About The Film

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‘My Drawing, My Pledge’ is a 3-min short film about a young girl drawing a picture of what the Singapore Pledge means to her – from citizenship and multi-racial people living in harmony, to achievement of progress and happiness.

We hope that this short film will inspire others to think about the Pledge from their personal perspective, like what this little girl did.

A very fun project with an adorable little actress full of life and sparkle.

Written and Produced by Desmond & Eryn

"My Drawing, My Pledge" The Film

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My Drawing, My Pledge Demystified

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Scene 1 - Opening Scene

Shows the young actress beginning her drawing of what the Singapore Pledge means to her. She starts off with the Singapore Flag.

Scene 2 - Sparkling Water, Singapore City Skyline, Merlion, Esplanade Roof, Sir Stamford Raffles, Vanda Miss Joaquim, Singapore Flag.

Captures the unique symbols of Singapore, which reflect the beautiful country we live in. It also shows the places the little girl has been to.

Scene 3 - Malay, Eurasian, Indian & Chinese

Shows the multi-racial aspect of Singapore. The young girl has teachers, friends and relatives of different races.

Scene 4 - Students chatting, Man reading newspaper and four books in different languages

Refers to our four major languages.

Scene 5 - Chinese Temple, Church, Mosque & Hindu Temple

Young girl visits four different places of worship to show diversity of religion. She would include them in her drawings at the end of the film.

Scene 6 (Interlude) - Drawing Scene

Shows young actress continuing her drawing of the things, people and places she has encountered.

Scene 7 - Former Supreme Court @ Padang

The building behind the actress is the former Supreme Court. 'Justitia', the statue shown holding a balance scale and a sword, represents equality and justice, and the fairness of our judicial system.

Scene 8 - Bread Cutting & Balance Scale

Young actress playing with her toys - first, she cut bread into equal parts; then she balanced her scale with equal weights. Both illustrate equality from her personal perspecitve.

Scene 9 - Stacking Hands

Stacking of hands, a sign of cooperation and teamwork, represents unity among Singaporeans.

Scene 10 - Young Actress Climbing Rope Ladder

Progress is illustrated as a literal upward climb. On the left of the screen, a line graph gradually goes upwards to meet the little girl's hand. The little girl eventually climbs to the top and catches hold of the peak of the line graph, signifying success.

Scene 11 - Prosperity

"Laughing Buddha", Stock Market Indices and Fountain of Wealth are closely related to prosperity, measures of wealth and fortune respectively.

Scene 12 (Closing Scene) - Young Actress Playing at the Water Fountain

Final scene captures the young actress's lovely, knowing smile as she plays and enjoys her freedom splashing water. Her pure, unguarded joy depicts the final message - happiness.

Closing Words - "If we believe in our pledge, and live by it... we will succeed as a nation, for generations to come."

Thought-provoking words that challenge us to think whether the pledge is still relevant to us today and in the future, in this fast-changing world.

Credits - Young Actress's Completed Drawing

The little girl's completed drawing of the Singapore Pledge is animated in the last few seconds of the film.

Credits & Acknowledgements

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Written & Produced by
Desmond & Eryn


Trinity
as Young Actress

Eryn
Voice of Young Actress


Characters
In Order of Appearance

Norliza
as Malay Girl

Sean
as Tourist

Punitha
as Indian Lady

Uncle Neo
as Chinese Retiree

Jancy, Genevie & He Shun
three chatting students

Uncle Neo
as man holding chinese language newspaper

Vera, Joel, Chloe & Ryne
for modelling their hands in the Unity scene


Places of Interest shown in the Film

Merlion
Merlion Park

Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay
Esplanade Drive

Sir Stamford Raffles Statue
Boat Quay - Sir Stamford Landing Site
(Singapore River)

Vanda Miss Joaquim (Singapore National Flower)
Botanical Garden

Padang, Former Supreme Court
St Andrew's Road

Kuang Im Thong Hood Cho Temple 观音堂佛祖庙
Waterloo Street

St Joseph's Church
Victoria Street

Abdul Gaffoor Mosque
Dunlop Street, Little India

Layor Sithi Vinayagar Temple
Keong Saik Road

Clarke Quay
River Valley Road


Others

Zaobao Chinese Language Newspaper from SPH Singapore Press Holdings

Different language books from Cheng San Library (National Library Board)

Publicity & Promotion Images

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Scenes from the film

Opening Scenes - Trinity began her drawing of the Singapore Pledge

Unique & Beautiful City

Happiness!

Message Behind The Film

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The simple message behind this film is summarised by the closing words.

"If we believe in our pledge, and live by it....we will succeed as a nation, for generations to come."

The pledge was first drafted in 1966, at a time when racial, race and religion were a major issue in our country.

Today, more than 40 years later, is it still relevant to us? Do we recite the pledge and not know the meaning and history behind it?

Do you believe that Singapore's success today is due to our commitment described in our pledge? Do you believe that if we teach and pass our values to the next generation, they will succeed as we do?

This film does not attempt to examine the pledge in detail, but hopes to stir an emotion and perspective in us from a child-like view.

About the Young Actress

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Trinity, an active 2 1/2 year old girl (DOB 17 Sept 2006). Currently in preschool.

Her love for drawing prompted us to write about her in this film.


Given the nature of our script, which required many on-location shooting and re-enactments by our central character, a 7- to 9-year old would have been an ideal actress for this film.

However, we were willing to give our dear daughter a try, despite her young age. We understood her moods and temperament well, and hence were able to schedule our filming to suit her. It usually worked when we gave her a task to do and we filmed her in action, without rehearsals and no fixed results in mind. Many times we ended up with long raw footages, which we had to carefully edit. However, there were several scenes in the final film which were first-version footages. Somehow, the first was also the best.

With our little girl, every scene was as real as it could get. Everything happened spontaneously. In particular, the final 'happiness' scene where she played with fountain water touched our hearts every time we viewed it. That was a first-version footage. Pure joy, pure freedom.

Given the short time frame, unpredictable weather and our various schedules (and moods!), we would say that everything went pretty well. It was daunting at times, especially when we had to shoot and re-shoot the same scenes, but the fruits were rewarding.

Most importantly, we all had fun!

Illustration - "My Pledge"

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The drawing depicts all the elements found in the Singapore Pledge.

Starting from top left [clockwise direction]
The stacking hands - Unity;
Group of 4 people - regardless of Race & Language
Their smiling faces - Happiness;
Graph - Progress;
Justitia Statue - Justic & Equality;
Religious Building - regardless of Religion
City Skyline - Democratic Society
Fountain - Wealth
[Center] National Flag - Citizen of Singapore

Voice Over

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Voice over were recorded using Zoom H2 from Samsontech.

We recorded the voice of young actress and a 7 yr old girl, cousin of the young actress. In the end, we chose to go with Mummy's voice.

Edited and tweaked with Adobe Soundbooth.

Filming Duration

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Filming started on 23 May 2009 and ended on 28 June 2009.

Major scenes were done during weekends when the little actress was most available.

Some scenes were filmed on weekdays. Those were mostly scenery scenes where the actress was not needed.

The spell of good and hot sunny weather helped us in getting the scenes filmed quickly, but it also gave us terrible burns.

In total, it took us 6 weekends and 4 weekdays to film this 3-min film with some extra footages to spare.