Taylor-made vids pay Swift dividends
Reader's creative clips win her two top-tier tickets to the US pop star's sold-out concert on Sunday
The moment she read that M was giving away a pair of top-tier tickets to US pop star Taylor Swift's sold-out second concert on Sunday at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, she wasted no time in trying to snag the first prize.
Miss Claire Vanessa Lim came up with three impressive stop motion videos and scored the "golden'' tickets worth $656, courtesy of Cornetto Singapore.
The 28-year-old Filipino-Chinese, who works in public relations, also won an exclusive Cornetto-Taylor Swift gift pack worth $100.
M ran the contest on its website for two weeks from Oct 21, calling for Swifties to post 1989-themed photos or videos on Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #BackTo1989WithTNP.
Swift's two-night show here is part of her 1989 world tour to promote her latest hit album 1989.
Out of over 300 entries, Miss Lim's creative clips stood out. One video showed the best things about 1989, including photos of floppy disks and TV shows like Saved By The Bell.
Another video showed several Page One covers of The New Paper in 1989, which she had culled from the National Library's database, before ending with a mock cover displaying the news of Swift's birth in 1989.
"Each second of video required about five photos and I used about 200 photographs for the video of the best things in 1989. That took about three to five hours," she said.
"It was hard to capture my ideas in just a photograph so I decided to do stop motion videos because it was more creative and more likely to stand out."
When told that she had won, her thoughts immediately flew to what she should wear to the concert.
DRESSING UP
"Do I go as Olaf (the snowman character from the 2013 Disney animated movie Frozen)? Taylor wore that during a recent show.
"Or do I wear the cheerleader outfit she wore in her Shake It Off music video?" mused Miss Lim, who will be taking a colleague with her. The two became friends when Miss Lim moved to Singapore from Shanghai 10 months ago.
It will be her first time watching her idol live. She had missed out on buying tickets for this show because they had sold out very quickly.
Miss Lim is a big Swift fan because of the singer's lyrics that resonate with her.
"Out Of The Woods, for example, spoke so much to me last year when I had boy troubles. Taylor just gets it, she gets life," she said.
In the running to meet Swift in person
It was Taylor Swift who brought them together.
Students Shawn Lee and Konatala Pereni, aged 16 and 20 respectively, first met last year when their idol was in town for her Red tour.
The pair became friends after waiting for hours at the coach bay of Marina Bay Sands hotel, hoping to catch a glimpse of the singer.
This year, they are trying again to meet Swift in the flesh through the Cornetto Shake It Off Battle competition. The grand prize is a meet-and-greet pass per contestant. Swift will be performing here this weekend.
Miss Pereni and Shawn together performed a self-choreographed routine to Swift's Shake It Off at the finale of the competition, held at Cathay Cineleisure Orchard last Saturday.
Wearing cheerleader outfits, they were among the eight finalists who made it to the last round, after four weeks of live battles at roadshows.
Due to their schedules, they managed to practise the routine only 30 minutes before going on stage.
Later today, they will find out if they nabbed the big prize.
Said Miss Pereni, who is studying life sciences at National University of Singapore: "I think I will faint. I've been preparing a typography book of all the lyrics from (Swift's album) 1989 and hope I get to pass it to her."
Lee, who is in the middle of his O levels, said: "The competition was strong. I've never danced before this, but I would do anything to meet Swift."
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now