THE SATISFACTION OF WRITING FOR TELEVISION AND MOVIES.

Or The Art of Managing Expectations

I have the honour of penning the screenplay for Singapore’s first ever creature feature. It's not a horror flick, so the creature in this case is neither ghoul, nor demon but a large, mutated lizard, the size of an extra-large lion, that runs rampant in the underground rail system in Singapore, causing untold number of train delays.

Causing one train in particular to derail.

Scaring a group of unfortunate passengers on that same train.

The movie is titled CIRCLE LINE and I first wrote it back in 2017.

It only recently screened in 2023.

Which means it has been seven years since I first wrote the script.

I was recently invited to do a short chat with the audience after a screening. The moderator asked me how I felt now that the film is finally out in the cinemas, and were there any lessons I have learnt or is there anything I wanted to impart to young screenwriters who are starting out? In jest, I repeated the mantra that I tell all my students in my past life as a screenwriting lecturer –