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> Blah! > Movies, Music, Guitars & Comics > Fiction
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See that above? That;s the gig I'll be playing this Saturday in Thailand. And I'm shitting myself. Now, why would someone like me be shitting myself? Well, take a look at the pic below of last year's Fat Festival: See what I mean? These past two weeks we've been rehearsing every night for a minimum of two hours each night till our arms ache, our fingers bleed and our bottoms burst. On top of that, things've been so fucking hectic with work it's indescribable. Sorting out the marketing stuff for Ciplak (there'll be a launch party at Laundry on the 22nd of November, featuring Triple 6 Poser, Y2k, Dragon Red and Soft Touch), sorting out all the stuff we need to bring to the gig, sorting out the upcoming Singapore gig, all whilst still recording bands. Fuck me I'm knackered. I need, how you say, head relief. ...if a friend of yours who you rely on starts dissapointing you repeatedly, do you wait it out and put up with it in the hope that it's just a phase or cut off ties immediately? Think about it. Answers to the usual comments section. Greetings from Bangkok. I am slightly tipsy here at 1 in the morning after the first day of the Fat Festival )although my almost-inebriation has nothing to do with the festival, which doesn't allow alcohol, making for a cleaner and more polite music festival that does not follow the archetypes of disgusting portaloos and used condoms strwwn across a cowfield). So what can I say about Thailand? Is it Sin City? Well, if it is, I wouldn't know, as work has been of utmost priority down here which lead to a... well... a performance by Y2k that was not as good as some of our previous shows. Why? Because the stage is fucking huge, and we've been playing tiny clubs for most of our existence. And huge stages require the utmost attention to detail... ...and yet Saiful's wireless unit almost blew up during soundcheck, my bag got eaten by a conveyer belt and we couldn't hear the drums too clearly because a stage that big means we have to hear the drums through our monitors and we couldn't hear the drums through our monitors. Fun. But that sarcastic usage of the word 'fun' is also combined with a literal usage of the word 'fun'. The trip to Thailand was funny - customs were worried that a box of mine containing Y2k figurines (designed and made by Amir) was dangerous because we had our clothing sponsor's stickers of their logo on the box. Whose our sponsor? Radioactive. Guess what the logo is - we rode in luxury on the way to the hotel from the airport (BMW 7 series, baby!) and we sold quite a number of our CDs. I'll soon be posting up pics of this whole trip, but I gotta say this now - as far as being an independent musician is concerned, Bangkok fucking RULES. The music-goers really support their scene and are keen to discover new bands. Hell, we've been getting more radio airplay here than we do in Malaysia! And, seriously, I've never met such polite and soft spoken people before I arrived here. Tomorrow we continue pimping out our CDs, followed by an after-party. Then, on Monday, we hit the guitar stores. But now, I pass out. Some wonder how much work I have. Here's a glimpse... Tuesday: Couldn't sleep the night before. Managed to get an hours sleep in the hotel room in Thailand, wake up at 6:30am, rush out, eat a breakfast of two fried eggs and french toast with two croissants and two cups of coffee and two cups of juice. Got on the plane and fell asleep for another hour, arrived in KL at around noon, got in a cab to my house, showered, changed clothes and made my way to Hoxes to check on the many e-mails, get work done and design the e-invites for the Ciplak launch party. Adjust media invite list, spend a few hours with Diana watching Crimson Tide and relaxing, went to the studio, remixed Triple 6 Poser's Another Lie' for the original motion picture soundtrack of Ciplak, pumped up the levels of the other tracks, burnt myself a copy to listen to and went to bed at 5:30am. Wednesday: Got up at around 9.30am to sort out the locations of the plug sockets for the new renovations of the house, checked e-mails, listened to the Triple 6 Poser mix and noticed more flaws, realize the printers won't have enough time to get the sountrack CD printed by the launch, decide to use CD-R's for the press kits and send the soundtrack later, went to 8TV for an interview about the movie, mingled with the head honchos, checked e-mail again to discover a number of problems with the press invites for the press screening, try to sort it out to not much avail which leaves me fuming, meet up with Diana, go to the Taman Tun house, check out the printed marketing materials, slightly letdown by the quality: pixelated. Sort out the free t-shirts for cast and crew, quick meeting with Dicky and Zeeka, rush off to rehearsals with Triple 6 Poser, go to the studio, transfer pictures of the Fat Festival to my computer from my cam and Saiful's, meet up with Tony, go to McDonalds and discuss the legalities of the upcoming short films and Ciplak screening at the Singapore gig. Thursday: Woke up at 11am. Only slept two or three hours tops. Downed a glass of coffee and went straight to the studio. Started rendering and burning process for the short films DVD I'm bringing to Singapore. Whilst that rendered, designed the poster for the Ciplak launch party in A3 and black and white A5 format. Then wrote an article for Junk magazine about the Fat Festival. Then burnt Fat Festival pictures together with Y2k press kit and prepared a copy of the album for Junk. Left the studio, went to the printers, dropped off the flyer and poster designs, went to the Junk office, dropped off the articles, decided to go to Jalan Pasar to grab an AC adapter for my H&K Tubeman, got lost and almost ended up in Kajang. Decide to forgo the adapter, picked up the posters and flyers and arrived at the studio at 4:30pm. Prepared data CD's for 8TV of snippets of Ciplak as well as the press kit and trailer in full AVI format, burnt them to CD-R, prepared Ciplak for DVD burning and suddenly realized I forgot to drop off the DV tapes of Ciplak at GSC for them to screen in the cinemas. Leave the office at 5:25pm, get stuck in a jam on the Penchala link because of a car crash, pick up the DV tapes from Taman Tun, drop them off at GSC office by 6:10pm, go to Laundry at the Curve to drop off flyers and posters, buy some Singapore currency and have my only meal so far for the day: a sausage roll. Make my way to 8TV, get there and discover that the people I'm supposed to send it to are at a mamak stall, go to the mamak stall, begins to rain, drop off the CD, rush to Mont Kiara and lie down on Diana's couch for an hour. Go back home, pack, Diana drives me to the studio to pick up the DVDs and Tony from his house, arrive at Pudu station at 11:30pm and make my way to Singapore at a minute to midnight. Fun, huh? All the info's there. Just come. Hard. Goddamn, November's done. The Fat Festival in Thailand is done. The Singapore gig is done. The 'Ciplak' press conference and movie launch is done. Done done done. And I am exhausted. Will post pics of this whole month and whole anecdotes soon. Now? Now I must sleep the sleep of the just... ...who am I kidding? I'm recording a band today at the studio. Khai takes the lead Imagine you’re in your mid-20s – 25 to be exact, and are about to turn 26. You’re a film fan and a budding filmmaker and you’ve told yourself that you will make a movie by the time you’re 26. Now, many of us may have had such aspirations or tried to fulfil them. Some may have succeeded but most would have to renew their resolution. Khairil Bahar, however, not only fulfilled his dream, his film was so impressive that cinema operator and film distributor Golden Screen Cinemas (GSC) decided to put it up on the big screen. Bear in mind that Khairil or Khai as he is known, shot his movie on video with a shoestring budget (around RM10,000 and about RM8,500 was spent on the video camera), a skeleton crew, and used all his friends to act in it for free. Apart from directing, writing the story, producing the film and editing it, Khai is also the lead actor. The film, Ciplak (loosely translated as “imitation&rdquo In his final year, Jo plans to finish his studies and make his biggest sale yet before he leaves the country for good. But at the same time, the Malaysian police are about to launch its biggest raid yet. The budding filmmaker, who shot his first feature film in October last year through to mid-January, shared about his filmmaking experience. It proved to be a journey of discovery as Khai honed his filmmaking skills and learnt that while he may have finished making the film, putting it on the big screen had a whole different side to it. “I’ll be completely honest – I didn’t think more than a handful of people would see this movie,” said Khai. “My only intention of making this movie was to make it ... because my dream was to make a feature-length movie before I turned 26. I just wanted to make a movie by the time I was 25, which I did. It’s just coming out now that I’m 26.” Khai had intentions of having the film screened at international film festivals, at HELP University College and releasing it on DVD eventually. He, however, held a small screening for members of the press in April and after receiving some encouraging comments, Khai submitted Ciplak to GSC. “That was quite a surprise, I never expected that to happen,” said Khai about GSC’s decision to take on his film. “It’s a low-budget movie. It’s a real make-it-by-any-means-necessary movie and you’ve got all these other films with big budgets, so how did this little movie get through?” questioned Khai. GSC's answer was: ‘We’ve seen it, we like it but we’re not sure whether we should show it.’ “They’ve (GSC) been incredibly supportive about the whole thing because anyone in Malaysia who looks at the subject matter... you look at the script already and it’s like, ‘Okay, this is controversial.’ That’s why I thought it’d never be screened in the cinema.” And where controversy was concerned, there was another local film which sparked more controversy recently, much to Khai’s surprise. “I just saw the Remp-It trailer and I’m like (expression of shock), ‘You can get away with this?! I would have put so much more in my movie if (I had known) I could get away with this.” To accommodate his low-budget production, Khai shot his film on weekends while working as a copywriter in an advertising agency and recording an album with his band Y2K (he plays bass for Y2K and guitar for Triple Six Poser). It's crucial, as Khai realised, to treat your cast and crew right. Especially if they're working for nothing at all. “Because I’m hiring friends for free and I’m putting them out of their way, it also means that I can’t be bossy about them like, ‘We have to shoot on this day.’ In the end, it’s their house, it’s their life and it’s their weekend,” said Khai. Khai also had to sort out the casting by himself. Having written the story, he would think about which of his friends suited the characters. “A lot of times, I’d call them up (his friends) and say, ‘Hey, you wanna be in my movie? Ok, make sure you’re free this weekend.’ “ He did have a problem in finding the female cast. “Contrary to popular belief, I’m not much of a ladies man so I don’t know that many women. So a lot of female characters were tough to get.” Whatever hurdles presented itself during the production of Ciplak, Khai overcame it even if it meant doing re-shoots and editing the whole movie on his own. However, when GSC decided to pick up the film, Khai had not anticipated having to spend even more time to prepare the film for cinema release. “It’s been a year since the first day of shooting and I didn’t think I’d still be working on the damn movie (laughs),” mused Khai. “I didn’t know what the process was for getting a movie onto the big screen. I figured, let’s say if GSC wanted the movie, ‘Here’s the movie and that’s it’, and it’s taken out of my hands but apparently not. “There’s a whole path when you want to get a movie out: what you need to prepare for the censorship board, for Finas, for the cinema, for the cinema cut, for the press and for the marketing material. “And I’m just like, ‘What? I edited this on my PC, give me a break (laughs).” Again, Khai saw the things through and proves that anyone with a video camera can not only make a movie, but if it’s good enough, it can even hit the big screen. Khai, a life-long film fan, started making short films as a teenager using his mum’s video camera after being influenced by the new wave of independent directors like Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs), Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi) and Kevin Smith (Clerks) in the 1990s. “I just learnt as I went along (about filmmaking). After you shoot and edit things enough times, then you wonder why things work and what doesn't. Of course, reading a lot of books and when DVDs popped up, that was the money moment because you just pop in the DVD and turn on the commentary and you just learn, like Rodriguez’ commentary on El Mariachi is as good as the book (Rebel Without a Crew). It just explains everything.” And to all you budding filmmakers out there, Khai has this piece of advice: ”Do the best you can with what you have.” And there you have it, sound advice from the newest local independent filmmaker. Ciplak will premiere on Nov 23 at GSC One Utama and Mid Valley Megamall, Kuala Lumpur, and on Nov 30 at GSC Gurney Plaza, Penang. For more information about Ciplak, visit the website at www.ciplakmovie.com. I could write about it, but I can't be arsed. Here are pictures instead: Pirate with a passion By Elizabeth Ng Ciplak Rating(out of 5): * * * ½ Starring: Khairil M. Bahar, Faizal Painchun, Ben & CK, Sara Dalina, Ben Begin, Abdul Qahar, Fara Maria, Tony Pietra, Saiful Freezailah, Hassan Peter Brown and Nazneen Halim Oh, the name doesn’t quite ring a bell, does it? Well for those not in the know, Brian is actually an average joe, who has had the longest crush on Drew Barrymore. However, he’s not your ordinary fan boy as he dreamt big and eventually, against all odds, secured a date with Barrymore. True story. And the events leading up to the milestone event – not only for Brian the fan boy, but Brian the aspiring filmmaker – is depicted in My Date with Drew, a low-budget but highly entertaining feature…that eventually went big. Armed with only US$1,100; helpful friends, nifty editing and a borrowed camera, Brian had 30 days (before he had to relinquish ownership of the camera) to secure a date with his idol. But this review isn’t supposed to be on Brian’s gem of a film. Instead, it’s about an aspiring Malaysian filmmaker’s little gem of his own entitled Ciplak. In many ways, Khairil M. Bahar reminds one of Brian. Armed with a budget under RM10,000; helpful friends; nifty editing; a solid script and an ambition to shoot a feature before turning 26, Khairil’s low-budget feature – like Brian’s – is highly entertaining. (Oh, just FYI, there isn’t a 30-day time limit in making this feature as the filmmakers paid RM8,500 for the camera.) For the earnestness that went into making it, Ciplak gives out an enthusiastic, raw and honest vibe. The film latches on to a very Malaysian issue: DVD piracy. Told through the eyes of the consumer, we follow the foibles and misadventures of an undergrad named Jo (Khairil) who smuggles DVDs from Malaysia and sells them on the UK black market as masters. Needless to say, the premise is easily relatable to a local audience and while the subject matter can be sensitive, everything is delivered candidly with a healthy dose of wit. The hard truths of why the industry thrives despite being an illegal trade are laid bare. And as the film unfolds, we discover why Jo is involved in the business – ironically, he wants to get into film school – and the sacrifices he makes to achieve his dream. Well, we say “sacrifice” because things go very wrong for the bloke on the day he is to collect his largest-ever supply. He unfortunately picks the very day KL is hit with the biggest anti-piracy raid in history. Soon, he loses his stash and his contacts in England want to make mincemeat out of him. And so, Joe takes the audience on an educational yet engrossing quest to collect all the missing titles. This breaking of the fourth wall works for the flick as Jo is an affable protagonist. Among other things, he directly informs the audience about the differences between DVDs and VCDs; the varying audio and video quality of the offerings (the movie changes accordingly, cool stuff); and even squeezes in bits on porn – of course, done through a cleverly pre-censored sequence. The film has punch and sincerity written all over it and for a topic that nobody wants to readily own up to, this flick owns up to a whole lot, which makes it a refreshing change for local moviegoers. But underneath all that straight, in-your-face talk about illegal wares, there’s a quieter and slightly weak message on not conforming. It’s pretty indistinct and you’ll have to look a little closer to catch the nuance. Nonetheless, Ciplak is thoroughly entertaining and if Khairil has luck on his side, this little project – which was entirely edited on the director’s home computer – could go far. After all, look what luck did for Brian: he got his date with Barrymore (and has kept in touch with her since); a book on the making of the film was published; the movie premiered in Hollywood and is even being released in China and Japan. Currently, Brian is reportedly working on his next movie project. Dreams do come true. Ok, not really dolls. Not even toys. Figurines? Possibly. These are the prototypes of what will soon become the fully-poseable Y2k action figures! Crafted and designed by Amir (who played 'Castello' (hehe...) in 'Ciplak'), we brought them down with us to Thailand for extra pimpage. People kept wanting to buy them. Sorry, not yet. I like the detail on the belly, though. |
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, is about a Malaysian undergraduate, Jo (Khai), studying in Britain who also happens to be a DVD pirate who gets his goods from back home. 
