Production Talk - 'CASHLESS' by Derek Tan and Melinda Tan
CASHLESS revolves around a man’s reckless pursuit of his misplaced cash after he mistakenly transfers an important sum of money meant for his mother into the wrong ATM account. When time and money are at stake, how far must he go before he finally finds himself? Starring Danny Jow, and featuring music by local bands The Lilac Saints and RustyNailz. This short film is co-directed by Melinda Tan and Derek Tan.
Jeremy (J) : How was the idea for your film conceived? What inspired you?
Melinda: The original script was actually written by one of our friends, Izmir Ickbal, also a nuSTUDIOS alumnus. He had pitched the story to me back in 2006 and it sounded like an interesting premise - to have a guy race against time to get his money back after a wrong transfer of funds via the ATM, and meeting with various obstacles while doing it.

Melinda: Izmir focussed his script on the big ideas of bureaucracy vs. simple common sense but when we took on the project, we wanted to anchor it to something more personal, and to focus the story on how people connected and communicated with each other in a supposedly "cashless society", with a specific focus on the mother-son relationship between Leslie and his mother. So while the premise of the story remained the same, we decided to fundamentally revise its context, as well as to further develop the motivations of each character.

J : How much money are we talking about?
Melinda: In total we spent about close to $4000 on the film - supported by nuSTUDIOS Film Productions and the Singapore Film Commission (SFC), with the rest of the cost split between Derek and myself.

Melinda: The number of films produced by nuSTUDIOS in a year really varies from year to year (roughly 2-4 films). Generally, as we are usually only able to shoot more intensively during the holidays, shoots are typically scheduled for the May to August or December period. While there are sometimes overlaps in crew members, each film is undertaken by it's own crew and seen as a separate project.
Derek: nuSTUDIOS has a Film School programme that teaches its members the basics of scriptwriting, cinematography and editing. The programme extends with scriptwriting sessions that allow members to further refine their ideas and eventually help them to develop their scripts. A script market follows where the scriptwriter would pitched their script and gather his crew, some of whom have worked together before, while others may not. Even for CASHLESS, both Melinda and myself have not worked on set together before, even though technically we had worked on previous films before.

Melinda: One of our main difficulties was that we didn't have enough time for pre-production before production began! All of us were preparing for our final exams then (and quite a few of us in our graduating semester) and we had to juggle that with pre-production planning. As a result, because of the tight budget and time constraints, we soon discovered that the initial schedule for shoot was too unrealistic for us to achieve the quality we had set out to achieve.
Derek: Another difficulty was also scheduling for our large cast size around many locations. Unlike our previous productions where the cast size is usually around 2-3 people, we had more than 15 over cast members. In one instance, we had to schedule for a fight scene that required a lot of them together (the fight scene is another difficulty all together). Securing the locations was also a challenge, as we had scenes in a bank, an office, a car, etc.

J : Any interesting anecdotes to share?
Melinda: There were quite a few scenes in the script that required the actor playing Leslie to drive. However, our lead Danny doesn't have a driving license in real life. To get around the problem, the scenes with Leslie driving were shot with the car hoisted on a tow truck along ECP. And we caused an actual jam in the process of getting the car up. :)


Melinda: I watch quite an eclectic mix of films. I don't really restrict the films I watch to any particular genre (although I generally don't watch horror films!) but I do enjoy films that have interesting premises, with simple stories, beautifully told.
Derek: I watch mostly all kind of films except gore and horror (I can't stand blood). But what attracts me most are films with strong visuals! And hence a clue to how we direct as a team. =P

Melinda: Watching films help me sensitize myself to the cinematic aspects of daily living but I guess everyday life is still one of my main sources of inspiration. I spend a huge chunk of my time on the road commuting. Over the years, I have used that time to observe people, eavesdrop on random snatches of conversation, and to think about possible concepts for our next film. I don't think we would be sticking to any one particular trend/style/issue, we are always trying to see if we can do something different, be it in genre or style. [Derek: Agrees!]
Derek: Images. From observing people to looking at objects at different angles, or simply by taking note of camera/actor blocking on TV shows or films. I tend to experiment by gluing these images together and see if an inspiration for my next film would appear. It takes a while, so I usually like to bounce ideas with my friends to get that whole process run much faster. And hence another clue to how we may work on our next film. =P
SCREENING DETAILS: Dates: Saturday 20th June & Saturday 27th June 2009 Venue: The Arts House, Screening RoomTime: 4pm & 8pmTickets: $8
For more on CASHLESS, visit http://cashless.wordpress.com/
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