We caught up with seasoned TV director and first-time feature film director Kat Goh to chat with her on her maiden feature film Dance Dance Dragon or 龙众舞, which in Hokkien sounds like 'Everything Also Have'. Nice cheeky title if you understand Hokkien.
Here is the brief synopsis:
Dance Dance Dragon or 龙众舞 tells the story of Mother Loong who desires to have a grandchild. However, none of her three children have plans for any children. Things change for the Loongs on the first day of the 2012 Year of the Dragon when a newborn boy is found on their doorstep! It stars local stars Kym Ng, Adrian Pang, Dennis Chew and Malaysian artiste Auntie Lai Ming and Melvin Sia. Packed with hilarious twists and turns, Dance Dance Dragon 龙众舞is a wholesome family comedy aimed at the funny bone during Chinese New Year 2012. It is written by Kelvin Tong and Marcus Chin and produced by Mediacorp Raintree Pictures.
SINdie: Congrats on your opening, what were some of the best things people have said about this movie?
Kat: The best comments that I've gotten so far is that the movie made them laugh and cry and they left the cinema with that warm and fuzzy feeling.
SINdie: How was your experience making your first feature film?
Kat: It was definitely a very tough and tiring shoot due to the little time we had to get the movie onto the big screen. At first I was a bit nervous. My stomach had butterflies on the start of each shoot day, anticipating the immense pressure of a director. But as I get into the shoot, I was just concerned with getting all the shots I needed within the limited time I had with the actors. On the start of each day, I'll check with my AD who I had to release at what time and aim for that. Once the first actor is released, then it'll be "who will I have to release next?"... :)
SINdie: How different has it been for you directing this compared to your other works?
Kat: I've only shot a drama series and a short film before. The drama series was all laughs even as we were shooting it and the short film was quite easy once I got the correct actors to play each role. DDD is slightly different. I had to constantly think of the audience. Whether the scene is funny enough or whether the humor is too crazy for the audience to handle. The actors are a great help. They have a lot of ideas in their head and we'll discuss it through till we get the correct balance.
SINdie: Comedy is not easy, and your last short film was more family drama, how did you approach creating laughs in this film? How would you describe yourself as a person, a ball of laughs or someone more serious or in between?
Kat: Actually I have my own perspective of humor and I know what makes me laugh. I just go with my own feeling most of the time when shooting a comedy.
I would say I'm a secretly funny person. I don't really joke when I'm working. But among close friends, I crack them up with my ridiculous comments or musings at every little thing that happens. Sometimes I just don't understand why they kept laughing at whatever I'm saying. :P If they are reading this post... "YES I'm talking about YOU!"
SINdie: What were the greatest challenges in making Dance Dance Dragon?
Kat: The greatest challenge is to DELIVER THE MOVIE ON TIME, ON BUDGET! The next challenge I would say are all the scenes with our baby Nigel. We had to shoot around his nap time and feeding time. There are some occasions where we had already rehearsed, lighted the shot and I turn around and see him KO-ing in his mother's arms. We tried shaking him and calling him but he'll be out cold. That's actually really funny if not for the fact that we had to re-light for another shot since he will only wake up half hour later. But we still love him. :)
SINdie: What is your favourite scene in the film?
Kat: I have a few favorite scenes. I love the scene where the baby rolls the lipstick to Kym. I also love the scene where Kym contemplates putting on lipstick for Adrian, as well as the scene where Kym first appears in a dress for Adrian. But what always cracks me up is the scene where over-zealous Mother Loong (thinking Adrian is Auntie Lucy's boyfriend), tells Adrian to sleep in Lucy's room and "敢敢给我拼一个出来" (hurry up and make a baby for me).
SINdie: I understood you came a long way from starting out as an assistant producer. These days, there are several filmmaker who start out making films immediately. Would you have done it differently if you had a chance?
Kat: Not really. I like my process. I was first introduced to TV dramas and had a really challengingly tough time in MCS where we had to do almost everything for the production, sometimes overlapping a few projects at the same time. But my time in MCS toughened me up to face any kind of challenges that I might face outside. Plus, it also instill in me the 'never say die' attitude. We use to have a saying among fellow APs. If we can survive MCS, we can survive anything. These are the basics that a film-maker need to have to face the challenges a young film-maker face in a tough market like Singapore. The rest will come naturally.
SINdie: In what way has your producing days on TV influenced your craft and style?
Kat: The only 'technique' I learnt from TV shoots is to be always ready for any setbacks on set and work around it. I am fast to solve any problems that might arise on set, be it changing shots, scenes, dialogues, wardrobe, props... It works really well when you're on a tight dateline and budget, but sometimes it might lead to certain things being compromised. Luckily I have my usual dedicated production team whom I can trust to keep me on track.
SINdie: In a short paragraph, tell our readers why we should watch Dance Dance Dragon.
Kat: Dance Dance Dragon is a feel-good CNY movie that's filled with laughter, tears, action, pyrotechnics and our very own, really really cute SINGAPOREAN baby who'll make you unknowingly saying 'awww... so cute' whenever he appears. Go catch it and have a great time!
SINdie: What would you personally have done if you received a baby at your doorstep?
Kat: I'll ask him "Ei 你会演戏吗？" (Can you act?)
Catch Dance Dance Dragon 龙众舞 in cinemas now before it runs out!!
Steeped in Jack Neo’s trademark brand of histrionics and suffocating proselytism, We Not Naughty is Neo’s attempt to recreate the magic of his big hit, I Not Stupid, but ends up being a tiresome exercise in platitudes. It’s a charge his supporters like to dismiss, and the standard defence for such drab garbage is that the values Neo sells are important, and that his films' themes are relevant to modern Singaporean society; yet with this film, Neo has contrived a moral message not just dated, but grossly superficial in treatment.
Shawn Lee and Joshua Ang, two of Neo’s protégés whom Singaporeans have seen grow up on screen through several of Neo’s films, play Wei Jie and Jian Ren, best friends in a fictional polytechnic, both suffering from a series of familial tribulations lifted straight out of an episode of Oprah. Wei Jie has a gambling addict father and his mother (Xiang Yun) belittles him. Jian Ren comes from a well-to-do, comfortable single parent family but has a strained relationship with his mother, in part due to his mom’s favouritism towards his brother. He becomes rebellious to spite his mother and even becomes a runner for the loansharks.
CK (an oddly miscast Daniel Yun), their lecturer, tries to build rapport with Wei Jie and Jian Ren and ends up being snubbed. Later on, in a ludicrous act of solidarity with his students - he foolhardily accepts a forfeit imposed by them - earns their ‘respect’ and support. As if such a ridiculous event – a slap in the face to any self-respecting teacher – wasn’t enough, Neo takes CK’s savior complex to a whole new level when the latter makes huge personal and monetary sacrifices to bail his two favourite rascals out of trouble.
The film is shoddily cobbled together, padded out to an overly long run time with intermittent gags that are more repellent than funny (such as a scene when a character goes into labour towards the end). While there are still some scenes that may tickle, (though few and far between,) in We Not Naughty there is little sign of Neo’s instinctual feel for where comedy and commentary intersect, an artistic sensibility that helped make I Not Stupid so hilarious, provocative, and heartfelt at the same time. The film lacks an organic quality found in some of Neo’s earlier works, and naturalism and tonal consistency are almost non-existent; everything feels overly calculated and yet wildly uneven here - one moment Neo is laboriously engineering a laugh, the next he is (outrageously) bidding for your tears, in slo-mo scenes of melancholy played out to overwrought music.
Accusing Neo of shallow sentimentalism is, of course, something which is not new. But this time round, with We Not Naughty, Neo’s mechanisms for emotional resonance are not merely simplistic, they are ineffectual. Never has there been a Jack Neo film filled with such a densely packed array of incident – Wei Jie’s mother concusses in a domestic fight, Wei Jie’s sister gets attacked and shaved of her hair; and those are only some events in the first half of the film – that has such a glaring absence of emotional impact. For all its sentimentalism, there is a lack of feeling.
Part of this has to do with the acting, which is consistently terrible, if not abysmal. I really feel bad for saying this, because we really do try to support local films and actors here, but the performances are so half-baked that they make a typical fame seeker on any given reality television program look like a frigging Oscar winner. (Snooki, looks like your Hollywood ambitions may come true after all!) Stubbornly persisting in keeping the bar on scene-chewing, Neo has made a film where every actor drowns in histrionics rather than act. It’s easy to overlook this and say that they suit Neo’s style of cinema, but isn’t that really just allowing mediocrity to perpetuate?
The same goes for the insipid humour in the film. While it is consistent with Neo’s lowbrow humour found in many of his other films (and that is perfectly fine in itself), here the lack of verve and inspiration sticks out like a sore thumb; most of the funny scenes come across as afterthoughts, pushed to the backdrop in favour of Neo’s moral messages. People who defend Neo say that his humour reflects the taste of the nation, and that this ‘cock’ (a term coined by Colin Goh of talkingcock.com that means nonsensical jibberish) humour is really the Singaporean humour. If box office receipts are anything to judge by, there may be some truth in that. Given Singapore’s lack of cultural capital, I can understand Singaporeans’ eagerness to claim this humour as their own; ‘cock’ humour has become their bad religion, and Neo its true apostle. And yet while slapstick may well be an inextricable part of local comedy, it must be done right – with imagination and zaniness, like in last year’s hilarious Homecoming and some of Neo’s earlier works – and not become a mere excuse for lazy writing and crassness, as is the case here.
But these are the least of Neo’s crimes in the film, chief of which are his specious messages. Here, he peddles the same old feel-good uplifting sentiment that has formed the backbone of many of his previous films: every young person has talent and worth; familial love is an all-powerful force that survives any hardship; that it is never too late to start anew in life. Praiseworthy, perhaps. What annoys is Neo’s hard-sell, which manifests in his disdain for any subtlety and nuance, and in the numerous plot contrivances that simply exist to facilitate the introduction of Neo’s messages. His commentary holds little weight because we never view any of the characters as flesh-and-blood people – they come across more as mere ciphers for Neo’s digital sermon, and their revelations never feel authentically earned. There is no plausible change of heart in any character. Instead of gradually developing characters, they change radically over one scene, such as when Wei Jie’s sister starts crying out “I love you” at least ten times to her mother after a traumatic incident. (I could understand the crying, and maybe a hug, but all the “I love you-s” were just waaaay too far-fetched.)
Whilst the messages of I Not Stupid, and to a lesser extent Money No Enough, came about in a time where they were relevant and important, the key to their resonance was that they captured the zeitgeist of their times, which was partly because such issues had never been broached on such a public scale before they hit screens island-wide. With We Not Naughty, it is anachronistic for Neo to assume that we still needed him to repeat the same old messages, as if our society hasn’t grown (and he certainly hasn’t as a filmmaker). It is also insulting for viewers, because Neo so forcefully sells his values, it borders on chastising us, as if we lacked a moral compass ourselves.
Neo so overreaches in social commentary that all the issues he explores are stretched too thin, and there isn’t a single satisfactory resolution or adequate exploration of any. Circumstances magically shift to accomodate the happy ending in the end, of course, since this is a family-oriented Chinese New Year film, and it seemed every major character drank the Kool-Aid and they all decided to get along. Of course, given that this film is timed to coincide with the Chinese New Year festivities, one have to accept its limitations as a family-friendly film, and call me shallow here, but I just wished that the film was a little more fun.
It was a Sunday afternoon at LaSalle College of the Arts, and Tzang Merwyn Tong – or Tzang as he prefers to be known – has joined us for an interview. Comfortably perched on the lush faux greenery in the campus foyer, the affable storyteller was both candid and beguiling in sharing his experience and alternative visions in his film direction.
Tzang may not exactly be the most prolific local filmmaker around. But he has established himself with the success of A Wicked Tale and V1K1, the former having gained a cult following from Germany to Canada. In 2011 he had also helmed the direction of the CATS Classified Ads flash mob on SMRT, which can be checked out on Youtube.
Yet exciting times lie ahead for the multi-hyphenate, currently a part-time lecturer at NTU's Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information. He will soon add to his CV a theatre play and a full-length feature.
SINdie: Thanks for agreeing to this interview! Just to let our readers know your background a little bit better — how did you get into filmmaking and when did you discover your love for it?
Tzang: I think I got into filmmaking purely by chance. When I was much younger, I just loved to imagine and put ideas down on paper. It need not necessarily come in the form of film; I read a lot of comics, but I also wrote and drew my own stories. Towards the end of my diploma course [Tzang is an alumnus of Ngee Ann Polytechnic Mass Communications, before pursuing a degree at Australia’s Curtin University] I had this idea to create something.
I told a few friends, we rented the school’s camera and… We just shot it. There was just the three of us and we didn’t even know what a producer does (laughs). I didn’t have that many friends. I was socially awkward and didn’t have that many friends to creatively bounce ideas off. Among the three of us , there was a half-Mexican girl, a Malay guy and me, I’m Chinese. So we always call ourselves the 3Ms – Mexican, Mat and Munjen team. So we decided, OK, let’s do something.
I called some other friends, she called her church friends, he called his friends and we had a meeting. We all sat in a circle, and we said: “We want to make a movie. We don’t know how to make a movie but we’re going to make a movie.” I sat them down and told them the whole story, which was written in script but I doubt they wanted to read the script.
The small group got excited and each person called their own friends. Before I knew it I had 30 people on set, everybody contributing their own wardrobe, props and all. We rented the school’s equipment, not quite properly. We asked the lecturer, who said he’ll think about it. And I told the equipment rental guy that the lecturer has endorsed our project. It was very crazy but we did it, and we shot it.
And that was my introduction to film, to my passion. I’ve always loved movies but I’ve never known that I would be making it. But through film I turned from being a socially awkward person to someone who managed to get things done with people. That film, e’TZAINTES, taught me a lot. And from there something got ignited, so I continued pursuing stuff like that.
Shooting began in 1999 on this Asian format called the Silver VHS. We only finished it in 2003. That was because I did not know how to make a film and was figuring things out along the way. We filmed for three weeks but only in 2001 did we have a first cut. We then added our own music and premiered it in January 2003. It’s really a labour of passion.
SINdie: Your difficulties back then were…
Tzang: At first it was starting out. It was not knowing anything. That makes us a little brave, but also a little stupid because we do not know what we cannot do or what is impossible to do. We just felt everything can be done. This ignorance made us a little delusional. But this delusion is the quality that actually got me quite — not knowing what really is impossible has driven me to constantly seek out things that are quite hard to do but I want to do. Not because of any demand or trend out there, but more because of the excitement and the challenge.
SINdie: Indeed, I mean, with A Wicked Tale. How do you feel about it being labeled the most f@%#-ed up Singapore film ever made?
Tzang: Philip Cheah [the former curator of the Singapore International Film Festival] said it, and he has his own brand of humour. I appreciate his kind of sense of humour, and you know what, I think I loved it. After he said it, I looked at him and said ‘wow’ and he said: “Yeah, rock and roll!”
SINdie: So you feel honoured.
Tzang: Coming from Philip, definitely. I know the context, what he was trying to say when he said it is the most f@%#-ed up film ever made. It’s quite cool. I did not intend for it to be a f@%#-ed up film, but one that explored the extremities of the human psyche. And I am happy people reacted to it. In many ways, in many countries, the best thing is seeing a creation of yours exist that was once a piece of imagination in my head.
SINdie: How did you come up with A Wicked Tale? Did you identify with some of the elements?
Tzang: I had an affinity with the Little Red Riding Hood story itself. When I was growing up I didn’t know there are darker versions of the story, for example the other Grimm Brothers version or the other French version that was way darker than the fairy tale version you read.
But even when I was reading the fairy tale, the glossed-up, nice, candy-coated one, I felt there was something very, very dark inside the fairy tale. It is the same with Sleeping Beauty, Jack and the Beanstalk, Beauty and the Beast. These are the stories which have so many subtext about human psychology that may be very difficult or wrong to put into words. So they put it into a story.
SINdie: And they mask it with a happy ending?
Tzang: Yeah – all those endings are very weird. Even the children’s version.
SINdie: While you were reading the tales you were growing up… You could see all this subtext even from a young age?
Tzang: Of course I didn’t have the words to put it into but I felt something was very wrong. Why is she doing this? Doesn’t she know it is not the grandma in her bed? It was somebody so hairy on the bed asking her to disrobe and step into the bed. And obviously, her voice. How dark can the room be with the voice? Was she really that stupid? Or was she really palying a game?
Look at this in real life. Is the game that little girls play when they start discovering they have a power over people who appear to be interested in them? It is a growing up thing, you know. Like the mindset of a little girl going through puberty. Suddenly I am a pretty attractive woman, so what can I do with this newfound power?
SINdie: Did you share these thoughts with anybody? Or were they internalised?
Tzang: You see, I was socially awkward. These are the kinds of things you don’t share, else people think you are weirder (laughs). You don’t say out everything that you think.
Society has taught me not to do that. So I expressed it through art, which somehow gave me the license to say things without actually saying it. I think what art has done for the human psyche and the human race is truly wonderful.
SINdie: Have you shared your drawings and stories with the world? Or did all those accumulate into experience you brought into your films?
Tzang: I’ve been asked this question before, but those drawings and stories are very personal. They are mine. They are the worlds that I have been to and from; maybe you can say that I have really been learning from them. But for me it was more of a space to go into. That space has helped me a lot personally and artistically. It is not that I am able to write technically or with a specific structure. It’s more of a streams-of-consciousness type of writing, which I am still doing now.
It helps me put into stories or drawings what is going on in my mind. Sometimes it is words with pictures, or pictures with words. Sometimes it is diagrams – anything. I don’t know if most people are able to understand it, but maybe only I can make sense of these things I draw.
SINdie: Where do you find your inspirations for all these? Are they all rooted in fairy tales?
Tzang: My inspirations change with time and age. It is as much in all these mediums that my inspiration lie, not just in film. My inspirations also come from comics, movies, music, paintings, digital art, graphic art. Even typography. It could even be done by somebody online whom I haven’t met. It need not even be a famous person or artist. If something has the ability to draw me in and I can see there is something more to it than just “a chair is a chair”, I can see a story and meanings and metaphysical aspects of it. These are my inspirations.
SINdie: So anything that may well seem random to an everyday person can resonate with you?
Tzang: Yes, really. They can appear anywhere and everywhere, not just in notable works.
SINdie: Any particular examples you feel comfortable sharing?
Tzang: When I was growing up, I loved bad movies. Like terrible movies.
There was this film called “Cry-Baby” (1990) with Johnny Depp before he did “Edward Scissorhands” (1990). Many years later as I became a film critic and a film lover and someone who studied film, I realised the film was done by a trashy director, John Waters, who is known for trashy movies. But this does not legitimise it in any way; at the time when I watched it I didn’t know. I just found it an incredibly funny, bad movie that hardly anyone knew about. I didn’t even know it was Johnny Depp but I felt it was freaking cool.
Another one in the “so bad it’s good” category is “Shake, Rattle and Rock”! (1994) which stars Renée Zellweger before she was Renée Zellweger. It was a really fun rock-and-roll movie set in the 1950s about kids who want to fight or debate for the right to rock and roll.
To me, though, these are very charming movies that I get a lot of satisfaction from and I feel something for. I dare say these are my inspirations alongside Kubrick and all the other greats.
SINdie: What different kinds of inspiration do you get from the greats as compared to the supposedly bad?
Tzang: There is no difference. Socially, in situations and parties, of course a lot of people like to have these names they can drop. But that is the only difference. When I was a younger filmmaker I got really frightened when people ask me who are my inspirations and who did I like. Maybe I was younger and I was still insecure, but I felt so worried that people might be going to judge me for my taste. But I’ve gotten past that.
Now even a Korean TV drama, or a single episode of Taiwanese ou xiang pian that I happen to chance upon while eating horfun at a coffee shop, and I watch that single episode, I can see some charm or beauty or genius into that. Oh but Channel 8 is still bad (laughs). The genius is not just a B-zombie movie, but can even be in a campy, cheesy ou xiang pian.
SINdie: How did Ngee Ann Poly’s Mass Comm help you become a better filmmaker?
Tzang: I think it was the environment. Back then I was still trying to find my calling and my area of specialisation. I loved design and was doing the school’s magazine. Being part of a team trained me to be a little entrepreneurial, to be part of a team that puts everything from start to finish and be responsible for the success or failure. Making decisions you have to be responsible for, really. That is helpful for a young mind who was just flying, floating and doing my own thing.
But all my real experience I had clocked when I was doing my own films, really. They taught me, in a deeper sense, how to be social (laughs). How to be entrepreneurial, how to communicate, how to sell ideas, how to present ideas. I have knocked on doors, approached bodies big and bodies small, institutions, corporations etc. All these have taught me more than any university or school can teach.
The hardship I faced as an independent filmmaker trying to make a feature film has taught me a lot in – long pause – the machinery, the commercial aspect of it in order for me to make works that are relevant to the industry. To be relevant doesn’t mean to sell out at the box office. Just relevant in a way I get to explore an angle to take my work out there such that it reaches more than just a small circle of people.
SINdie: What do you feel of the success A Wicked Tale has been generating abroad? Do you wish it can be translated back home?
Tzang: Oh yeah. But I am very impressed with A Wicked Tale. It has taken on a life of its own. I knew from the get-go, right from early on that it is a small film, a 45-minute film. A 45-minute film is not even supposed to be sold on DVDs or released commercially but it is (laughs). So that amazed me quite a lot. And (pause) I want to do more.
I hope for the audience to be there and for the world to see something different that can come from Singapore that is not predictable. We need that for the industry to grow.
SINdie: Did you watch the Hollywood version of Red Riding Hood? How do you think it compares with what you created?
Tzang: No comments (laughs heartily).
SINdie: But in a way you got there first —
Tzang: Not really; but I get a kick out of knowing that the director Catherine Hardwicke [she also directed Twilight (2008)] probably had watched my film as she did her research, because the pitch is very similar. The pitch of a dark, erotic Little Red Riding Hood, that is. But it is all right. My film is a small film and I know that. I am happy for a small film like mine to have gained a little bit of a cult following in Germany, a series of underground screenings in Canada. What more can I ask for?
SINdie: After A Wicked Tale you went on to make V1K1. How was that, considering that sci-fi is not a big thing here?
Tzang: It was very exciting. I was a part-time lecturer at ITE and my task was to work with students on any project. And I thought being on a film set would excite students. So why not just go all out and do something that could really test their limits? Especially for ITE; I think there is a whole underdog mentality going on there and a lot of exciting things to prove. This excites me.
I told the students our goal was to change people’s impressions of what they would normally think of an ITE production. It was my script and under my direction. But the student crew handled pre-production and casting, location scouting, wardrobe. I entrusted responsibility into these kids, a lot of them who were doing film for the first time. Half of them were Year Ones who had not even touched a camera before. Then I told them to turn a camera on. I told them: “Are you ready to shoot? It’s OK if you make a mistake but even so I am still going to use it. So try to make less mistakes.” (laughs).
That was the mindset I had. There are bound to be mistakes and I may not get what I want, but I need to use whatever I have gotten to fit something together. We did it. In post-production, we even had a student publicity team that did all the Youtube videos, that sort of thing. Everything was very beautifully put together.
SINdie: You’re trying to make a feature film. How is that coming along?
Tzang: Not easy, but actually really exciting. I’ve been through multiple ups and downs. Until you have made it you don’t know if you will make it — or the general public do not know that it is going to be done. I am now going through that phase. I mean, I have done stuff and presented my work but I am also about to do new things. The going about to do new things mean there are greater challenges in my way. They have put me down many times but this is simply something I feel I have to do. I used to say this: ‘Everybody has their own cross.’ I think my film is the cross the truth will carry.
SINdie: What about making a commercial mainstream film? Have you considered venturing down that path?
Tzang: ‘Commercial’ to me is not a dirty word, maybe it just means something that people will watch, enjoy and love. I see that as something that I am already doing, or that I am about to do. But of course the kinds of worlds I put people into are the kinds of worlds that people will go: “That one is commercial meh?”
People have an idea that there are two types of films in Singapore right now. First, the Eric Khoo/Royston Tan arthouse type of films which many young filmmakers aspire. Very budget-friendly, very attainable, has the narratives and the draw. Then there is the other way which has proven to be very successful in Singapore and Malaysia, which is the Jack Neo way. A lot of people think of ‘commercial’ as the Jack Neo way — “ha ha” humour. How Jack Neo does it is quite amazing. He manages to inject social issues within and make it commercial. But for the other less-funny kind people see it as uncommercial. But there is no such thing as two types of films, you know.
When Steven Spielberg made a movie about killer fish – doesn’t that sound like a B-grade movie?And now Jaws is considered a commercial success, but doesn’t the pitch about a killer fish that goes around killing people and people running around sound like a terrible movie? That is precisely the formula for a B-movie, a monster movie. We don’t need to stick to a type of formula; rather we need diversity. We need (pause) some form of craziness to come out. It was the same with V1K1. People said: “Why do you want to make a sci-fi film? What kind of budget do you have? What gave you the guts or the balls to try to make a sci-fi film?”
Yes going into V1K1 I knew we didn’t have the budget for a sci-fi film. It is not realistic and was going to look terrible. But remember the 1970s when technology and special effects were not so happening? We had bad effects yet we had stories people fell in love with. So what makes a sci-fi film. Is it the budget? The intonation? Just look at that and see what you can do, and just bravely set the world ablaze.
SINdie: How do you feel about yourself currently playing a part in inspiring a new generation of filmmakers? I mean, you’re lecturing and all.
Tzang: I really don’t know. I will leave my students to talk about that. But to me it is my privilege actually, to be able to share what I have. It means I have something worth sharing already. I didn’t have access to information and advice when I was starting out; I did not know who to approach at that time. So this gives me a chance to share the things I learn. But it always comes with a caveat, that what I’m sharing may not always be true because I am still learning. I always tell them: “What I’m sharing with you may not always be right because I am still learning. Maybe in six months I will come back and say, ‘hey, that was the wrong way’.” So we’re all learning and discovering all the time. I think that is how it should be for an emerging industry to stay healthy.
SINdie: I understand you’re directing a play as well. Quite a multi-hyphenate, aren’t you?
Tzang: Right, it’s really interesting and very experiential… This is my first play and let’s see what opportunities can await and what it allows for as well.
SINdie: What inspired you to diversify?
Tzang: Telling stories was my dream job from young, so the medium is not important so much as telling the story. But I’m trying to take things one at a time. I already have quite a few things in the pipeline. It is important to get things out right instead of planning too many things at the same time and each is not taken care of enough.
Film has become the main avenue that gave me the chance to be a storyteller. My dream is not so much the camera or that piece of celluloid. Rather, it is the stories and ideas that can be put out there. These are from all my heroes; the rock stars, musicians, music that I listen to. These ideas come from the heart and it’s out there. It means something to people, who live and swear by it, and love it. It helps them get through their lives. Music, comics, stories, fables and fairy tales that get passed down. These are the things I want to do. I want to tell stories.
SINdie: Concluding the interview is a question that has been a Lunchbox special. Would you starve for the sake of your art?
Tzang: Would I starve? I HAVE STARVED (laughs).
From 1999 to 2003 I was in NS, half-studying, working many jobs. I worked as a Gardenia mascot; I had to put on this bloody thing because I wanted some part-time job that did not require too much use of my brain. So I went to food fairs in this gigantic mascot shaking hands with kids, giving out bookmarks, getting hit by them. Many times I’ve quit my job for A Wicked Tale, for this feature film, to buy a little bit more time to put things together or get the right people together.
Again it is the cross you choose to carry. But this is not something I will recommend for anybody who is a budding filmmaker. Everyone has their own thing and it depends on what you want to do. For some people, if the film is a means to get a career in Hollywood – then do what is worthy of you to do. But for others, if the film is a means to gain honor or to say something of a forgotten culture, then that is your calling.
For me, a story lies in exploring things that haven’t been explored much. To ignite the imagination of people, or get into creating something that means something for people. This is the cross I am willing to carry and it doesn’t not make sense to me.
Trailer Central
Watch these trailers to whet your appetite on Tzang's works!
A very delayed and late review of some short film in 2011
Best of First Takes! I shall not delve into plenty of excuses such as I was
away for a short break in Dec and being overly caught up with Christmas, NYE,
and now CNY for that matter. Better late than never!
10 short films have been selected for the Best of First
Takes
There are some good ones, but alas with predictable
storylines that have been shot again and again such as An Unconventional Love
Story and Skate. Some have pretty interesting I have picked 3 of out of the 10
short films to review. Not necessarily the best, but the films where I have the
most ranting to blog about. They are:
Director and writer Stephanie Bousley shows off her talent
in writing dialogue in this short I make
T-shirts.
It is a fictional biography of Rick Shamus, who designs and
prints the ridiculous T-shirt designs like iPood etc. I especially love the
interviews, the voiceovers. The dialogues are extremely well written, and
delivered by the actors who made it believable.
Actors played off each other really well too. Chi Laughlin,
who plays Rick Shamus was great. Rick Shamus clearly believes wholehearted in
his business of designing T-shirt slogans that would sell. And he portrays to
the camera that he works hard in thinking of designs to put on a T-shirt.
Like Watson is to Sherlock to make any Sherlock detective
stories work, we are introduced to Shivani, the intern who provides a more in
depth perspective of Rick Shamus. Shivani, who was duped into the internship
was stuck with him internship because she had to fulfil her credits and also,
not to go crawling back to her family to complain about her situation. Through
the character Shivani, audience is introduced to the other side of Rick Shamus.
Humans usually like to think of themselves as hardworking, sensitive, sociable (insert
other positive adjectives here.) However, with Shivani, we are introduced to
Rick Shamus, the deluded slob who is utterly blindsided by his faith in his
designs.
What I love most is how tight the directing was. Paired with
cocky dialogue from Rick and theemptiness
in the scene like at the meeting with the investors (there was only one.)
showed the irony and the sad, sad world Rick Shamus leads.
I am really looking forward to more works from Stephanie!
Complacency
In light of the success of The Artist and the come back of
silent film, I thoroughly enjoyed Complacency.
Although lacking the finesse of The
Artist, Complacency embraces what
was so special and unique of black and white silent films then. The storyline
was absurd (how do you find a wooden well in the middle of a plain field in
Singapore? And also, such a husband who’s aim in the short was to please his
wife?), but comical. The exaggerated acting? Check. The cut to the frames and the text? Check.
Great attempt at exaggerated acting. This is one of my favourite scene as the husband tries to pull himself out of the well.
And the wife is still not happy he nearly died in the well trying to find out what she is satisfied in life.
However! There are still plenty of modern slipups in the
short. For instance, the scene is set in modern Singapore, where the 5 Cs
(Condo, Credit Card etc) are still prevalent. The fonts and the presentation of
the text are very modern. It irks me to see the text roll out alphabet by
alphabet, kind of like a Powerpoint Presentation.
Personally, I wished that they could have
put in more editing effort to make it more “realistic” even if the setting of
the short is in modern times. You can also see slipups in the take as well,
like when the well moved, you can almost see a hint of a pair of human feet as
the make-shift well lifts up. I would appreciate a little more directorial
effort to make it more seamless.
What was also clearly modern in this short was the movement of the camera. In those days, the camera was still while the actors moved within the frame. Closeups were never gradual as the technology were not to advanced then. But it is refreshing to see how the director played it up to their advantage to tell the story.
Overall, good effort in attempting at a black and white
film. Now, excuse me while I reload Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times on Youtube to reminiscence the good old era of B/W silent films...
Yours Truly
Yours Truly is a short directed by Kevin Chan. Set in Australia it
tells a devastating love story between Chris and Rachel. Ladies from Singapore
might be familiar with the actor playing Chris. He is Desmond Chiam, winner of
Cleo’s Eligible Bachelor in 2011.
The film shows mature editing and directing, utilizing cuts,
stills, close ups to tell the story. However, the short film reminds me too
strongly of this Korean music video “Kiss – Because I am a Girl” that I watched
many moons ago.
Of course, the
music video was not copied entirely. I chose to review this film because though
it did remind me of the music video, it was not as grossly self-sacrificial.
What I found in this short a kind of personal redemption
from the utterly ridiculous plotline of Because
I am a Girl. A brave take to another parallel universe of what
might-have-been. Although it still follows a cheesy pick up at the beginning of
the short where boy meets girl and they fall in love, they try to use a more
realistic take to what could have happened for the girl to lose and gain back
her sight.
The editing of the film however, falls back into a mini
music video where Chris discovers Rachel has tragically and very irresponsibly
left him via a letter in a box. The stills, edited into black & white, in
my opinion played no significance to the scene. Perhaps it could have been done
to play tribute to the music video it copied, or just done so to amplify
Desmond’s looks.
See what I mean? But anyway, somebody just offer this guy a role in some major Korean drama already! This fella literally eats up the camera. And I guess the director also realizes this and decided to milk it for all its worth. Hopefully in his next short he can explore something else rather than tragic romance. It's already overplayed in many Korean dramas for that matter.
That’s all for Best of First Takes 2011, and this is to a
very huat Dragon Year to all Sindie readers!
What happens when memories are packed up in boxes?
Paper Boxes is a short film that explores the notion of friendship, memories and growing up through the eyes of two best friends, just before one of them migrates to Australia. As they attempt to pack for the move, the girls have to discover for themselves if memories can indeed be packed up into boxes.
We speak to the creators of this short film Melinda Tan and Jia Jian about their film and their thoughts on making this.
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SINdie: Yes boxes are indeed a repository for memories. What inspired you to choose this visual image for your film?
Melinda: I have a box where I keep letters, cards and little gifts from friends over the years. As I went through the items one day, I was struck by the vividness of the memories that flooded my mind. These memories made me smile but were also tempered with a bittersweet sense of nostalgia, when I realised that I’ve lost contact with many of these childhood friends. As I spoke to more people, I found that many of them, like me, had a “box” (albeit in different forms) where they stored “memorabilia” from their childhood. This inspired me to write the script for Paper Boxes.
Jian: For me, ever since I relocated to Singapore for my studies and now, work, I am constantly on the move, shifting in and out of hostel rooms and temporary apartments. Hence, the image of a packing box, which features prominently in the film, has an added poignancy for me, and was something I was able to identify with readily in the script. What do I take with me and what do I ultimately leave behind with each move? Memories exist in the things we choose to keep.
What kind of memories are talking about here?
Melinda: Memories of moments spent with friends, be it a long-forgotten adventure, a shared secret or joke, or even promises of staying “best friends forever”. When we look back at our youth with the lens of an adult, it is often these simple, seemingly uneventful lost moments, that make us ache a little inside.
Many films are about friendship. What's special about this one? Why was it a film that needed to be made?
Melinda: There are many stories told about friendship but the treatment for each of them is different. In Paper Boxes, Sabrina and Michelle are two best friends at a crossroad in their friendship. We wanted to capture a slice of that moment, with its underlying, unspoken mixed feelings of optimism and uncertainty. Being a character, rather than plot-driven film, our aim was for Paper Boxes to be a simple story, well-told.
What were some of the things you learnt about friendship and memories as you made the film?
Melinda: Working on the film made me reflect on the fragility of friendships. Sometimes, despite our best intentions to keep in touch, there comes a point where we may drift apart from certain friends, simply because our lives, goals and dreams have become so different as we grow up. Past shared memories alone cannot sustain a friendship. It requires the hard work of constantly creating new memories together.
Jian: Agreed. What I found close to my heart for this shoot was actually the process of the whole production itself. As much as we were encapsulating memories and friendships in a film, being on set with friends who are fellow nuSTUDIOS (a student film production house at the National University of Singapore Centre For the Arts) alumni, was in a way, a form of memory creation in itself. Similar to how many of us meet up for dinners with old schoolmates, this production was like a reunion "meal" for us.
Anything interesting or amusing happened during the shoot?
Melinda: Jian is Malaysian so he doesn’t actually read, speak or understand a lot of Chinese, which was the language that was used predominantly in the film. Even though we knew that working with the language barrier would not be easy, we both agreed that the film would work better in Chinese. So on set, Jian had to rely on a specially-prepared script which included the English, Chinese, and Hanyu Pinyin versions of the script! Listening to Jian trying to pronounce the Chinese lines turned out to be quite an amusing experience for the crew. (But I dare say his Chinese has improved a lot since the production!)
Jian: Another amusing incident was when we had a problem “taming” the hair of Foo Fang Rong, one of our actresses. She had a fringe which covered her eyes and we wanted to keep it up so that it wouldn’t be too distracting in the film. Unfortunately, it appeared resistant to any form of product. Our stylist Kate Lim used wax on it at first, but on close-up, we later discovered that we could see white bits of dried wax in her hair. Other products made her fringe clump up, falling unnaturally. We ended up having to wash the products out of her hair and restyling it before each shot.
What were some of the greatest challenges you faced in producing this?
Melinda: Paper Boxes was our first independently-produced short film. So while our previous films produced under nuSTUDIOS received funding from the NUS Centre For the Arts, this film was completely self-funded. Despite the limitations in our budget, we were adamant that production values of the film would not be compromised. As such, we had to be very strategic with how we spent our funds. Thankfully, we had such immense support from the people around us. We managed to borrow a camera and some equipment from friends, had relatives who allowed us to shoot in their house, and very talented friends who believed enough in us and the project to crew for us. We were also given much support from nuSTUDIOS, which also had some of their committee members on our set as crew. It was a very humbling experience, and we owe them all a debt of thanks.
Jian: Our other big challenge was having to work around our crew’s full-time day jobs and conflicting schedules to make this film. In order to minimize the demands on cast and crew’s time, we made the decision to complete principal filming for the film within one weekend, which as you can imagine, meant much stress and very little sleep for the both of us in the weeks leading up to shoot. We took 6 months to develop the script, and another 6 months for pre-production. Post-production, which involved editing sessions that commenced at the end of our work day till midnight, took us another year. Our editor, Derek Tan, travels a lot for work, so editing sessions had to be arranged around those periods. Looking back, pulling through late nights with work the next day was exhausting, but it was definitely worth it.
What's your personal favourite scene in the film? Why?
Melinda and Jian: We will cheat a little and say we love the last two scenes best (but no spoilers here). We were moved by the performances of the three actresses, Kelly Lim, Foo Fang Rong and Victoria Chen. They captured the emotions needed in the the scene(s) beautifully.
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To stay in touch with this film and know where you can catch it, check out its Facebook Page here.
