New Logo / Banner

Here is the newly designed logo for Kid In The Front Row. Many of you have asked in the past for a banner so that you can link to my site. If you want to do that, please use this image. I hope you like it.

You may also have noticed a modified header at the top of the blog, which I'm extremely happy with! Credit goes to my wonderful friend Elena.

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Catching The Wave

A spark can come from anywhere. Being an artist is not just about producing the art, but learning how to catch it, bottle it, and release it. I would imagine there isn't a writer reading this who hasn't often had the experience of profound insight, followed by a horrific attempt at getting it down on the page. 

Art touches us the most when it captures a piece of who we are on the page, the screen, the stage, the canvas. But how does the artist get it there? This is perhaps the hardest thing of all. That's why artists aren't impressed when someone says "I have an idea". We all have ideas. The professional gets it down on the page. 

But I don't mean professional in a traditional sense. This isn't about the discipline of starting your masterpiece every morning at 9am. This is about catching the waves however they may come.

It's as if there are thousands of spirits floating up in the sky; some of them are beautiful and hazy, some are like fierce rockets. You have to be a martial artist, adept at attracting the falling stars.

The information is in the moment. Remember your first kiss? First job offer? Remember when someone you love died? Remember when your favorite team scored? Remember when you were fired? They carry the juice. But how to get into those feelings? How to indulge in them, enjoy them, and then turn them into your art? 

It doesn't have to be the signposted life moments that provide the juice. The quieter moments are often more profound. Ever been sitting in the garden staring up at the night time sky, and felt a big wave of the essence of yourself and life? That feeling is unique to you. That essence you need to get into your art. 

There are times when I write in a very purposeful and disciplined way, like my recent post about Bridesmaids. Sometimes I just catch a feeling and write from that place in me, like with new york gone. The feeling came without capital letters, without traditional sentencing, it was like a wave, a memory, a feeling. I tried to capture that.

and the last time i left new york i left all my favourite people. and the guy who showed me around queens moved to la and the guy from the plane could be anywhere now and me and the artist kinda fell out and the girl who waited for me that time in jfk packed up her bags and got gone across the world and now i could go back, and i will go back, but so much is gone.

Sometimes you need to be open to exploring the wilderness, to not block any thought that comes, to jump on the wave and see where it goes. Those moments are often the most truthful.

But the thing about my New York post is that it didn't resonate with many people, even though it did resonate with me. This is where you see your own limitations as an artist, or perhaps a lack of experience. It takes people ten, twenty or thirty years to be great. It's a balancing act -- matching your insights with skills and understanding. 

There's so much in those extremities. The misery. The hope. The excitement. The romance. The depression. The confusion. There's gold to be mined -- but you can't be too disciplined or writerly about it, because then you miss it! Or crush it! Or scare it away! You need to deeply experience things for them to be of any true use. 

That's the problem with blogs. The writers get addicted to their followers, addicted to the comments, comforted by their place on the interweb. The posts become by-the-numbers, shop-front-profound but never quite real. 

It's a thing we all struggle with, staying true, capturing the real essence of the life we're going through. That's why we admire the greats, they lived life and reflected it back to us. The geniuses did it again and again. 

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Conversations With PETA

PETA recently wrote to Cameron Crowe about his new movie "We Bought A Zoo". They said:

"We Bought a Zoo conveys the misleading and downright dangerous message that no special knowledge--just a lot of heart--is needed to run a zoo."

Here is their email correspondence in full:

EMAIL 1
Dear Cameron Crowe,

Your film claims that all you need to run a zoo is "a big heart", whereas actually you need specialized training, as well as a place to store all of the food.

Please put a permanent subtitle across the lower part of the frame (around Matt Damon's chest area) reminding people not to start their own zoos.

Yours Sincerely,

Pam Bird
PETA

EMAIL 2
Dear Pam,

I totally understand where you are coming from (due to you providing your mailing address) but I feel the need to remind you that of course I would never mean to imply that ordinary people (or Europeans) should own animals traditionally found in a zoo. If we make a sequel, I would certainly like your advice, as the lions are particularly dangerous and have a tendency to flirt with the make-up artists.

We'll see you all again next year!

Cameron Crowe

EMAIL 3
Dear Cameron,

You don't seem to comprehend the importance of what I am saying. Help me, help you.

Regardless, I just want to check if you will indeed be carrying the subtitle reminding people not to own a zoo or a monkey without adequate training? This will need to appear towards the lower part of the screen, roughly near Matt Damon's stomach on a mid-shot.

Pam Bird

EMAIL 4
Dear Mrs Bird,

I have called Matt Damon's agent, but unfortunately she has been unable to get through to him. It would appear that ever since I gave Matt a giraffe, ostrich and wild panda he's been awfully busy. They cause a lot of hassle when he takes them to IHOP.

Despite leaving the ultimatum with his agent, whose identity I can't reveal, I don't feel I can commit to carrying your caption on my movie. I am not sure the general public needs to be warned against owning lions and tigers.

It's a slippery slope. If we start warning people about zoos,  we'd soon have to start warning them about drugs and guns, and frankly there'd be nothing fun left for us all to do.

By the way, what would you feed a poisonous python? Just curious.

It's all happening!

Cameron Crowe

EMAIL 5
Dear Cameron Crowe,

I am troubled by your casual approach to this issue. Maybe I should speak to Matt Damon personally. What's his number?

The treatment of animals in your film concerns me. Animals deserve equality, the same opportunities as humans. That's how I got my job.

I must demand you place a caption on your movie reminding people about the dangers of wild animals. I'd feel much more comfortable speaking to Matt Damon personally about this. I really enjoyed 'The Departed'.

I'm not letting you get rid of me. How about that?

Pam Bird

EMAIL 6
Dear Pam,

Sorry for my delay in responding. I was just out buying a boat packed with radar equipment and a cage. I knew I shouldn't have watched Jaws.

I would like to end correspondence with you. I would also like you to put a notice on your website reminding pet owners not to accept popcorn in a cinema if it is not provided in a box or bag, just in case they think its wise to carry the popcorn in their bare hands.

We'll see you all again on 1974,

Cameron

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The Words She'd Written Took Me By Surprise

This has to be one of the most beautiful songs of all time -- and also one of the saddest.

The beginning of the song; he finds the girl's diary.

"I found your diary underneath the tree

And started reading about me

The words she'd written took me by surprise

You'd never read them in her eyes,

They said that she had found,

The love she'd waited for."

And wow; it's so beautiful. It really is. It's David Gates on vocals. An incredible voice - it just gets right into you. Hits you smack bang in the heart. It's not because of singing technique, it's not classes; it's soul and truth, right there; in a recording. He went there. Really went there.

It's the loveliest song about your one true love, of that moment when you realise she loves you.

But wait.

"I found your diary underneath the tree,

And started reading about me,

The words began to stick,

And tears to flow,

Her meaning now was clear to see,

The love she'd waited for was someone else not me."

"The love she'd waited for was someone else not me" -- isn't that the saddest line in the world?

Tragedy is awful. Makes the world stop. You don't leave your house for weeks. Anger is crazy; you go mad at the world. But the heartbreaks are different -- because nobody really sees them. You get up and go to work with a sunken heart. All the buildings carry the weight of a memory and all the people around you feel like ghosts. You're stuck inside the memory of a feeling you had and a person you loved -- and you think they loved you but it turns out it was someone else.

"The love she'd waited for was someone else not me" --- was there ever a sadder lyric? The way he sings it, too. In life you find love and then your life is figured out, but only if they love you back. Otherwise when they go off to the store for groceries or in their car on a road trip -- they're not thinking of you, not even close. They're thinking of that other guy. Ouch!

Bread captured that in a song.

Pure truth. Life. Heartache.

Reminds me of that Phil Collins line in 'One More Night';

"I've been sitting here so long wasting time, 

just staring at the phone. 

I was wondering should I call you,

And then I thought

Maybe you're not alone."

Ouch. You wanna call but then you realise, maybe they have someone else for company. Ouch ouch ouch isn't life just the most poignantly heartbreaking thing imaginable?

Nobody remembers Bread and nobody thinks Phil Collins is cool. But that's often the path for art when it's true. It misses out on the public consciousness or it gets adored secretly in the bedrooms of the broken-hearted.

That is art. That's the power we have. We can sit around coming up with ideas like "What if the baddie shoots the guy and then he steals all the money", but that's not what it's about. It's about the truth. About being brave enough to bleed all over the page. Put yourself out there. Of course, you need craft and you need a reason to do it -- but when it happens, woweeeee it's magic! And as depressing as it is talking about heartaches and breaks; I actually feel GOOD! Music is amazing like that. 

That's why I can't stop listening to 'Diary' at the moment. It's so real that you can't help but relate to it. Especially when it comes to matters of the heart; it's all to easy to repress anything that has feeling or fear and bury it when you're fifteen. Songs like 'Diary' take us back, even if only for three minutes. We remember what it is to be alive.

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Emails From The Front Row

Here's an email I received. I have linked to the things that the writer quoted of mine. I had to share this because it made my heart get all excited and fulfilled and happy. 

Dear Kid,

I'm Val, one of the 2 film-makers cycling around the world - collecting, sharing and inspiring stories of people's dreams. My partner, Tay, wrote you a while back ("Shared Dreams"). I've been meaning to write you a personal note because something in your writing struck a chord so deep within, I am often left speechless and wouldn't know how to react, until at least a couple of days later.

Often I'd find myself spontaneously exclaiming to Tay, "You know what Kid said the other day? That Adventureland was a film that 'dared to be small...dared to have heart'. Doesn't that make your heart pound harder, knowing that our heartfelt works would matter to at least one more person - like him?" Tay would smile, and sometimes reply, "You realise this only now?"

I did. And it was only in the wee hours of last night when I was reading one of your entries, "When you allow yourself to be who you are", when I read and re-read what you wrote: 'Find a place; be it a physical place or a mental place inside yourself - and be who you are' ; that I realised that this is my place. I mean, Kid's blog is my playground to be me. Your matter-of-fact; sometimes even nonchalant prose, verse, scripts, outbursts...they all made me feel safe to be myself. More than that, they created and expanded a space for me to be myself. To be the actor I want to be.

On this journey, when things go crazy and "The Days Got Busy", I read about how you try to answer other people's interviews, how you, too, are only human, and I am reminded that 'everyone is learning how to get back to being who they are'; and I ground myself back to the center core of why I am even on this journey in the first place.

Almost everyone we meet on this journey have something to say about how we should be doing it, how we are not playing it big enough, how I should be enrolling into an acting school if acting is my dream etc etc etc. Sometimes, I say to them, "You know what? You're right." And they are left speechless. I felt like telling them, "You're right because we're not yet successful. We're working on it. And 'when we've mastered our work, mastered us, and showed everyone else who we (truly) are, you will see yourselves'...in us. And you will applaud us for Following Our Own Path."

Kid, I want to be a worldwide famous, internationally acclaimed actress. The kind that wins awards at Cannes and Oscars. I want to because I want as many people as possible to connect with themselves - by me being a mirror for their reflections, by my acting to struck hidden shords of songs tucked away in their hearts, in their bodies, in their beings.

I'm Asian, I'm small (barely 1.5m), I'm turning 27 this year yet I permanently look 15. And I never thought any of the above would be vaguely possible, I never had the guts to share any of this anywhere, until I read 'If you follow your vision, believe in it, and do it, who knows.. you might just end up with an academy award, and if you don't - at least you'll have been among the very few who had the tenacity to try.'

Until I realised that there are people like you out there, when watching films like Adventureland, notice. You notice that 'Watching Eisenberg and Stewart in this movie; we get to really see the characters, we get to really feel something real; and as a result, we get to see ourselves.' That is so precious.

The short film, "LISTEN" that Tay shared with you was a birthday present from both of us to me last year. This year, other than embarking on another short on this journey, I am also gifting myself this note to you. I figured, if it's films that tell a good story, films that provides mirrors for being to reflect on, films made with heart, with art, that I want to act in, it only make sense for me to connect with film-makers who want the same thing and ask them for opportunities.

Kid, you begin your blog with, 'When I watch a film the main thing I am looking for is a good story. I like it when I look up at the big screen and can see a part of me staring back at me.' I would like to be the actor on that screen who gives you a wink right at that moment when you discover who it is that you are really watching.

"I have a dream -
to show the world the beautiful colors of emotions on the big movie screen of life."

Warmly,
Val

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You

How are you? What brings you here? What's going on in your life? What was an interesting conversation you had today? What is something new you've learned in the last week?

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Self Sabotage

Everyone has their breaking point.

You think you want success but when opportunity knocks, you hide.

You don't return the call.
You convince yourself the job is too much.
You tell them you can't make it on time.
You remember what happened last time.

The rewards wait on the other side. You have to leap.

Break through the barrier.

Otherwise things cycle. You repeat the mistakes. You meet the same gatekeepers.

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