The Dublin Days Are Over

Hello everyone. Tomorrow I get on a plane and head back to the States. I can't believe my semester abroad is over!

Last weekend I worked very hard to finish my script. I felt my brain slowly shutting down from the creative overload, but I powered through it to write an 80-page screenplay. I handed it in this past Monday to Colin. It was like having weight lifted off my shoulders. I'll probably still work on it on and off for the next few years until somehow I can get it made.

Sunday I decided to be social and went out with my roommates Hannah and Erica along with some other friends to a Christmas festivals near the docks in Dublin. It was a little warm, but eventually it got cold when dark came.

This area was like a whole new side of Dublin we never saw.

The festival was so pretty. It had mostly German booths, like sausages, candy, cakes, as well as gift shops and little bars that sold mulled wine. It reminded me of the little market in Bryant Park next to the skating rink during the holidays. There were so many sweets I wanted to eat! I ended up snacking on some small cakes my friends got and a candy apple.

Unfortunately I didn't stay long because it was getting cold and I needed to finish my script. So Erica, Hannah, and I took a bus back to Griffith. It was my first time taking the Dublin bus!

First Dublin double decker bus ride!

 Monday was really exciting. We had to go to Tisch to print out our scripts as well as our treatments, step outlines, synopsis, and character analysis. Colin didn't come in cause he lives 2 hours away, so Susanne collected everything to mail to him. Free at last! Well, sort of. I still had an Irish Cinema essay to write, but I took a break.

Monday night was our 'Tischmas' Party, where we all gathered in a room to celebrate Christmas and the end of the semester. We had had our final Secret Santa exchange too. We put our presents in a big black bag and Sourabh gave them all out, and we guessed who our Secret Santa was. Erica was my Secret Santa, and I was Kasey's. Erica had given me some very cute presents. Love her!

Me and Erica, with David the Rabbit.

Present time!

Tuesday night was the screening of the music videos, hosted by Hot Press Magazine. The production students finally got to show everyone, including their band, the music videos they worked so hard on. They came out really well! Everyone did a really great job, and all the videos were well-received. The pictures from the event are here.

:)

Photo courtesy of Hot Press

The night ended well for me. Colin took some of us out to a hotel bar next door and bought us wine while we sat chatting about films. The hotel was owned by U2 and they served us little cheeses and bread. Fancy and pretentious much, I know.

Wednesday was the the reading of the Screenwriting class' screenplays. Tisch hired five professional actors to come in and read 10 pages of our scripts. We were all super nervous for this. My script was read third. I felt a little embarrassed, but the actors were really great. Colin put up a photo for each story on the projector. I guess I never really talked about my script in terms of story. Right now, my script is about a single mother of three living the perfect life until one of her daughters leaves and things start to go wrong.

After the reading Susanne took us out to dinner to a fancy wine bar. I had the best steak ever there. I also tried some mulled wine, which is seasonal, and it was the most delicious wine I ever tasted. And I'm not really a fan of wine.

It's kind of sad that the semester in Dublin is over. I finished my essay Wednesday night, which marked my last academic responsibility here. Yesterday we all met for the last time in Tisch to do evaluations for the program, and the Susanne played the movie Once for us. It was really good, plus the music was also good and it was fun recognizing all the streets in Dublin. I spent most of the night packing everything. I'm pretty much done. My suitcases are stuff though, I hope they aren't overweight!

I'll probably do one more post after this one, and then that's about it for my Ireland blog. Hopefully I'll start another one because I really do blogging and I'm kind of over LiveJournal.

Cheers!

Last Week In Dublin!

Hello everyone! Today is the 11th, which means 7 days until I go home. It feels like I've been in Dublin for a long time, and yet the semester went by so fast. I'm trying to get my screenplay revised by Monday, but it's so much more work than I though, especially since I draft was 50 pages short >.< I'm growing tired and restless of writing. The draft is due Monday, along with all the short documents, by 11 am. Once that is done I have to start my Irish Cinema paper.

Last week was the final week of classes. I had one last theater review to hand in for Irish Drama and a group presentation. I was in a group with two of my roommates and we did our presentation on the play Disco Pigs. We also has a guest speaker, the writer of Freefall, a play we saw the week before.

The last day of screenwriting was Wednesday. Colin gave a talk about producers and how to make it in the industry. Our final movie screening was It's A Wonderful Life. Half of us were crying at the end; that movie has the happiest ending ever. Colin took us out for drinks afterward.

Irish Cinema ended on Thursday. We watched the film Adam & Paul bought two drug users spending a day in Dublin trying to get their next fix. Afterwards the director of the film came in the talk to us.

Since then I've been trying to revise my script.

Our group is doing a Secret Santa. Tuesday and Thursday we had to give gifts under 2 euro along with a clue. My Secret Santa got me socks and some cute cellphone charms. Our final exchange is on Monday at our "Tischmas" Party. Even though there's no classes next week, we have the music video screenings and our script readings. Plus paper writing.

Good luck to those with finals!

Janelle Monáe @ Tripod - 12/1/10

Hello everyone! Now that it's December there's only 2 weeks left in the semester, which is 16 days! I can't believe it!

Since last Friday it has been snowing in Dublin. That's right:snowing. Normally it doesn't snow in Dublin, and if it does it's flurries that don't stick to the ground. And that doesn't come until January. But now it's been snowing heavily on and off for almost a week. Usually it rains a lot on and off, but now the rain has turned to snow. Since the Irish aren't quite used to these harsh conditions, transportation has slowed or been canceled. Also, the streets haven't been plowed and the sidewalks haven't been shoveled. The snow froze so I'm practically skating to class. And for some reason the Irish (especially the kids) like to throw snowballs at random people. I haven't been attacked yet, but most of my friends have.

Snowy view from my window

Last night I went to see Janelle Monáe at the Tripod. I found out that her Dec 19th Dublin show was changed to Dec 1st because she'll be in the States touring with Prince. When I read in Hot Press last week that she is playing the 1st I quickly bought a ticket as soon as I got home.

For those of you who don't know, Janelle is an R&B/Soul/Funk singer. She's highly influenced by Prince and James Brown. She always wears tuxedo-like outfits and rocks a pompadour. Her album, The ArchAndriod is a concept album about an andriod in the future.

The doors opened at 7:30 PM. I walked through snowy weather from Tisch to Tripod. Tripod is a medium-sized venue. When I got there I was so impatient for the show to start. People waited at the bar for the doors to the floor to open. A girl approached me and we started talking about how much we loved Janelle, and we kinda stuck together for the rest of the show because we were both by ourselves. When the doors opened we went straight to the front. Great spots.

The opening act was Brian Deady, a singer from Cork who had a great soul/funk sound. He only had his bassist with him, plus his MacBook to play the beats. He was pretty good, I liked him. First concert I've been to where I was able to dance and not worry about mosh pits and crowd surfers.

Brian Deady

Janelle went on after 9 PM. I was so pumped. One of her band members came up to introduce her, and then all her band members came on stage. They started out with "Dance or Die", and Janelle made an entrance with her two backup dancers. I screamed my head off when I saw her.

Janelle is such an amazing performer. I screamed at the top of my lungs for her. She's so cute too. It was my birthday so her band came out with a cake for her and we all sang "Happy Birthday" to her. She then performed "Tightrope" and got really emotional. She's also a great dancer too. I took some videos of her on my camera.

The best part was her performance of "Come Alive." She had everyone sing with her, then jumped right in the crowd. I was so close to her!

"Come Alive" was her last song before she ended her set. However, we weren't ready to let her go just yet. We screamed and clapped and cheered for an encore, and sure enough she came back! She was so happy and grateful. While she didn't sing two of my favorite songs ("Many Moons" and "Violet Stars Happy Hunting!") her show was so great. I'm glad I finally got to see her.

Here's the (low quality) videos I took. You can see Janelle in all her awesomeness.
"Sincerely, Jane": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WraEy-2lf74
"Cold War": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_uSd7CIe1w
"Tightrope": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq1llGThVVY
"Come Alive": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DiY5y3nSjI

Now, off to finishing that screenplay.

Writer's Retreat (11/21-11/25)

Hello everyone! This past week was the writer's retreat for the screenwriting class. We actually stayed at a resort-type place, which is for blind children or something, in Colin's hometown. The facility was very nice. There were 9 bedrooms, each with two bunk beds and showers, a room with beanbag chairs, a meeting room, dining room and kitchen, as well as a sauna and a hot tub.

We left Griffith around 1 PM by bus. The retreat was 2 hours out of Dublin. The neighborhood was rural-suburban with lots of farms. Colin hired a cook to make us meals. It was so nice to have home-cooked food and it was always delicious. The first night we had Mexican and we made our own tacos. Each night Colin would screen us a movie in the meeting room. The first night we watched the rest of Cherrybomb (starring Rupert Grint), which Colin's friends Glenn and Lisa directed. Later we wanted to watch another movie so Colin played the Muppet Movie for us! I had forgotten how awesome the Muppets were.

Monday morning I went on a walk with Joe and Nora around the neighborhood. It was nice sunny weather. The backyard of the building leads to a lake, and that's where we went first before going off.

The neighborhood was really nice and quiet. I felt more at peace there than I did in Dublin. I really wished we had did the retreat more than once this semester. The three of us went on a really long walk just to find sheep. We'd see them in the distance, but none really close by. We did see a lot of cows though, and a pretty friendly horse.

This horse came over to say hello.

Unfortunately my camera battery died so I couldn't take pictures for the rest of the retreat. Nor could I get photos of the cute sheep we did find at the end of our walk.

Tuesday I got a lot of work done. I wrote 10 pages for my screenplay. Right now I still have the draft to finish, plus now I have lots of revisions to do. Colin's writer/director friends gave us tutorials on our screenplays after reading sample pages and treatments. I had my tutorial with Colin's friend and collaborator Vincent O'Connell. We took a walk while talking about my script. Vincent had such great insight about my story and his suggestions were so helpful. It was probably the most helpful tutorial I had.

Each night Colin would screen us a film. Monday night we watched Being There, which was Peter Sellers' last film, Tuesday we watched a film Vincent wrote called I.D., and Wednesday we watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The last night our class split into 3 teams and we solved movie quizzes. I was on a team with Mike, Joe, and Anthony and we won. Our prizes were 4 movie books. I took a book about screenwriting.

None of us wanted to leave. The beds were more comfortable, the showers were better, and the cooked food was delicious. Plus the sauna was nice even though I'm not really a fan, and the hot tub was amazing. The day we left it was Thanksgiving back in the States. Susanne took us all out for Thanksgiving dinner at restaurant. They gave us turkey, ham, potatoes, vegetables, cranberry sauce, and dessert.  I wasn't as hungry as I thought when dinner came around, but it was very nice.

There's about 3 weeks left in the semester! Including my screenplay, I have 3 other assignments to get done. It's going to be both stressful and exciting!

Retreat Tomorrow!

Hello everyone. Tomorrow is the retreat for all the Screenwriting students. I'm very excited. We've all been looking forward to this trip for awhile. The place we are staying at has a full kitchen, sauna, and a hot tub! There isn't any free wifi and only three laptops that my teacher is bringing will have internet. That's fine by me though. The internet can be so distracting, especially if we're trying to write a feature.

I had fallen behind in my screenwriting work, and for the past two days I've also developed a cold. Luckily, earlier this week I cracked down and re-vised my treatment and started writing a few pages. I've been worrying about my story too much. Colin says I have it all there. It seems that I'm writing a psychological thriller of sorts, which is fine by me.

Yesterday morning I went with some of my classmates to see the new Harry Potter movie. I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it, but it was amazing! It is probably one of the best in the series so far. I didn't want it to end! I definitely would recommend it.

I'm bring my camera with me to the retreat. I haven't taken pictures in so long. I'm sure where we'll be staying will be very scenic and photo-worthy.

Doing Everything to Avoid Confronting Writer's Block

Hello everyone. For the past week I have not worked on my treatment for my script, nor have I started my script. The writer's retreat is in a week and I need at least 15 pages by then. I'm hoping to get everything done/started by tomorrow the latest. I just been having trouble getting into what to write. Writing script treatments is HARD. My original was only 4 pages and my teacher wants it to be at least 10. But once the treatment is done, the script should be easy.

The other night I went with 3 classmates to see Let Me In, which was the American remake of Let The Right One In. The remake was more of a horror movie than the original, and a little more gory. But it was fantastic in its own way. I wouldn't say one is better than the other. The remake cuts all the unnecessary details that are in the original to make a more concise story. I'd say if your a fan of the original Swedish film see it. And if you haven't seen either, see the Swedish one first before the American one. And read the book its based on.

Today one of my suitemates starting shooting her music video and needed a crew to help build a set at the studio she'll be shooting at tomorrow and Monday. I put off my work again to help out, because I haven't crewed in awhile. The shoot was at Jamestown Studios, a bug warehouse that served as an art gallery, and also rented out spaces for shoots and band practices. We spent all day setting up a space that in the music video, is supposed to be the inside of a cardboard box. I spent most of the time going out for supplies. I helped my friend Stephanie, who was art directing, put up brown paper on the walls to make it look like the cardboard and tape bubble wrap on the walls. The director is going to be shooting the scene through clear plastic, so the crew rigged the plastic wrap up on C-stands. We worked from 1:30-7:30 PM. It was good to be busy because it kept my mind off things, but it was so cold in the warehouse that I was grateful to be back in my warm room.

Tomorrow I must get work done and do laundry. I'm better disconnecting from the internet so I don't get distracted.

Day Trip to Belfast and Halloween Weekend

Hello friends. I know this post is long overdue. This week I had a treatment due for my screenplay, plus I been tired. Last weekend on Saturday Tisch took us on a day trip to Belfast, Northern Ireland. The trip was lead by the Irish History professor Tommy Graham. We left at 8 AM, but no one was happy with getting up at 7 AM. I fell asleep on the bus and woke up right when it was time to get off the bus. It was really cold up in Belfast. Tommy took us on a tour of the political murals in the city. They each highlight an important in Northern Irish history, especially during the Troubles.

These murals are all over the city. Belfast is literally divided between Catholics and Protestants (British Loyalists). There is a "peace wall" that divides them. When we first arrived we were on the Catholic side. We were all nervous, especially since Tommy was talking very loudly about history and we were afraid of offending someone. He took us to see a few more murals and cemetry.

Tommy then took us to the Loyalist neighborhood. It didn't look that much different, except for the British flags waving around. Tommy took us to one suburb where there was a few Loyalist murals.

After the political mural tour we all stopped for lunch at the Crown Bar, courtesy of Tisch (thank god I didn't have to spend money in British pounds). The food was good, and we got our own private booths. Belfast's city centre looks a lot more European that Dublin does, I guess cause it's under Britain. After lunch Tommy took us to the old Parliament building, and then we went to the Ulster Transportation Museum. I guess we were supposed to see a Titanic exhibit because it was built in Northern Ireland, but the exhibit was closed for renovations. So we just walked around looking at planes, trains, and automobiles (and bicycles too).

A real de Lorean! They were made in Northern Ireland

After the museum we went back to Dublin. I went out Saturday night in Temple Bar with some friends. Dublin has been celebrating Halloween all week, and Saturday night Temple Bar was crowded with costumed people. It was like Halloween in NYC, except this was the day before Halloween. All the bars were crowded. We didn't stay out for too long, and when we came back we watched Paranormal Activity in my room. That was a scary movie. We were screaming by the end.

I didn't go out on Halloween. The Screenwriting kids had a treatment due Monday, so that's what we were all doing. Except Colin changed the deadline to Wednesday, but I still didn't go out.

This week was a good one. Our Irish Theater class took place in the Irish Museum of Modern Art. We looked around at a exhibit before having class in the museum cafe. Wednesday in Screenwriting Colin brought in his friends who directed the film Cherrybomb (starring Rupert Grint) and they talked to us about their experience making the film.

I did some shopping today before going to Tisch to watch Pirates of the Caribbean (the first one) with the screenwriting class.


44 days left!