Theatre In Education

I had gotten home, and the first thing I did was to sit down and do the ppt for the final submission of my pitch. However, before I could so as design one page, I fell asleep on the desk and had to be woken up in the middle of the night by mum saying that I had to sleep on the couch.

The next day, as I had checked the timetable the previous day, was the start of a four-day workshop/session about theatre in education by one Mr. Altaf. I had no idea how fun this session was going to be, as I set off to college, fingers crossed.

Day 1
         Well, it was the start, and as they say, first impressions were best impressions. Indeed, there was no exception for this workshop, as the moment we entered the room and gathered, sir said that we are gonna play a little game! Goodie!
And we played, not only one, but three different games, the likes of which I had never seen nor heard before. All had to do, one way or another, to link up body and mind and freshen our creative sides. The best part was that I had won all of those games! xD xD
And then sir said stuff about personality development and all, then it was time to break for lunch. I'm not gonna bore you guys with text, so let me just tell you that day 1 was true fun!

Day 2
        On day 2, to summarize, we learnt more about the true nature of human beings: how we should walk, talk and sing. I even saw how each one had different styles of singing, dancing and walking! Sir was mindblowing in his teaching side, and he engaged the students as much as a good friend engages his companion during conversation. This day was awesome too, just like the other day. We ended the day with a talk about PD.

Day 3
        The third day was all about fun, and nothing else. We enacted scenes from various walks of life, we played yet many more games, and did yet many more excercises related to mind and body. The session ended for the day when sir asked us to test our own spontaenity by enacting abstract poses from places like beaches, hospitals, circuses etc. All in all, today was exhausting, but funnily so.

Day 4
        Last day............. Boo-hoo.................. That was the expression on everyone's faces as the beloved session came to an end. It was a fitting end, as all of us had to describe about ourselves and tell everyone what we are made of. Some people cried, others made us laugh..... It was so good, I finally realized that all my collegemates were my buddies, and they were there for me everytime. All thanks to Altaf sir, whose sessions were awesome, to say the least. At last, he showed us a presentation about the theories of drama and theatre. A group pic was the fitting end to what was gonna be our journey into the film field.

The Story Story: Chapter Six

The Last Day
It was a tiring day at home, and my brain was exhausted thinking of stories that would fit three frames! On top of that, it was sensei's last class for the module, so the sentiment was hightened by the fact that we had to do the three stories, and I had brought only two.
No matter, I thought, as I plugged in the pen drive and opened my stories from Powerpoint. I opened the two stories and started explaining them as confidently as possible.
INTERTWINED FATE: A story about the intertwined fate of a gold prospector and a garbage man who wants to become rich. What would happen if the prospector's gold biscuit falls into the hands of the needy garbage collector? Will he satisfy his need for a better life? Or are their destinies intertwined into a gripping twist?

Sigh, I know the story looks "too much", but the time frame was too much too, it seemed, as the story wasn't able to fit within thirty seconds. And so, I moved on with the next one.
A SLICE OF MARS: A story about two scientists who wanted to beat each other into creating a formula that allowed people to visit Mars. The classic Spongebob comedy where one beats the other and the beaten one decides to hire an assasin to do his dirty job.

Well, this was good too, but sensei somehow liked my story that I pitched on the third day better, and hence, he said the sentence I wanted to hear from Day 1:
"I approve your story about the hair girl."
Yay! I was doing breakdance in my brain, as every other person's concepts were read and slowly approved. From then on, I had only one goal: to prepare that story as effectively as possible, using the medium of my choice: stop-motion variation. And that was my goal for the rest of the days, as sensei had given us a deadline: 14th of March and our finalized pitches needed to be on the email.
Alright! The real work begins now!

The Story Story: Chapter Five

Fish, Fisher, Fished
Weekends are meant to be fun, but not so much if you have to carry out an ethinographic survey, asking random people what they felt about a story about a girl whose hair changed her world... Yup, the Saturday and Sunday flew past me like flies...
And now, it was time for those who didnt tell their stories, to tell them to the class.
And I was late to class.
Here comes the part about the traffic.... Okay, let's skip that for now...
And as I was late, I missed a story triad. Damn. Next was another classmate telling his story, and then there was another. After that, sensei encouraged us by telling us that none of the stories had that wow factor in them. Wow, now that's what I call encouragement.
Anyhow, I hungered for more. I thought that though I'd be working on my finalized story, I had room for creative improvement. So I thought of more and more inspiring concepts and ideas.
But little did I realise that I was about to be fished.
Literally.
Breaking my thought flow was sensei's three words on the whiteboard, melodramatically aligned to the center:

Fish Fisher Fished

The task before us was simple: we had fifteen minutes, and we needed to think about an amazing, out-of-the-box story involving those three words, either directly or metaphorically.

As a boy who wrote lengthy, 400-page novels, I found this task extremely Himalayan, and not only that, I had that thirty-second story to worry about, too! Oh, the pain...

And so I bent my head over my book and extracted a pen, thinking about a fish, fisherman and his fishing rod.

Five minutes had passed, and I still hadn't gotten any 'wow' idea... Just random stories about fishes...

My hand automatically drew a piranha into the page, and, out of my frustration I think, I made it bite the fisherman's rod, eating the hook and the bait.

...

Hey, that's it!

As fifteen minutes had passed, sir asked us who had the best story in the class. I wasnt overconfident, but I raised my hand, as he said that if you don't believe in your story, who would?! The man had a point, and so I went up to the stage and drew my characters and storyboard onto the board (well, not such an extravagant storyboard or anything, just a rough sketch of three scenes...) and began telling them my story.

OUTFISHED: A story about a fish who ate metal, and a fisherman whose hooks were no match for its notorious bite. The story involves a cat-and-mouse chase kind of thing, in which the man tries to capture the fish, but can't, because the fish eats his hook and bait!

The story was fun, and the audience liked it. I understood the point about the excercise was to get my creative juices flowing, and they sure as hell did!

By the time everyone had finished, sensei told us that our homework was to develop three stories each conveying their meaning through only three frames. We were free to choose from a variety of software like Powerpoint etc to edit the slides, but the point was that if the story's meaning wasnt conveyed in three frames, it could not be conveyed in thirty seconds.

So with confidence in my heart and ideas in my brain, I went home.

No mention about the awesome fun I had at college on account of Holi, a festival of colors..... That's not the point of these posts anyway!

Hello, traffic, wait, house!

The Story Story: Chapter Four

Encounter
The day had come. I needed to tell sensei and the rest of the class my rough story that I had evolved over the previous days. It was going to be a rough encounter, I knew it, as I walked into the class. Oh, and before I go on, it would be wise to mention that for one of the stories, my friend had helped me seriously design a character and develop her over the course of the story. So I was thankful for him. But if the story was gonna be rejected, I was sure to put my fist through his face.
As I ascended the dias and addressed the audience, I remembered my first story's climax. The character is one who overcomes stage fear. How fitting, I thought, as I reveiwed what sensei had told us the previous day.
"You must create a story and tell it. Make sure the time limit of the storyline is thirty seconds. Also, if you tell the story, its not enough, as you must tell me what medium of communication you'd choose to finally convey your story. All this, and your story is approved."
Okay, here goes.
After the storytelling, my classmates asked me simple questions about the storyline and characterization, not to mention the loopholes and flaws in the medium and time. Ah... sensei told me conclusively that the time was too short to convey the story, and the medium would be time-taking, and time, I didnt have...
Okay, on with the second story! About cards thrown in tune to music.
Rejection.
Alright! Now, I was furious. Not that I considered these stories boring, but seriously? Thirty seconds and I can't come up with a wow presentation?! Okay, it was time for playing my trump card.
No, not puppy-eyes. The story that my friend and I had worked on.
It was impressive indeed, as I had pitched it earlier to all my mates and they had liked it. Even sensei felt it could be treated. Well, that must mean I got an A! Nah, perhaps a B.... Whatever, one of my stories got selected! And that was enough for me to thank the audience and get the heck away from that dias to listen to others' stories and comment and critique them.
After the session, sensei told us that we should continue working on the stories for more time, and he also gave a little information regarding mediums for expression, like dance, using the blackboard etc;
This was so not a cakewalk, as sensei concluded the session saying that I need to do some more research on the said story and do a survey among the target audience.
So that was my next day's goal, as I left for home.
No more mentions about the traffic, 'cause we all know that's a waste of a sentence. Sigh...

The Story Story: Chapter Three

The Light Bulb Factor
Ideas..... Ideas..... I had to create an idea for each triad, knitting them into forming a concept, and conclusively form a pitchable story out of that concept through my story telling skills and extra factors like presentation skills etc. That was all secondary it seemed, for right now, the only thing that mattered, really, was creating ideas out of the triads and then forming concepts out of it and knitting it into stories.
I took the first three words I had written down:
Old Lady, Soccer, Raindrops.
Now what kind of story can that form?
Inspiration came to me instantly. Our sensei showed us awesome videos about unique ways of communicating out ideas to the world. He called these as mediums of communication. Wow, that was inspiring indeed. I mean, people use sand to convey the idea of a city!! Okay, now that I was inspired enough, it was time to knit a story!
Think. I need that light bulb right now, I thought, the one that sparks ideas into cartoon characters' brains.
But hey, those were cartoons for a fact that they were fictitious...
An old lady tries to play soccer in the rain and dies....
No, that wasn't what you'd call an inspirational idea, really... So, I rejected that thought out of my mind the moment it appeared.
What should I do? Then I got an idea (No, not any light bulb idea, just a fairly simple one...) and went to sensei to tell him my first story about an old lady who becomes a soccer star.
"Think about more stories, it's just one you got there." He said something like that, I'm not so sure.... But the point was that I should think of another cool story.
On went the process of creating a story on the basis of each of the triads. And on went the rejections. One after another, my ideas and concepts were showcased, and one by one, they were wilted away by the one word: No.
Okay, how's this? I asked sensei, as I told him, "There's this guy who doesn't like to eat much, and he discovers a magical notebook that sends what he doesnt like onto someone else's plate!"
That was a bit better, I felt, as sensei asked me to reserve that idea and chock up some more.
Yes, the light bulb factor finally shone!
I think that was a kind of inspiration, as sir's final "proceed with more" phrase had driven new and nicer thoughts onto my head.
In a matter of minutes, I got three more stories reserved by sensei, and it was time to once again get myself home. As I left, sensei told us that the next day, we had to "tell" three stories, and that if we were lucky enough to have thought of a good story, he'd approve one of them for the grand climax. So i headed home, thinking about the next day's presentation.
Hello, traffic!

The Story Story: Chapter Two

The Word Game
Alrighty, day two and I'm already feeling excited! Next step, please, sensei??
"Choose three words from the map and make sixty such triads."
Why does all this seem so simple, yet it's all seeming so complicated? That was what was running through my mind as I sat in front of the mind maps I created and chose three words that came to my attention first:
Old lady. Soccer. Raindrops.
Hmmm.... okay.... now for fifty nine more triads! How hard can it be?
It just seemed like I had found a worthy opponent. I sat up all night, but was unable to make even ten triads! However, luck shone on me like a fortune, and by the time I got to college, I had managed to chock up thirty nine triads.
Luck was my worst enemy.
The page that had the latter fifteen of my words was missing!
Okay, I think I gotta make do with only twenty four... I thought, as I approached class, where everyone was squatted against the floor, racking their brains for words, just as I had.
Sensei told us that now that we had the triads ready, we had to proceed onto the next step.
What will I do with empty words? I thought, as he said:
"You need to connect each triad to form a story."
Damn, can this get any worse? 

The Story Story: Chapter One

Creating A Mind Map
 A mind map was one of the key ingredients in creating my story; or so he said. Right then, nothing was going on in my mind, so what should I do my map on??!!!
"Interests." Came a voice from inside me (actually, it was Sir speaking that behind me, sorry for the drama...) and so I picked up a large piece of paper and wrote down in the center: INTERESTS.
Well, that one word inspired me into creating four more words: bboying, cardistry, anime, public speaking. And what did each of those words do? They formulated four words each, and each of those words gave birth to four more, and so, in a matter of half an hour, a sprawling map of my interests was in front of me.
And now, the time came to reveiw the Mind Map. Okay, what's that?
My sensei told me that I had highlighted a few certain words without my realization, and those were what were most important to me among my interests! Wow, a man's brain plays in different ways indeed! I thought, as I nodded my head in agreement, as sensei went to the other students' mind maps, which were looking as scrawny and big as mine.
Okay, that was easy, Now what? that was the question in my mind as sensei approved a few words from each student's mind maps. The answer was already in front of me, as I realized that it was time to get my behind home and do separate mind maps on my most interested interests!

Adios, college! I'm coming, my house! Oh, you, stupid traffic.....

The Story Story: Prologue

"Each of you must create a story which must be thirty seconds long."
That's easy, I thought, as my teacher spoke this sentence aloud, thirty seconds is too short: It's gonna be a cakewalk!
...
I was so wrong.