Tokan film: Tiarnan’s Malaysian movie debut.

A couple of months back, a call came in, as they tend to do: “Can you bring your kids along to do a film tomorrow?” It was very last minute. This is typical of filming in Malaysia.

“Only Tiarnan is free. Fintan has exams to do and Ainan is at University and I don’t want him to miss a day.”

There was a pause, the silence evaluated my remark.

“OK. Bring Tiarnan.”

“What is it for?”

“The film is called Tokan. It is about drugs. The scenes you will be doing will be in an airport.”

The following day, I brought Tiarnan, fairly early in the morning, to the KTM railway station which was to be made to look like an airport scene. He was quietly expectant.

Now, Tiarnan, 6, has appeared on film before – but for TV documentaries and a reality TV show. He hasn’t been in a film.

He was to pretend to be the young son of a man going on holiday to Brazil. He was supposed to be excited to be visiting this new country.

The first scene was filmed going into and through a smoke filled tunnel through the airport. What was notable is that Tiarnan really tuned into his surroundings and the situation, like it was really happening in the way he had been told. He was properly excited, to be visiting Brazil. At just the right moment he had been instructed, he said: “Come on Daddy!”, and dragged me forward as he rushed ahead to see what was to be seen. His face glowed with excitement – yet, of course, none of it was real – it only seemed to be so. My young son was acting.

What impressed me was the patience he showed with the filming process. He did each take as if it were the first time he had experienced the scene. Between scenes he waited with the rest of the actors – his father and Ignas Versinskas, who is a friend of ours (usually a film director, actually). He never betrayed any signs of impatience with it all.

In one scene, on the train platform, as we set to leave the airport, he played a game with me – which he had invented, actually. The director had seen him playing it and liked it so much, he asked us to do it for the camera. We were the centre of the image. The game was simple: tossing a teddy bear back and forth between us in ever more exotic ways, always catching it and throwing it back.

Again and again he played the game, like it was his first time. He never failed to seem enthusiastic about it. I rather think that his smiling little form will steal that scene.

The final scene was as everyone was being checked through security. We were at the front of the scene. In it, Tiarnan looked properly impressed by the gun toting police. He whispered to me between takes: “It is not a real gun, is it? Just fake?”

“Just fake.” I assured him.

“And the police are only pretending to be police?” he continued, looking up at their tall, stern features.

“Yes. Just pretending.”

That reassured him somewhat.

At the end of the shoot, the agent, Sam came to pay us. She started to pay me, for the work – but I shook my head and indicated Tiarnan. She paid him directly. He was most pleased to see so much money for his day’s work.

For me, it was very instructive to watch Tiarnan act. He is, in my view, a natural actor. He treats the circumstances as if they are real and behaves within it, according to the director’s request. He is able to do take after take and he shows great patience with the process. Not that alone, but his acting is natural and not overdone, as many children’s acting is. It was a revelation for me to watch him work and a very pleasing day indeed.

In the days that followed, he asked me, quite a few times: “Are we filming again tomorrow?”

He had really enjoyed himself and wanted to do some more.

“Some time, Tiarnan, we will do it again.”

Fintan felt that he had missed out because of his exams because he too wished he had filmed. I assured him that next time he could do so, if there were no exams in the way.

For me, as an actor myself, it is pleasing to see the same ability and disposition growing in my sons. I had glimpsed this before, in Tiarnan, when I had taken him to an audition for a TV commercial and he had worked with me. He had been very good then...very realistic. However, this was the first time I had actually worked with him. That day, he was not merely my son. He was a real actor, too.

Well done, Tiarnan on your film debut, in Tokan!

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

How to sleep soundly.

Most people, I imagine, go to sleep in much the same way. Tiarnan, however, does not. Our little five year old has a way all of his own to approach the world of sleep.

A few nights ago, for instance, his mother went into his bedroom to tuck him into bed and found him laying there dressed in a rather peculiar fashion. He had swimming goggles on and was carrying a water pistol.

Tiarnan noted her curious gaze and observed, cryptically. “I have to protect myself.”

Tiarnan, was clearly, on one of his imaginary adventures. He was preparing himself to enter one of his personal worlds, fully equipped for what he would face.

At first, Syahidah was moved to take off his goggles, but she restrained herself. This was Tiarnan’s adventure, so she had to let him be.

Instead she lay beside him, until he fell asleep. When he was soundly asleep, she carefully took off his swimming goggles and set them to one side. His water pistol still lay beside him. She left it there and crept silently from the room.

Tiarnan had, once again, fallen asleep in his idiosyncratic way. Many a night, he dresses differently for sleep. This, however, is the only occasion he chose goggles and a gun.

It must be said, that of all the children I have had the chance to observe in my life, Tiarnan is the most likely to be an actor, that I have ever seen. Every day he constructs imaginary people and becomes them; imaginary worlds and enters them. I would say his most likely career choices are actor and writer, for they would best embody his character. In a way, I hope he does become an actor, for I fear he might be unhappy were this proclivity to imagine, not expressed, in some deep way.

Sleep on, my adventurous Tiarnan!

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Tiarnan's effort at typecasting Daddy.

Yesterday, Tiarnan, four, asked me to join him in a play fight with his brothers. He did it in his own wordless way, by taking my hand, and giving it a little tug, as I sat before my computer. I knew what he wanted so I rose to join him.

I went downstairs with him. As we walked outside, where Ainan and Fintan were waiting with their "guns" - actually rubber band projectors - he said to me: "I am Juggernaut, and you are Blob."

Ah. No doubt that was perfect casting his eyes. I know I am big, compared to him, but to be cast as Blob (a very large, corpulent but strong man, in the Marvel superhero Universe) was somewhat disconcerting, though charming, too, in a way, since he proposed it in all innocence.

"This is how Blob attacks.", he said, to me, in the manner of an exuberant teacher, impassioned by his own lessons. He then instructed me as to how Blob took on his enemies.

I watched his energetic motions, carefully and then followed him out into the garden.

If "Blob" he wanted me to be, Blob I would be. It would have been nice, however, if he had chosen a somewhat slimmer character for me to impersonate. Then again, I must outweigh him many fold, so to him, it probably seemed a fair casting decision.

So, I joined the smallest Juggernaut in the world, as a somewhat uncertain Blob, in the battle for the garden.

It was fun...but it did give me pause as to how my little son sees me. (I am a mere waif, besides the Blob depicted in Marvel. Long I hope to remain so).

Note: I use the term "typecasting" only because Tiarnan likes to put me in the roles of very large characters. I am not, in fact, all that large and so it is not true to type for me. However, I wished to reflect, Tiarnan's view of me. He is very small...so to him, I suppose, I am a great mound of a man, indeed.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/
Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/
Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)