Hello fellow readers!
This week passed at an insanely fast pace. We are just a week away from Unspoken and organising this event has never been more hectic!
“You need to give it your all and do your best,” was the earnest plea that Saras wanted of us. This is the most crucial part of our event preparation. We either make or break it. Before we started our week frantically and tirelessly working for our event, Saras called for a meeting with the whole Unspoken Committee to pre-empt and prepare us for what is ahead. We are to anticipate and understand that this is the time where irritability and panic is on the rise. We are going to shed lots of sweat and tears (boohoohoo!). Learning how to manage and handle our emotions are critical in this season.
“Everybody, you need to communicate! Function as a team! Work as a whole!” were her last remarks before we were dismissed. And true enough, we have worked much more closely as one Unspoken committee the past week. The programme committee is working with the sponsorship committee. The documenters with the publicity. The logistics with the drama casts. The in-charge with the volunteers. The students with the lecturers. The event is starting to be pieced together (like puzzle pieces) and we anticipate, with great hope, to deliver you an amazing event to look forward to next weekend! Let’s go straight and dive in to what we are busy with!
Beginning with what we collectively went through, was our drama rehearsals.
We had a rehearsal to focus on improving our drama skills on Wednesday, another for our technical run on Thursday and two full-dress rehearsals on Friday. What a way to begin 2018! Whoopee! The Logistics comm, together with many Unspoken comm members, had to bring tables, chairs, flower pots, instruments and even a huge sofa through and fro our classrooms and the theatre. Over stairs and down elevators, we probably would have big biceps after next Sunday. The drama casts were more familiar with the theatre stage and the scenes transition. Adeeb continued to fine-tune our facial expressions and body postures as we started to sink deeper into our characters. The drama casts were further briefed to smoothen any plot holes or technical difficulties. Some of our casts even had to change their attires backstage, within seconds! But such is our strong commitment to the event, that we even decided to stay till late evening for our rehearsals. Stay strong everybody!
Now we shall quickly proceed to give you a glimpse into what the sub-comms have been doing…“Programme! It’s your cue now!”
“Oh hello…we have been planning the duty list for our own committee members and working on our action plan. This consists of what has to be done, who should be doing it and when it should be done by on the event day itself. For our experiential booths, we have been collating our logistics for the booths.
We have recorded the audio recordings that will be played through headphones at the 3 experiential learning booths. The booths cover depression, anxiety and OCD (that is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder…just in case you don’t know that). Each of the booths have 3 stations. At each station, there will be instruction and debrief sheets for you to follow and take part. Are you excited? Come and understand the emotional struggles that undergirds these mental illnesses, but do be advised that it may be sensitive and traumatic to our younger friends. We are hoping that only participants aged 15 and above would participate. Please use discretion and caution in participating…okie?
On Thursday, we went to Clarity to print out evaluation forms, signage, instructions, disclaimers and photobooth props. We are prepping the photobooth props, for which you are free to use for your photos and boomerangs. Remember our campaign! Go post your best photos of yourself (drag your friends along), signing an ‘X’, and send an #Unspoken message that you want to send to the mental health community. We prepared directions to Theatre For the Arts, from within NYP (for drivers) and to NYP (for public transport commuters)!
Lastly…we have been keeping up with our budget list as we start sourcing, buying, printing and getting logistics. We collated our total expenditure and ensured that all our finances are accounted for.”
Thank you programme team! Straight to the logistics! “Hey there! You’ll seem to be very serious at work!”
“Hey! We have been working hard indeed! We arranged our stage crew, who are our good friends volunteering to help us, to be present for our first rehearsal. We introduced the drama casts to them and gave them annotated drama scripts for technical purposes. These annotations include which casts would be mic-up, which side of the stage would they enter from, which stage lighting had to be switched on, what props must be brought out during the scenes transition, and how the casts’ wardrobe is managed. Of course, a verbal explanation through the scripts could not suffice, hence the volunteers started to recce the stage and getting familiar with the stage management.
The next day, we received the hands-free microphones and walkie talkies that were sponsored from an outside vendor. We assisted them in setting up the control room’s sound system. The second rehearsal was a technical run where we had to adjust the lightings, sound effects, and so much more. It was intensely stressful as we had to adapt to a long list of technical difficulties. From a missing sound cable to different wirings of the stage lights, communication is of paramount importance. We had our fair share of miscommunications and confusion with the new tech equipments. It was a tiring affair that demanded our utmost attention and cooperation, yet we pressed on faithfully a step at a time.
After our technical run, we had to construct a large logistic prop (shhh…secret!). Sounds simple? Think again! It is larger than 10 humans standing side-by-side! And oh how long we stayed to build it from scratch with rolls of tape, cardboards and vanguard sheets…some even stayed till 11:30pm! Talk about dedication!
With a few hours of sleep, we arrived at school the next day early for makeup to be done on the drama casts, in preparation for the full-dress rehearsals! During the full-dress rehearsals, we were taken aback by the sudden speed of stage management. We began to break into a disconcerted and flustered frenzy during the scene transitions! It was initially messy and draggy, so we clarified some technicalities that the stage crew and drama casts could assist us in our stage management. The second run was way much more smoother and we hope to improve our transitioning for our final rehearsal.”
“Publicity! Your turn!”
“Hello! Have you followed our Instagram account (@unspoken_nyp) yet? No? Why not?! Hurry! We have drafted all our social media posts and they have all been approved. And they’re streaming into our Instagram account faster than you can say, “Wait, you have Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts too?!” We have already posted our event poster, our generous sponsors and more is to come. Psst…if you stay tuned to our Instagram stories, you may catch snapshots of our drama rehearsals!
We also reached out to many social media influencers and many of them responded to us, commending us for the noble cause we’re working towards. We also contacted official social media accounts (such as @nanyangpoly and Institute of Mental Health)! Exciting news about the ticketing! Our e-tickets design is already approved and we are working on sending them to all who have registered for our event. Please check your emails these coming days! Your tickets have a unique reference number and is even colour-coded to whichever show timing you’re coming for! We too have an awesome programme booklet to give to you upon entry to the theatre!
We came to notice that our posters required some minor edits and we had to improvise by pasting over a corrected print-out. Creative eh? There are two A1 hard-backed posters in our school NYP library and one poster for us to do our outreach.
What outreach? Oh yeah, we sent our whole team down to *SCAPE last Friday for our publicity outreach! We were divided into two groups to do outreach at different venues around the compound, hopefully extending our outreach by receiving 10 signups from each group. Some threw rejection straight at us, some approached us with a list of seemingly interrogative questions, some teased us and, to our joy, some gladly registered for our event. We were physically and socially drained out as we approached almost a hundred of people, but it was all worth it for the very dedicated few that had a zealous interest for this event. We are planning to do an outreach next week at Singapore Poly and Ngee Ann Poly!”
“Sponsorship! How have you all been doing?”
“Aloha! We collected more collaterals throughout the past week. One of which was from Youth Corps Singapore which gave us 800 drawstring bags, 500 pens and 500 magazines! Have we mentioned that one of our sponsors has given us multi-coloured fidget spinners? How cool is that?! Come for our event and receive a free goodie bag! What more can you ask for? >.< We also discussed creative yet feasible ideas for our support board, including its overall concept and what it should be named for our headers!
We replied a bunch of emails to our sponsors and clarified with them whether their organisational logos are appropriately fitted into our programme booklet and EDM posters (that is Electronic Direct Mail, not Electronic Dance Music…just in case you are puzzled). We are also going to have a slideshow, minutes before the drama begin! The slideshow would feature our sponsors’ logos and publicity materials they request us to feature. It is important that we present their logos strictly within their requirements and preference…soooo we had to contact them frequently for approval and edits. Do you know that our Documenters have prepared weekly video updates as well? We are excited to show these videos to you in the slideshow as well!
Our friend, Manzurah, had also confirmed with NYP Makeup Artistry (follow them @nypmua) team to arrange for a suitable timing to do up our drama casts’ makeup.
Lastly, we are planning to collect more collaterals from SOS and SACA next Monday and the exhibition booth boards on Thursday! We are also going to pack 800 goodie bags next week! With a pool of volunteers eager to help us, no task is too big for us to handle.”
And now we finally come to the Documenters.
“Fun fact: The more you read, the more you know we have been working. As this documenter is typing this sentence, he is also eating a sandwich. Cool huh? No?
So, about what we do…we are still regularly keeping up with our documentation through videos and written blogs. For the videos, we have been moving about the committee chasing for opportunities to record our friends at work. Someone is moving the sofa? Off we go to record them doing so. Someone is briefing the volunteers? Off we go to record them doing so. Someone is using a new prop for the drama? Off we go to record them doing so. Like bees chasing after someone who stole their honey, we documenters chase after capturing good scenes. Our good friend, Isabel, also unofficially given the video editor role, have been faithfully compiling all these videos taken by the documenters into entertaining video updates posted weekly on our YouTube account.
We are also keeping up on our blogging documentation! Some of us went around to interview members of the different sub-committees to get an overview of what the sub-comms have been working on the past week. We wanted an accurate representative portrayal of the amount of work they had contributed into this event. After collating information of what the teams have done, we carefully crafted them into our weekly blog post. We also have begun fun interviews with different members of the committee, featured in #ourspokenstories blog posts. We are going to send this (yes, the very one you are reading now) blog to members from the different sub-comms for their approval before we send them to Saras for a final vetting. And soon you will be reading this on our website. (so, if you can read this now, it means that it had been vetted)
Meanwhile, the Overall ICs in our team (read more at #ourspokenstories) were doing their very best to catch up with all that the teams had been doing and preparing themselves to lead the whole event in a weeks’ time!”
Now that is all…a long read and you managed to read all the way till here! Before we leave, we concluded that if you have been faithfully reading our blogs, you would probably have signed up for our event already. So we shall issue you another challenge! Why not invite your friends for the afternoon matinee show at 1:30pm? Tickets for the evening show are fully booked! Don’t come alone, bring at least 2 friends to sit next to you! Please sign them up fast!
Lastly, if you are financially able (and very generous), please do support Clarity financially at our giving.sg campaign.
https://www.giving.sg/campaigns/unspokennyp
We are hoping to raise $3000. Every dollar you donate will go to Clarity Singapore to support this event. If there are any remaining funds, Clarity Singapore will use it to help clients with mental health conditions. This project will not take flight without you! So, any amount of money will be appreciated!
1 week left! Get excited and start sharing! We’ll see you next Sunday!