Father's Devotion

This is the shoot I was in, for Cine65 Season IV - an annual short film competition in Singapore - produced by a bunch of Temasek Polytechnic students. This year's theme is "Home Truly". I love this production because it gave me the chance to both act and sing. Wonderful. The title could well have been "Flamingo Once More", given the character's fond memories of the nightclub where he used to sing.
[Spoi l e r    A  l  e   r   t   !   !   !    ]

For other productions that I also sang in, click here.

The original story was of a middle aged man resisting his son's application to emigrate for a better life elsewhere,  as he  loves his little daily joys living in Singapore.

On hindsight, I think the new story is better - less in-the-face and more genuine about what a 'home truly' constitute. Okay, I won't spoil the show for you yet. Let's watch it first..,

 . .

The crux of the story is that, though the father is in a state of dementia, he resists to be put in an institutionalised home, and insists (though through his illusion) on providing for his family by singing at the Flamingo Club. The subtext here is that: to him a home is not just a roof over the head, but a place where love is. And he defends to stay put at where love is.

As an actor, my challenge was to seamlessly go in and out between the illusory and the lucid mind of the character. That is, of his obsession to support the family and of his fond memory of his wife, versus the present realities. These moments were interspersed between the lucidity of recognising the daughter and then forgetting her in a fleeting moment.

Dementia patients must be exhausted everyday just trying to catch up with themselves and their fleeting short term memory. Acting as the character itself makes me understand and empathise with them and their caregivers more.

So keep your mind positively occupied folks. Mental health is prime.

This is the third time I am acting as a person with dementia. For more, click here.

This is my first time acting with Carin Koh, a Mandarin theatre trained actress. She is amazing, being able to deliver the emotions and cry on cue. I love her diction.

The director chose the songs I happen to use in the audition. There were no rehearsals after that  prior to the shoot. The guitar and singing were recorded at a HDB void deck immediately after the principal photography. There was no time to do it properly in a studio. And the editor had only two days to finish everything after that.

I think it all turned out well. I am impressed! :)

Oh, incidentally something very special happened after the shoot. To find out, click here.

Wrap And Jam

I love singing and acting, so last Thursday was splendid, as I did both for the Cine65 Film Competition.

After the shoot wrapped, on the way to quench my thirst with some Teh Tarik across the road, I saw a Malay guy playing the guitar and singing outside a Malay barber shop. Next to him was an Indian man and an Indian lady listening. As it is rare to see anyone playing guitars and singing in open spaces these days (thanks to karaokes and smartphones), I decided to stop and watch. Consequently, I couldn't resist the fun and sang along.

The Malay guy was delighted that I joined in, and after he finished with his song,  passed his guitar to me to play. And so I did. Then, we took turns to play the guitar and sang songs of our  choice - mostly those from The Bee Gees, The Everly Brothers and The Beatles era. It was surreal.

Passers-by were amused. Most of them smiled in support, some waved to us, a few stopped and some sat near us to watch. Some sang along after warming up. The spontaneity was priceless. It reminded me of the good old days, when people took their guitars out after work and neighbours passing by jammed in, some meeting each other for the first time. Friendships were forged like that then. During the good old days, we did not have the Internet and smartphones. Life was much slower and informal. Meeting the neighbours and community was impromptu. Then, we had more time to do so.

After our jamming session, the Malay chap invited me to his future fortnightly jams at the coffeeshop in the Bedok North neighbourhood, just a block from where we sat. I gladly accepted and am looking forward to it.

This could well be an inspiration for a short film script. I will keep you updated.

More about the coffeeshop jam in a fortnight's time.

I had a few other gigs that had singing. Click here.

Watch the short film that was made on that day, click here.

17th LTA Singapore's Annual Safety Award Convention.

I performed this with the staff of SK Construction, as part of the 17th LTA Singapore's Annual Safety Award Convention (ASAC) at the Singapore Polytechnic Convention Hall on the 15th of September 2015. It was also the first time that I am singing on stage. The script and rehearsals are organised and supervised by Sundance-Sahara, an events company in Singapore.

In this gig, I am a civil engineering project manager for the SMRT Downtown Line tunneling project, what I actually studied for in real-life during my university and polytechnic days. During those good old days, I was also part of the Singapore Polytechnic Welfare Services Club which served welfare homes every weekend. It was also the time when I started performing several sobbing stories on stage to recruit student volunteers. That was thirty-seven years ago! Yes, you read it right.  Time flies.

This looks so last century isn't it? lol

This is an old sketch performed in 1978. It opens with the song, "Now the story starts with a family: father, mother and their five children...". We composed the lyrics to tell the story of broken homes, broken families and social issues. :)

During those days, facilities were not as brilliant, so we had to improvise and stack tables up in a tiny lecture theatre to build a stage. Now, fast forward four decades and we have  a full fledged glamorous convention hall built on the same spot we used to have our makeshift concerts.

The worksite dining room as the rehearsal hall.

Now back to the present....

All the actors in this gig are real construction workers and a very enthusiastic bunch. For them, it was a pleasant break from their daily routine. We had many rehearsals together, and that was by itself, very different from my usual gigs elsewhere.

Backstage - waiting for our turn.

On the day of the performance, civil engineering and acting came and met one full circle for me. It was a surreal and nostalgic experience. I am thankful for the experience.

The rehearsals...

PS 1: I have also performed in other community gigs, like the SAMH Charity Dinner 2014, but I do not have the video. Will search them up...

PS 2: A Hokkien Rap for Safe Sex Education. Click here.

Super Sexy HIV Awareness Video

"It's hard to concentrate with you girls slithering around me. Do you mind?!"

This video is not an award winner, well not yet anyway, but it garnered more than 100,000 hits, in less than one month, since it was uploaded in YouTube. There must be something  that the Orientals know better than Westerners about promoting HIV awareness with just the right titillation, adopting the Traditional Chinese Medicine philosophy of 'using poison to fight poison'. This one does that, by using sex to promote safe sex.

By award winning director Royston Tan.

The song is sung by the Baobei Sisters (Babes in the City) in the Southern Chinese dialect of Hokkien, the lingua-franca of the man in the street in Malaysia and Singapore, especially of those who frequent sleezy bars. It advocates the use of the 'rubber' to protect the body and not to neglect oneself out of mischievous novelty.

Call time for this shoot was especially early at 6.30am, just as the real karaoke girls were going home from the night's work. They didn't look very healthy in the open under bright lights, so I was glad when these gorgeous dancing girls  turned up to do their numbers for this clip.

Both myself and the co-actor were only given about 3 days to memorize the rap in Hokkien and then mime it during the shoot, followed by additional dialogue recording thereafter where we have to sing the rap.

In all, it was all great fun and all for a good cause. And besides the dancing girls, I really love the street culture kitsch! :)