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Movie Making Muppet Madness
The shoot is for a TV series called 'Dark City', a kind of 'Twilight Zone' meets 'Tales from the Crypt' kinda thing. Originally I was brought on to write an episode. Then two. Then I was brought on to direct one. Then I wrote two more. And I directed three more. As you can imagine, life was very busy... At first, the thought of shooting with a crew was kinda daunting. I didn't know jack-shit about lighting and was kinda worried about my innability to speak fluent Malay, but it was good enough to communicate with the crew, who were all really cool, very profesional and incredibly talented. And I got to play with tracks! It was actually kinda weird 'cos all this time I thought working with a crew would seriously hinder me, but it's done nothing but make life easier. There's someone else to think about what order to shoot the scenes, someone else to think about whether there's enough light in the shot, someone else to grab the props and feed the cast and make sure everyone's on time. And I could still shoot in my own style. The only thing I wasn't used to was having the whole scene played from beginning to end because I've never had the luxury of two cameras. I was so used to shooting all of one actor's lines then shooting the rest of the other actor's lines for a conversation because of my own low-budget constraints. On the production company side, it's just incredible that a company in Malaysia would be daring enough to have the kind of subject matter we've been shooting (murder, cannibalism, ghosts, vampires, posession, double-crossing, time travel, rape). Hell, the first episode (directed by the executive producer, Keith Chong) had the main character, a serial killer, taking off her panties and wiping the blood of her victims with it (in the end the panty shot was cut out by the station for obvious TV censorship reasons). But yeah, enough of my rambling. Enjoy the rest of the weird comic-book photoshopped pics and be sure to tune in to this week's episode by Tony Pietra. My first episode, 'Cellphone', will be airing next week. Dark City, every Wednesday at 10.30pm on Astro Ria with a re-run on Thursday at 4.30am. So some of you may have been wondering where I've been for the past few weeks (of course, most of you probably couldn't give a toss but I won't hold that against you). But what have I been doing? This: Tony's episode is airing this week and it is frickin' KICK ASS. It's called 'Death Row', a spooky jail story with plenty of creepiness and violence, written by the ever-spooky Allan Koay featuring music by the ever talented 'Rabbit'. Till then, spread the word. Please. Over twenty hours before the revelation of Jesus' weather-changing powers I was in a bus leaving from Media Prima in Bandar Utama to the KLIA airport together with 31 other assorted filmmakers, actors, producers and crew members, the majority of them winners of the Anugerah Skrin (myself included) together with people from Melodi, MHI and the Breakfast Show. Part of the prize was a trip to Hollywood to check out how the big boys make movies, and perhaps be inspired in our next endeavours. We went, we saw, we gaped and awed, and if you think I'm going to write about all of it here in one sitting you must be out of your mind. But don't, for a second, assume that the trip to Southern California was a hedonistic 'girls gone wild' party of debauchery. Far from it. In fact, our tour was so packed up that I didn't have much chance to check out any of the things I wanted to. I didn't get to go to Taco Bell and I did not have any Twinkies. Besides, as you'll read on from the points below, L.A. isn't exactly a wild place... Ten Things I Learnt In LA 1. Californians don't know how to party. Or, at least, they don't know how to party continously. Whilst the streets of KL are still rife with activity at two in the morning on a Monday, in Cali people go to sleep. They hang out at home and watch TV and the streets are a ghost town by eleven. Even in Hollywood. Example? This is Sunset Boulevard on a Tuesday night, the place where both the Viper Room and the Whiskey A-Go-Go reside: Wow. I asked a local about this. He said that the night only comes alive on weekends. In the meantime, people do their job and then they go home. Plus, it was Spring Break, and all the kids were in Tijuana. But perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps they know how to party, but it's an exclusive party, one that an alien-with-a-visa is not welcome to unless he or she was connected. No matter. If the party was there, I sure as shit wasn't. 2. Taxi's in L.A. are extortionately priced. Example? From my hotel in San Pedro to Sunset Boulevard cost eighty six bucks. Eight six?! On my last day, when I took a cab from Camarillo to a guitar centre in Oxnard, on the same road and only 7 miles away, I got charged twenty five bucks. This is insanity. 3. Islanders rule. As do Hispanics and African-Americans. Perhaps it's because we looked similar, I dunno, but amongst them I didn't feel too much like an alien-with-a-visa. A big shout out to Stephen the Cingular cellphone guy and Omar the Peruvian construction dude, though you may never read this. No offence to white guys, but seriously, y'all Californians were just starring at me. Just plain starring. Why? Have you never seen an Asian in the VIP queue for the Jimmy Kimmel show before? 4. Hooters is overrated. And the food portions are tiny. Although I hear this is not the case in the southern states. 5. Hollywood Boulevard is not glamorous. In fact, all the way down the sidewalks, adorned with big golden stars and famous celebrities' names in them, are homeless people, panhandlers, pimps and pushers. A Vietnam vet asked me for change, for God's sake. I didn't think Vietnam vets still existed on the streets, but there he was. I was so taken aback I gave the guy a couple of bucks. 6. Dinner's with a show are a strange affair. And I don't mean like having a dinner at the Copa with Frank Sinatra crooning centre-stage. No, I mean the Pirates Dinner Experience (or whatever it was called), where you are served chicken and shrimp whilst facing a mock-up pirate ship and struggling actors, actresses, singers and stuntmen try to entertain you by stopping from eating every five minutes to raise your glass of coke and shout "AARRR!!" Good for the kids, though. 7. Goofy's an asshole. For those who've been reading this blog, you'll know that my only intention for going to Disneyland was to punch Goofy in the face and make him tell me just what kind of animal he's supposed to be. But as we got there the magic of the, well, magic kingdom took over and I was enchanted once again by seeing Mickey, Donald, Cinderella and Woody walk around, life-sized and plush. So when I saw Goofy I obviously wanted to take a photo with him. And the bastard mutant dog dissed me. The evil fucker raised his paw in a 'talk-to-the-hand' kind of way and walked off. But I'll have my revenge. Oh, yes. One day, I'll have my revenge. And when Doctor Moreau gets Goofy back and sees how badly beaten he is he'll lament ever creating the sordid creature. 8. Hollywood lies. It's weird. I always knew that making movies is all about presenting a reality, regardless of how real everything is, but seeing the actual sets and studio lots made me realize just how much of what we see on TV and in the movies is fake, and how goddamn well they pull it off. We went to Fox, Paramount and Warner Bros and their studio lots and soundstages are incredibly. We got a long way to go indeed. 9. Warner brothers sounds like 'Water Bladder' when spoken by an Asian, non-English speaking tour guide. And there was much merriment about this. 10. Liquids are weapons in the hands of terrorists. As are shoes. This is what I discovered at LAX. All liquids had to be put into a plastic baggie for inspection and shoes had to be x-rayed. I suppose the fear is that a terrorist will combine different proportions of different ordinary household liquids inside their shoes to make makeshift napalm bomb. Or something. Well, that's it for the LA trip. It may sound sarcastic, but in truth I had lots of fun and everyone I travelled with were really cool, kick-ass, down-to-earth guys, especially Afdlin, Sheema and Hasnul, the trio I spent the most time with down in Southern Cali. I may not have even had time to make any phone calls (sorry, Jess! I really wanted to call but I didn't even get to call my girlfriend and parents more than once!) or meet anyone I supposed to or blog about it whilst I was there or even have a Taco Bell burrito, but I had fun, no doubt. Now all I have to do is win next year so that I can finally give Goofy the thrashing the dumb fuck deserves. And if you think I'm gonna write about what happened at Mickey's on Santa Monica Boulevard, well, that's between me and Jose. Remember, before the Anugerah Skrin awards, I was saying how last year's winners got to go to LA n' shit? (And by that, I do not mean they were given tickets for the privilege of going to LA purely to utilize the finest in American crappers) Well, guess what: so do the winners this year. That's right, children and muppets, I'm going to LA! I have no idea how the itinerary is, but I think a visit to Universal Studios is in order (although I don't know whether we get to see the inner-workings or just Jaws popping out of the water) and possibly Disneyland, where I will finally fulfil my lifelong passion of kicking a Walt Disney character square in the nuts. And possibly hooking up with Jasmine from 'Alladin'. With preparations underway, it is now that I realize something: I don't have any friends on the west coast. I've got buddies in New York, New Jersey, even Minnesotta. But not LA. Those that I knew in LA are back here. And, to be honest, I've always preferred the east coast of the US and A. I always found LA too... wide. But I'm not complaining. This is the closest to a holiday that I'll be having in a long while. It's time to stock up on Taco Bell and In n' Out! White Castle! Cap'n Crunch! Twinkies! ...are snacks n' fast food the only thing I know about the States? Damn. Thought I'd post up some pics from the recent shoots and not-so-recent projects I've been doing. I hope... you liiike. Rabbit - My Mind Those pics above are from the Rabbit video for 'My Mind', which Tony Pietra directed and wrote and I edited. The cool CGI? Courtesy of Voxel, the boys behind the animated opening credits of Ciplak. And if you look at the second pic carefully, you'll notice some other FYI guys - Paul and Saiful, re-animated as black-wearing zombie-type thingeys. Noice. Vid's available at YouTube. Soft Touch - Listen 2 What U C I've already put up a link for the Soft Touch video I did. If all goes well, it should be on TV soon. Pete Teo - Lost In America For the upcoming Pete Teo video, I mainly acted. In about six different roles. All those guys with the TV for a head? That's me. They wanted someone who could play a bunch of different instruments, or at least pull off the image of someone playing a bunch of instruments. So they stuck me on the drums, the bass and the keyboards with a big green cloth over my head held up by a piece of cardboard that stuck onto my head via a hair-band. After that, I played the triple roles of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly (where I am convinced I make a fat cowboy). El director Tony played Vegas Elvis (it constantly bugs me that no-one chooses to present pre-Vegas Elvis, back when he looked like a badass) and Serena C pops up in hot pants as a cowgirl riding a rocket. Other cameos include Patrick Teoh, Jason Lo, Sharifah Amani, etc. I think this was my first paid acting job. That is, if you discount the time I played 'henchman#3' in a Xena-knock off and got paid with a chicken burger without the bun. Wrath So, 'Ciplak' has been shown and all is done with it. Now, the only thing to worry about as far as that movie is concerned is the DVD, soundtrack (very overdue, I know) and perhaps a book on how I went about shooting the movie, since there are no reference books on the subject of getting a movie out in Malaysia (although the book will probably consist of pages from this blog, so I doubt you guys will be buying it). Since then, I have been fielding offers to shoot things, no doubt stemming from the press I got from the movie as well as the Anugerah Skrin award I got last month. I am now an industry player. And even though it's my first month in the 'industry', I'm not enjoying it much. With all the offers coming at the same time, I wanted to make sure I struck while the iron was still hot, even though it means having to come up with a lot of ideas - at least three telemovies, a tv series and plans for my next feature film, as well as writing other scripts that I'd already agreed to do a while back. Combine that with the studio, the record label, the current editing jobs, the music videos, and it makes for a very busy Khai. But the workload isn't really that much of an annoyance. I've had to deal with more than I can handle many, many times. No, what's bugging me right now is doing things the proper way. Working with companies. As well as the stigma of making a 10k movie: The Curse of Ciplak Whilst the whole '10,000 ringgit to make a movie' tidbit makes good press, it also brings up a question to producers: "if he can shoot a movie for 10k, why should we give him any more than that?" This is annoying. Incredibly annoying. I've been working on super-low budgets for the past year and would like to have some financial breathing space where budgets are concerned so that I can at least pay my cast and crew, maybe rent a tripod and some lights, whatever. Then there's the flip-side, the result of the cheap production values of a 10k movie: "his production values are appaling! Can he do a 'proper' looking/sounding movie?" This is doubly-annoying. For the record, 85% of the budget was used to buy a camera, leaving about 2.5k to actually produce the fucker. What do you expect, De Palma dolly shots? Being Celup Then there's the other stigma I've been noticing. I began to notice it at the after-party of the Anugerah Skrin and I'm noticing it even more now: people seem to think that, just because I wrote and directed a movie about urban, Westernized kids (or 'Celup's, as they're sometimes referred to), people seem to think that celup-stories are all I have. And whilst it's true that I still have some stories about this minor demographic rocking about in my head, there are other stories I want to do too, dammit! Genre stuff, horror, action, whatever, even straight up Malaysiana. Television Industry-wise, I'm still trying to understand television. I've only just understood the workings of the film industry, but it looks like television is a whole other ball game. The more I find out about things, the more it dissuades me, even though I really want to get into television because it's a medium that interests me and there's payment involved. Yes, payment. I need to eat, dammit. The lure of television has mainly been to keep my company afloat, more than anything. But the more I find out about how it works, the more I don't want to touch it, even though I know I need to if I'm going to keep getting my name out there and get enough income to keep going. But the rules, good God, the rules! Language and content, that's what's sticking in my craw more than anything. Which is why I've made a rule to not do anything that's too original or any idea that I care for too much when it comes to television because there's a chance that the story could be warped by these rules. But I never realized how much they could be fucked with. Corporate Prats And finally, there's the whole 'corporate' thing. The ding-dong-ing of approval through different levels of chains of command. The numerous comments that get filtered down to you after two weeks of waiting. Protocol? Fuck protocol! I'm sick and tired of protocol! I now find myself working with clients again, and especially on some more 'corporate' jobs, it feels like I'm in advertising again. Why? Because I can sense the cold, hard dick of the client thrusting up my rectum, that's why. And the second he cums he's gonna shoot a flurry of stupidity-semen up my ass and expect me to take it like a man. Fuck that. But I guess the main problem I've been having this month is an amalgamation of all this: the balance between wanting creative freedom and needing to balance the books. And whilst I know I have the ability to work out business strategies and documents and finances and accounts (but not actual accounting) I hate doing it because just thinking about it gives me huge migraines. I was working on a budget for a short film the other day and that alone gave me a killer headache that stuck with me the whole night, panadol be damned. I want to tell the stories I want to tell, but I need to figure out the money side. Sigh... I need a sugar mommy. ... ...or a sugar daddy. I'm not fussy. |
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Yes. That's right. You see that? That's my name on a slate. I've finally got my name actually on a slate for a shoot! With lights! And a monitor! And a crew!
The story, in a nutshell, is about a guy who finds a cellphone in the carpark of his office and decides to take it, only to be haunted by its previous owner. The show stars Bront Palare and Corine Adrienne and the two of them put in great performances.
Besides, even if I wanted to tell you all of it, it wouldn't be wise. I've taken a step into the Industry, and in the Industry, certain things are kept on the hush-hush for fear of ignorant press write-ups, sensationilist rumours and gossip-mag bollocks. Thank God I'm not too steeped into it just yet, my identity still not well known enough that I can safely put up this picture of me hanging out in front of Denny's at three o' clock in the morning with a copy of L.A. X-Press, smoking a cigarette. These are good times, and if ever I take one step too far into the Industry this picture may be deleted, along with my numerous posts alluding to sexually deviant behaviour and Jo Guest.
