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!

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.

Procrastination....

Hello everyone. This weekend I was supposed to be a good student and write a review for a play we saw in class and start my paper for Irish Cinema. However, I'm super lazy and tend to procrastinate a lot. I should at least write my review because it is due Tuesday and it's only 500 words. But I find that I do not like writing reviews because I'm not good at writing in a critical sort of way. I'm choosing to write a review on The Plough and The Stars, because that is the only play we've seen so far that I liked. We saw The Silver Tassie this week, also written by the same man who wrote The Plough and The Stars. However, The Silver Tassie was very boring and I didn't have any attachment to the characters. We had cool balcony seats though.

Last week in Irish Drama we looked at Samuel Beckett, who was an avant-garde playwright in the 50s. His plays are very contemporary and experimental. I think I'd be very interested in his work, even though I'm not much of a theater person. Last night we saw a Beckett play called An Act Without Words II. The audience, which was very small, met up at a hotel and we were taken to the site of the play, which was in an alley behind the theater. All we saw was two sleeping bags and a neat pile of clothes. A door opens with a beam of light, and a pole pokes the first sleeping bag, and it is revealed that someone is waking up inside it. The performance was only a half hour, and there were no words. It was just two men waking up, putting on the clothes, taking them off, and curling back into the sleeping bags. The actors were great. I actually like it because I felt like I wasn't watching a performance. The rest of my friends didn't really like it. They complained it was a waste of 15 euro, and that they could watch the same thing for free in the streets of New York. But I guess Beckett really isn't for everyone.

I'm really excited because my fall break is next week! We leave for Paris on Saturday!