SPIRITED, Scene I

Let me present, SPIRITED. As my final project for my school's drama class, we have been tasked to create our own drama based on a theme we picked together: Disney. Now, I did not really know a real good Disney movie to my liking, but I recently finished Spirited away, so...

Hey, technically it was a Disney Production. In the US. Anyway people don't care in class.

Here we go with the first scene. Notes in the end for sake of spoiler freedom.

SPIRITED

An adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away

by Nathan Hartanto

Scene 1 – Abandoned Amusement Park, near sunset

[Chihiro the young girl wakes up on a dry riverbed.]

Chihiro          : Ugh, my head… Mom? Dad? [Stumbles to her feet. After hesitating for a while, she crosses the riverbed to the amusement park.] Mom…? Dad…? Where am I? [Starts panicking as she moves through empty stalls. Finally, collapses in front of a large building, the Bathhouse, where she stops.] A… Bathhouse?

[Enter Haku the young boy.]

Haku              : [approaches, eyes widening] What are you doing here? [approaches closer] You must return!

Chihiro            : I’m lost, please, Sir, you must—

Haku                : There’s no time—look! They’re opening, they will be here soon!

[Sounds of opening doors, soft murmurs of people]

Chihiro            : [increasingly confused] Who—who are they… what is this place?

Haku             : No time to explain. Cross the river before the sun sets. I’ll hold them off for a little while.

Chihiro            : Hold who… why? Please, I’m—

Haku                : Just go before it’s too late! Now!

[Haku rushes out to exit. Chihiro runs back, past several spirits in black robes, to find the river is already filling up.]

Chihiro            : [Screams] The water! No, no! No… This must be a dream. A dream. [Pinches and slaps her face] Just a dream… come on, wake up. Wake up! [slumps down, defeated, sobbing] Wake… up…

[Re-enter Haku, who suddenly grabs Chihiro’s shoulder, embracing her]

Haku             : Shh… It’s okay. It’s okay. We’ll try again tomorrow. But now, come, follow me, before the witch finds out! Come on!

[Chihiro, still sobbing, nods, and they run back near the front of the bathhouse.]

Haku                : Now, look at me. Chihiro.

Chihiro            : Yes, Sir?

Haku                : Do I really look that old? Call me Haku.

Chihiro            : Haku. Okay…

Haku                : Chihiro, listen. Go under this bathhouse and look for Kamaji. He’s a friend of mine. Go there and ask for work.

Chihiro            : Work?

Haku              : You must, so that the Witch can’t touch you. She doesn’t like people from the Outside.

[Chihiro nods. Rain starts softly.]

Haku                : Get it? If he doesn’t listen, ask and ask again. Now, you really should go. It’s raining. Quick, quick, before the Witch finds out!

[someone off-set calls for Master Haku and he turns around.]

Haku             : Yes! I’m here. Look, I’ve never met someone from the Outside before, and… [sighs] it would be a pleasure to work with you, even for a day.

Chihiro            : [grabs Haku’s shirt] Wait, before you go, how did you know my name?

Haku                : I… don’t know, actually.

Chihiro            : Oh well. But I’ve never met anyone here… could you be my friend here? I have no one else I could trust.

Haku               : [looks as if thinking hard] I… I will. But really, you must go. Be brave. You could do it.

[Chihiro runs off, calmer and even smiling. Blackout, Haku exits.]

___

So, there you go. I thought to remove Chihiro's parents from the story as I only got to write a 30-40 minute show, and I just thought I would better develop other parts of the story. Does feel rushed, though.

By the way, I have no use for this script--no one would perform it, in the end, as it would only be made as a compilation book. So, if anyone wants to use this for their school drama, or any drama with consent from Ghibli, go ahead.

Spirited Away © Hayao Miyazaki / Studio Ghibli

Good Job, America.

RIP USA 1776-2017.

No, don't start the flame war just yet. I know you have picked an unpopular president. I know some of you think he might tip the status quo of the entire world. Hear the words of your new Commander in Chief. Each and every word just screams America First and to hell with the rest of the world. 

But the entire world is changing. 

I seem to have heard the same tone from every new world leader, most notably mine, in Indonesia. We aim to rank higher in the world ladder, and if the cost is a tip in the balance of power, a change in the status quo, than it is fine. Anything for great Indonesia, and President Jokowi is ready to make a change.

And it is the same everywhere. Near us, there is the controversial Philippine President Duterte. Half a world over, we have Britain leaving the EU. Also, new conservative leaders consolidating power in the EU itself. Meanwhile, south of the US, more right-leaning leaders are also ready to take the spotlight.

It seems the trend is clear: more nations are becoming more individualistic. Someday, those convoluted systems of allies and pacts and blocs since the world wars must break loose. So, perhaps this change is not entirely and inherently bad. If Trump wants to make America great again at the cost of other nations, that is completely fine--just look at what we are also doing here!

My point being, I do hope, from all of this chaos and change, the entire world--and yes, including the USA--will rise up from the ashes. 

Or perhaps I am being too optimistic. RIP The Entire World ???-2017.

___

Please keep in mind I am not a political analyst. I am merely giving my two cents on a subject I deem interesting and important enough to talk about, plus an added bonus of practicing for my English test. Perhaps this turned out to be an incoherent rant. I seriously do not know. Thank you anyway.

Entropy and Time Travel

We know that time is relative to the observer in order to keep the principle, which is that light shall always travel at a constant speed. Relatively, yes, this means that travelling to the future of another observer is possible, by travelling at speeds closer to the speed of light, or by experiencing lower gravity. However, what I will deny is that travelling to the past is, according to our current understanding of physical laws, impossible, as time flows according to entropy.

Entropy might be a new concept to us. It is a measure of energy over temperature, which may define how “chaotic” the state of matter is in; the larger the entropy, the more disorderly it is. According to the second law of thermodynamics (which we sadly skipped in class), any system will tend toward higher entropy. Entropy can only increase, and there is no known way to revert a system into a more orderly state. An easy example is that you cannot un-mix a homogenous sugar solution.

That said, time itself might be called as imaginary, a method to explain this system that tend toward higher entropy. There is only now, and a span of time between events, where the direction of this time, in definition, is whichever direction the system is heading toward higher entropy. This provides a clear direction of time, as entropy cannot lower.

One may argue that time travel may not happen, for the simple reason that time is merely an illusion, a concept connected with entropy. However, by only using the current definition of time, it may not move “backward”, as a system will always increase in entropy, and thus time travel backward may not happen.

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKbJ9leUNDE

http://www.johnagowan.org/tetra11.html

Inside a Black Hole

As I descend through the spiral of hot gases spiraling the black hole, and experiencing time dilation due to the immense gravity near the event horizon, those may be the last things I see. Apart from being ripped apart and thus not being able to see anything, there is also a reason why there is seemingly nothing inside black holes, which is because there is only a singularity inside a black hole.

A singularity is a mass compressed in a volume so small that it would warp space-time into a “hole” straight through; according to the way gravity works, this means that no matter may escape (apart from using the theory of Hawking radiation, in which black holes very slowly radiate away its mass). Inside the singularity, matter will be ripped apart due to this extreme warping.

Past the event horizon, it seems that physics as we know it fail. As matter becomes ripped apart, it has no way of returning outside, which is why we cannot see anything inside. Inside the singularity, I expect to see everything the black hole has ever eaten. However, at this point they are indiscernible; “perfectly featureless”. Only the mass and the state of rotation the matter had before falling would be kept inside the singularity.

Of course, as the physics itself inside the black hole may be different, the singularity might not be what physicists expect it to be. Perhaps, according to another theory, we may see a parallel universe inside, or a different point in space-time, as the black hole may have a counterpart: the white hole, which spits matter out.

Either perfectly featureless, or if there is a whole other universe inside, with our current understanding, one thing is clear. We could only theorize what the inside of a black hole look like. Certainly it is very different from what we understand as space-time.

Sources:

http://www.hawking.org.uk/into-a-black-hole.html

http://www.iflscience.com/physics/what-white-hole/

Drama Review: Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost

For my English assignment, we were told to watch Love's Labour's Lost--yes, an impossibly high level of language, which rings music to my ears. And thus, here is the review.

The hilarious performances of Longaville, Dumain, Ferdinand, and Biron

The play Love’s Labour’s Lost is an earlier work of historical comedy by the celebrated William Shakespeare, performed on stage by Shakespeare’s Globe. I saw its recording by Opus Arte, and I quite enjoyed the play for the great acting that brought out the humor, and also for the complex story of romance. The story began when the Ferdinand, the King of Navarre, made a vow with his three lords Biron, Dumain, and Longaville to study for three years, and for the time they cannot meet a woman. However, when the Princess of France arrives with her three ladies, they fall in love. The arrival of the Spaniard, Don Armado, who was also in love with another maid, caused letters to be delivered to the wrong people, thus people learned that the vows have been broken.

            A most commendable performance was done by Trystan Gravelle, who played Lord Biron. As a main character, Gravelle presented Biron in a way that made him more unique than the two other lords, and even the King himself, by speaking at a faster pace. It is said that Biron is the character who has the most wits and control over words, and Gravelle’s impeccable pacing made him more believable than others, which spoke rather dramatically, as he fits those wits better. In addition to his pacing, he also tended to put more emotion in some moments, particularly in the lines where he disagreed with Ferdinand about the oath or when arguing for his love, making him more memorable than the other lords, and perhaps overshadowing Ferdinand.

            Another great character in the play was Costard, played by Fergal McElherron. Most, if not all Shakespearean drama have a fool who keeps the play funny, and in this comedy, Costard was hilarious. McElherron was perhaps nearly shameless, where he even ‘accidentally’ kissed Constable Dull once. He tended to move more than the other players, always leaping around and performing dramatic actions like flapping his hands and pointing around like how a fool in a drama usually does, which, together with his high-pitched intonation, also made him more memorable than most other characters, perhaps being a comedic relief in an already hilarious play.

            It was not only the characters that made the play great. While the play had no directed lighting in the form of spotlights, nor background music to emphasize action, they made use of a unique feature of the theatre, the shape of the stage. It was a zig-zag to the seats which presented an interesting setting, which the actors used to the fullest, drawing people’s attention to the center, or the extremities of the stage. Meanwhile, the clothing also did well to emphasize a character when they wanted to, such as giving the King a golden cloak and making Biron looking more disheveled compared to the other lords, or actually giving them similar clothing so as to equally draw attention, like the lords at the start of the show, or them and the ladies during the party.

            In short, Love’s Labour’s Lost by Shakespeare’s Globe was presented in a very witty and hilarious manner by the actors. I have nothing but praise for this classic comedy of Shakespeare, with its magnificent wordplay and acting. I recommend this to anyone who wishes to see a light-hearted romance, while also wishing for a more complex work of literature.

Presenting: My Instagram

Yes, I hadn't been posting as often. Excuse me. It has been a while since I last posted, but I do have some excuse.

Boredom.

No, not that. Maybe not, at least.

Well, I had been busy with many projects last holiday, and one of them was, in fact, putting up my Instagram. Do check it out for my art and pictures, if you'd like:

@i.n.hartanto

Well, those projects, and games. Mostly Skyrim and Dragon Age and Bioshock.

However, now that the holiday season has thawed and I'm back as a senior, I'll be much more pressed for time. So, this site might be a bit empty, but do still expect stuff; I am not dead just yet.

Damn, that was a full-blown advert.

Sketching: Life is Strange - Partners in Time

Life is Strange - Pertners in Time
Also available in my DeviantArt.

Quick introduction for those who haven't ever heard of the game: Life is Strange, Square Enix. Episodic choose-your-own-adventure mystery with time travel. The left one is Max Caulfield, our heroine, and the right one, Chloe Price, her best friend (or, in one plot, lover).

Life is Strange. What a compelling series, what an emotional ending right in the middle of the finals I had several weeks ago. When it was all done, I did this. I still can't get over this game. Spoiler: I was too sorry for Max, which was why finally I decided to save Chloe instead of the whole town.

It was actually done before the Half-Blood Magus, but oh well, just had the time to write this up. This scene from the second episode hit me as marvelous, and I have been itching to draw that up. At first, I thought of switching around the positions to make it a little bit more original, and perhaps, interesting.

...Which was why I did a preliminary sketch. Turned out quite unnecessary in the end, as I would mostly copy by eye.

Starting with the all-important leg placement, I worked my way up Max, then started on Chloe. Linking their hands was quite a nightmare in positioning, it turned out, and to manage the proportions, Chloe's feet got moved quite some. Another ordeal considering I press down hard with HB. The paper's getting fuzzy.

After that, I thought it was time to shade. Starting from Max's top, this time. That part was quite quick and easy. I think that time I used only my HB and 2B, as my 4 and 6B were spent. 

I thought that actually, their hands weren't linked up good enough--so there I went again, redoing the top. To tell the truth, I actually think the subjects here are too small to be convenient in shading them.

But shaded them I did. Chloe also wasn't that much of a fuss to shade, apart from the detail being too small to bother. 

Perhaps it was just about inspiration and will: Life is Strange was inspiring enough so that I wanted to get these two shaded, seeing their final form as quick as possible. So, what came next wasn't done as wholeheartedly, to be very honest.

Looking back, I shouldn't have redid the linework over the shading, even with a 2B. Nor should I try to make a background in my quite lazy state--but I did it anyways.

After shading, I continued to make the background, against my better judgement. Perhaps the lack of a lumber pile next to the rails made the piece look too natural, not some rural part of Arcadia Bay.

As I foretold, the background ended up messy. I may get away with that being a personal choice, but I just wanted the piece to finish quickly. It took over five days, over around about six hours, probably. I just used my camera to take this picture and edit it, as I wanted to try comparing this with my usual scans. Only edited the contrast and touched up; no major surgeries needed.

Result? Characters good. Perhaps a little bit skewed to the right. Background's unworthy to look at, but whatever. I'll leave it to you to judge the final result.

By the way, I missed many weeks without a post. Haven't had the will to do one until now, I guess. This field of stars doesn't seem like going anywhere for me.

___

Life is Strange (C) Square Enix and Dontnod Entertainment.

Sketching: The Half-Blood Magus

The Half-Blood Magus.
Also on display in my DeviantArt.

The holidays being here, I shall continue to cook this idea in my head: a grand plan for an epic story. It is the continuation of this piece done long ago, and this guy will be the main character, the best friend of the Elf-King: the half-elf, whom I shall call Leon, as the Fall of an Empire's Leon would most likely go in indefinite hiatus. 

So, this Leon: an orphaned half-elf, who joins the Magi (I won't go into detail on that). Most could only harness magic only with staves, but this guy is one of the few who could do so without. Perhaps like Skyrim's bound weapons.

I already did some planning on the first pose, when I realized that it was quite close to the Assassin's Creed one I did before. Meanwhile, I was doing a Life is Strange piece... so this sank into hiatus. Man, I would use that word often.

Two of my references: Mannfred von Carstein for the pose. I really wanted to play that game but can't... technical reasons.

And Final Fantasy XV's Noctis. Handsome guy. Used him for the looks, naturally. Also would want to play that game, though I would doubt it, for the same technical reasons. 

Thus, back to the drawing board. Several poses planned before, and I straight off chose the one closest to Mannfred's pose.

First attempt, a bit disastrous. There was also a second try after that, however as I erased, turned out my eraser was quite dirty, and I would need a better eraser. So, a trip to the bookstore was arranged, and walked off with an eraser and 2H pencil to add to the collection.

That was more like it. Thinly sketching, then detailed it. 

Basically, that was my final sketch. Crosshatched in several places that I wanted to be darker, and I was off shading, from the usual top-to bottom with the HB and 2B. The planning and sketching took longest, where the shading only took around 2 hours from 5 to 6 hours, perhaps.

Finally, the traditional part was done. I scanned it, and tampered with the contrast and tones, and vigorously edited his face.

The result? Yeah, I'm satisfied. Halfway between manga and realism. But I'll leave it to you for opinions.

Change of Plans

School's out! 'Tis the holidays here!

...Which means I shall be deathly bored for the month, for the lack of tasks. But funny enough, however I may say it, I am still quite lazy to do any important thing, such as writing on this blog.

Point is, I'm getting tired at writing just series critics--series which not even much care about. I've decided that I've had about enough exercise in making those reviews--perhaps quite an unsuccessful attempt.But anyway, I shall fill this blog with things that I feel I truly need to write--or if I will write any, at all.

Really, I need to let my dispirited laziness shut up.

I shall be busying myself with not one, not two, but three projects along the month. One concocting a big plan about a story plus character design, one painting on canvas, and one 3D sketchup, plus about a dozen other little projects.

But please, please tell me how to tear myself away from Assasssin's Creed Rogue and Total War Shogun II and Kabaneri and Bungou and Re:Zero and... the list goes on. I'm out for now.

Sketching: Bungou Stray Dogs - Call A Name

Please, see this in my DeviantArt.

I shall simply feature this artwork here. Well, I forgot to take process pictures along the way, so this was the final product.

Bungou Stray Dogs was quite interesting, as you could tell from my reviews each week. In my boredom several weeks ago, I decided to draw these two: Atsushi and Dazai, the two most charming, fit to be drawn.

The ending song, Namae wo Yobu yo was a nice tune, and the art was just begging to be drawn. Actually, I did just copy down these references, detailed a bit here and there.

I simply moved Dazai over from the original position, made the papers in a circle, and removed villain Akutagawa from the picture.

It had been a while since I've drawn anything, and I thought that I could just practice shading here, plus composition. Used my usual from HB until 4B. As usual, HB was the most used, but 6B wasn't used at all, as the drawing was quite light.

This took around about four hours, I think. Same old-same old, with the outline first, doing Atsushi first, then Dazai, and retraced the lines for a dark outline. Then just a quick brush in Photoshop to clean up the piece from my scanner.

Not much to comment by me, here. Atsushi turned quite nice, but Dazai... a little too melancholic, perhaps.