justin_guber - @ 20six.co.uk

Whose Space?

So, for some reason unbeknownst to me, random people have been wanting to add me on MySpace.

Now, as much as I'm flattered that these people would like to add me on their list of friends, it does make me wonder where this sudden surge came from, and why. I'd like to think it's because I'm a bad motherfucker that makes girls wet like a moist toilette from the moment we met, but that wouldn't explain the guys adding me.

Or does it?

I also have trouble chatting and making friends with people I've never met before on-line. It's just not something I'm accustomed to. I did it for a bit when I was about 15-16, then I stopped and never did since. At least when people I've never met post comments on this blog, there's a frame of reference. What of these randoms on MySpace?

Example: If I e-mail,

"Hi, thanks for adding me. Wanna tell me a bit about yourself? Likes, dislikes, fav movies..."

There's a good chance the reply would be,

"It's in my profile."

Well. Bang goes that conversation.

Regardless, I add them anyway. It must be because of my hot ass. It must be.

1.7.05 04:53

Permalink / 1 Comment(s) / Comment

Trials & Tribulations

So I met up with the actor and actress for my upcoming short film last night. The actor, Ikram, was a friend of mine I met through my girlfriend and te guys pretty enthusiastic, albeit a little intimidated by the fact that he's the lead male in the movie.

Then again, since there's only one guy and one girl in the movie technically he's the lead by default.

The actress, Vasha, was highly recommended by Eddy, who gave her my number. For a first time meeting, she was fun, pleasant, interesting and had quite a degree of experience in this performing arts lark. Very down to earth and attractive.

Even though I'd been running around like a headless chicken to meet these two, I was genuinely glad. I've got the cast, now all I have to do is confirm the location.

I had e-mailed The Ones In Power at my office about the movie because that's where I set the movie. Today I got the reply and a phone call.

1. I can't shoot in the pantry. No biggie.

2. There will be no air-conditioning over the weekend. That will cost RM$80. Per hour. But fuck it, let us sweat for the sake of art.

3. A cleaning lady will be hired to keep an eye on things. She will cost RM$100 for her time. Wow. My short film now has a budget.

Apart from that, all systems go... except fate decides to fart in my face once more. Vasha calls up and she can't make it due to a family function she absolutely positively can't squeeze her way out of.

Shiite.

I understand, though. Asian parentals aren't like you crazy Western types with your a-go-go music and hula hoops and counselling. Ah, well. Was looking forward to working with her.

But that does raise a serious problem. I have no woman. No woman for the woman part.

Nazneen, my actress for the feature length I'd blabbed on so much about, would appear too young, too sweet and unfortunately too short when compared to Ikram. I needed someone with a bit of height and a sexy demeanour.

It was then that I realized I have very few chicks in my phonebook. Either I have very high taste or chicks avoid me like the plague.

So now it's the mad rush to find a chick. I called Shelley, she's in Singapore. I called Vee, her phone's gone weird. I called Mizz Biggs, she ain't picking up. And I'm quickly running out of options. I've got Paul on the lookout and Vasha's making the calls, but so far, no go.

So far.

I swear, is it too much to ask for things to just go smoothly?

1.7.05 06:24

Permalink / 2 Comment(s) / Comment

Solution.

Paul brings tidings of joy. He says his friend, Farah, will do it. I hope. Is it Farah? I keep getting that girl's name mixed up. But yeah, I have an actress. Halle-fucking-lujah.

Sunday's the shoot, ladies and gents. Wish me luck. Or hope my legs break. Whichever the correct term.

1.7.05 06:48

Permalink / 1 Comment(s) / Comment

Can't Type Much Now...

...because I'm at APV checking out an edit for a TVC, I've only slept three hours because I was up till 4.30am editing my short film (and only managed 3 minutes worth of screen time), but needless to say I'll blog soon about yesterday's filmmaking exploits.

Till then, I'm tanked up on caffeine looking like a drunk waiting for the client and hoping that I don't have to go back to the office after this.

I feel like a deflated flan.

4.7.05 07:11

Permalink / Comment

Friendster Man Love

Anand on Friendster has sent me another message requesting to have sex with me. I thought I made it clear before that I'm not into the man-on-man thing.

5.7.05 05:48

Permalink / 2 Comment(s) / Comment

Some Like It White

Hah. I finally have some time to myself. F-ing work's taking it's toll. One day I shall rid the world of people with the inability to come up with manageable deadlines. I shall stick them on spikes and they shall wail.

But enough ranting. Let's talk about the movie shall we...

The Idea

So, as some of you may or may not know, the feature length has been put on hold as I try a few things out with my newly bought camera. Last week I jumped out of bed at around 1.30am and started writing a 15 page script entitled "Some Like It White".

No, it's not a porno.

It was one of those ideas that just pops up. An idea where, if you did't write it right there and then you may get a wonderful night's sleep but the idea wouldn't come out exactly as you envisioned it. Get caught in the moment and write like the wind.

The idea came from a restless hour in bed pondering the following:

What I want to do:
- A short film for me to test the camera out.
- Something more dialogue based, fast and snappy.

Limitations:
- Cast, crew & location need to be kept to an absolute minimum.
- There's no time for rehearsals & no guarantee of first class performances.
- I have one day to shoot and at the very most one day to edit.

So the mind back tracks to a whole bunch of different thoughts of mine. Most of my short film scripts are based on questions. The last film, 'Nicotine', was based on the question, "why can't I quit fucking smoking?"

Then I remembered a question that once plagued my mind: "Why do a lot of local girls prefer ex-pats?"

Sure, the angry local male that used to not be able to get any was determined the answer was in big dicks and foreign currency, but I wanted to probe it a bit more. Searched around a few sites (the Sarong Party Girl blog was quite helpful) and some statistics n' articles, and tightened up my original idea.
The whole film is written as phone conversations between a guy, Ash, and a girl, Layla, both talking to their respective friends about what happened earlier (when Ash & Layla met) and intercuts with their actual meeting, where they both get along but Layla's policy of only dating white guys starts up a huge argument.

I kinda came up with a logical reason why a girl would think that but regardless the argument, preferring one race to another, whatever the reason, is just not right. People are people, end of story. I didn't want the girl to come across as a money-grubbing skank. Just another person back from overseas who notices the problems in her native country and this is her way of dealing with said problem.

I also wanted a kind of gradual change in character between the two. At the start I wanted the guy to seem misogynistic and the girl tarty, but towards the end there's character and emotion.

Or just a bunch of people spouting out the inane lines I've written.

(Incidentally, in case some of you guys across the pond are wondering, no caucasians were depicted in a derogatory manner throughout the film).

The Shoot
We started shooting an hour behind schedule, setting up and all that bollocks taking a bit too long. We started shooting all of the guy's conversations first, because Farah, my female lead, had only just seen the script on that day.

Since it was the start and there was no sense of urgency yet, I agonized over the line delivery with Ikram, the guy playing Ash, and tried to get into every single detail and tone and projection. The dude was pretty nervous, but once we got into the other scenes he was more confident and said the lines with the right amount of bile and urgency.

Pietra, the guy who directed the short film I acted in ('Seeing Things') was helping me on advice and camera duty, and was a tremendous aid. I swear, if the guy wasn't around there's a good chance it would've all gone balls-up. We were moving from set-up to set-up double time like energizer bunnies on crack.

Of course, no one was keeping time. When I realized we only 'technically' had two more hours to shoot two more scenes, I panicked.
Thankfully, Farah was spot on brilliant, especially considering she had only just seen the script, and went through her lines at super speed and taking our direction well. She also, thankfully, had a brilliant set of breasts. I wrote a brilliant set of breasts into the script, you see, and couldn't remember whether her tits would fit the bill. They did. God be praised. Definitely want to work with her again. Lot's of fun, very professional. Even with my complete lack of tact, screaming out "get an extreme close up of the breasts! We need ass shots!" she never shied away.

Also along for the ride were Farah's friends Lily and Sheena, who I put in the background to make the office seem like an actual office, and Paul was the official Papaya Supplier, if you will, bringing the ladies. Technically, he was the grip, but that's not what I put in the credits. Papaya Supplier sounds so much nicer. In case you didn't know, Paul was the guy that starred in my last short, 'Nicotine'. A crazy semi-Aussie with a nasal voice and weird mannerisms. He cool.

At one point I wanted to do a tracking shot using one of the chairs, with Paul on tracking duty, but they don't exactly roll correctly. The blooper reel's quite funny. You hear the words 'action' followed by the camera moving like a drunk sailor on a skateboard.

Why the fuck didn't I use the skateboard?
In the end, we shot till 8.30pm. All the ladies had to rush off and my other plans with Pietra had to be rescheduled. I went off to Bangsar with Paul and Ikram, had some dinner, got back and transferred the footage to my computer to edit. I started at 11pm. I finished at 1am.

And I still hadn't edited the fucker.

Add to that my computer deciding to switch off by itself for no apparent reason and my increasing tiredness and it was becoming increasingly obvious I wouldn't be able to get this in by Monday for the KSFM Shorts. Perhaps Monday night, if I got back early (which I did, incidentally, and sent it at 1 in the morning). In the end, I edited till 4.30am. And I only had 3 minutes of footage cut together. Fuckery. At one point I was editing all the way and realized I'd missed out seven scenes. Lack of sleep can fuck you up.

The next day I realized, however, that those 3 minutes were the toughest bits to edit. Everything else came together after that and it didn't take me long to finish the cut, fix up the sound a bit and render it to DVD. Voila! My second short film! There were a couple of scenes I forgot to shoot, and some of the angles and white balance were wrong, but it all came out alright on the edit.

Learnings

After the directing that, I'm glad I hadn't started shooting my feature length magnum octopus just yet. The shoot alone tired me out like crazy. Even though it was a short film, there 54 scenes and almost a 100 set ups. All done in 7 hours. And even though I like what came out, I still need to hone my craft a bit more before doing the feature length. Things still look too sloppy and the sound pisses me off. I need a frickin' boom mic. These short films are great practice, though, and a great way to find new talent for the feature when it's finally shot.

The whole shoot was a lot of fun, too. Just a bunch of friends hanging out and making something. No stress apart from the schedule.

And what now?

I had e-mailed Bernard Chauly, the curator for the KSFM Shorts, asking whether I could send it in a bit late. He said usually he'd allow it but due to some time constraints or what have you he wants to finalize the list a lot sooner. I sent it in, technically, on the day of deadline. But then again, by the time I sent it everyone was asleep, so we'll see. If it does get picked, it'll premiere on the 25th of July. If not, it'll premiere anytime I'm free in the comfort of my bedroom.

Noonch.

6.7.05 07:44

Permalink / 2 Comment(s) / Comment

You'd think having a job where the majority of your time is spent coming up with ideas would be a blast, wouldn't you? Well, it would be, if you didn't have fucking writer's block.

I need a muse to fuck.

6.7.05 13:10

Permalink / Comment

My condolences...

...to all those that I know in London (as well as those I don't) who log on to this site from time to time. Hope you're all ok.

8.7.05 05:35

Permalink / Comment

Caucasian Conundrum

In response to my post about my short film, my old buddy Naren (currently making his way to Gordon Gecko-ness somewhere in Leeds, if I'm not mistaken) sent me this e-mail. Quite interesting, although perhaps he's gone into much more depth than my 10 minute dick-n-fart joke movie.

Naren, I tried to reply to you but my Yahoo mail doesn't go down well with my server here. Will try again soon...

Hi Khai,

[blah blah blah... stuff you don't need to know...] I just read the blog on your latest endevour with regards to the short film entitled 'Why some like it white(?)'. I do understand that you have finished filming but I sincerely hope that I can squeeze in some comments.

1. After hard thought I do think that it is a matter of preference. Some may have certain preference in terms of external biological looks and physique. It is known for preference for hair colour (blonde). Environment and socialization process would have played a role in the building the psychological profile of an individual choosing the partner.

2.Thinking along supply/demand and the basics of trade negotiations that David Riccardo coined a century ago, the market has increased the demand for white male and the flow of ex-pats does not realistically match it. Any rational economic actor in a trade market knows that he can dictate terms with regards to delivery and freight arrangements.

This appears to be the current status in any public social event in the leisurely hours of a birck and mortar institution (eg. nightclubs, pubs,) The market forces have tipped the price equilibirum in favour of the ex-pat. Such unfair economic practises are usually the concern of regulators, fair trade and anti-competition authority to uphold the integrity of the free market. (Something I regard as a paradox as external intervention is used to preserve the free market) Not straying away from the topic, the chance to shift the equilibrium to more friendly terms to our local gentry would through be regulation.

Shrinking the input of ex-pat would may not help in the short term (it would increase demand) but the excess surplus of asian women with no realistic means to satisfy their demand for expat in the long term means they would chose a substitute (local men). Social conventions appears to be a handy form of regulation in this economic scenario.

3.It would be extremelly naive of me to leave the above points without further investigation to the motives of the said individuals in question. Sadly, there are bias traces of a negative (from a third party perspective) and at times an arguabbly positive nature (from the daters) on the decision making process of the asian female/white male in choosing their partner.

To say we are all free from the whole act of passing judgements when choosing life-partners or even sexual partners on a short-term time scale (pulling on a Friday night) is totally untrue. As discussed on para(1), individual taste needs to be factored in. However, it is quite hard to swallow that some would read that a certain particular race are synonymous with having monetory advantages, phallic endowment, etc. Unfortunately collecting size stats maybe seen as a taboo in Malaysia, so we have a long way to do correlation analysis with expats size.

4. Conclusion: This however issue however is something that social scientist should study as we do not know if the answer lies in social conditioning, peer pressure, foreign cultural contributions, etc. I am more than happy to look into it if I have access to research grant.

Best wishes,
Narendran

Cheers for the comments n' thoughts, Naren. Once I upload the vid you'll see my POV... so to speak.

8.7.05 11:53

Permalink / Comment

Happy Mondays

For the purposes of a 10am presentation to a client I awoke surprisingly early today, at 7am. This, for those who know me, is a record. I rarely roll out of bed till ten on weekdays, and even later on weekends.

After spending an insane amount of time hoping that hot water would wake me up, I attempted to get dressed whilst Mama Cat harrassed me constantly. She wanted love and affection of the strokey-stroke variety, purring and meowing away at my legs and sitting on my jeans. As I stroked her whilst picking out what shade of black to wear, the phone rang.

"Hello," said the voice, "is this Khairil?"

The cat tried to tell the person on the phone I was busy. I cut her off.

"Yes, speaking."

"Hi, this is Amir Muhammad. I saw your short film and was wondering whether we could show it on Shortcuts on Astro."

Well, bugger me senseless with an undone Rubik's cube.

All I was going for was the KSFM Malaysian Shorts. This is something else. This is cash and a TV interview.

And all it took was ten minutes of a movie about a girl who only dates white guys and a guy who's defense to the local race is "I got skills! I got skillz to pay my billz, girl!"

It's a Happy Monday indeed. Work better not fuck with me.

11.7.05 06:08

Permalink / 6 Comment(s) / Comment

[next page]