THE BIG DAY ARRIVED

Another milestone achieved!

Firstly, I would like to say Thank you to NAFA for giving the students the opportunity to travel out of SG for a study trip. It had brought me to a greater height in my learning journey.

Secondly, once again I would like to say Thank you to both my lecturers Matthew & Grace for giving me this chance to be part of this Interdisciplinary Project & to contribute as much as I could.

So on 23 Sept was the Silent Actors: Puppets of Myanmar & Vietnam Exhibition Opening Night! The whole team of mine had been working hard for the pass 9 weeks for this showcase. Given 1&1/2 - 2 weeks to complete the post production of documentaries, installation & performance, I thought we really did a great job. The night less days we had really paid off.

I would also like to say Thank you to my family, granny, aunt, cousin & friends for coming to give their support during the exhibition opening night. I really hope you guys had enjoy the showcase we prepared.

Without you guys, this wouldn't be possible! Great job guys!

Yes! My Photo was selected to be exhibit after two round of editing.

Post Production & Preparation of Exhibition

The battle of post production begin immediately the next day we touched down Singapore. To be honest, we can't start piecing the footage as the interviews dialogue are not in English and we need our Myanmar friends to help in the translation.

At the mean time, the only I could do was just to choose the pick up shots that is relevant. It was only bit and pieces here and there because we need to know what was mention during the interview. We had to follow the direction of my director.

The translation took about 5 days to complete and we only had 15 days or less to complete the whole documentary. It was a sleepless 2 two weeks, however the experience working on this documentary was really awesome with the team that I'm working with.

All of us were much corporative and target to finish the final draft cut for review to our lecturers a few days before the actually opening of the exhibition.

Beside this documentary, we also had to pick up a few shots that we took during the trip to be nominated to be exhibit in the exhibition itself. I had to even do a montage of behind the scene for the exhibition.

We fought all the way and manage to complete on time! We did it!  

Day 4 Journey to Mandalay Myanmar

Last day in Mandalay! Nothing much today around noon we need to head to the airport. So the only thing I did was to head to the Market with my lecturers and some of my mates. The market was really cool. Sold lots and lots of stuff. 

This trip was just a memorable one! Next up is heading back to Singapore for Post Production! 

Day 3 Journey to Mandalay Myanmar

Time always pass so fast when we are enjoying or busy with stuff. It's the second last day of the trip and we again set off early for our final objective before we could enjoy the rest of the plans. 

Beside preserving the art form, Ma Ma Naing also conducted english class for student that want to learn english. Our motive to be there at the class was to take some pick up shots and interview the students regarding how well and how they got to know about the Mandalay Marrionette and English class that was taught by Ma Ma Naing. 

After we are done with the interview, we head off for lunch and supermarket to buy some snacks and food for our supper and of course snacks back to Singapore. 

In the evening, all of us head to the oldest bridge in Mandalay. U Bein Bridge was an iconic in Mandalay as it was there for decades. It was a nice place to chill too.. There were many stores along the path towards the bridge. 

Day 2 Journey to Mandalay Myarmar

Our main objective had arrived. We went to Mandalay Marionettes as early after our breakfast to interview the grandmaster & performer. I can say that the people at Mandalay Marionettes we communicate during our presents were really friendly. During the whole interview process, we were very lucky to have Ko Ko, our classmates for IDP to be with us to help on the translation.  I guess without him we may not be able to pull through and we will have a hard time due to language barrier. Not only him, we had our tour guide that actually was there every second with us to communicate to the local for us to understand better.

As the grandmaster of puppetry, obviously he doesn't want this art form to die off. He want this art form to be preserve and said that youngster are not expose to his art form, therefore not many of the new generation is keen to learn. He even mention is willing to teach and guide those who are willing to learn it. 

Ma Ma Naing even prepared the process of making of the puppets for us to capture and document. I think it was really interesting on how the actually carve it. The guys were really patience and skilful.

.

After the interview, all of us head to the coffeeshop next to Ma Ma Naing theatre for lunch. It seem to be very popular as there's always people walking in to have their meals. Truly their food was really nice! It was just like Singapore Mee Pok but Myanmar's style with chicken. One of the best meal so far! It was Ma Ma Naing treat, really nice of her.

After main objective is complete, we head to Mandalay Hills that was one of their tourist spot. It was indeed a nice place to visit and maybe get some blessing. It was the highest spot in Mandalay itself. 

If we want to use our Digital Camera to capture picture, we need to pay a cost of $10 to get the ticket and attach it to our camera. The view was really amazing further more with the sunset just make my day. 

Day 1 Journey to Mandalay Myanmar

Finally the day that everyone had been waiting for. Reaching Changi Airport as early as 8.30am to check in and get our boarding pass. Feeling excited for the trip.

We then landed in Mandalay in the evening and plans for the 1st day was just very simple. Before heading to Mandalay City Hotel to settle down, we head to one of the restaurant for our first traditional dinner. I wasn't expecting any better food because it was my first time having Myanmar food. Amazingly, it was not that bad from what I thought.

As promised, we head to Mandalay Marionettes to watch the whole performances. It was then we started capturing the moment and documenting what was important for our up coming documentary that's going to be exhibit 2 weeks after we goes back to Singapore.

I was part of the production team and I head to the backstage to took some cut aways / pick up shots for the documentary. It was quite hard to capture the moment during the performance as the stage was really small and there were about 6 - 7 at the backstage preparing for the before and during the performance. I had only two small portion / corner of the stage to capture the moment. The whole perform took about an hour or so, a longer performance compared to performance Ma Ma Naing and her team performed when they were in Singapore for the workshop.

After the first day of experience, I really felt that the whole process of the performance was really worth watching.

Day 3 - Burmese Marionettes - Learning & Experiencing the Arts & Traditions

It marks the last day of workshop and I really came to understand more about Burmese Marionettes the Arts & Traditions.

For the past three days me and my whole team had learn and practice throughout the workshop on how to move the puppets smoothly and in nice way. It was really not easy as we need to multi task, moving the puppets in a way that follows the beat of the music.

At the last two hours of workshop, talented students had to put up a performance to wrap up this Burmese Marionettes - Learning & Experiencing the Arts & Traditions workshop. They really did a good job during the performance as they were only given 3 days to practice. Of course not forgetting the awesome performance that was performed by founder & puppeteers.

Is Burmese Marionettes really a dying art form? 

Is Burmese Marionettes modernising to attract the younger generation? 

Let's find out soon... 

Day 2 of Burmese Marionettes - Learning & Experiencing the Arts & Traditions

It's the second day of the Burmese Marionettes - Learning & Experiencing the Arts & Traditions workshop. It was the day that we the potential performer being selected to perform at the last day of the workshop. So total of 6 among all of us being selected for the performance.

During the next one & half day that was the time for the 6 selected to practice the movement of the puppet. The 6 selected performer are to perform, 'White Horse, Monkey & 4 Page Boy'. The others that was not selected, we were also give the chance to practice and just give it a try to play with the different kind of puppets. 

It's really not easy to handle the puppet just through this workshop. There's a technic to make it move nicely. It's also not as light as what it seem to be. What I can say, really need a lot of practice handling it. 

Done w Day 2! One more day to go!

Day 1 of Burmese Marionettes - Learning & Experiencing the Arts & Traditions

It was only the first day of Burmese Marionettes - Learning & Experiencing the Arts & Tradition workshop. Before we even started, Co-founder, Ma Ma Naing introduced herself and her team to us and of course give us a brief description about Mandalay, Myanmar. 

They even put a performance for us as a opening for the workshop; performed a total of 7 sets. Every set of performances, it had its story and meaning in it. During this workshop we don't only learning what is Burmese Marionettes all about.. 

We are given the chance to have a hands on experience of the puppets as well.. Firstly when I watched them handling the puppets during the performances seem so easy. Next moment when I got my hands onto the puppets, my thoughts of the puppets had changed. It was so heavy and wasn't easy to handle. 

Done w day 1. Two more days to go! So Far So Good!

As you can see in the picture, one of my group member had a small string puppet. Everyone were kind of interested and can't wait to have a chance to hands on with the puppets.


It was two weeks before we can actually get the feel on the real actual puppets that are flying all the way from Myanmar to SG during the workshop in Week 6.

After had a feel of the small string puppet, we are given time to have a discuss and finalise the direction of our documentary for this IDP.

Our Director then give a presentation regards on the direction that my group is working towards too..

Just time for brain storming... Gathered together as a group having the same direction coming out with possible question to ask the potential interviewees. For Screen Media, we were quite familiar on how the direction should be and how we should structure the questions. We decided to use our past documentaries questions as reference and slowly we narrowed it down for individual potential interviewees.

During the discussion there were lots of different opinion from our group and of course our lecturers. It was a hard time narrowing the questions into a simple form so that the structure of the documentary will be nicely form and our interviewees can understand better and give us a answer that make sense rather than a whole recording of answers that we can't use for the documentary.

On 4 Aug 2015

Meet & Greet with Nyan Soe Alumni of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts majoring in Sculpture.

Nyan Soe moved into the city Yangon when he was at the age of 13. He grew up in a Chinese Family. Living in Yangon for almost 8 years and he didn’t heard or see any form of Puppetry before in Myanmar. Since he is from the Chinese family, he is not expose to this Art Form.

He added; “I only saw the puppetry performance for only about 5 minutes, however, it was with a tourist group at the hotel in Bagan.”

Opinion from him through chatting, older generation may want the younger generation to preserve the culture and tradition of the puppetry. Even if he is part of the committee or organization of the puppetry, he will want to preserve it as it is.

He even mention that young generation in Myanmar is totally not expose and no hand to the culture and tradition about puppetry. The only way they know about the basic knowledge of puppetry will be from the textbooks.

Should their locals to be more expose to puppetry? How to they make it interesting enough to attract locals? 

After my first research that I found in www.irrawaddy.org that was posted in 2013. 

Puppetry was once a popular art form in Burma, and was used as a medium to tell stories and educate people in religion, history, literature and culture.

Since 1975 one of Burma’s famous puppet artist died, Pan Aye and team still perform the dance performances with artist Thein Zaw. After 1988 uprising against the military regime, public celebration become lesser. 

Ma Ma Naing was the owner of a small souvenir shop and she does not know to make them dance. 

In 1989, tourists pushed her to set up a theatre to perform the puppet. So she rushed to see Pan Aye, a veteran puppeteer in Mandalay and asked for help to perform to the tourist and asked Pan Aye to help to set up the theatre after then. 

It was founded in 1990 and it is the only puppet theatre in Mandalay that only attract tourist. 

Ma Ma Naing was glad that she could somehow help this dying art to prevent it from disappearing and was encouraged to maintain the culture. The art form of this puppetry was only attracted by tourist instead of the locals even it is a entrance free. 

Pan Aye added, “it dying,” “not because of the lack of professional puppeteers, but because of the lack of audience.” 

Why is it dying? Why does locals doesn’t want to support its own art form to maintain the culture and tradition?

Second Lesson...

One week just flow through so quickly and dates to Mandalay, Myanmar is just nearer and nearer...

It is just another session of meeting the group to discuss and pouring out our own opinion.

A hand out was given out and I really appreciated it. It is a guide to make us moving. First thing before we even move on was to lock down the direction that we are approaching. We will be working on the line of the "Dying out forms". The group just sat in a circle to share ideas and giving our own opinion on the issue that we talk about.

As professionals from the Screen Media, we took the responsibly to be in charge of the; flow of the documentary, question to be asked during the interview, visual (Potential CutAway) to be in the documentary, basic research of the location in Mandalay, Myanmar & Photos for exhibition.





During the last half an hour of the meeting, me and one of my Screen Media partner, Rohiim draft out the questions.

Doing it in a very different way from what we did for our very own documentary. The question planned out is for three different categories of people.

It will be still on going till Monday 3 August to finalise the questions.

First Lesson...

Entering into a coldzzz room that I felt home.. CMS where I always have screening, practical lessons.

I was really excited to know who will be going to the trip with me from other major department and of course wanting to know who is in my group for the trip itself. 

First lesson is always getting to know each other, briefing about what is expected for this trip, doing up some administrative stuff and receiving a short introduction of Myanmar. 

During the Greet & Sharing session, I was really shocked that this trip maybe the last trip for the module IDP. Indeed, a rare chance to be part of this special team of people to go on a trip to Mandalay, Myanmar to know more about their culture and tradition especially on Puppetry.

Of course watched a few example of Documentaries from youtube and past senior work that they went to Cambodia for a documentary during 2012.  

Getting into group to breakdown of what we going to do before next lesson starts. Mainly will be research on General Knowledge and what is Myanmar Puppetry. 

I always love the quotes from Singapore First Prime Minister Mr Lee Kuan Yew. 

He words just inspire me a lot. 

Excitement Before Everything Starts!

Ringgggggggg....... Received a text from Mr Matthew on 13 May 2015! Asking me if I'm interested in going for IDP trip to Myanmar on a documentary shoot. First thing that strike my mind was.. "Woah! An overseas trip with my course mates. Further more, it's to Myanmar when I didn't being there before. Finally, I'm able to go on a trip to do something related to my studies in Screen Media and of course to explore and learn the culture, tradition of Myanmar during the trip."

I was so excited and further asked more question regarding the trip. My dad was so supportive and approved of me going for this trip to Mandalay, Myanmar. 

So I registered online for my slots to be approve. Waited for almost a month till I received a text again. I was told there will be an interview on the 14 July 2015 to see if I'm qualify for the trip. 

First to be interviewed and was really nervous! It will always be.. 

What can you contribute to the team during the trip? Interesting question to answer. 

Ringgggg... Received another text on 15 July 2015 night. When I slide my phone and opened up the text. I was so happy that I was selected to be in the list to Mandalay, Myanmar. I believed this trip will bring me to a greater height! 

Stay tuned for more updates.