PS ES Survival Exhibition

Preschool Studio

Help! We have to learn how to survive in the wild! The PS Eagles were faced with this predicament in the last Sprint of the year. How would they cope?

Over the weeks, they rose to the challenge and discovered how to map, filter dirty water, start fires, cook over a small fire and build shelter. Since we were still stuck at home, they roped in their family members, too, and everybody picked up a few survival skills to get by in the wild. Yeah! We’re ready to go camping after the MCO is lifted! say the PS Eagles.

What’s in store for you this Exhibition?

AAR and her sister show us how to make a batik cake with a tealight!

IA makes a batik cake with choc chips over a tealight!

JE filters filthy water into clean water.

OR is proud of her fire-starting skills.

SY sets up his shelter to relax in with his sister.

ZA’s shelter is all set up to keep the elements away.

Elementary Studio

The Elementary Eagles delved deeper into the whys and hows of survival … what materials should they use and why? Why should the shelter be built this way? How can we forage for food in the wild? Each Eagle explored a survival tactic and presented aspects of it that piqued their interest.

As we all know, in this world, a man is not an island that stands alone. While each Eagle presented their own explorations and in their own styles, they worked together in squads to share positive energy, feedback and constructive criticism to elicit the best that they could from each other.

Together, The Infinity Stars reach for the stars!

JAR takes us through the water cycle and how it helps us to filter dirty water into clean liquid.

ZU took us through the history and evolution of shelters.

KA shared his exploration into shelters, and 2 games we could entertain ourselves with in the wild.

How do you start a fire … without matches?? AD tells us.

A Wolf Pack runs together, plays together, works together, and helps each other out.

JAS presents a poppy video on how to filter water.

AR takes us through how to light a fire with 2 sticks.

The blurb says it all for the Squid Squad!

CL demos how to build a shelter with household objects.

AND presents a video on water cycle with lots of props.

AY and her furry sidekick teach us about food we can forage and food we should leave alone.

K shares his in-depth knowledge about setting up fires.

L demos how to tie 4 different knots which might come in handy.

Life is sweet when you’re working with friends.

Writer’s Workshop – Creative Writing

The Eagles got to flex their creative muscles this Sprint and experiment with a fun creative writing tool called StoryJumper. They could even illustrate with it, and see how their stories would look in a ‘real’ book format! This got the creative juices flowing … and out came Godzilla, princesses, monsters, cats and more!

Of course the most outlandish fantasies must have some kind of form. The Eagles used Freytag’s Pyramid to structure their stories into interesting, cohesive pieces. Check out their fantasies here.

The Girl in the Garden, by AL, tells of a happy family enjoying nature.

In Optimus Prime vs Megatron, AN retells the old Transformer origin story with his own flair.

ALO details a blissful day at the park with his friends.

The Princess and the Prince is AZ’s take on Snow White, without the 7 dwarves.

AY’s April Summers is a smart, resourceful girl. Will she recover the stolen chariot?

AD’s The Princess shows how kindness wins the day.

Beware, Barney! An evil plan is afoot in CL’s The Identical Cat!

In EM’s The Missing Wolf, Julia loves her wolf … will she ever find it again?

IS had the best day camping with his friends in I Went Camping With My Friends for 1 Day.

In JAR’s The Story of the Dragon vs Godzilla, who will prevail?

A resourceful young girl went from Poor to Rich in JAS’ short story.

JO’s Cat All Cats feature cats and time machines!

Follow along on The Adventures of Alex and Steve in KAL’s Minecraft-inspired story.

KAV’s I Forgot How to Count to Ten is a cute little counting story.

Do you like adventure? Go sky high in L’s The Climb Up Mount Everest.

M’s A Day Of is a lovely, relaxing story.

S’s Cotton and Salima follow 2 best buddies through a lovely day.

An inter-galactic war is fought and won … by whom? Find out in X’s Aliens vs Humans.

Z’s Sonic the Hedgehog: Khoran Awakened a Dangerous Discovery follows Sonic and his friends on another fantastic adventure.

MSLP Cinematography Exhibition

Lights … Camera … Action! The MSLP became cinematographers this Sprint and experienced the whole process … from writing their own original scripts to producing, directing and filming short films. Along the way, they explored dialogue, character development, filming angles, stage directions, prop and actor procurement and more … work that normally would be done by several different people behind the scenes of a real film.

All this work behind (and, for some, in front) of the camera culminated in a live virtual premier of their short films.

Here they are to present the creation experience to you themselves. They allowed us behind the scenes and shared about the scriptwriting and filming experience – any influences and inspirations that drove them, their filming process and equipment or programmes.

Atma, by ARJ

Scriptwriting

“It was not my first time writing a script, but definitely a long time. The last time I wrote a script was in 2017 in the Drama Sprint which was 4 years ago. The experience is kind of difficult because you have to create an entire world in 6 weeks.”

Filming

“It was my first time doing a proper animation which was definitely 100% hard, because you have to draw like 100 frames and still add audio and also edit.”

ARJ’s *Atma* highlights Atma’s Hero’s Journey.

Lemon Loaf by HAI and HAD

“I have written scripts for a TV show a few years back but for recipe videos, this is my second time. As this is my second time writing a recipe script, it wasn’t as challenging or time consuming but it still took multiple tries to make it sound engaging for the audience. Our team’s inspiration was the YouTube channel Joshua Weissman as he is humorous and his videos have clean camera shots.

This also wasn’t my first time filming but since our group wanted to make our video worth watching we tried our hardest to make it look good. The recipe itself was meant to take 45 minutes but the whole filming, baking and prep took more than 4 hours. My group used a tripod and stuck it to the side of the table to make sure the shots were stable. We also connected a laptop to the filming device so that I could monitor and see how it looks as I am baking. To edit we used Imovie because it was the easiest to edit without any problems.”

*Lemon Loaf* featured a quirky VO by HAI … siblings working together.

Disconnected by APS and Z

Scriptwriting

“This is my first time writing a screenplay, our video didn’t really need a script since there wasn’t much talking. This is my first time actually learning how to write a screenplay properly.

I found the experience pretty fun since I was also doing it with my friend. It is actually one of my first time actually sharing my creative writing and I found that interesting.

We didn’t really have much of an influence on our script. We really just wrote down what we thought would make the story good since our video was actually based on a more real life experience, so we didn’t really have any inspirations or influence.”

APS

“No it isn’t [my first time writing a script]. The first time I wrote a script is my 3rd Sprint in ES (Drama and Play).

It’s [the experience] different from writing a play script, but it isn’t that hard. You just have to add things like editing notes, camera angles, setting, and characters. The formatting is also a little bit different, but I don’t know if I wrote the play script properly in the first place.

My inspiration was Vega moving away. It has impacted my life a lot. At first, I was a bit sceptical about filming this, because I don’t like talking about it.

We originally had a better plan, but filming under MCO wasn’t great, and our communication was horrible, so we were really behind track. We made new last-minute plans just including the scenes we filmed, and we only did it a few days prior to the Exhibition, so our planning was rubbish.”

It’s good to lay out a plan before diving in.

Filming

“This Sprint was the first time I had filmed and edited a short film for myself. I found it fun but stressful at the same time. We didn’t use much equipment, I used my old phone as a prop. To edit I used an editing app on my phone. I used an app called CapCut.”

APS

“Yes [it is my first time filming]. I think it was very interesting to study cinematography, and after that, I would notice very subtle things about films, and think, “Wow, that must have taken a long time or a lot of effort.

Z and I just used phones to film, and she really wanted to edit, so she used this app on her phone called CapCut.”

Z’s favourite shot from *Disconnected,* “Because it shows overlays of our emotions together.”

Parasomnia by O

Scriptwriting

“This was my first ever time writing a screenplay and script. I found that script writing could be used for me to write my stories as well, as it does the same effect but would be more descriptive. I found it pretty hard to use different words and terms that would describe my scenes.

Most of the fast-moving scenes are inspired from my favourite anime of all time, the 1995 psychological diction anime “Neon Genesis Evangelion”. To be honest, I think I executed it poorly, but I shall try once again in my future projects.”

Writing a non-dialogue script is different from writing one with dialogue.

Filming

“I’ve done 2 music videos for Jumuro Music before, but this was my first time filming my very own project. Due to limited time, I could not finish a portion of the animation and has to rush out a lot of scenes. But to be honest, that wasn’t the issue. This has nothing to do with the fact that the film was unfinished, but the film was quite bad in my own opinion. I think my stories could have been clearer if I had used visual storytelling clearly, and I also think I need to improve on my art skills so I could draw things better and clearer to help me with my future animation and art projects. And again, I hope the writing could have been clearer so everything wasn’t so confusing.

Adobe Animate CC 2019 or known as Animate CC was used for the animation.”

O’s favourite scene wasn’t a completely drawn shot, but she was pretty proud of it.

Stolen Clothes by D

Scriptwriting

Yes! [It is my first time writing a script]. I got the opportunity to learn the formatting and structure of screenwriting through the Week 2 challenges that O organise. We were provided prompts to practise with as well. This really helped with getting comfortable with the style of writing. I planned the Week 1 challenges that focused on the storytelling arc – this gave me and the other MSLP Eagles a better understanding of successful stories.

The process felt intuitive in some moments and tedious and slow in others. However, the entire experience was fulfilling and I didn’t mind working ‘after school hours’ to complete my screenplay. My creative writing pieces are usually something I don’t share with others. So, this session pushed me out of my comfort zone because we had multiple critique-revision sessions (using the BrainTrust format from Pixar) where I had to hand over my screenplay for others to read. The experience has also got me thinking about the impact that entertainment has on our lives, and whether the whole industry is truly impactful of just frivolous.

I planned to have actors in the film and to have it shot over a Zoom call. This format was inspired by BBC Cinderella (with Anya Taylor-Joy and Rege Jean-Page). The dialogue style was inspired by shows like The Office, Modern Family, New Girl and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The transitions between scenes were influenced by Fleabag and Servant (I used raw cut, J-cuts and cut-to-actions).

The stage directions have to be just enough to direct, but not dictate the scene.

Filming

“I created a stop-motion video for the Medical Biology session and produced the ES Studio’s Lip Dub last year. So, I have some experience with filming, but working with actors was stepping into an entirely different ballpark for me.

My highlight was the community of friends we had during production. One of the Eagles was very kind to refer some of her drama class friends to work with me, and they really helped guide me through this process. My brother also was in this short film and I had fun shooting scenes with him. We also did a table read, which felt really fancy. 😀

During production, I sometimes felt insecure that I was meant to be the ‘director’ (the leader onset) and yet everyone there was more experienced than me. Navigating through this obstacle showed me that these feelings of incompetence were stopping me from learning from everyone there. Directing (virtually) without a script supervisor was sometimes overwhelming because there are many moving parts to manage. I also encountered some issue with my mic/audio, but once that was sorted I could communicate with my team easily.

I recorded the Zoom scenes using the ‘record meeting’ function and the live scenes were filmed on a phone/tablet. I edited the film on iMovie. WeTransfer was also a really helpful platform to transfer large files.”

In this shot I wanted to play around with the Zoom ‘boxed’ and how we could mimic in-real-life conversations.

These are the placards I used i the establishing shots (right column) and outro (left column).

My Olympic Dream by KEA

Scriptwriting

This is my first time writing a script. At first, I thought everything else was gonna be this easy but as I went deeper it became harder. My script was influenced by Minecraft then I came up with a better idea to make an Olympic Qualifier’s round.

The final film can stray very far from the original script!

Filming

This is [also] my first time filming. The experience was rather stressful because I didn’t know what to do. After I did a few clips I became less stressed ad it all came to me. I used my phone and Windows Video Editor for my film.

Wish by KOT

Scriptwriting

“Yes [it is my first time writing a script]. It was fun for me to actually learn how to write the scripts for videos and also, while the Sprint I also got to see the real script for my favourite movie and it was incredible! :D”

Filming

I did actually like video filming and editing but with this Sprint, I got to know deeper about video filmings and editings and I feel like I want to try taking more video! (>_<)

No. [This is not my first time filming]. Before this Sprint, I did film and edit many videos of my cat. I made a YouTube video (even though I don’t actually post it on YouTube) so it was easier for me to film and edit but still I never took a video that is detailed like this. So I felt really happy and I really enjoyed it!

I used my mum’s phone to film and I used an app called Filmora to edit. My video had to be more focussed on editing so my mum bought me the app (Filmora) paying. That’s why I was able to edit my video nicely and specifically. Thank you, Mummy!