Julianisms

The drama team officially presented its first skit of the year on 29 May 2005 during the Combined Service; it was something which I actually found to be kind of surprising.

Has it really been that long since we performed for Metro? Actually, yes. A quick check showed that the last time we did anything drama-related was during Watchnight Service 2004 (read this post for the story, and also this post). Since then, I guess the team has been taking a well-deserved break from the Christmas production, and also busy reviewing and rehearsing new drama material for 2005. We finally got the greenlight for Night Shift from Pastor for the May service, although we had initially planned to do something else relating to motherhood (what with May being Mother’s Day month and all).

Anyway, since we’re now “back in business”, you can continue to expect to see the the team presenting skits in future Combined Services. After the skit, it was wonderful to see Pastor Ong take the cue from the skit to pray for healing for fractured and strained relationships in our families and also in our church. This is precisely what the drama team is striving to be: an active catalyst and a support element in each service which we are called to minister.

So, what’s the play about?
Night Shift is a modern retelling of The Parable of the Prodigal Son - remember the fella who took off with his cash inheritance in hand and squandered it all before crawling back to daddy on his knees? The difference here is that Mel plays a “prodigal daughter” instead and, no, she didn’t have to do any crawling around. I play the resentful older brother who sort of gives her a bit of a hard time when she returns home.

     
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I believe this is the first time Mel and I have ever done a skit together, just the two of us. Again, it kind of surprised me thinking about it, because I’ve known Mel for a while now, and it made me wonder: why haven’t we done anything together before this? (Answer: Because we didn’t have the right script before Night Shift came along.)

Mel, I want you to know, you rock! It was fun doing Night Shift with you. I think you’re a terrific sister and a real asset to the drama team.

     
Click on thumbnails to enlarge

And thanks to Janice, who was responsible for standing in for both Mel and I, in case of any sudden changes. You may not know it, but Jan could have taken over either role equally well (either as an older sis to Mel’s character or as a younger sis to my character), which I think is clearly indicative of her versatility and ability. Thanks, Jan, for being ready with both character roles and for giving me extra team combination choices to work with. And you did this even as office work was really piling up on you.

Kudos to Shannon for the props and stage setting. As usual, you continue to keep coming up with everything I ask of you, which in turn makes it so much easier for the actors to do their thing. I’m really wondering how much more stuff there is in your house to plunder everytime we need you to come up with stage settings for our drama productions! Thanks, man.

Thanks to the CAMM video team who recorded the play – Edwin, Kevin, Ryan, and Vicky – for the good work done, and to other drama team members who contributed ideas and suggestions towards making Night Shift better for everyone. And thanks to Yoke Chin for working in the background to keep the team running.

What’s the deal with the video?
This time around, I decided to encode the Night Shift video in a higher resolution (320 x 240 pixels @ 280kbps, if you’re interested in details). Looking back at some of the previous drama videos (240 x 176 pixels @ 88kbps), I became dissatisfied with the small frame and picture quality of the movie clip. By rendering Night Shift in higher quality, the video picture is now larger and sharper, which makes for much better viewing. The main drawback is, of course, a larger file size and a longer streaming/download time.

If you care to leave comments or suggestions: Do you think it’s worth it? Are higher-res/larger filesizes preferable to lower-res/smaller filesizes? Is it worth making video clips of our previous dramas available for download? Will adding in subtitles improve the videoclips? Is the universe contracting or expanding? Am I talking to myself? (yeah, probably so)

Anyway, here’s the videoclip…

::: “Night Shift” :::

The clip is in Windows Media Video (WMV) format. Filesize is 15.3 Mb, and the total runtime of the videoclip is 7 minutes 42 seconds. Click to stream/play the video, or right-click and select “Save as…” to download to your PC. This video is the property of the Creative Arts & Music Ministry (CAMM) of Metro Tabernacle A/G. Night Shift is adapted from an original WillowDrama play of the same title. 

More videoclips of previous CAMM dramas can be found here.

God bless!

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P/S
The Night Shift videoclip is also attached to this post as a podcast enclosure which should make it visible in RSS feeds. I hope anyone who does their blogsurfing via RSS feeds or who’s curious enough to try it anyway will also be kind enough to provide feedback as to whether this method of distributing the video works well. Thanks!

"Night Shift" videoclip