what can we learn from our history. The past If we go back 20 years, the situation was desperate. Audiences were marching away from the cinema in droves, back to the comfort of the TVs
flickering in their living rooms. Our cinemas were run by the duopoly of Rank and EMI, whose executives seemed to see it as their mission in life to turn cinemas across the country into Bingo halls.

We were walking backwards into the future with our eyes down, hoping for a full house. The disastrous failure and bad management of these once cash-rich, highly resourced, giant companies to develop in line with their global competitors cast a dark shadow under which all of us who make and distribute films in the UK still toil. In those dark days, as always in our industry, we were not without our creative successes.

Richard Attenborough, Hugh Hudson and David Puttnam had won Oscars for Gandhi and Chariots of Fire, and it’s true, we had Goldcrest, the leading UK film financier - the catalyst for such international successes as Gandhi, The Killing Fields and The Mission. Colin Welland cried, “the British are coming”, at the Oscars in 1982. As any American school kid knows, Paul Revere – because he considered himself British at that time - never said this phrase - and probably neither should have Colin, because it proved to be an albatross around our necks for the next 20 years. In reality, the reborn British film industry trumpeted by the press was just another temporary production boom.

In 1984 the Conservative Government announced that it was abolishing the Eady Levy, which had for so long sustained our industry. They also niftily withdrew the capital allowance tax breaks for production. Chaos reigned once more. Producers were thrown the bone of £2 million a year to finance film production through a new private company, British Screen. Not nearly enough to build an industry, but it did support some important work by providing opportunities for some, but not all, of our most gifted filmmakers like Ken Loach and Mike Leigh who, frankly, might have been silenced without it.

Then Goldcrest – the pride of the British film industry – which had, over seven years, made 24 major feature films - collapsed with a bridge loan too far. At a time before the ancillary rights explosion of video and pay TV, and when 90% of the revenue for a film still came solely from its theatrical release. The company was woefully short of capital and was sold for a knock-down price.

With Government relegating us to pauper status and the City turning its back on us, production levels plummeted and even the most optimistic of us realised the game was up. With great frustration, many of our directors - the absolute heart of any film industry – namely, Ridley and Tony Scott, Adrian Lyne, Jon Amiel, Roland Joffe, Michael Apted, Mick Jackson - and so many others, including myself - followed David Puttnam to America. There we were welcomed with open arms and we could ply our trade as we have done since 1911 when an Englishman, William Horsley, made the very first film in California.

But back in the UK, against all expectations, the audiences were returning to the cinema with the same alacrity with which they had abandoned it just a few years earlier. This was because of what was called at the time the “multiplex experiment”. The cinema chains - principally, the American- owned ones - were building new venues and people actually started enjoying goingto the movies once more. Proof, apparently, that if you build it, they will come. But the audience certainly weren’t seeing many British films. Probably because there were so few, if any, to see at the time. On to the late 80s and early 90s, when British cinema became the handmaiden of television. Channel Four, and to a lesser extent, the BBC, kept the film cameras turning over - just about. But for the most part, a generation of filmmakers got stuck making small-screen filmed drama and the legacy ofLean, Reed and Korda was forgotten.

Then, in June 1990, Margaret Thatcher invited Dickie Attenborough, David Puttnam and a number of others into Number 10 Downing Street for a seminar. “Something must be done,” the woman said. I have this on hearsay, I have to add, because I wasn’t invited. The end result was a handout of £1 million a year to create the British Film Commission which, together with the introduction of Section 42 tax relief in 1992, provided a necessary boost toward inward investment - principally for large-scale
American productions in the UK.

But it had little effect on energising or creating a proper film industry. Then, in the mid-1990s, Dickie Attenborough once again - thank God for you, Dickie - persuaded the Conservative Government to give a share of “good cause” Lottery receipts to film. And as crucial, absolutely crucial, as this was for the survival of film culture in this country, there was a “catch” and hence a fatal flaw. The way the National Lottery Act was framed meant that, for the first few years, all the money for film had to be sunk into production, with a bit left over for capital projects such as refurbishing art house cinemas. The decision to force Lottery money solely into production and doling it out through an unprepared Arts Council was a mistake. A mistake gleefully jumped on in the press, in what can only be described as a tabloid editor’s dream.

Frankly, it was a badly thought out, “amateur night out” system, resulting in many films of which we as an industry could never
be proud. Also many of these films were made in a vacuum completely disconnected from distribution. A mistake which was not rectified until a change of Government and the creation of the Film Council. This is not self- serving, this is fact.

With the election of the Labour Government in May 1997, Gordon Brown’s first budget reinstated the 100% first year write-off for British films. A few months later, the DCMS/Film Policy Review, steered by Stewart Till, delivered the most thorough and comprehensive review up until then of our industry’s problems. Its conclusive document, “A Bigger Picture”, offered a cogent analysis of our industry, identifying the need for a distribution-led approach.

But sadly, its key policy proposals were quickly shot down in flames by the ITV companies. Incidentally, the same ITV companies who boasted that, instead, they were going to invest £100 million in British films. Yeah, sure. This investment never, ever materialised. To digress for a second: The BBC invests less than 1% of its entire budget in UK feature film production. And, believe me, we’re grateful for that 1%. Less than 1%!

Worse still, ITV, Channel 5 and Sky, whose schedules also are driven by American movies, invest even less than that. Even less than 1%! This lack of commitment from broadcasters to indigenous British film production is completely out of step with the rest of Europe.

But back to recent history and the film industry. Throughout these years, one film company stood out. PolyGram. At a time when the overwhelming majority of British films barely registered at the box-office at home or abroad, PolyGram, a production
and distribution company led by Michael Kuhn, was responsible for supporting talent and financing British films which did have popular appeal: the work of Richard Curtis, Duncan Kenworthy, Hugh Grant, Mike Newell, Danny Boyle, Michael Winterbottom and many, many more was suddenly visible on the world stage.

Not least of which was Working Title – still the jewel in the crown of British film production – run by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. PolyGram patiently persevered - it most certainly wasn’t created in a day. But that’s about how long Philips - the Dutch parent of this singularly British success - took to sell it, when it was suddenly gobbled up by Seagram. In the meantime, governmental responsibility for film had been shunted around from the Office of Arts and Libraries to the DTI, to the DNH and
then to the DCMS. Acronyms that not many of us could keep up with.

But it was never a recipe for consistent policy execution. And finally, in 1999, came the creation of the Film Council.
What our recent history teaches us is this: as a nation we’ve got an uncanny ability to produce world-class filmmaking talents. We too readily boast of our Oscar triumphs, our Berlin Bears and Venice Lions -proof that we can make outstanding films, whether here or within the Hollywood machine or, frankly, anywhere else we choose to tell our stories and make our films. It’s how we define our success, but although this makes headlines for newspapers, it’s not nearly as important as the vast numbers of people who are employed whose work creates those headlines.

And, except for brief bursts from time to time, as with PolyGram, those triumphs have never been supported by significant structures. If we’d had a proper film policy, with industry and Government working in partnership, those structures would have then been created. But they haven’t been.

But equally, what about emerging talent? At all levels? Something that as an industry we’ve done almost nothing to address, largely because of a scandalous neglect of training for too many years. The present So just what kind of film industry do we have right now? Let’s start with our strengths. I’d identify three in particular.

First. We have outstanding creative skills. We’ve got superb writers, directors and actors – not to mention the creators of hugely valuable intellectual properties like Harry Potter. Richard Curtis, for instance, has written British films which have grossed over a billion dollars at the world box office.

Second. We have outstanding studios and facilities companies, world-class costumiers, camera companies and digital post-production houses – studios and facilities which have been a magnet for inward investment, principally
from the US.

Third. We still have - just about - the finest technicians and craftspeople anywhere - although their numbers are diminishing at a worrying rate. I could also add a fourth: we have the English language – not just the same language of American movies, but that of the Internet.

But frankly, if you take a look at the reality of our industry, it’s apparent that we’ve failed to use our strengths to our real advantage. The basic truth of the film industry is that it is a distribution-led business. It has been since Adolph Zukor, William Fox, Carl Laemmle and the rest of the pioneers planted their flags out west. The formula used now by Hollywood
majors is exactly the same as it has been for 80 years. The Hollywood studios’ mathematics are simple: money spent on production is more than earned back in distribution, profits are taken and the balance is used to help
finance the production and distribution of more films.

Make no mistake, international distribution is where the real money is made in the film industry. The global market for film is estimated to be worth $60 billion dollars annually. A market totally dominated by American cinema. Yet instead of focussing on our strengths or addressing our biggest weakness – getting strong British films into global distribution - much of the British film industry has developed a serious production habit for the last 50 years. And like any addict, it has obsessively gone about feeding its addiction in any way that it can.

But now the years of plenty are over and presently it’s harder to close the finance on independent British films than it has been for many years. Of late, FilmFour has drastically scaled back, Granada has shut its dedicated film arm, and there’s a general shortage of finance in the market. As I have already mentioned, the fortunes of TV and film are intertwined. We simply must address the lack of investment from broadcasters into our industry.

Last week the Government published its response to the Joint Committee on the Communications Bill, in which it accepted that the broadcasters should play a positive role in the development of UK film. The Film Council will pursue this vigorously, but if Ofcom and Government drop this ball, frankly you can pretty much say goodbye to an indigenous film industry.

This year, our indigenous production industry will make around 40 films, representing £150 million in investment, down from the high of 1997 when 84 films were made. At the same time, inward investment into film production - principally large-scale American films - fluctuates year-to-year thanks to events far beyond our control: foot-and-mouth, swings in the sterling-dollar exchange rate, the threat of the SAG and Writers Guild strikes and, of course, international terrorism. We had the boom and now we’ve got a bust. Sound familiar?

To sum up, here’s the paradox of our industry: worldwide demand for film has never been stronger. Yet our ability to cash in on that demand remains almost as weak as it was two decades ago. The audience has grown. But much of our industry has failed to respond to that growth. There’s been little consistency of performance or growth across the UK industry as a whole. That’s why we need to reinvent our industry, and make it fit to face the future.

The future

So what do we want that future to look like? We have a Government that tells us it is willing to work in partnership with our industry. Willing to try to help us unlock the capital which gives us our best shot in years at creating a sustainable film industry.
We must evolve – and quickly – or this window of opportunity will slam shut in our faces. The results may not be apparent in the short term or even in the medium term, but reinvention of our industry must start now.

We need to abandon forever the “little England” vision of a UK industry comprised of small British film companies delivering parochial British films. That, I suspect, is what many people think of when they talk of a “sustainable” British film industry. Well, it’s time for a reality check. That “British” film industry never existed, and in the brutal age of global capitalism, it never will.

I hasten to add that personally, as a film director, I am not standing before you to celebrate world capitalism. But as Chairman of the Film Council I have to point out its reality regarding our industry’s future. We need to stimulate the growth of an industry that embraces the international market. At the same time, we must maintain an environment which supports the production of British films of enduring cultural significance. It’s not either/or. It’s both. We must stop talking about the British film industry and start considering our film industries.

We have to stop worrying about the nationality of money. We want to encourage investment into our film industry from anywhere in the world – without tearing up the roots of cultural film production. Also, now is the time, once and for all, to recognise that our industry’s obsession with public funding for production is taking us nowhere. This might seem like kicking someone when they’re down, but it’s not. As crucial as it is for our short term survival, public funding solely for production
is not the answer to the industry’s larger structural problems. I’m sorry, but it honestly isn’t.

I know it’s tough out there right now. I too work at the sharp end of production and I am fully aware that people are suffering in our industry. But we’ve had seven years of Lottery subsidy, and five years of a production-focussed tax break. Neither has delivered the structural changes that we need in order to deliver the consistent performance and growth to
prevent a crisis every five years. So let’s accept that production will never be a major profit centre. The idea of a self-sustaining, purely British film industry has been the Holy Grail for Government and industry for many years. But the idea of building a stable
of rights-owning film production companies is a fantasy.

Independent producers are a form of entrepreneurial talent, but they’re not moguls. With perhaps one shining exception – Jeremy Thomas - the evidence from too many years is clear that our producers are never going to build the companies which will form the basis of a successful film industry. It might work in television, but it hasn’t worked in film. Producers are a form of
talent; they take a fee for their services just like directors, cinematographers, production designers and everyone else. On their own, producers will never be able to deliver the sustainable film industry we need.

It’s time for that reality check and a time for reinvention. This means reinventing the UK as a “film hub” – a creative core. A film hub which is a natural destination for international investment. A film hub which is a natural supplier of skills and services to the global film market. A film hub which consistently creates British films that attract worldwide distribution and large audiences, while still using subsidy to support cultural production and new talent.

To be clear, if we are going to make that vision of the hub a reality, we need three key ingredients: Number One. Distribution. That means an industry that is led by distribution. Production led by distribution, not the other way round. Pull, not push. Robust, UK-based distributors and sales agents with a serious appetite for investing in British films and helping to make them a success all around the world. We have to stop defining success by how well British films perform in Milton Keynes. This is a big world – really successful British films like Notting Hill can make up to 85% of their revenues outside the UK.

Number Two. Skills - the best-equipped, most highly-skilled, most flexible film workforce in the world.

Number Three. Infrastructure – state-of-the-art studios and post-production companies, complemented by outstanding service companies operating at every level of the international film business.

Distribution, Skills, Infrastructure. The keys to making the UK a film hub for the 21st century. It’s not rocket science, you might be thinking. But how do we make it achievable? By reinvention. If we are to succeed, what is needed is not mere change, but transformation. And not transformation in one sector, but at every single level of the UK film business.

It won’t be easy, and it won’t be quick. But if we don’t try, then we won’t survive. It really is as simple as that. So what do we need to do to make that hub a reality? In a successful industry, distribution pulls production behind it. Distribution
pull, not production push, as I said before. But public policy in the UK has always largely focussed on production. So how can we effect a shift of emphasis, thereby increasing the strength of both the distribution and the
production sectors?

The Government has a number of levers it can pull, the most powerful of which is fiscal policy. We need a tax break that gives incentives to distributors – both strong independents and American studios - to invest in and acquire British films. We need a fiscal policy which stimulates market investment rather than one that primarily serves “producer interests”. We need to be led by demand, not pushed by supply.

If we don’t focus on strengthening distribution for our films, then soon we might not have a production sector at all.
The existing tax breaks have delivered many significant benefits. The 100% first year write-off - Section 48 - introduced by the Government in 1997, has generated jobs, brought fresh blood into the industry and delivered decent films enjoyed by audiences.

The other tax break, Section 42, continues to help attract big American movies here - movies that keep the gates from slamming shut at Pinewood and Shepperton. But although these current tax breaks have performed a valuable function,
they are inefficient. They mainly rely on using a sale and leaseback structure originally invented for oil pipelines and factory lathes. It’s not ideally suited to a business in which ultimately the only physical asset is a few cans of 35mm film negative.

That’s why there’s been such uncertainty over the rules governing the tax break. And is it any wonder that it hasn’t produced structural change? Particularly when so little of the benefit ends up with our filmmakers. Don’t get me wrong. Without these tax breaks, there would be little or almost no production in the UK. But they haven’t improved the distribution of British films.

But in any event, the international landscape of film production is in the middle of a colossal transformation. This alone demands that we have a review. Tax breaks that were manna from heaven in 1997 may not be right for the next stage in our evolution. I believe that the locomotive of any new tax break must relate to film distribution. We need a tax break that powers up that distribution
locomotive. So that it can pull a healthier British production industry behind it. An industry composed of ambitious, large-scale British films, as well as smaller, “cultural” ones. I don’t have to remind anyone here – that’s you, the industry - the current Section 48 relief will expire in July 2005. In production planning terms that means it’s good for another 18 months from today. We need to start
planning for the future now.

The Film Council is ready to work with you to cogently and persuasively put our case to Government. But before I move on, allow me to digress for a short while, because there is a specific problem with the costs of low-budget British films, whose
principal market is the UK. For too long, we’ve assumed that the economics and mechanics of high- budget films can simply be scaled down and applied to low-budget films. They can’t. That’s a recipe for killing off the low-budget sector, not sustaining it. Fundamentally, how can we justify a parochial film industry that doesn’t travel beyond these shores and hence has no hope of returning its costs? If the work is of such cultural importance, but might not even return its investment in the UK – let alone anywhere else – it will have to be subsidised, or its costs downsized considerably.

Earlier this year the Film Council commissioned a report from Simon Relph on low-budget filmmaking around the world - the best industry report I’ve ever read. I urge all of you involved in producing and distributing British films to read it when it’s published in a few weeks time. It illustrates, extremely persuasively, that we need to fundamentally change the way in which we go about making low-budget British films; if we don’t, then in a few years time, British filmmaking at this level will cease to exist. It really is as simple as that. The Relph Report shows that the solutions lie with filmmakers and with talent.

It thoroughly illustrates that the French, Germans and even the Danish make films far more cheaply than we do. Why can’t we make films at budgets that reflect their market value? Why can’t we adopt the more flexible attitude of the vibrant American independent sector, and thereby create more opportunities for more people to enter our business? Let me throw down a challenge to British filmmakers and British talent: if you continue to make films for which the costs far exceed potential revenues then you have to have a very good reason to ask for public money to support you in that effort, or you need to reduce the cost of low-budget films by changing the way you work.

Moving to the second element of the hub: skills. Again, a self-evident truth – we simply won’t have an industry at all unless
we invest in people. As proud as we are of our existing talent and skills base, there simply aren’t enough good new writers, new editors, new production designers and new cinematographers coming through. The technical and skills workforce is ageing. My own editor is 75 years old, acknowledged to be one of the world’s great editors, but he’s a product of a system - studio apprenticeships - which long ago disappeared. We desperately need a new generation of talented filmmakers because they are our life-force and our future.

So what do we intend to do about this?

The Film Council and Skillset are undertaking a major study into the training needs of our industry. Stewart Till is chairing the steering group. Only when we accurately know what we need can we possibly plan for the future. When the report is complete, we will draw up a realistically budgeted training strategy, one designed to ensure that with Skillset we will create a world-class workforce right across the entire UK film business. This won’t be cheap, of course. As existing funding commitments expire, the Film Council is prepared to shift more Lottery money into training. But in return we will also insist that the industry invests seriously in its own future for the first time – by investing in training right across the board - all the way from script development, through production, to post-production,
distribution and exhibition.

We’d also like to tie a contribution to public training funds to the availability of any possible tax break. Something that was mooted during the Film Policy Review, the advice then was that it needed primary legislation, which wasn’t achievable at that time. If as an industry we demand our rights, then we’ve got to deliver on our responsibilities. We also want to see Government release more funds to train and re-skill our industry. The Government says it’s serious about developing skills and creativity in this country; now’s the time to prove it. At the moment, we’re scattering our efforts in too many directions at once. We’ve a National Film and Television School out at Beaconsfield which looks like an abandoned set from The Day of the Triffids, and some good, but seriously under-resourced film courses at Leeds, Bournemouth, the London Film School and elsewhere. There’s presently no attempt to make these courses complement one another, and no attempt to offer a structured entry plan into our industry for all of the different creative, technical and craft roles.

The Film Council intends to put together a coherent training strategy for film, organised at the centre, but delivered at colleges and training establishments all around the country. A strategy in which a revitalized National Film and Television School has a prominent role. Schools equipped for the digital world of 2010 and beyond. What we’ve got at the moment is not a policy for “training” or “skills development” - it’s an excuse for one. We have to have a real policy and we have to see it through.

But if we’re to build a world-class film industry, we also need to draw on all the talents available to us; we have to broaden access to our industry to all sections of our society. Not just for cultural reasons, but for straightforward commercial ones. This is not altruism or political correctness; it’s common sense to make use of the best talents that we can lay our hands on. Now to the third key element of the film hub: infrastructure. Everything from our studios, to post-production houses, to labs, to camera hire, to costume hire – everything that is needed for a film to get made.

The environment in which all of these companies operate is undergoing radical change and we can’t pretend that cosy transatlantic assumptions will endure. Around the world, investment is pouring into new film studios from India to South Korea, from Australia to Thailand, and dozens of other Governments are dreaming up new tax incentives seemingly month-by- month in an effort to attract big-budget Hollywood movies. The world is suddenly a much more competitive place. The Hollywood studios are more cost-conscious than ever before.

Once we were fearful that US production would stay at home instead of coming to Pinewood or Shepperton or Leavesden. The new reality is even more worrying; they might even go somewhere else altogether. That trend won’t be reversed – instead it will accelerate with the collapse of traditional trade barriers, as our industry becomes more mobile and as digital production technologies make it far easier to produce films set almost anywhere in the world. As we speak, in Romania, one of my colleagues on the Film Council Board, Iain Smith, is co-producing Cold Mountain for Miramax. Directed by one of our finest directors, Anthony Minghella, they have an international crew - 150 of them British – with many British actors and using mostly British services. It’s an American Civil War story about a wounded Confederate soldier, played by Jude Law, hoping to reunite with his pre-war sweetheart.

Not a lot to do with Romania, you might think. But if you want to know why they’re filming there in the Carpathians, just look at the costs of construction and extras. Luring an $80 million film away from locations in the United States and studios in the UK would have been unthinkable five years ago. Over time, these non-traditional filmmaking countries will build their own film industries as they further develop their own skills. But if we form partnerships with them now, we will have a much better chance of supplying services to them – particularly our high-end skills - as their industries mature.

How can the Film Council, working with Government, help the industry achieve that transformation? We must make our crucial financial incentives more flexible. We need to revise the definition of a British film, finding ways to recast it to reflect the fact that actual production increasingly will take place in countries with a lower cost base than ours. We must begin to view the world beyond the UK.

We need to encourage greater British involvement in international film production, by creating strategic alliances with new territories outside Europe who are already playing host to big-budget productions and are hungry for more, at the same time ensuring that British talent – technicians and craftspeople – work on these films.

Film production, David Lean once said, is the “last of the travelling circuses”. It’s taken a long time to heed his advice. We will need to strengthen our traditional links with the American industry at every level; encouraging them to continue to invest in production here in order to develop our infrastructure to the benefit of jobs and skills - even in an environment that is far more competitive than it was, ten, or even five, years ago.

In Europe, it will mean focussing on the obvious benefits of being part of the biggest single market in the world. Encouraging financial bridges with Europe’s major film companies across the continent, and bringing additional investment into the UK. And, crucially, we must increase our influence on policy at the European Commission. The Film Council will examine whether there are existing fiscal incentives which might be adapted to stimulate investment into the infrastructure, most notably into studios and post-production.
So let’s try to draw everything together before I finish.

Which, by the way, will be soon. To achieve our aims, we also need Government to help us – not with handouts, but by acting in a cohesive way so that we can work with different departments to achieve our objectives - without running into turf wars every five minutes. If the Film Council is to have a real chance of creating a new and meaningful film industry in this country we will need to work not only with the DCMS, but also with the Treasury, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department for Education and Skills, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and doubtless other parts of Government.

Pretty obvious, you might say, but in our experience, not always easy. I’d like to finish with a story which sums up our predicament. It’s a story about a boiling frog, a story widely told in France where, as you know, they regularly eat these unfortunate creatures. Apparently, if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, not surprisingly, it will immediately jump out. However, if you place the frog into a pot of cold water and slowly heat the water to boiling point the frog will never notice the change. It will not attempt to jump out. It will not feel any pain. From one moment to the next the change in temperature will be slight, and its metabolism will try to
adapt. It will be remarkably successful at adapting. Then it will die, boiled to death.

I’d contend this is the danger facing the British film industry. Slowly, but inexorably, many of our “competitive advantages” are evaporating. Our creative and technical skills, our cost-base, our ability to compete in the world market at every level - they are all under threat in the long term, and unless we jump out of the pot in the next few years then eventually we too will be goners. Make no mistake.

To conclude:-
We need distribution-led companies to carve out a British share of the $60 billion world market and we can’t do this simply by staying
at home. We have to not worry about the nationality of money. We have to redefine what a British film is. We are not one film industry, but many industries. One solution doesn’t fit all.

Absolutely, we need cinemas that show not just American blockbusters, but films made in the UK with stories for and about ourselves.
We need a robust infrastructure that will enable us to make those films here and also compete in the world marketplace. In the immediate future, we are going to have to compete on the basis of skills, even more so than costs, so we need to rapidly expand the quality of our skills base because it is the life-force that will protect the UK’s ability to make film.

We are at a crossroads. Film Council and film industry. The tide is turning and we can’t sit here like cultural Canutes. We can retreat back to “Little England”. Or we can mount a sustained assault on wider horizons. The choice is there for all of us. And just in case anyone has any doubts about our talent in the UK, in the spirit of optimism, I’ll leave you with a taste of our industry’s most recent and future work.

Thank you very much.
Sir Alan Parker CBE
Chairman
FILMCOUNCIL
5 November 2002

The Process of Screenwriting

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Article from The New Straits Times
Friday, Oct 31st 2008
Klassifieds

A good story is where a sympathetic hero comes up against incredible barriers and manages to overcome them. In the design of the story we create a universe with its own rules, limits and values.

The concept of story will be examined in the different forms of structure and the principles as established by Aristotle in The Poetics.

The principles of specificity is that the story teller is the originator of the story and his prejudices and his consciousness has great influence on the story. The world the story teller imagines is apart of the writer’s style of screen writing.

The story design is transcribed into a screenplay and the screenplay is open to interpretation. The meaning and purpose of the story is examined and how the same story can be told in different ways.

Ike Ong said the basic requirements for script evaluation is firstly the Synopsis.

Secondly, Detailed Character Biographies to help the readers visualize the sophistication of the plot.

Thirdly, a Detailed Treatment of the final script is required.

Fourthly, a Step Outline of the screenplay is the manageable reading material to make the producer buy the screenplay. Ong added: “The development procedure in Screenwriting we have adopted is one where the Story Design is established to express the meaning of the story of the film.

“This is then transcribed to the Step Outline which is a group of scenes which expresses the action of the drama.”

“Students will practice deconstruction to Step Outlines on ready made films and familiarize themselves with the motions of thinking in cinematic terms step by step,” said Ong.

"A Practical Guide to Joseph Cambell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Christopher Vogler

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“There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”

Willa Cather

INTRODUCTION

In the long run, one of the most influential books of the 20^th century may turn out to be Joseph Campbell’s THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES.

The book and the ideas in it are having a major impact on writing and story-telling, but above all on movie-making. Filmmakers like John Boorman, George Miller, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Francis Coppola owe their successes in part to the ageless patterns that Joseph Campbell identifies in the book.

The ideas Campbell presents in this and other books are an excellent set of analytical tools.

With them you can almost always determine what’s wrong with a story that’s floundering; and you can find a better solution almost any story problem by examining the pattern laid out in the book.

There’s nothing new in the book. The ideas in it are older that the Pyramids, older than Stonehenge, older that the earliest cave painting.,

Campbell’s contribution was to gather the ideas together, recognize them, articulate them, and name them. He exposes the pattern for the first time, the pattern that lies behind every story ever told.

Campbell, now 82, is a vigorous lover of mythology and the author of many books on the subject. For many years he has taught, written, and lectured about the myths of all cultures in all times. THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES is the clearest statement of his observations on the most persistent theme in all of oral traditions and recorded literature – the myth of the hero.

In his study of world hero myths Campbell discovered that they are all basically the same story – retold endlessly in infinite variations. He found that all story-telling, consciously or not, follows the ancient patterns of myth, and that all stories, from the crudest jokes to the highest flights of literature, can be understood in terms of the hero myth; the “monomyth” whose principles he lays out in the book.

The theme of the hero myth is universal, occuring in every culture, in every time; it is as infinitely varied as the human race itself; and yet its basic form remains the same, an incredibly tenacious set of elements that spring in endless repetition from the deepest reaches of the mind of man.

Campbell’s thinking runs parallel to that of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, who wrote of the “archetypes: -- constantly repeating characters who occur in the dreams of all people and the myths of all cultures.

Jung suggested that these archetypes are reflection of aspects of the human mind – that our personalities divide themselves into these characters to play out the drama of our lives.

He noticed a strong correspondence between his patients’ dream or fantasy figures and the common archetypes of mythology, and he suggested that both were coming from a deeper source, in the “collective unconscious” of the human race.

The repeating characters of the hero myth such as the young hero, the wise old man or woman, the shape-shifting woman or man, and the shadowy antagonist are identical with the archetypes of the human mind, as revealed in dreams. That’s why myths, and stories constructed on the mythological model, strike us as psychologically true.

Such stories are true models of the workings of the human mined, true maps of the psyche. They are psychologically valid and realistic even when they portray fantastic, impossible, unreal events.

This accounts for the universal power of such stories. Stories built on the model of the hero myth have an appeal that can be felt by everyone, because they spring from a universal source in the collective unconscious, and because they reflect universal concerns. They deal with the child-like but universal questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? Where will I go when I die? What is good and what is evil? What must I do about it? What will tomorrow be like? Where did yesterday go? Is there anybody else out there?

The idea imbedded in mythology and identified by Campbell in THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES can be applied to understanding any human problem. The are a great key to life as well as being a major tool for dealing more effectively with a mass audience.

If you want to understand the ideas behind the hero myth, there’s no substitute for actually reading Campbell’s book. It’s an experience that has a way of changing people. It’s also a good idea to read a lot of myths, but it amounts to the same thing since Campbell is a master story-teller who delights in illustrating his points with examples from the rich storehouse of mythology.

Campbell gives a condensed version of the basic hero myth in chapter IV, “The Keys”, of THE HERO WITH A THUSAND FACES. I’ve taken the liberty of amending the outline slightly, trying to reflect some of the common themes in movies, illustrated with examples from contemporary films. I’m re-telling the hero myth in my own way, and you should feel free to do the same. Every story-teller bends the myth to his or her own purpose. That’s why the hero has a thousand faces.

THE STAGES OF THE HERO’S JOURNEY

1.) The hero is introduced in his/her ORDINARY WORLD.

Most stories ultimately take us to a special world, a world that is new and alien to its hero. If you’re going to tell a story about a fish out of his customary element, you first have to create a contrast by showing him in his mundane, ordinary world. In WITNESS you see both the Amish boy and the policeman in their ordinary worlds before they are thrust into alien worlds – the farm boy into the city, and the city cop into the unfamiliar countryside. In STAR WARS you see Luke Skywalker being bored to death as a farm boy before he tackles the universe.

2.) The CALL TO ADVENTURE.

The hero is presented with a problem, challenge or adventure. Maybe the land is dying, as in the King Arthur stories about the search for the Grail. In STAR WARS, it’s Princess Leia’s holographic message to Obi Wan Kenobi, who then asks Luke to join the quest. In detective stories, it’s the hero being offered a new case. In romantic comedies it could be the first sight of that special but annoying someone the hero or heroine will be pursuing/sparring with.

3.) The hero is reluctant at first. (REFUSAL OF THE CALL.)

Often at this point the hero balks at the threshold of adventure. After all, he or she is facing the greatest of all fears – fear of the unknown. At this point Luke refuses Obi Wan’s call to adventure, and returns to his aunt and uncle’s farmhouse, only to find they have been barbecued by the Emperor’s stormtroopers. Suddenly Luke is no longer reluctant, and is eager to undertake the adventure. He is motivated.

4.) The hero is encouraged by the Wise Old Man or Woman. (MEETING WITH THE MENTOR.)

By this time many stories will have introduced a Merlin-like character who is the hero’s mentor. In JAWS it’s the crusty Robert Shaw character who knows all about sharks; in the mythology of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, it’s Lou Grant. The mentor gives advice and sometimes magical weapons. This is Obi Wan giving Luke his father’s light saber.

The mentor can go so far with the hero. Eventually the hero must face the unknown by himself. Sometimes the Wise Old Man/Woman is required to give the hero a swift kick in the pants to get the adventure going.

5.) The hero passes the first threshold. (CROSSING THE THRESHOLD.)

The hero fully enters the special world of the story for the first time. This is the moment at which the story takes off and the adventure gets going. The balloon goes up, the romance begins, the spaceship blasts off, the wagon train gets rolling. Dorothy sets out on the Yellow Brick Road. The hero is now committed to his/her journey and there’s no turning back.

6.) The hero encounters tests and helpers. (TESTS, ALLIES, ENEMIES.)

The hero is forced to make allies and enemies in the special world, and to pass certain tests and challenges that are part of his/her training. In STAR WARS the cantina is the setting for the forging of an important alliance with Han Solo and the start of an important enmity with Jabba the Hutt. In CASABLANCA Rick’s Café is the setting for the “alliances and enmities” phase and in many Westerns it’s the saloon where these relationships are tested.

7.) The hero reaches the innermost cave. (APPROACH TO THE INMOST CAVE.)

The hero comes at last to a dangerous place, often deep underground, where the object of the quest is hidden. In the Arthurian stories the Chapel Perilous is the dangerous chamber where the seeker finds the Grail. In many myths the hero has to descend into hell to retrieve a loved one, or into a cave to fight a dragon and gain a treasure. It’s Theseus going to the Labyrinth to face the Minotaur. In STAR WARS it’s Luke and company being sucked into the Death Star where they will rescue Princess Leia. Sometimes it’s just the hero going into his/her own dream world to confront fears and overcome them.

8.) The hero endures the supreme ORDEAL.

This is the moment at which the hero touches bottom. He/she faces the possibility of death, brought to the brink in a fight with a mythical beast. For us, the audience standing outside the cave waiting for the victor to emerge, it’s a black moment. In STAR WARS, it’s the harrowing moment in the bowels of the Death Star, where Luke, Leia and company are trapped in the giant trash-masher. Luke is pulled under by the tentacled monster that lives in the sewage and is held down so long that the audience begins to wonder if he’s dead. IN E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL, E. T. momentarily appears to die on the operating table.

This is a critical moment in any story, an ordeal in which the hero appears to die and be born again. It’s a major source of the magic of the hero myth. What happens is that the audience has been led to identify with the hero. We are encouraged to experience the brink-of-death feeling with the hero. We are temporarily depressed, and then we are revived by the hero’s return from death.

This is the magic of any well-designed amusement park thrill ride. Space Mountain or the Great Whiteknuckler make the passengers feel like they’re going to die, and there’s a great thrill that comes with surviving a moment like that. This is also the trick of rites of passage and rites of initiation into fraternities and secret societies. The initiate is forced to taste death and experience resurrection. You’re never more alive than when you think you’re going to die.

9.) The hero seizes the sword. (SEIZING THE SWORD, REWARD)

Having survived death, beaten the dragon, slain the Minotaur, her hero now takes possession of the treasure he’s come seeking. Sometimes it’s a special weapon like a magic sword or it may be a token like the Grail or some elixir which can heal the wounded land.

The hero may settle a conflict with his father or with his shadowy nemesis. In RETURN OF THE JEDI, Luke is reconciled with both, as he discovers that the dying Darth Vader is his father, and not such a bad guy after all.

The hero may also be reconciled with a woman. Often she is the treasure he’s come to win or rescue, and there is often a love scene or sacred marriage at this point. Women in these stories (or men if the hero is female) tend to be shape-shifters. They appear to change in form or age, reflecting the confusing and constantly changing aspects of the opposite sex as seen from the hero’s point of view. The hero’s supreme ordeal may grant him a better understanding of women, leading to a reconciliation with the opposite sex.

10.) THE ROAD BACK.

The hero’s not out of the woods yet. Some of the best chase scenes come at this point, as the hero is pursued by the vengeful forces from whom he has stolen the elixir or the treasure.. This is the chase as Luke and friends are escaping from the Death Star, with Princess Leia and the plans that will bring down Darth Vader.

If the hero has not yet managed to reconcile with his father or the gods, they may come raging after him at this point. This is the moonlight bicycle flight of Elliott and E. T. as they escape from “Keys” (Peter Coyote), a force representing governmental authority. By the end of the movie Keys and Elliott have been reconciled and it even looks like Keys will end up as Elliott’s step-father.

11.) RESURRECTION.

The hero emerges from the special world, transformed by his/her experience. There is often a replay here of the mock death-and-rebirth of Stage 8, as the hero once again faces death and survives. The Star Wars movies play with this theme constantly – all three of the films to date feature a final battle scene in which Luke is almost killed, appears to be dead for a moment, and then miraculously survives. He is transformed into a new being by his experience.

12.) RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR

The hero comes back to the ordinary world, but the adventure would be meaningless unless he/she brought back the elixir, treasure, or some lesson from the special world. Sometimes it’s just knowledge or experience, but unless he comes back with the elixir or some boon to mankind, he’s doomed to repeat the adventure until he does. Many comedies use this ending, as a foolish character refuses to learn his lesson and embarks on the same folly that got him in trouble in the first place.

Sometimes the boon is treasure won on the quest, or love, or just the knowledge that the special world exists and can be survived. Sometimes it’s just coming home with a good story to tell.

The hero’s journey, once more: The hero is introduced in his ORDINARY WORLD where he receives the CALL TO ADVENTURE. He is RELUCTANT at first to CROSS THE FIRST THRESHOLD where he eventually encounters TESTS, ALLIES and ENEMIES. He reaches the INNERMOST CAVE where he endures the SUPREME ORDEAL. He SEIZES THE SWORD or the treasure and is pursued on the ROAD BACK to his world. He is RESURRECTED and transformed by his experience. He RETURNS to his ordinary world with a treasure, boon, or ELIXIR to benefit his world.

As with any formula, there are pitfalls to be avoided. Following the guidelines of myth too rigidly can lead to a stiff, unnatural structure, and there is the danger of being too obvious. The hero myth is a skeleton that should be masked with the details of the individual story, and the structure should not call attention to itself. The order of the hero’s stages as given here is only one of many variations – the stages can be deleted, added to, and drastically re-shuffled without losing any of their power.

The values of the myth are what’s important. The images of the basic version – young heroes seeking magic swords from old wizards, fighting evil dragons in deep caves, etc. – are just symbols and can be changed infinitely to suit the story at hand.

The myth is easily translated to contemporary dramas, comedies, romances, or action-adventures by substituting modern equivalents for the symbolic figures and props of the hero story. The Wise Old Man may be a real shaman or wizard, but he can also be any kind of mentor or teacher, doctor or therapist, crusty but benign boss, tough but fair top sergeant, parent, grandfather, etc. Modern heroes may not be going into caves and labyrinths to fight their mythical beasts, but they do enter and innermost cave by going into space, to the bottom of the sea, into their own minds, or into the depths of a modern city.

The myth can be used to tell the simplest comic book story or the most sophisticated drama. It grows and matures as new experiments are tried within its basic framework. Changing the sex and ages of the basic characters only makes it more interesting and allows for ever more complex webs of understanding to be spun among them. The essential characters can be combined or divided into several figures to show different aspects of the same idea. The myth is infinitely flexible, capable of endless variation without sacrificing any of its magic, and it will outlive us all.

"The Memo That Started It All" by Christopher Vogler

2009-10-02T21:23:00.001+08:00

From time to time people ask me for a copy of the original seven-page memo that was the foundation of THE WRITER’S JOURNEY. For many years I lost track of the original version and could only offer to send people the longer versions that evolved later, or point them to my book, where the memo was embedded in the first chapter, but they weren’t satisfied with these solutions, apparently believing there was something almost magical about that original terse, blunt statement of my beliefs. They had to have the “legendary seven-pager” which I had called “A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES”, but I was never able to lay hands on the original short version. Until now, that is.

After upheavals of home and office, and sifting through many files and boxes, I have finally come across the raw, original text of The Memo, and I offer it here to you, with the hopes it will have some of the magical effect on you that people attribute to it. But first, I’d like to share some of the context around the creation of this little document.

It was written in the mid-1980s when I was working as a story consultant for Walt Disney Pictures, but I had discovered the work of mythologist Joseph Campbell a few years earlier while studying cinema at the University of Southern California. I was sure I saw Campbell’s ideas being put to work in the first of the Star Wars movies and wrote a term paper for a class in which I attempted to identify the mythic patterns that made that film such a huge success. The research and writing for that paper inflamed my imagination and later, when I started working as a story analyst at Fox and other Hollywood studios, I showed the paper to a few colleagues, writers and executives to stimulate some discussion of Campbell’s ideas which I found to be of unlimited value for creating mass entertainment. I was certainly making profitable use of them, applying them to every script and novel I considered in my job.

Eventually I arrived at Disney where a strong corporate culture and a string of hits were being created by executives Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Memos were a big part of that corporate identity, a means of persuasively communicating concepts and attitudes, and all of us who worked at Disney at that time had to learn the memo art form, following the example of Katzenberg, an absolute master.

I suppose the discipline of writing succinct development notes, story coverage and research memos kindled in me a desire to express the exciting ideas I had found in Campbell in a clear, concise way. I wanted to once and for all get them down as creative principles, a set of reliable building blocks for constructing stories, a set of tools for troubleshooting story problems.

So I took time off from my story analyst job and spent a week in New York City with David McKenna, a good friend I’d met years ago while doing theatre in San Antonio in my Air Force days. We’d followed parallel paths in film and theatre, and eventually converged as story analysts and consultants. He is a great film buff and a good guy to bounce ideas off of, and together we shook out the details of the Hero’s Journey as it seemed to apply to movies. We worked out terminology and discussed scenes from films in every genre to demonstrate the variations of the Hero’s Journey pattern. We wore out his VCR looking at old movie clips. At the end of this intense phase I went back to L.A. and pounded out the seven–page memo, sending the first copy to McKenna.

I gave copies of The Memo to my story analyst friends and to key Disney executives including Ricardo Mestres of Hollywood Pictures and David Hoberman of Touchstone, both divisions of Disney. “Interesting,” was all that most people said, at first. But I knew, I sensed somehow, I was on to something. I had the vision that copies of The Memo were like little robots, moving out from the studio and into the jetstream of Hollywood thinking all on their own. Fax machines had just been invented and I envisioned copies of The Memo flying all over town, and that’s exactly what happened.

Feedback started coming in that suggested I had hit a nerve. I heard young executives buzzing about it, telling their friends about it. It became the “I have to have it” document of the season at talent agencies and in studio executive suites like that of Dawn Steel at Paramount. And in the sincerest form of compliment, it was promptly plagiarized. One instance was right under my nose in the studio. A junior executive had taken off my title page and substituted his own name as author, and then submitted it to Jeffrey Katzenberg, who read it and pronounced it a very important document at a meeting of his development execs, making it required reading for the entire staff.

Fortunately someone at that table had already read The Memo and knew I was the true author. I heard about it on the studio grapevine within minutes and immediately sent off a letter to Mr. Katzenberg, asserting myself as the author of The Memo and requesting deeper involvement in story development. He called me right away and put me to work with Disney’s Feature Animation division, where I began doing research and development work on THE LION KING and many other projects. When I arrived I found The Memo had preceded me, and the animators were already outlining their story boards with Hero’s Journey stages.

The Memo served as a handout when I began teaching story analysis at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. And that’s when it began to grow, as I developed the ideas more fully and added more examples. Eventually I included material about the archetypes and soon there was enough material to contemplate a book, and thus THE WRITER’S JOURNEY was born from a humble seven-page acorn.

But people continue to attribute special importance or powers to the original seven-pager, especially those who had been around when its impact was first felt. At one point, a museum dedicated to screenwriting requested a copy for a display of what they considered the milestone documents and books in the history of the craft. And so I give you The Memo, thus releasing many more little robots to distribute these ideas far and wide, to influence movies, computer game design, or whatever field where they may be useful.

The Heroine's Journey (adapted from Maureen Murdock)

2009-10-02T21:21:00.002+08:00

The Heroine's Journey (adapted from Maureen Murdock)

STAGE

1. SEPARATION FROM THE FEMININE

2. IDENTIFICATION WITH THE MASCULINE & GATHERING OF ALLIES

3. ROAD OF TRIALS, MEETING OGRES & DRAGONS

4. FINDING THE BOON OF SUCCESS

5. AWAKENING TO FEELINGS OF SPIRITUAL ARIDITY: DEATH

6. INITIATION & DESCENT TO THE GODDESS

7. URGENT YEARNING TO RECONNECT WITH THE FEMININE

8. HEALING THE MOTHER/DAUGHTER SPLIT

9. HEALING THE WOUNDED MASCULINE

10. INTEGRATION OF MASCULINE & FEMININE

THE ARCHETYPE

ARCHETYPES are recurring patterns of human behavior, symbolized by standard types of characters in movies and stories.

HEROES

Central figures in stories. Everyone is the hero of his or her own myth.

SHADOWS

Villains and enemies, perhaps the enemy within. The dark side of the Force, the repressed possibilities of the hero, his or her potential for evil. Can be other kinds of repression, such as repressed grief, anger, frustration or creativity that is dangerous if it doesn’t have an outlet.

MENTORS

The hero’s guide or guiding principles. Yoda, Merlin, a great coach or teacher.

HERALD

One who brings the Call to Adventure. Could be a person or an event.

THRESHOLD GUARDIANS

The forces that stand in the way at important turning points, including jealous enemies, professional gatekeepers, or your own fears and doubts.

SHAPESHIFTERS

In stories, creatures like vampires or werewolves who change shape. In life, the shapeshifter represents change. The way other people (or our perceptions of them) keep changing. The opposite sex, the way people can be two-faced.

TRICKSTERS

Clowns and mischief-makers, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy. Our own mischievous subconscious, urging us to change.

ALLIES

Characters who help the hero through the change. Sidekicks, buddies, girlfriends who advise the hero through the transitions of life.

The Hero's Journey Outline By Chris Vogler

2009-10-02T20:50:00.007+08:00

The Hero's Journey Outline

The Hero’s Journey is a pattern of narrative identified by the American scholar Joseph Campbell that appears in drama, storytelling, myth, religious ritual, and psychological development. It describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as The Hero, the person who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of the group, tribe, or civilization.

Its stages are:

1. THE ORDINARY WORLD. The hero, uneasy, uncomfortable or unaware, is introduced sympathetically so the audience can identify with the situation or dilemma. The hero is shown against a background of environment, heredity, and personal history. Some kind of polarity in the hero’s life is pulling in different directions and causing stress.

2. THE CALL TO ADVENTURE. Something shakes up the situation, either from external pressures or from something rising up from deep within, so the hero must face the beginnings of change.

3. REFUSAL OF THE CALL. The hero feels the fear of the unknown and tries to turn away from the adventure, however briefly. Alternately, another character may express the uncertainty and danger ahead.

4. MEETING WITH THE MENTOR. The hero comes across a seasoned traveler of the worlds who gives him or her training, equipment, or advice that will help on the journey. Or the hero reaches within to a source of courage and wisdom.

5. CROSSING THE THRESHOLD. At the end of Act One, the hero commits to leaving the Ordinary World and entering a new region or condition with unfamiliar rules and values.

6. TESTS, ALLIES AND ENEMIES. The hero is tested and sorts out allegiances in the Special World.

7. APPROACH. The hero and newfound allies prepare for the major challenge in the Special world.

8. THE ORDEAL. Near the middle of the story, the hero enters a central space in the Special World and confronts death or faces his or her greatest fear. Out of the moment of death comes a new life.

9. THE REWARD. The hero takes possession of the treasure won by facing death. There may be celebration, but there is also danger of losing the treasure again.

10. THE ROAD BACK. About three-fourths of the way through the story, the hero is driven to complete the adventure, leaving the Special World to be sure the treasure is brought home. Often a chase scene signals the urgency and danger of the mission.

11. THE RESURRECTION. At the climax, the hero is severely tested once more on the threshold of home. He or she is purified by a last sacrifice, another moment of death and rebirth, but on a higher and more complete level. By the hero’s action, the polarities that were in conflict at the beginning are finally resolved.

12. RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR. The hero returns home or continues the journey, bearing some element of the treasure that has the power to transform the world as the hero has been transformed.

The Ten Questions

2009-10-02T17:16:00.015+08:00

These are the cardinal rules for every actor. You should be able to answer the ten questions for the character you are playing all the time in every scene:

1) WHO AM I?

Background

Education

Likes & Dislikes

Relationships

Inner Characteristics

Outer Characteristics (the above 2 should be personalized using knowledge of yourself to apply to the character)

2) WHERE AM I?

Furniture, colours and textures.

Weather conditions.

Objects in the place.

Personal objects.

(How do I feel about my surroundings?)

3) WHEN IS IT?

Time

Year

Season

Weather conditions

WHY NOW?

4) WHERE HAVE I JUST COME FROM? (what have I been doing?)

5) WHAT DO I WANT? (Action)

Need

Desire

Wish

Intend

Ambition

6) WHY DO I WANT WHAT I WANT?

Justification (The actor has the creative license to make up what is required for the character)

7) WHY DO I WANT IT NOW?

(The director is dependent on the script and the information provided within the script. Where there are information missing it is the job of the actor to create what he thinks is relevant to the character and the script without contradicting what has been written.)

8) WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF I DON'T GET IT NOW?

The greatest gratification we achieve is in the creative process and this is one of the items where the actor has a great deal to contribute. The creative process has been described as being better than sex!

9) WHAT IS IN MY WAY?

Inner Resistance (could be from how you feel or physical state of being)

OUTER OBSTACLE

Situation/Time Limit,

Partner,

Previous Circumstances,

Place or objects.

10)HOW AM I GOING TO GET WHAT I WANT?

Activities

Verbal or Physical,

Example: to impress,

to get sympathy,

to tease,

to be annoying,

to provoke.

It is essential that all actors memorize this and use it to apply to every part in every scene that you will play.

This is the UTA HAGEN METHOD.

The Creative Producer By Ike Ong DGGB

2009-09-28T22:49:00.001+08:00

Introduction

The term, 'Producer,' is often misunderstood and the industry definition is:

Ideally, the first person on a project and the last person off. The producer's role is to find and develop a project, hire the writers and develop the script, hire the director, actors, etc, arrange for financing, oversee the production, on this and any other projects he or she may be producing concurrently.

In episodic TV, this person is called the Executive Producer. Also, the producer maybe involved in the release and exploitation of the film. Some directors and actors who initiate their own projects act as their own producer.

Since Bob Yaris was disqualified from receiving an Oscar as the producer of the film, 'Crash' which won the best film for 2005, the Producer's Guild and the Academy has defined by his contribution to the process:

A producer must prove they have made a significant contribution at least 30% of development, 20% of preproduction, 20% to production, and 30% to post-production and marketing.

Filmmaking is a business and not an Art Form. The product has to be commercially successful and the customer is the audience. In other words, the film has to provide a level of emotional satisfaction for the audience to want to see it again. The market in Malaysia is small and for our film industry to develop, we must make films that are universally appealing so that they can be competitive with imported films and will be suitable for export.

This is the problem in Britain. The audiovisual industry trade deficit rose from USD $ 2.7 billion in 1989 to USD $ 7.2 billion in 1999 and is on the increase. As cost effectiveness goes American products have a much lower cost per viewer ratio. One of the solutions is to make films with a good story, well told and this will make it sale-able in other countries.

The British film industry has a tendency to moan about the unfair advantage the marketing and distribution the American products have in the economies of scale. The reality is that British audiences and others in most countries prefer American films. The reasons are that they are bigger productions with all the facilities for the marketing vehicle and also their scripts are more accessible and elicit emotion. Invariably, they provoke emotion in the audience and the audience derive a greater sense of satisfaction from such films.

The problem is not that we are incapable of writing such scripts but we have not been trained in the art of screenwriting for the benefit of the audience. The London Filmmakers Studio specializes in training components of the film industry in making films that elicit emotion with artistic integrity.

Let us examine the leaders in the industry and analyze why they succeed. Everyone is as capable as another in coming up with an idea for a story. After all there are only 12 stories in the world. The secret is in the art of story telling and story making. This method of elevating the quality of film is inexpensive and once the exponents have understood the principles of story telling, it is placing different characters in the same situation that will cause a different result in the conclusion.

Filmmaking is a collaborative process and requires all the disciplines in the Arts. We all listen to music but we do not write symphonies. The writer is a composer and the conductor will not have a work to conduct if he does not have a score. The director is the conductor who may not be able to play all the instruments but has to be aware of what each instrument is capable of to enhance and achieve his vision or interpret the score.

We are often impressed by a film because of the style and the content. Style is the way the story is told visually and the content is effectively, the story. As Art House cinema became more fashionable it developed to become a new genre. They are stories with a minimalist plot structure or an anti-plot structure.

The Malaysian Film Producers and Financiers Facebook Group is initiating the composition of the symphony!

Conventional plot structures have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and they may not necessarily be told in that order. Plot is a sequence of events in the story. Story is the meaning and purpose the events occur in the plot. The overall content is a good story well told.

The approach in development we advocate is to choose characters we are familiar with and with whom we can identify with. Secondly, the basic principle of visual arts is to be visually illustrative with actions, in other words, show and do not tell with dialogue.

The American tradition is one of the comic book culture and makes them in the mode of illustrating and not narrating with dialogue. European films generally have 50% more dialogue.

Basically, we should be able to understand the story without the sound.

Thirdly, more scenes should be used to illustrate the action, this increases the pace of the film, and engages the audience makes them participate in the drama.

Fourthly, make the ending 'ironical.' When the audience goes to see a film, they suspend their disbelief and allow the producer to take them on an emotional journey. The satisfaction should be greater than the experience they attain in everyday life. A feature film screenplay is about 120 pages and is the labor of the developers over a period of a year.

Most screenplays are never read because it is costly to have it read professionally with a script report written. Often it is the apprentice in the office who volunteers to read. The way to circumvent the obstacles is to make the officials in power have a taste of the product without having to incur the time of reading the 120 page screenplay.

It has become an industry standard for writers to produce the following, supplementary to the screenplay:

Firstly, a Synopsis.

Secondly, Detailed Character Biographies of the main characters to help the readers visualize the sophistication of the plot.

Thirdly, a Detailed Treatment of the final script is required.

Fourthly, A Step Outline of the screenplay is the manageable reading material which will make the producer buy the script.

The development procedure in screen writing we have adopted is one where the Story Design is established to express the meaning of the story in the film. This is then transcribed to the Step Outline, which is a group of scenes which expresses the action of the drama. This provides a greater opportunity for the writer to illustrate the film and not to tell the story.

The dialogue is the last procedure and is applied to supplement the action in the film. Students will practice deconstruction to Step Outlines on ready made films and familiarize themselves with the motions of thinking in cinematic terms by Step Outlines.

The Step Outlines are then summarized into a story design for students to understand the concept of the development process. With experience, the students will be able to proceed in the order by progress of development.

Within each scene and at various stages of the story, the principles of screenwriting have to be adhered. The principles of filmmaking are not the same and are complementary. What the composer requires in composing the Symphony is not the same as what the conductor requires in expressing the music score. It is essential for the composer to provide the fundamentals for the conductor to bring to life, the Symphony.

The first rule in providing for the audience is not to be Boring.

The majority of our audience are under 21 years old and have been conditioned by multimedia, and the Internet, and are less forgiving then the audience of the past. A good story is where a sympathetic hero comes up against incredible barriers and manages to overcome them.

In the design of the story we have to create a universe with its own rules, limits and values. It is like telling the story of a Chess game. Chess has the rules of the game, the characters are the pieces who behave in a particular manner, and the limitation is the Chess board. Then there are also the players who control the game but are also the story tellers.

The concept of the story will be examined in the different form structure and the principles as established by Aristotle in The Poetics. The principle of specificity is that the story teller is the originator of the story and his prejudices and consciousness has great influence on the story.

The world the story teller imagines is a part of the writer's style of screen writing. The story design is transformed into a screenplay and the screenplay is open to interpretation. The meaning and purpose of the story is examined and how the same story can be told is demonstrated to students.

We hope to be able to run The Creative Producer Course at the end of the year.

All readers interested please e-mail us at

azrai.zain@gmail.com

Lee Strasberg - Definition Of Acting

2009-09-28T22:48:00.003+08:00

The Definition of Acting by Lee Strasberg

ACTING.

Acting is generally agreed to be a matter of less mimicry, exhibitionism, or imitation than the ability to react to imaginary stimuli. Its essential elements remain the twin requisites enunciated in the 18th century by French actor Francois-Joseph Talma: "Unusual sensitivity and extraordinary intelligence." The intelligence he refers to comes not from book learning but from the ability to understand the workings of the human personality.

The essential problems in acting - those of whether the actor actually "feels" or merely imitates, of whether he should speak naturally or rhetorically, and of what actually constitute being natural - are as old as theatre itself. They are concerned not merely with "realistic" acting, which arose in the theatre in the 19th century, but with the nature of the acting process itself.

Such problems acquired increased urgency in recent times, in which an immense investment of time, effort, and money is required for a dramatic production in the commercial theater, motion pictures, or television. Often the viability of such a production depends on the actor's ability to revivify states of high emotion on command, with complete plausibility and without being overwhelmed by other aspects of production. In a film, for example, because of technical problems, the actor sometimes must re-enact a scene a dozen times - each time striving for perfection - and then proceed to an unrelated scene, from some other part of the story, demanding an entirely different attitude from him. In such circumstances the training of an actor is not a luxury but a necessity.

Yet, in an otherwise excellent contemporary handbook of theater, the editor apologized for the absence of a section on the actor, which subject, he said, had been assigned to one who, though practically and theoretically conversant with acting, finally acknowledged that he could offer no recipes to the professional, nor could he find any logical foundation with which to begin. As early as the middle of the 18th century, the German critic and dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing had already drawn attention to this difficulty. "We have actors but no art of acting." It remains as true today as when stated by George Henry Lewes in his excellent On Actors and the Art of Acting (1875):

I have heard those for whose opinions in other directions my respect is great, utter judgments on this subject which proved that they had not even a suspicion of what the art of acting really is.

Efforts to define the nature of an art or craft usually are based upon the masterpieces of that field. Without that necessary reference point, vague speculation and generalizations - without proof of validity -are likely. In the visual, musical, and literary arts, this foundation exists" the work of the great masters of the past and present serves not only to elucidate the art but also to create standards to emulate. It is difficult to imagine what the present state of comprehension of music would be if only the music of today were available, and the achievements of Monteverdi, Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart had to be known only by hearsay. Yet, this is precisely the situation that exists in acting. The actor, in the words of the 19th-century American actor Lawrence Barrett "is forever carving a statue of snow." That is why the understanding of acting has not equaled the appreciation of it and why the actor's creative process has defied comprehension.

THEORIES OF TRADITIONS

Throughout the history of theater, continual confusion has been expressed over the question of whether the actor is a creative artist or simply an interpreter. Since the actor's performance is usually based on the play, and the dramatist is conceded to be a creative artist, it is sometimes concluded that the actor must be only an interpretive artist. Some modern exponents of the Strasberg's creativity indirectly accepted this view and have turned, therefore, to nonverbal theater. But others deny that this recourse to primitivism is necessary in order to make acting a creative art. When composers like Schubert or Schumann create musical settings for the poems of Heine or Goethe, their music does not lose its essentially creative nature. Verdi used Shakespeare's Othello and Falstaff for his great operas, but his music is no less creative for that. When an artist uses his work for another artist in the same medium, that may properly be called non-creative imagination. The original artist has already solved the basic problems of execution, and his pattern is simply followed by the imitator. Such a work can be considered merely an exercise in skill (or in execution). An artist in one medium who uses an art work of another medium as subject matter, however, must solve all the problems posed by his own medium - a creative achievement. It is therefore quite proper to speak of a character as if he were the actor's creation - of John Gielgud's "Hamlet," for example, or John Barrymore's or Johnston Forbes-Robertson's. Because a medium offers the potential for creativity, of course, not all of its practitioners are necessarily creative. There are imitative artists in every medium. But acting can only be understood after it is first recognized as a creative medium demanding a creative act. In "The Art of Acting," the American drama teacher Brander Matthews remarked,

"The actor needs to have under control not only his gestures and his tones, but all other means of stimulating sensibilities and these should be ready for use at all times, wholly independent of the words of the text."

In the same work he quoted with approval the words of the great 19th-century Italian tragedian Ernesto Rossi that a "great actor is independent of the poet, because the supreme essence of feeling does not reside in prose or in verse, but in the accent with which it is delivered." And even Denis Diderot, the French philosopher of the 18th century whose famous The Paradox of Acting (written 1773-78; published 1830) is dealt with below and who was himself a dramatist, stated:

Even the clearest, the most precise, the most forceful of writers, words are no more, and never can be more, then symbols, indicating a thought, a feeling or an idea: symbols which need action, gesture, intonation, and a whole context of circumstances, to give them full significance.

If the art of acting is regarded as merely interpretive, the external elements of the actor's skill tend to be emphasized, but, when acting is recognized as a creative art it leads inevitably to search for the deeper resources that stimulate the actor's imagination and sensitivity. This search presents difficult problems. The actor must learn to train and to control the most sensitive material available to any craftsman: the living organism of a human being in all of its manifestations - mental, physical, and emotional. The actor is at once the piano and the pianist.

Acting should not be confused with pantomime, which is a form of external movements and gestures that describe an object or an event but not its symbolic significance. Similarly, the actor is not to be mistaken as an imitator. Many of the best imitators are unable to act in their own person or to create a character that is an extension of themselves rather than an imitation of someone else. Again acting should not be confused with make-believe, which functions only as a form of self-expression. It is not exhibitionism. A faculty for showing off or entertaining at parties is not the same as the talent demanded of the actor. The ability to put oneself into another character, to create a nonexistent event and perform it to its logical fulfillment, to repeat this performance not only when he is in a favorable mood but also at specified times and places, regardless of his own feelings on each occasion - in other words, the ability to create and to respond to imaginary objects and circumstances.

Genuine and feigned emotion. The most famous instance of supposed acting in ancient Greece was that of the actor Polus performing in the Electra of Sophocles, at Athens. The plot requires Electra to carry an urn supposed to contain the ashes of Orestes and lament and bewail the fate she believed had overtaken him. Accordingly, Polus, clad in the mourning garb of Electra took from the tomb the ashes and urn of his own son (who had recently died), embraced them as if they were those of Orestes, and rendered not the appearance or imitation of sorrow but genuine grief and unfeigned lamentation. Rather than mere acting, this was in fact real grief being expressed.

From antiquity, rival traditions of acting can be discerned-one stressing the externals of voice, speech, and gesture and the other looking to the actual emotional processes of the actor. Aristotle defined acting as "the right management of the voice to express the various emotions," and this primacy of the voice as the actor's outstanding medium has been widely accepted. "Dramatic ability," he said further, "is a natural gift, and can hardly be taught. The principles of good diction can be so taught." Aristotle did not fall into the common mistake of thinking that acting is only good diction; rather, he simply recognized that diction, unlike acting, can be taught; he was well aware of something more than diction in acting but he knew no way of training it. He saw good acting resulting either from a great natural quickness of parts or an enthusiasm allied to madness. "By the first of these, we mold ourselves with facility to the imitation of every form; by the other, transported out of ourselves, we become what we imagine."

If the voice and diction were the essential elements in acting, it would have much in common with oratory, but in actuality the actor is not an orator. The orator speaks in his own character and his intention is to impress and persuade the audience; he may need some of the qualifications of the actor, but many actors are poor orators. The emphasis in oratory is on the skillful use of the voice, and many great actors do not possess impressive vocal instruments. When the great tragedian Edmund Kean appeared for the first time in London in the early 19th century, the critic William Hazlitt, who welcomed him enthusiastically, wished him well and hoped he would soon recover from his cold. He later realized that it was Kean's natural timbre. Other leading actors, such as Albert Bassermann and Giovanni Grasso, have suffered from asthma and still conveyed a powerful temperament and maintained their vocal expressiveness.

The dichotomy noted in ancient Greece persisted through ancient Roman theatre and into modern times. On one hand, there was a recognition of the need for the actor to be affected by the sensations he wishes to arouse in others. On the other hand, a need was also seen for a precise system of expression-the peculiar look, tone, and gesture appropriate to every emotion of the mind.

Modern acting began with the commedia dell'arte. These Italian comedies companies, the earliest mention of which is in 1545, rapidly achieved extraordinary popularity. Until then, acting was an amateur occupation. The actor was limited to simply illustrating text by means of a narrow scheme of gesture and rhetorical speech. But in the commedia dell'arte the actor used only an outline, a plot; he improvised the play, giving free rein to the actor's art, developing his own characters or masks that he repeated in each play. Each character became an extension of the actor's own personality but elastic enough to respond to innumerable dramatic situations; thus, these actors began to develop the distinctive stage character of the theatre whereas previously the emphasis had been on the literary aspect of theatre. Since this demanded high skill, the actors joined into companies. The actor became professional. By doing so, he stimulated the development of modern drama. The essential requisite for the drama is its performance. The dramatist's creation finds its fulfillment not in the writer's study but on the stage. This fulfillment can best be achieved through the contribution of the professional actor.

Nonetheless, actors continued to learn by doing. Their schools were professional companies; their classroom, the stage; their teachers, the audience and their fellow players. Schools of dramatic art, isolated from theatres or companies are a relative innovation and are still unknown in several European countries.

Diderot's "Paradox of Acting." The most significant statement on acting is Diderot's "Paradox of Acting". Because of its polemic brilliance, it remains the most widely known essay on acting. It has found little acceptance within the profession, though its famous paradox-that in order to move the audience the actor must himself remain unmoved-is still highly regarded.

Regardless of the untenable solutions it proposes, Diderot's essay contains an excellent description of the actor's problem. What bothered Diderot was the unsolved problem of how the actor, if he were full, really full, of feeling, could play the same part twice running with the same spirit and success. Full of fire at the first performance, he would be worn out and cold as marble at the third. Diderot confirmed his view by noting, "the unequal acting of players who play from the heart. Their playing is alternately strong and feeble, fiery and cold, dull and sublime." This was the case with the actress who in her day was the outstanding example of emotional acting. "She comes on the stage without knowing what she is going to say; half the time she does not know what she is saying; but she has one sublime moment." Diderot knew that actors do feel and experience; he knew the nature of inspiration. But he also knew that some actors refused to recognize the need for craft training.

Diderot asked how the actor, if he is himself while he is playing, is to stop being himself: how he is to catch just the point at which he is to stay his hand? Diderot demanded unity in a performance; he demanded respect for the author's concept, and he understood the difficulty of repeating a performance. He demanded a definite course to the passion - a beginning, a middle, and an end. In Diderot's day, however, the problem of developing a technique for creating inspiration in the actor remained unsolved. The theoretic formulation had already been stated as well as it ever could be by the actor Talma:

I call sensibility that faculty of exaltation which agitates an actor, takes possession of his senses, shakes even his very soul, and enables him to enter into the worst tragic situations, and the most terrible of the passions as if they were his own.

The intelligence, which accompanies sensibility, judges the impressions which the latter has made us feel: it selects, arranges them, and subjects them to calculation.

The difficulty of solving the problem is illustrated by the work of the 19-century French teacher Francois Delsarte, whose influence was widespread not only in France but also in the United States. Delsarte became dissatisfied with routine acting techniques. He observed their mechanical and stultifying character and realized that under the stress of natural instinct or emotion, the body assumes appropriate attitudes and gestures quite different from those described by his teachers. But when he attempted to formulate laws of speech and gesture, on the basis of years of diligent observation and study, he created a series of elaborate pictorial descriptions that were just as mechanical as those he originally criticized. Knowledge of affective behavior had not advanced far enough to serve as an aid in solving the problem of the actor: there was still too little understanding of human behaviour, of the relation between the conscious and unconscious, and of the role of the senses.

Stanislavsky's contribution. It is in this context that the enormous contribution in the early 20th century of the great Russian actor and theorist Konstantin Stanislavsky can be appreciated. Stanislavsky was not an aesthetician but was primarily concerned with the problem of developing a workable technique. He applied himself to the very problems of developing a workable technique. He applied himself to the very problems that Diderot and others had believed insoluble: the recapture and repetition of moments of spontaneity or inspiration, which could not be controlled and repeated at will even by many of the greatest actors. Stanislavsky dedicated himself to the central problem of how to stimulate the actor's creativity. Even early in his career, while watching performances by great actors, he had felt that all of them had something in common, something he encountered only in greatly talented actors. In his later work, as director of the Moscow Art Theatre, he often experienced those flashes of intuition or inspiration that stimulate the imagination and turn something that one understands with the mind into an emotional reality and experience. Stanislavsky described such a moment occurring at a low point in the rehearsals for Anton Chekhov's drama "Three Sisters", when the "the actors stopped in the middle of the play, ceased to act, seeing no sense in their work." Suddenly something incomprehensible happened: an accidental sound, of someone nervously scratching his fingernails on the bench on which he sat, reminded Stanislavsky of a scratching mouse, setting off an entire sequence of previously unconscious memories that put the work at hand into a new spiritual context.

Later, in examining many parts he had played, especially that of Dr. Stockmann in Henrik Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People," a role he felt was better suited to him than any other in his repertoire, he became aware of how much his characterizations had been based unconsciously on his memories. With the passing of time, however, the memories and the feelings aroused by them were lost, and he began to repeat mechanically the fixed appurtenances of the role - the movements of the muscles, the mimetics of the face, eyes, arms, and body, and the physical signs of absent emotion. This led him to the perception that creativeness on the stage demands a condition he called "the creative mood." To the genius on the stage, this condition almost always comes of itself, and less talented people receive it less often. Although everyone on the stage receives the creative mood sometimes, none seemed able to control it with their own will.

Stanislavsky's description of the problem thus far had reached the point at which all previous examinations had stopped. By going further and inquiring into technical means for controlling the creative mood, Stanislavsky laid the foundation for the modern approach to the actor's problem. Stanislavsky had no intention of creating inspiration by artificial means; rather, he wanted to learn how to create favorable conditions for the appearance of inspiration by means of the will. He emphasized that this problem could be evaded. Other artists may create whenever they are of mind or feel inspired, but "the artist of the stage must be the master of his own inspiration and must know how to call it forth when it is announced on the poster of the theatre." If he is unable to find a conscious path to unconscious creativeness, the actor is forced to rely on the superficial aspects of scenic craft and theatrical cliches.

Stanislavsky believed that the problem could be solved through advanced psychology, especially the concept of "affective memory" described by the French psychologist Theodule Ribot in the 1890's. Although there has been confusion and misunderstanding about it, and its very existence has been questioned, the concept of affective memory is of prime importance for the understanding of how spontaneous and emotional experiences occur and can be repeated on the stage.

Affective memory is a reliving of past experiences - likes and dislikes - when an analogous situation recurs. Something that has brought pain is anticipated with dislike the second time. The dislike, which is felt immediately, rather then remembered, is like a residue of previous appraisals. Affective memory may be linked directly to the memory of a traumatic experience, as the same situation or a similar one recurs, or to an experience that bears little apparent relation to the original, if the memory has been repressed. Of course, an experience need not necessarily be traumatic to leave an affective memory. The concept of affective memory has found a place in several schools of psychology, including the Freudian and the Pavlovian, though different explanations have been offered (compare M.B. Arnold, "Human Emotion and Action," in Human Action, ed. by T. Michel, 1969 p.173).

The concept embraces both sense memory and emotional memory. The latter term was used by Stanislavsky in his later work to refer to the experiences of an intense and explosive nature that are so necessary for the most dramatic moments in the theatre. The concept of affective memory is essential to an understanding of how the actor functions and the faculties that have to be trained to develop his talent. It is unusually sensitive affective memory that enables the actor to respond to events that must be imagined on the stage and to repeat performances. This point was stressed by Stanislavsky's great pupil Yevgeny Vakhtangov, who emphasized that literal emotion - emotion that derives from the presence of an object that actually stimulates it - cannot be controlled and cannot be relied upon to provide the level of response that is required in every performance.

The use of affective memory is not limited only to acting. Wordsworth defined poetry as originating from "emotion recollected in tranquility." Marcel Proust, in a long passage in "Swann's Way," brilliantly described the working of affective memory and illustrated precisely the way in which it can be recalled. Instances of its presence can be multiplied from all the arts - literary, visual, or musical. But though in other arts it can function consciously, the actor must learn to use is consciously to satisfy the unique conditions under which he must create.

The "Method" is the name by which the totality of Stanislavsky's ideas have become most widely known. The Method represents a development of his procedures based not only on his writings but also on his actual achievement in his major productions. It includes the work of Vakhtangov, who demonstrated that Stanislavsky's ideas apply to the essential problems of the actor in any style and not only the realistic style most often associated with them. The Method became widely known in the mid-20th century largely through the work in films of actors such as Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, and Geraldine Page, who had studied at the Actors Studio in New York City. These actors made a powerful impression and showed a remarkable ability to bridge the gap between stage, screen, and television to an extent that aroused excitement and interest in the rest of the world. So strong was the fusion of performer and role that many of the traits of the character were confused with those of the actor, which led to serious misunderstanding. But at mid-20th century an American style of acting was being born.

Later developments. The post-Stanislavsky period has been influenced chiefly by the ideas of Antonin Artaud, Bertolt Brecht, and Jerzy Grotowski (who pointed out that the other two were more concerned with aesthetics than with methods). Artaud, a French avant-gardist director and actor, exerted an enormous posthumous influence on contemporary theatre through his writings. In them he proclaimed the "theatre of cruelty," which is based on the extreme development of gesture and sensory responses by the actors so that they can communicate with the audience at a more profound psychological level than is possible through words. Artaud's ideas achieved international attention through the productions of Peter Brook and the Royal Shakespeare Company, especially The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton, under the direction of the Marquis de Sade. It called for emotional states verging on hysteria from most of the cast during each performance.

Contrary to the opinion of many, however, Artaud thought of the theatre not as a psychological but as a plastic and physical domain and of the actor as an "athlete of the heart." For every feeling, every mental action, and every leap of human emotion, there is a corresponding breath that is appropriate to it. It has been pointed out by Grotowski, however, that if Artaud's principles are analyzed in a practical, "they lead to stereotypes: a particular type of movement to exteriorize a particular type of emotion. In the end, this leads to cliches."

Through his plays and the remarkable productions of the Berliner Ensemble in East Berlin in the 1950's, which represent the most important contribution to theatre of the post-Stanislavsky period, Bertolt Brecht generated ideas about acting that have received wide prominence and have usually been counterposed to those of Stanislavsky. Whereas in Stanislavsky-inspired productions the actors often seem to be exaggerating their individuality, Brecht's characters struck many observers as existing primarily as representatives of class-in some cases self-effacing to the point of dehumanization. Brecht himself, however, denied that his ideas were opposed to Stanislavsky's. He drew attention to the relatively quiet style of acting that sometimes struck visitors to the Berliner Ensemble. Brecht called his approach epic realism. He stressed that the stage of a realistic theatre must be peopled by live, three-dimensional, self-contradictory people, with all their passions, unconsidered utterances, and actions. The actor has to be able to create such people. Brecht mentioned some of the procedures of Stanislavsky he felt indebted to - the creation of the given circumstances that motivate the beginning of an event, the emphasis on creating the activity of the day that helps to define the actor's behaviour, and the individualizing of the characters that make up a mass. And he warns "we shall get empty, superficial, formalistic, mechanical acting if in our technical training we forget a moment that it is the actor's duty to portray living people."

A contemporary Polish director, Jerzy Grotowski, made the most thorough effort to rediscover the elements of the actor's art. Although he credited Stanislavsky with having posed the most important questions, he was not satisfied either with Stanislavsky, who let natural impulses dominate, or with Brecht, who was too much concerned, Grotowski felt, with the construction of the role. To Grotowski, the actor is a man who works in public with his body, offering it publicly. The work with the actor's instrument consists of physical, plastic, and vocal training to guide him toward the right kind of concentration, to commit himself totally, and to achieve a state of "trance." The actors concentrate on the search for "signs," which express through sound and movement those impulses that waiver on the borderline between dream and reality. By means of such signs, the actor's own psychoanalytical language of sounds and gestures is constructed, in the same way as a great poet creates his own language.

The actors of Grotowski's troupe are superbly trained physically and vocally, and they commit themselves to their task with total energy. They have been accused, however, of conveying too little human emotion. Grotowski's criticism that Artaud's work leads to cliches has also been made of his own work. There is little evidence in it of the level of acting observed in the work of great actors.

THE ACTOR'S QUALIFICATIONS AND TRAINING

In view of the diversity of approaches to the actor's problems, it would seem difficult to arrive at any useful generalizations that are valid for all of them. Even among theatre groups that approach the production of a play from a fixed style or a fixed scale of expression, as in Japanese Kabuki and classic Oriental theatre generally, the same basic concerns are apparent. The following is an attempt to set down an approach that has proven successful in a variety of professional procedures.

The qualifications of the actor are generally thought to be a good physique, a retentive memory, an alert brain, a clear, resonant voice with good articulation, and controlled breathing. While looks and the even more important element of personality are undoubtedly factors, their characteristics are difficult to determine; they are usually recognized after the actor has become successful rather than before. Many actors do not possess them offstage but seem to ignite them as soon as they begin to perform. The modern mediums of the cinema and TV have intensified the importance of these external elements, continually searching for actors resembling those who have already achieved success, without helping to clarify these qualities. Yet the central element of the actor's talent, as differentiated from his means, is a special sensibility ("fire," "enthusiasm," "spirit," in the words of 18th-century theoreticians), an ability to respond to imaginary stimuli and situations, which makes it possible for him to enter into the experience and emotions of the character he is to represent. These elements have always been recognized as distinguishing the great actor but were assumed to be beyond the reach of the ordinary actor; they were regarded as elements "born in him" and not susceptible to training. This is precisely the area of the modern training of the actor.

The first stage in the training of the actor's control of his physical, mental, and psychical resources is the ability to relax. Because this ability seems to have little to do with final achievements in acting, it is often disregarded, but it is basic to any expenditure of will and energy on his part. In a state of physical or mental tension, or both, the actor cannot think, the commands he gives himself are not transmitted, sensation is stifled, and expression is inhibited. The process of relaxation serves to clear the actor of the unnecessary pressures that he as accumulated before the moment of acting begins, to free him of blocks or interferences that may inhibit sensory responses. Physical and mental energies are comparatively easy to train, but sensory control is much more difficult. Relaxation is not a static state or effort. Often in the initial stages of training the actor is subject to strong eruptions of unconscious impulses. He must learn to continue the relaxation, to force his will to maintain his effort on the action of the nerves and the muscles. Relaxation is connected with the exercise of the actor's will.

The converse of relaxation is concentration. Everything the actor does demands concentration. His training proceeds by work with imaginary objects: working with real objects often leads to pantomimic or to physical imitation, but the actor may begin with them in order to learn how to respond with his entire organism and to apply such responses to his work with imaginary objects-the real medium of the stage-as he would to real ones. This capacity to respond to stimuli that come not from outward reality but from the promptings of one's own imagination may be seen to some extent in every human being; something akin to it is found in psychology in the study of conditioned reflexes, of automatic and spontaneous reactions, and of behavior patterns. In heightening the sensory awareness and stimulating the senses to respond more strongly in life, the actor acquires the ability to recreate any object, sensation, or experience in the imagination. Here the concept of affective memory, already discussed, plays a fundamental role.

The French actor Talma has already been quoted as stressing the actor's need for an "excess of sensibility, always more lively, more rapid, and more powerful." But he has also properly pointed out that his intelligence must always be on the watch, and acting in concert with his sensibility, regulate its movements and effects: for he cannot, like the painter and the poet, efface what he does. To form a great actor the union of sensibility and intelligence is required.

In strengthening his concentration, the actor uses not only will but also a process of self-awareness by which he observes what is happening and trains his instrument to respond to his commands. The very process of concentration and of commitment and involvement must include awareness. The more the actor learns to master concentration, the more aware he becomes.

An additional factor is the development of the actor's sense of truth-a faculty particularly stressed by Stanislavsky. The growth of self-awareness is useless if it is not accompanied by a correct evaluation of what is true and what is false. If the actor must rely on outside judgment and remain dependent on it, he may become insecure and lose his spontaneity and responsiveness. His mastery of inner relaxation and concentration helps him achieve a combination of spontaneity, commitment and awareness. Thus, the actor's involvement and his awareness, rather than being in opposition to each other, are in accord.

The actor's sense of truth is also involved in another major area of actor's training-his work with actions (the way he behaves physically on the stage), sometimes called the "business" of the actor. Some idea must supply an incentive or intention to pull together what could otherwise be a series of disconnected and unrelated physical deeds. Some purpose, some aim must motivate the actor's will and energy. Any performance thus may be seen as a series of actions-as the score of the play-which must be carried out not simply physically but logically and truthfully. They must accomplish their purpose anew each night at every performance rather than merely repeating the external movements.

To develop spontaneity, to train himself to behave logically and truthfully, and to listen and respond to his partner, the actor practices improvisation-dramatizing contrived situations without a script. Improvisation is of enormous importance in the process of training and also of performance. It teaches the actor to speak rather than to read his lines, and it breaks his unconscious adherence to conventional theatrical patterns of behavior. It forces him to use his senses and often to discover not only the logic but also the significance of a scene. It compels the actor to work creatively and prevents him from reverting to skillful but mechanical repetition.

By means of exercises that may be remote from the actual roles he plays-such as the "song and dance"(in which a song is rendered syllable by syllable unrelated to the way in which it would usually be sung, thus helping to break the unconscious habits of the actor that affect his performance) or, conversely, the spoken "inner monologue" (in which the actor speaks out what is happening to him at the moment, unrelated to the play), or others-the actor not only intensifies his capacity for experience, but also frees his blocked, or inhibited impulses. He is enabled to deal with his own subjection to automatic habitual forms of behavior and mannerisms and to acquire new means of expression, corresponding to the true nature and strength of his impulse. He is thus enabled to develop a much larger scale of expression than the customary casual means of behavior in life permit.

The basic means of the actor which have traditionally served as the primary area of his training, are voice and body gesture. The methods used to train these tools of the actor derive from other fields, such as from the training of the singer's voice and of some forms of dance and pantomime. These contain many useful exercises for the strengthening of the respective muscles of the voice and body. But the singer's voice must retain its beauty and its musical quality regardless of the circumstances involved, and the dancer's body must always wind up in a formally acceptable attitude; and their respective training is so designed. Their needs are quite different from the needs of the actor. His voice must be flexible and expressive of all situations and experiences. It must be able to deliver a "poor" voice or a vulgar, rough, angry, or harsh voice. It must vary as much as the events to be created. His attitudes must be those of the character-of a human who may be ill at ease, slovenly, awkward, debilitated, or natural-giving no indication that it is being accomplished by a skilled craftsman. The technical accomplishment in the singer and in the dancer may represent a large part of what is appreciated in their performances; but in the actor, the very fact of the accomplishment must remain hidden. Technical accomplishment should go unnoticed by the audience.

For this reason, many actors have expressed dissatisfaction with the accepted methods for training the actor's voice, speech, and body. In this respect, the works of Grotowski and of producing units throughout the world that have been influenced by him have demonstrated new possibilities. The skill of the actors in such groups has been generally admired, and their work could serve as a basis for training the actor. Relaxation, concentration, work on objects, sense memory, emotional memory, action and improvisation, and the training of voice and body constitute the actor's work on himself. Work with objects and sense memory are as fundamental to his art as are daily finger exercises to a pianist.

THE ACTOR'S APPROACH TO HIS ROLE

Stanislavsky suggested that the actor, in approaching his work on a scene ask himself four questions: (1) who he is (character), (2) where he is (place), (3) what he is doing there (action and intention), and (4) what happened before he came there (given circumstances). The answers to these questions provide the actor with the necessary background for his performance, helping him to create the scene. In approaching the play in its entirety, the actor must subject his role to more intense analysis: he must search for the spine, or the kernel, of the play as well as its division into separate sections or units of actions. He must discern the beats of the play (i.e., the smallest units of dramatic action into which each role can be divided) as well as the rhythms of the play as a whole. He must determine what adjustments must be made in his performance for each of the other characters. For some plays an additional element is necessary: the overall mood, or pervading texture, that surrounds the play or out of which the play stems. The attempt to determine it, however, may lead to an excess of verbal and mental gymnastics that are of little actual value, unless the actors have been trained in the proper procedures. The actors must act out the elements involved in the analysis in order to receive any concrete benefit from it; otherwise it may remain superficial or merely intellectual.

Another area deserving attention is the rehearsal process. This is primarily the time in which the director's conception of the play must be harmonized with those of the actors; it is of immense importance that the actor approach the rehearsal in a creative frame of mind, ready to enlarge both his own and his colleagues' interpretations. Without a logical sequence of rehearsals, the actor's creativity cannot be properly stimulated. Without an understanding of the psychology of the rehearsal procedure, much of the work of the actor and the director may be defeated in production. There are, for example, significant possibilities in the reading rehearsal, in which the actors, usually seated in a circle, read aloud from the script and discuss its meanings as they proceed through it. There is enormous value in improvisation, when it is understood and used correctly. The relation between the individual actor and the ensemble is welded during the rehearsals, and they are the proper time to encourage the actor to begin to develop his movements to block the scene, to memorize his lines.

Styles of performance. In an effort to bring new life to plays of the past and present and to advance the imaginative possibilities of theatre, there has been a rediscovery of style in the 20th century. Style is the attribute of any complete achievement; it is not, as is often assumed by laymen, merely the manners and customs of a particular period. Such manners may be more strikingly elegant compared with those of the present, but they remain only manners. The Elizabethan form of theatre had conflicting styles within it, judging from a description of them in Hamlet, and so did the Greek and the French classical theatre. Even in the Japanese Kabuki and No theatre there have been conflicts of styles like those in Western theatre.

Style is not, as is sometimes assumed, the opposite of realism. Neither is it necessarily characterized by an expansiveness or broadness in acting. Style is the angle from which reality is observed. It is an attribute of all creative activity-not just of period or classic plays. The search for the specific content and reality of a play leads to style. The search for style in itself or in the traditions of the past often leads to empty forms.

Just as style should not be identified with a particular period, neither should it be associated with specific playwrights. Such terms as a Shakespearean or a Chekhovian style actually refer to the theatrical conventions traditionally associated with those dramas—a rhetorical and "larger than life" manner in the first and a static "mood" in the latter. These elements are little related to style; otherwise great Shakespearean and Chekhovian productions could be re-created generation after generation in precisely the same way. The fact is that those dramas must be continually recreated from the new views of each emerging generation. Even the performances of Jean Racine's drama re-created in the correct manner of French classical theatre do not attain great success in France. It is possible that more might be achieved by an interpretation of Racine along Chekhovian lines: the use of methods associated with the productions of Chekhov combined with a fresh understanding of Racine's character development might revise the opinion that his plays are excessively wordy at the expense of reality. This criticism was also leveled against Chekhov before Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre demonstrated the inner logic of his plays.

The most highly regarded performances in theatrical history were achieved by creating believable character's behaving logically and truthfully. The actor's often used means that were criticized as being vulgar - either too naturalistic or too realistic - because they broke the formal patterns of poetic speech. These actors demonstrated little reliance on the formal elements that traditionally have been supposed to characterize style. French actors, who have been considered exemplars of this traditional notion of style, have not excelled in Shakespearean stage, for example, led to a new quickness and fluidity, a nearly cinematic technique, in presenting Shakespeare's plays, but these techniques should not be interpreted as the original and therefore correct style of production. Shakespeare continues to be presented in a vast range of styles.

Plays that entail interaction between actor and audience also present no unique problems to the actor. The audience is treated with the same conviction and reality as if it were another presence in the drama, as if it were simply another character.

Techniques of performance. The fundamentals of the actor's art remain the same no matter how bizarre the dramatic context: the actors may be abstractions, for example, as in Stanislavsky's 1908 production of Maurice Maeterlink's allegorical fantasy The Bluebird; they may play a band of actors producing a play, which they then proceed to perform in a vivid theatrical fashion, as in Vakhtangov's production of Turandot, a play by the 18-century Italian Carlo Gozzi; they may imagine themselves into a satiric extravaganza, as in experiments by the Group Theatre a major U.S. troupe of the 1930's, working on the basis of Stanislavsky's ideas) based on the satirical pictures of George Grosz (1931); or they assume the distorted attitudes appropriate to an expressionist world, as in the classic horror film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1919).

The growth of motion pictures, especially the rise of the "talkies," beginning in 1927, greatly affected acting, as theatre talent was diverted from the stage. The requirements of acting in motion pictures, television, theatre, and opera are basically the same, although some of the techniques are different. It is possible to put strips of film together and create a performance that was never actually given. The performance is created by the director rather then than by the actor. There have been performers in motion pictures who were thus completely products of the camera and contributed little from the acting point of view, depending rather on their physical charms and personality. Others, however, were authentic actors, who developed a style perfectly suited to the medium; Charlie Chaplin, for example, ranks as one of the greatest actors of all time in any medium.

Despite the technical demands that are unique to each medium, the properly trained actor moves easily from one medium to another without any diminution of his talent. Those who have been trained in the rhetorical and theatrical gesture approach, as many British and French actors have been, sometimes find difficulty in making the transition to films. The theatre tends to diminish action and voice, requiring a heightened intensity to project across the footlights. The camera, however, exaggerates action and emotion. Moreover, some actors find it difficult to perform scenes out of sequence, as is usually done in films, and for other actors the close-up can be intimidating. But the fact is that actors training for films usually use the same exercises as theatrical actors-working with imaginary objects and partners, performing appropriate physical and psychological tasks, and others. Moreover, most of the foremost actors in mid-20th century, such as Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir John Geilgud, Louis Jouvet, and Katherine Hepburn, have been outstanding in both film and theatre.

The contemporary theatre is characterized by many plays that demand more dynamic and more imaginative physical actions of the actors than previously and that utilize a diversity of audio-visual effects and multimedia devices. Under the need to fulfill these demands, acting could easily revert to its old-fashioned externalized forms. In addition the development of repertory theatres in the United States, England, and elsewhere, with their eclectic repertoires and their combinations of contemporary and classic plays, often leads to a search for meretricious "style" rather than for genuine content. These new pitfalls may be avoided, however, in much the same way as those that faced the actor in previous epochs, by understanding of the true fundamentals of the art of acting. (Le.S.)

The Star Newspaper Article on Ike Ong

2009-09-28T13:38:00.006+08:00

Shadow hunter

By MARTIN VENGADESAN

From books to music, movies, a restaurant and back to film, Ike Ong is to drawn to diverse paths.

IKE Ong is quite a character. When you start chatting with the man, the conversation can go in so many different directions, all of them fascinating. In fact, I had a difficult task steering him back to the recent Accolade Film Competition merit award that he had won for his feature-length documentary on the Iban entitled Twilight of the Longhouse.

Ike Ong worries that the Ibans’ traditional way of life will disappear.

For starters, Ong, 57, is a man with a diverse background, having grown up variously in Penang, Australia, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Currently he juggles his time between KL and London, where he has settled with his wife and four daughters.

Having studied accounting, Ong found himself working in the music and movie industries and even venturing into the restaurant business (he once owned a Greek restaurant!). He is also best known among book lovers as the man who founded the first Skoob Bookstore in London back in 1979. (He also founded the KL branch in 1990, before selling it to current director Thor Kah Hoong.)

So just how does he feel about the many twists and turns his life has taken?

“ I look at it this way ... Robert De Niro may own restaurants and co-produce films but that doesn’t make him a restauranteur or film producer.

“I’ve had my share of different tangents. Skoob Books was very supplementary. I enjoyed popular culture and wanted to participate in and invest in it. I was also involved in forming Stiff Records in London in 1976, a label which carried Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe.”

Nonetheless, it is filmmaking that is the very core of Ong’s efforts and he is passionate about the need to improve standards in Malaysia.

“There have been some encouraging signs among independent filmmakers lately, but I think we need to have a very cohesive and well-funded effort.

The award-winning filmmaker of Twilight of the Longhouse dancing with the Iban.

“It’s a fast growing world and the Internet is a very important medium, and some leaders will refer to the information superhighway. Yet, our broadband speeds are still so slow. We need dedicated people who know what they are doing, in every field. Too often, the best people aren’t here anymore.”

So how does he feel about getting an award from the Accolade, a California-based independent film festival that itself has been gaining accolades since its establishment in 2002.

“It’s recognition of your professionalism and integrity,” he says, before adding, “I find the standard of writing and story-telling has declined. Nowadays young directors are so focused on visual tricks. To me story is king.”

Ong had been particularly busy making the much-talked about TV movieWirasiswi last year. It was, in fact, that movie that led him to make the Iban documentary.

He had long been interested in the Iban, says Ong, having first visited Sarawak in 1996.

“One of the student actors in Wirasiswi is Iban and his grandfather invited me to Sungai Passin. I decided to go after doing my research but even though I had certain ideas in mind, I didn’t really know what to expect when I got there.”

Twilight of the Longhouse highlights the possibility of the extinction of the Iban’s traditional way of life. Filmed in Sungai Passin, Sungai Sepinjai and Sungai Serban, it intersperses traditional Iban myths with footage of celebrations of the Gawai (harvest festival) and a wedding ceremony.

“I found the Iban’s ability to survive in the jungle fascinating. They are a very adaptable, resourceful, durable people with a different value system from ours. They are a very peaceful people, ready to put their shoulder to the wheel and work hard for each other,” Ong says.

Traditional occupations like farming and fishing are now less popular. Men go off to work in the oil or timber industries for very little pay and this affects the traditional family system.

“People are leaving some remote settlements. But some resist moving. It has been the only home they know. If they migrate to the cities, there’s no guarantee of a better life.”

While many feel that a sweeping political change is needed to better the Ibans’ lot, Ong believes access to education for young Ibans is crucial if the community is to flourish.

“How they see themselves and how we see them are very different. As outsiders we might think their community needs more vocal leaders who can press for political change, but that’s not a priority at all for most.

“They are Malaysians, one of many indigenous groups that aren’t Malay/Muslim and they have to adapt to the modern economy and rapid industrialisation. There are many such sectors of the population that have been excluded from our development because of their unusual circumstances.”

I asked Ong about the recent controversy surrounding the rape of the women of another Sarawakian tribe, the Penan.

“I didn’t encounter such cases, but the situation is such that the people can be isolated and defenceless. The girls are married off at a young age; men go off for better jobs. Women are left with young children, destitute and very vulnerable. It is very sad.”

Still, Ong has many fond memories of his two-month stay with the Iban.

“I remember waking up in the morning and going fishing with the grandfather. And we watched the sunrise. He asked why I wasn’t watching the sun, because I was looking at the trees and the river.

“I explained that I was looking for the shadows not the light. He understood and said the same principle was used in hunting.”

To watch early edit extracts of Twilight of the Longhouse go to the My Videos section of:

www.youtube.com/user/zainazrai

and look for the videos titled Iban Sea Dayak.

London Filmmakers Studio Sdn. Bhd.'s Facebook Group is available at:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=115474824544

New Straits Times Q & A with Gerald Chuah September 16 2009

2009-09-19T00:10:00.005+08:00

MALAYSIAN film writer and director Ike Ong DGGB of London Filmmakers Studio Sdn. Bhd. recently won the prestigious Award of Merit from The Accolade Competition for his exciting feature length documentary called "Twilight of the Longhouse" in July.

The documentary, which illustrates the decline of the way of life in Malaysia, features the tranquility and modernization of the lives of the Iban people in Sarawak.

Ong said winning the award provides an opportunity for the Iban people to attain support to educate the Iban youth, which has become a necessity due to their living in isolated vicinity in the jungle, where secondary education is not available and are relatively costly, adding that: "This will prevent the exploitation of Iban child labor."

The Accolade Award from the United States, recognizes film, television, and videography professional who demonstrate exceptional achievement in craft and creativity, and those who produce standout entertainment or contribute to profound social change.

In winning The Accolade, London Filmmakers Studio Sd. Bhd., joins the ranks of other high-profile winners of this internationally respected award. Ong is now working on the sequel to his documentary called Gawai Sanawari.

In this Q & A we find out what inspired Ong to come out with the story idea and what are some of the challenges involved in filmmaking in Malaysia.

Q1: What is the Accolade Award about, what's so special about it, and how long has it been around?

A2: The Accolade is an international, non-traditional, virtual venue. Awards go to those filmmakers who produce fresh, standout entertainment, animation and compelling documentaries.

It is 7 years old and it is a prestigious competition amongst big production companies around the world.

Q2: What specific category of the award did you win, and who are the other participants?

A2: The category we won is The Accolade Film Competition Award of Merit. Our competitors were LIC China,

Radio Television Hong Kong,University of Alabama Public TV, University of Southern California, USA Today Live, National Institute of Aerospace, University of North Carolina, Life Issues Institute, Retirement Living TV, ALM Films,

Science North (IMAX Canada), Triskelion entertainment and Cyprus Productions.

Q3: What are some of the advantages in winning this award?

What other film festivals have you submitted it to?

A3: The advantage of winning this award is gaining the recognition in artistic and professional achievement amongst a thousand competitors from top production companies around the world.

We also have submitted Twilight of the Longhouse to the Sheffield International Documentary

Film Festival, The European Film Festival, The Canadian Film Festival, the Byron International Film Festival

and the Honolulu International Film Festival.

We could not send to many film festivals because they are for 1st time filmmakers only.

Q4: What is the title of your film, and what is the story about?

A4: The title is Twilight of the Longhouse and the story is about the decline of longhouse communities in the jungles of Sarawak. The escalating costs of subsistence farming and the pollution of the rivers have made the incomes of the residents decline when their priority is for secondary and further education for their children which is not available in their isolated residence.

Q5: Who are the cast and crew?

A5: There are no casts but the actual people in Sungai Passin, Sungai Sepinjai and Sungai Serban. The crew are C.K Wong, Jared Fong, Zain Azrai, Kaduk, Loh Pak Loon, Hafiz Kamarulzaman, Thomas Anak Daling, Nur Suraya Bt. Abdullah and Jali Anak Gaong.

Q6: A 90-minute documentary seems rather long. what are some aspects of the Iban lifestyle you have captured in your film?

A6: Feature Film documentaries are 90 minutes. It is the philosophy and sociology of the Iban today that we have captured in their celebration of Gawai (Harvest Festival), Gawai Antu, and the wedding of an Iban couple. This is punctuated by stories of traditional Iban myths and legends illustrated by the Iban people preparing for the Gawai Celebration.

Q7: How did you come out with the story idea and what inspired it?

A7: I previously worked for the producer, John Peveral, who won an Oscar for the dear hunter and we went to Sarawak to wreckie the film,'The Sorcerer's Apprentice.' It was to be directed by Martin Scorsese with Robert De Niro. Since my visit to Sarawak I had been fascinated by the Iban who have a long tradition of surviving in the jungle. I was invited by the grand father of one of the actors of WiraSiswi, the film I produced, which was nominated for the Best Digital Film last year.

Q8: What makes the story unique and why is it relevant today?

A8: The Iban are on the fringe of ethnic minorities and are notorious for head hunting. Many people in the West think that they have disappeared. Effectively they have progressed and have plasma screens and 5.1 sound systems in the middle of the jungle. Unfortunately, they have to generate their own electricity, draw water from the river, collect rain water and purify themselves, and the schools available for their children stop at primary level. How the Iban people manage to progress and have any graduates from universities is a lesson for many of us today.

Q9: What are some of the challenges involved in shooting this film?

A9: It took months of research and having to get most of our equipment to Sibu at great expense due to excess luggage, going through rivers, filming in a wet environment, and finding electricity to charge our batteries and living in the jungle in mosquito infested environments was very demanding for the crew.

Q10: What is the message of this film, and what have you learnt through the process?

A10: The message is that many families can only afford to send 1 of their children at a time to secondary schools and the others have to be kept at home helping in subsistence farming or are open for exploitation for cheap labor. The escalating costs of generating their own electricity and the costs of subsistence farming is no longer

feasible and many of the Iban are moving out of longhouses to live with their children in the cities.

Q11: How is your relationship with the Iban people, now after having made the film?

How do you think your film can protect or promote their culture?

A11: The everyday necessities taken for granted by city dwellers are luxuries to the Iban. Cheap electricity and water is very costly as they depend on petrol to run their generators and pumps and the boarding costs for secondary school students is relatively high to subsistence farmers. The success of this film abroad will hopefully make the officials understand this problem and help many Malaysians living in isolated areas have equal opportunities and costs of the dwellers in Kuala Lumpur.

Q12 Where do you plan to sell the film, and when can Malaysians get to see it?

A12: We have rejected an offer from Malaysia due to insufficient amounts and are available for negotiations with any broadcasters. We are also negotiating with a few companies from different territories around the world. The German territory are extremely interested on the subject but our neighbors overlooked the Iban.

Q13: Tell us about your experience as a filmmaker and what are techniques and approaches you use to tell the story more effectively.

A13: I have experienced the development of the video camera from U-matick to HD CAM and now the progress has been from the Red Camera to the D7 which is based on an SLR Camera shooting 25 frames per second. The cost of keeping up with technology as our cameras become obsolete within 6 months and the declining returns as broadcast fees are declining makes the cost of filmmaking to be much more expensive.

To compensate for the escalating costs due to the increasing requirements of many broadcasters we have to improve the quality of content to compensate for our cheap technical specifications. In the industry, Story is King and how we illustrate the story is a skillrequired in composing as opposed to fulfilling technical specifications by using expensive equipment.

The methodology in story telling in film is to apply the basic principles of filmmaking which is the established grammar of the shot and grammar in editing. This combined with the art of telling a story as initially expressed in

Aristotle's Poetics is the basis of telling a story more effectively.

Q14: Anything more you would like to add that readers want to know?

A14: The Afterword

Filmmaking is a business unlike all businesses. The production company has to survive as our annual salaries to provide for writers, editors, directors, producers, and administrators are increasing. It takes about 2 years to sell a project from the day of principle photography and it takes another year before we get paid for the project.

Many production companies fail to survive due to a lack of capital. The broadcasters in Western countries have a more helpful policy by giving stage payments to the production house to reduce the pressure of capitalization. This is not the case in Malaysia.

As a result, like all manufacturing industries, insufficient cash flow has been the biggest killer.

To watch early edit extracts of Twilight of the Longhouse go to the My Videos section of:

www.youtube.com/user/zainazrai

and look for the videos titled Iban Sea Dayak.

London Filmmakers Studio Sdn. Bhd.'s Facebook Group is available at:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=115474824544

London Filmmakers Studio Sdn. Bhd. Wins Accolade Competition

2009-09-16T14:29:00.031+08:00

Contact: Zain Azrai Mobile: 017 288 67 43 E-Mail: azrai.zain@gmail.com

London Filmmakers Studio Sdn. Bhd. Wins Accolade Competition

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, July 7, 2009 - The post production of this film was sponsored by FINAS and Kementerian Penerangan Komunikasi dan Kebudayaan Malaysia and we are very grateful for the help and encouragement of Mike Mahyidin Mustakim. Ike Ong DGGB of London Filmmakers Studio Sdn. Bhd., has won a prestigious Award of Merit from The Accolade Competition.

The award was given for Ike Ong's exciting feature length documentary, Twilight Of The Longhouse, which illustrates the decline of a way of life in Malaysia and features the tranquility and modernization of the lives of the Iban people in Sarawak.

"Winning this award provides an opportunity for the Iban people to attain support to help educate the Iban youth which has become a necessity in the 21st century industrialized Malaysia. Due to their living in an isolated vicinity in the jungle, where secondary education is not available, and relatively costly to people on subsistence farming, the Iban require financial support for the education of of their children. This will prevent the exploitation of Iban child labor."
Ike Ong DGGB, 2009

The Accolade recognizes film, television, and videography professionals who demonstrate exceptional achievement in craft and creativity, and those who produce standout entertainment or contribute to profound social change. Entries are judged by highly qualified professionals in the film and television industry. Information about The Accolade and a list of recent winners can be found at

www.theaccolade.net

In winning an Accolade, London Filmmakers Studio Sdn. Bhd. joins the ranks of other high-profile winners of this internationally respected award. Thomas Baker, Ph.D., who chairs The Accolade, had this to say about the latest winners, "The Accolade is not an easy award to win. Entries are received from around the world. The Accolade helps set the standard for craft and creativity. The judges were pleased with the exceptionally high quality of entries. The goal of The Accolade is to help winners achieve the recognition they deserve."

For more information call Zain Azrai at 016 288 67 43.

Watch early edit extracts of TWILIGHT OF THE LONGHOUSE at

www.youtube.com/user/zainazrai

They are labeled 'Iban Sea Dayak'

Join the LFS Facebook group at

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=115474824544

Below are pictures from Twilight of the Longhouse

Pictures from Peter Dineen's Masterclass: Acting for the Camera

2009-08-14T13:48:00.008+08:00

London Filmmakers Studio Sdn. Bhd. Official Facebook Group

2009-07-19T16:41:00.001+08:00

Be a member of London Filmmakers Studio Sdn. Bhd.'s Official Facebook Group at

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=115474824544

Peter Dineen Profile

2009-07-15T14:10:00.000+08:00

PETER DINEEN

Peter’s last TV work was playing Terry Dooley in ‘Doctors’ for the BBC which will be broadcast as ‘Evil Spirits.’ At the moment he is touring various venues around the country in Conor McPherson’s play ‘Saint Nicholas’ for Richard Jordan, creative director of the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. Before that, he was at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester playing Barry in ‘Small Miracle’ by Neil D’Sousa , which transferred to the Tricycle Theatre London . Prior to this, he played Archbishop Laboa in ‘Devil’s Advocate’, which transferred to the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh and won the International P.E.N Award for the theatre and the writer, Donald Freed. Other work at the Mercury includes Oberon /Theseus in ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ Jimmy/ Johnny in his own play, ‘Brass Balls,’ and Krapp in ‘Krapp’s Last Tape.’

Work in London includes ‘Small Miracle’ Tricycle Theatre, ‘A View from the Bridge,’ Aldwych Theatre, ‘Yard’ Bush Theatre, ‘Arawak Gold’ Jeannette Cochrane Theatre, ‘MacBeth’ Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, ‘St. Nicholas’ Soho Theatre, ‘Dancing at Lughnasa,’ Greenwich Theatre. Numerous credits at the Royal National Theatre include playing the Father and Moon in ‘Blood Wedding’, ‘Antigone’ , ‘The Futurists’, ‘Coriolanus’, ‘Danton’s Death; ‘Wild Honey’, ‘Venice Preserv’d’ and 300 performances in the lead role of Nawadaha the Storyteller in ‘Hiawatha,’ a much loved show.

Other theatre work includes seasons at the Torch Theatre, Milford Haven, Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, Northampton Royal Theatre, Theatre Royal Lincoln, Octagon Theatre Bolton, Assembly Rooms Edinburgh, Sheffield Crucible, Compass Theatre Sheffield, Asylum Theatre (Beckett) , West Yorkshire Playhouse, Everyman Theatre, Cork, Opera House, Cork. Theatre and TV abroad has included work in Hong Kong, China, Poland, USA, Norway , France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and two happy years at the Donovan Maule Theatre, Kenya, East Africa.

Television and film work includes ‘Casualty’, ‘ Foreign Exchange’ (26 episodes) ‘Judge John Deed’ ‘Plotlands’ (6 part series for BBC), ‘Doctors’, ‘Father Ted,’ ‘Coronation Street,’ seven appearances in ‘The Bill’, ‘Heartbeat,’ ‘The Upper Hand’, ‘Boon’, ‘London Bridge,’ ‘Bust,’ ‘Majesty of the Law’, ‘So you’re in charge,’ ‘Arrivederci Millwall,’ and ‘Ardeevan’ a short film written by Peter which won the RTE/Film Centre Award for best short script at the Cork Film Festival. (Cash and trophy) The film was made by director Jonathan Richardson, broadcast twice by RTE and screened in April 2007 at the Irish Film Festival, London.

Other writing work includes his first stage play ‘Barrack Street’ premiered at the Everyman Theatre, Cork. ‘Fianna’ premiered at Bristol College. ‘A kind of Wilderness‘ broadcast by RTE Radio. ‘On the Reef’ broadcast by RTE Radio, ‘Johnny’s Boys’ broadcast by RTE Radio, ‘A drop of Beethoven’ broadcast by Radio Sligo. ‘Lorca and Me’, a solo play commissioned by actor Peter Ryan, toured parts of Spain and Australia.

Programme for the Royal National Theatre for ‘Blood Wedding’ by Garcia Lorca, (programme on display in the Garcia Lorca Museum, Fuentes Vacqueros, Andalucia) programme for Teatro Nacional Espanol, ‘The House of Bernarda Alba’ by Garcia Lorca, at Sadlers Wells Theatre.

‘Mammy’s Boy’ a community play based on the writings of Frank O’Connor was a great success locally at the Everyman Theatre Cork, and led to the writing of another stage play ‘Brass Balls.’ which was premiered at the Mercury Studio Theatre. Colchester in April 2006 and had a successful three week development run, with extra shows having to be mounted. Peter has since expanded the play, original music and lyrics have been written by talented composer Machele Siebel and the new work is being produced by Richard Jordan, creative director of the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London.

Two original screenplays, ‘Kit’s Gorilla’ (based on Peter’s experiences while working as an actor for two years in Africa) and ‘The Faerie Road’, have been picked up by Blue Dolphin Films, Wardour Street, Soho, London (producer Terry Marcel) and Barzo Productions (producer Harley Cokeliss) and both scripts are currently in development.

Pequena Paloma Blanca 2003

2009-06-26T04:02:00.003+08:00

Directed by Christian Barbe. Produced by Ike Ong DGGB (Ray Athuro)

The script was supported by the Hubert Bals Foundation of the Rotterdam Film Festival.

Sponsored by J. Girbau and the Barcelona Film Council. Christian started as my assistant in our London studio and was extremely enthusiastic in shooting 16mm film. The availability of super 16mm (single perforation) was not easily accessible in London. The additional absence of budget to shoot film made him decide to shoot DV Cam. Having struggled to fund Captain Othello, we decided to appeal to all available resources to attain a small budget to shoot in Barcelona and to take advantage of the Spanish language film industry which has an enormous market in Latin America.

We make the editorial decision to include controversial scenes in the film which got us to many film festivals but made us achieve a rating category of XXX (for adults only). This limited our distribution and sales to only a few cinemas. Nevertheless, it qualified as a work of art and got to Venice Film Festival 2003, Athens Gay Film Festival and many others all around the world.

The opening credits is available on youtube at

http://www.youtube.com/user/zainazrai

Captain Othello 1997

2009-06-26T03:43:00.003+08:00

This was an independent British production made in between 1997 and 1999. It was based on Shakespeare's Othello set in World War 2 with Captain Othello as a African American officer in the US Army at a time when African Americans were struggling to be recognized. It was made on a micro budget and helped and supported by numerous sponsors, individuals and societies. Despite the contribution of volunteers who were not paid, the cost of feeding and transporting the sheer number of extras and equipment was extremely high. Relative to American films, it was made on a shoe string but achieved production values comparable to Saving Private Ryan and Enemy at the Gates. As production progressed, unanticipated disasters occurred, the budget escalated to the extent that our bank was no longer willing to increase our loan. While in post production news of Enemy at the Gates was released and the story line of the battle between two snipers was so similar that our distributors withdrew their commitment to the film. This decision devastated the production and its potential sales. It was later taken on by a Dutch company who specialized in films of the skin trade who were making an attempt to explore action films in an art house style. They have since stopped trading due to competition on the Internet. Unfortunately, we do not have any right to show a single frame of the final edit nor footage of the film but remnants of the 6 cameras that remained in our studio. I must thank Peter Dineen and Peter Eton of Hawaii whose commitment was incessant. I hope you will enjoy what I can salvage out of 3 years work.

Rehearsals, out takes, behind the scenes footage and footage made into other products for the benefit of county councils, World War 2 societies and military vehicle enthusiasts can be found on Youtube at

http://www.youtube.com/user/zainazrai

WiraSiswi 2009.

2009-06-26T02:38:00.008+08:00

WiraSiswi was nominated for Best Digital Film for the 21st Malaysian Film Festival in 2008. It was made for LayaRia (Astro) and is one of the most popular telemovies, having been screened 5 times in 2008, the year it was made. The popularity of the film is indicated by the hit rate in excess of 50,000 on YouTube within a few months.

The screenplay was developed from a sub plot from a feature film screenplay by CK Wong entitled 'WiraWati.' Our researchers were stunned by the reports given by various institutions supporting Women's Issues and we decided on the theme of the value of women in the male dominant society of Malaysia. One of the problems in question is how many people, including women, view women as property. In the extreme situation, this conundrum is highlighted in Rape. Deemed as the most violent act that can be inflicted on a woman, we were extremely disturbed by the few cases that have been reported to the police. Some institutions estimate that the real number of cases are ten times more than the number reported. Even the police are disturbed by the public response and are in no position to encourage the victims due to the condemnation of victims as the seductress in a male dominant society. The police department were extremely helpful and supportive of us in making this film to show the modern forensic facilities and social services provided for rape victims. We took great pains to illustrate police procedure accurately in attending to rape victims and that the police have made made a priority to maintain the confidentiality of the victims.

The story line shows that the victim of an attempted rape ends up suffering greater emotional pain than her friend who was a rape victim. In her enthusiasm to locate the rapist, Lya failed to report her own attempted rape. When the police discovered that she was the last person to be with the dead person they found in the car park, Lya became the prime suspect. Not knowing that a group of kidnappers had attacked the rapist and killed him, they kidnapped the victim, Lya. Fortunately, a group of women noticed her struggle in the car, raced and stopped the car. When they encountered the gang they had to put up with a fight to free the girl and take her to hospital.

It was later revealed that the girls were victims of a gang who would exploit the availability of GHB (Date Rape Drug) to force themselves on women and would film their viciousness to be exhibited on the Internet as trophies.

It was revealed that the rapist who was murdered by the kidnappers was Abu Bakar (Ashburn), the youngest brother of 4. They were part of the gang. Abu Bakar had saved Don's life when he nearly drowned in a disused mining pool when they were little children. Unfortunately, Mokhtar drowned and Johan was away from the scene. Since then Don took special care to support Abu Baker.

Don was extremely affected by Abu Bakar's death and was obsessed with his suspicion that Lya had murdered Abu Bakar.

In revenge, he kidnapped Lya's best friend, Sha, to entice Lya to a meeting place so that he could fulfill his retribution. The eldest brother, Johan, was concerned with Don's insane behavior and followed him. Lya had previously met Johan in a bookshop when Johan was researching as a journalist. She had taken a liking to him but later discovered his dishonesty when she identified him as one of the perpetrators on the website. She was taken aback to meet Johan on her way to comply to Don's demands.

Inspector Rahman followed Lya to the rendezvous and demanded Don to put down his gun. Don reacted by shooting Inspector Rahman. Lya took the opportunity to run away and Don reacted and shot in her direction without realizing that his eldest brother, Johan, was in the direction of the fire. He missed Lya and hit Johan.

At which time , Corporal Mansor arrived and shot Don to disable him. Lya in her shock rushed to help Johan. In this emotional scene where the confusion, angst, and mixed emotions meet to make the conclusion a tragedy where a man whose mistaken obsession ends up killing his own brother.

This tragedy is told in in 8 parts plus a trailer and can be seen on youtube at

http://www.youtube.com/user/zainazrai

LFS INTRO ACTING FOR CAMERA

2009-03-30T10:29:00.002+08:00

London Filmmakers Studio is organizing another acting course for serious actors.

Inquiry please call 012-2950421.

THE CREATIVE PRODUCER course ended in DEC 2008

2009-01-10T04:19:00.002+08:00

Thank you for the supports from the participants who are serious of becoming a creative producers. We had successfully completed the course with certs presentation last December 2008. To those who haven't got their certs, please call CK. Thanks.

THE CREATIVE PRODUCER course

2008-10-26T18:57:00.007+08:00

VENUE : FINAS(next to ZOO NEGARA, Ulu Klang, Selangor)

THE CREATIVE PRODUCER course
DATE : Starts on the 8th and 9th NOVEMBER 2008 for 6 weekends
TIME : 10am - 6pm
(Registration starts at 9.30 am)
FEE : RM600 (student special rate RM300)

The course worth more than RM3500.

Who is Mr. Ike?

2008-10-26T01:50:00.004+08:00

Here are some comments from someones who know Mr. Ike:

"Mr. Ike is a very experience writer-director-producer who have been handling many projects in Europe(especially in UK), US, Singapore, Hong Kong and also Malaysia. He conducted many courses such as screenwriting, directing, producing, acting, HD shoot and edit, complete filmmaker, etc. If you have the chance to meet him, talk to him and ask him all sort of film making subjects or problems. He might be the most helpful person to answer all your questions.I never seen a person who is so easy to give out all his knowledge without keeping anything behind. He is so willing to teach everything to anybody that wants to learn. He wants to share with as many people as possible. He believes letting people have the knowledge of making good movies with professionalism is a good thing and that's what his is aiming to do. What I can see is that he also wants to help the Malaysia Filmming Industry so much. I think that's why he is willing to teach with such a low fee..." says CKW, the director of WiraSiswi.

"I learn so much just by attending Mr. Ike's Intensive Acting Class for 6 days. Now whenever I go for casting, everyone in the casting table is so impressed by my acting because I managed to become the characters they are looking for. Even Hans Isaacs don't believe that I just started in acting! Now that I acted in Emma Fatima's production, feature film and many other productions such as Double Vision, etc. I am so thankful to Mr. Ike." said Jefri Jefrizal, a new actor (less then 1 year experience).

References of Mr. Ike Ong:
Sandy Lieberson, Chairman of Film London (London Film Commisson).
Mohd Mahyidin Mustakim, Director General of FINAS
Adman Salleh, director of "AMOK", "BINTANG MALAM",etc.
Suhaimi Baba, director of 1957 (Hati Malaya), Pontianak, Waris Jari Hantu, etc.
Martias Ali, award winning scriptwriter-director
Rusdy Ramli, best actor of FFM
and many more...

INFORMATION On THE CREATIVE PRODUCER course

2008-10-26T00:54:00.005+08:00

Please download from the DOWNLOADS SECTION for schedule, syllabus, FAQ and registration form.

Send your the form to londonfilms@gmail.com to register!

Thank you.
from ADMIN

Coming Soon : The Intensive Editing Course

2008-10-16T02:56:00.004+08:00

After having a great success for the Producer Course recently, we receive many requests from the participants for many other courses too.

One of the very important and useful courses is "The Intensive Editing Course" that makes you capable of editing a feature film! In this course we are also giving you more training time.

Book your seat by registering at londonfilms@gmail.com

After Michael Wiese's Producer Course In KL ... LFS continues with another Fantastic Producer Course

2008-10-16T01:57:00.011+08:00

NOVEMBER 2008

The Creative Producer

Includes DVD, CD-ROM and Text Material.

TABLEAU NO.1

The fundamental requirement of a producer is in development. Effectively, he develops an idea into a story, the story into the script, the script into the film, the film into an entertaining product on screen that people want to see. The Creative Producer is the course that demystifies the requirements of a professional producer.

It is said that the director is king but the producer is effectively the creator. Without his creation, the director does not have a project to direct. Invariably, the producer hires the director and all other personnel including actors. Without the producer, the actor does not have a job.

The Creative Producer Course is in 6 weekends (2 whole days per weekend 10am to 6pm in total of 12 days). This is an intensive point by point procedure to cover various requirements in creative development that is essential for film projects with artistic integrity.

Methods of evaluation are examined to test scripts and

check impact value on audience. RM 600

(Individuals are allowed to create their own case study to develop projects during the workshop. )

(*NORMAL PRICE:the Course worth more then RM 3500)

The Course starts on Saturday 8th November 2008.

This course will be conducted by Ike Ong DGGB.

1) The Inception of the Idea

2) Developing the Idea into a Story

3) Finding the Theme of the Idea

4) Application of the Idea into a Story

5) Developing the story with the Idea as the Spine

6) The Basis of a Good Story

7) How to Tell a Good Story

8) Rewriting Procedures and Script Doctoring

9) Compliance to Malaysian Production Regulations

10) Online Marketing and Multi-Platform Sales

11) Availability of local grants, sponsorship and loans

12) Availability of sponsored production and post-production facilities

13) Certification and Regulations for Public Exhibition

14) Incidental Guidelines for Production, Distribution and Exhibition

15) Process to transfer origination from digital domain to positive print for traditional projection in cinemas