Teaching Drama

Children are lovely. Along with puppies, kittens and flowers, they are my window to the divine. 

That said, teaching 36 children speech and drama ain't heaven, especially if it was to jump start  them into acting, compiling their own script and performing within five hours. Coming back from a photography assignment in Malaysia in the wee hours of the same morning with the class starting at 8 am, didn't help either.

And of course these little tots were no angels. Much of the time, they were running around and chatting away incessantly. Kids will be kids. With their boundless energy expanding into their everlasting bliss, they love taunting their teacher to see how far they can get away with and push the limits - ironically, the kind of attitude we want our artists to be. So I guess they were off to a good start.

The training started with the usual (physical) warming up exercises, then acting exercises to get them to move, to focus on different parts of their body and to reflect on how they felt while doing so. This I feel is an important exercise, as students are rarely taught to interprete their feelings elsewhere in the mainstream curriculum, if at all. Next, I got each one of them to take turns to stand in front of the class to introduce themselves. That way, they were compelled to project their voices to the back of the class where I moved the rest of their classmates to.

After that they were to act according to how they were inspired from pictures randomly picked from a bag.

The highlight of the class was when they were split into six groups to write their own script, do their own rehearsals and then ultimately presenting their performance. Here, I was really impressed with their creativity, resourcefulness and enthusiasm. Surprising considering their initial boisterous reception to their teacher. :)

In the end, they all said that they love the experience and had learned a few things!!! Five hours weren't enough time to make anyone an expert drama artiste, but judging from their enthusiasm, I think they were inspired.

That done, I had to rushed for my train to go to my next assignment, which was a union corporate training video complete  with long collective bargaining dialogues and union jargon. That was another grueling three-day shoot, and another story for another post.

Amid laid-back kampong (village) charm before landing in Singapore for the drama class with 36 boisterous kids!

Reminisce

REMINISCE from Tan Jiahui on Vimeo.


Cast: Michael Chua & Teh Siew Peng
Make-up & logging: Felicia Quah
Sound direction & Editing: Vivian Koh
Cam & Gaffer: Mark Wee
Direction of Photography: Choo Han Pin
Written, Produced and Directed by Tan Jiahui


"For my Grandfather.
May you rest in peace." Jiahui

If you have felt the depressive monotony, but yet lightened by the token surprise at the end, then the film would have done its magic in its brief three minutes.

Marriage comes as a package. The person we love and marry will one day die and leave us, no matter what. Reminiscence of old times is sweet, but it robs us of the present. 

This is personal project of Jiahui. The script is in Hokkien, a southern Chinese dialect from the Province of Fujian, now not commonly spoken by young people in Singapore. Production took half a day (including the makeup) sometime last year (2011), amid the backdrop of the mildly quaint JTC apartment blocks in Jurong, west side in Singapore. 

This is the first time I am playing such an advanced age. It makes me reflect about life and how I would rather choose to live happier times in my later years.

Rapid Ageing in Progress...

For more Hokkien stuff, click here.

Robert Redford Interviews

Here are some very useful points for producers, directors, cast and crew alike, to ponder (the bullet points in blue are my views):

Fame - that can lead you to be treated like an object, then make you behave like an object, then ultimately, becoming an object

• That's why we see some good actors dropping out abruptly after they reached 'stardom', as they shifted their focus to fame and decadent lifestyles, instead of their craft.

On picking a winner - that you can't apart from believing in the story of the character and do your best.

• That actors should remember that ultimately it is the script that counts and their own performance is what they have control over. We don't really know whether it will work with the audience or not until the film is screened. Film producers and investors ought to take note of this.

That he has not seen some of his own films, because of the belief of not looking back to his past as he doesn't want it to affect his future performance.

• This means not to be obsessive about the past. Enjoy it, but move on.

That he is selective and tough on what he wants to do.

• All too often, I see actors accepting any gig that comes by, without regard for what they really want to do. This is largely due to the fear of not being able to get enough gigs to make ends meet. However, fear is not going to get us anywhere we want in life. The result of such actors is that they become typecast to do many minor/extra roles, then find it hard to get out of their stereotype cast.
• The British actor Anthony Hopkins once said that he chooses  roles that gives him the opportunity to impress the audience.

That he didn't want to be merely a part of that representing something, but be something in a script. For that he asked for his character in "The Way We Were" to be modified to reflect that. He didn't want to be merely be a handsome model waiting for the girl to fall in love with.

• He put this very delicately. What he probably meant was that he didn't want to be just another 'pretty face'. All too often we see films filled with handsome actors just to cover up shallow characters existing in an empty plot with poor dialogues.
• A nice pair of legs can only walk you this far, after that you really need to perform. :)

Small films can be fun. They are simple to manage, not mired by bureucracy and big technologies like helicopters and cranes, that take the soul out of film making.

• And while some in Singapore moan about the small projects that are available here, being small can be beautiful. There is more room for creativity. Props, attire and movements can be decided on the go, if desirable, without having to fight the armies of different art directors, prop designers, costume designers, makeup artists, choreographers...etc. When too much money is at stake, spontaneity often has to give.
• As it is small, it is not viciously competitive and so everyone are friends and  here for the love of it. There are not many workplaces where you can find everyone there out of passion. So enjoy the small ones before the big ones take the innocence out of you. :)

That Sundance Film Festival is a commitment that took longer time that he expected to establish, but it is something that he wants to put back into the industry.

• We can give back to the industry in smaller ways if we are not up to starting something big. For starters, we can help out in student films.

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Cigar

. .

Title: Cigar (10-minutes)
Script Writer/Director: Raven Navaro, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA)
Actors: Michael Chua, Jack Ngu, Esther Low.
Production date: 17 April 2012.

This is a final year project of Raven Navaro, from NAFA. I accepted this role in part to support a student project  and also because I like the character of the emotionally beaten up cynic who expresses his romantic jeopardy eloquently using the metaphor of cigars.

I had only one day to memorize and internalise the script and the whole ten-minute film was shot in six hours in a pub in Little India, Singapore. It didn't help that the location was available one hour late, to start off with. 

Eventually, we overran by two hours to the dismay of the pub owner, who was also upset that we smoked in his premises - something he thinks is illegal in Singapore - which could well be a mere paranoia, as a pub is not a 'pub' (or 'public house' in full) until it is opened to the public. Indeed,  a uniquely Singaporean argument through and true, one that is self-regulating and self-censuring with a blind obedience to the law. 

This film is about the main character Matthew, played by yours truly, who has just broken up with his girl friend, only to stumble onto an attractive young lady in the pub who was irritating him with her cigar smoke. As it turned out, the young lady was lighting the cigar as a sign of respect and remorse for not being able to safely deliver a baby and that the baby finally died the day before. 

As he found out later that she is a doctor and her reason for lighting up, he felt embarrassed and apologised, thereby turning the unfriendly and accidental encounter into a blossoming romance. That in part facilitated by the bartender who brought the two together to rekindle, while keeping the distance and etiquette that bartenders are not to interfere with the private affairs of customers.

In the end, just out from a failed relationship, Matthew felt cold feet at the prime time to commit his love for the young lady and brought the otherwise happy relationship to an abrupt end. Instead, he lays the blame on a Goddess that he thinks exists in the pub who is jealous and loves putting any romance that happens in the pub to disappear just like his cigar smoke.

PS.

By the way, did I look miserable enough to play the role of the heartbroken Matthew? :)
I normally do not smoke, but did this only for the purpose of the shoot. Esther (playing the lady character) on the other hand, was enjoying her cigar away!

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Crimewatch 2011 Episode 6

Crimewatch (since 1986), produced by:
National Crime Prevention Council, Singapore and Singapore Police Force.
Original Broadcast Channel: Mediacorp TV

This episode was shot last summer.


In this scene, I was coached by the director Joey Cheung, to blow my top and be fuming mad about the club premises being broken in for 3 times in a month. Sporting that formidable beard helped in looking angrier than the character actually was. The beard was a remnant from a feature film character (in "Back Alley Bulls") where I played the role of a big time gangster.  It was not a requirement for this club manager role. :)


This angry scene was there  to allow the investigating officers to exercise restrain and the opportunity to demonstrate to the audience, their patience in dealing with the difficult members of the public they meet sometimes. The two investigating officers in the scene are real police officers and were surprisingly soft spoken. Actually too soft spoken for the sound man to pick up their dialogues! :) I don't know if that is their normal pitch in an actual crime scene or was it that they were new with acting in front of a camera and crew. :) Anyway, we had to repeat the take a few times. It was ok, they are police officers, not actors, and one of them is on air only for the first time.

The story is about a real life single-mum, Ng Bee Hong, who was given a job at the club as a cashier but was tempted to steal the money, foolishly thinking that there will not be enough audit trails to nail her down quickly. What was more silly was that she even took her daughter to commit the crime together. The story ended with the police cornering and arresting them in their apartment  in the presence of her lived in boyfriend, who was also living off the finances of the wrong-doing Bee Hong.  Bee Hong was sentenced to 26 months jail, the boy friend to 3 months jail and the little girl let off without a charge given the circumstances.

This  real life story is one of the cases that the two investigating officers (that you see in the video) handled. Kudos to them. By the way, investigating officers lead very busy lives. I know that through my time teaching them in the Advanced Diploma in Police Studies at Temasek Polytechnic some years ago. 


So the next time you have to meet an investigating officer in a scene, be nice to them, don't blow your top like how Mr Wong did!

Let us know if you are a film producer, director, actor,... or just someone interested in films,... in the survey, so it will help us to post articles of more pertinent issues.

The Pupil Season 2 - Episode 10

The Pupil, by Film Formations
Executive Producer: Lee Thean-Jeen
Original Broadcast Channel: Mediacorp Singapore Channel 5

I enjoyed watching Season 1 of the Pupil so much that I ended up playing a part in Episode 10 of Season 2, as the taxi driver key witness, sometime July 2011. So be careful with what you think, for they will come true.

During the shoot, I was overworked and down with a mild flu, and so was struggling to remember my lines. At those very critical moments, all I really wanted was just to close my eyes and sleep, but no, the show must go on. It is very important to be reliable and committed as an actor to perform, in sickness or in health. That said, I see one too many young upstarts foolishly giving that away, pulling out of shoots just a day before, or even not turning up at all!

In the story, Mr Chua's part was to blurt out the tell-tale signs of homicide he witnessed while ferrying  Regina Toh (played by Mindee Ong) in his taxi, back to her apartment after she had killed the flamboyant stud and blackmail artist Wayne (played by Benny Soh). The hearing was cross-examined by the defence lawyer Wendy (played by Rebecca Lim) and  SPP Vivienne Lau (played by Vernetta Lopez).

The courtroom was a mock-up of freshly lacquered plywood props, as the real old Supreme Court was going through renovations. I can sympathise with the cast and crew for having to work in the closed circulation of intoxicating lacquer for such prolonged hours. Also, a few times during my takes, the fake window frames fell off. But those were no show stoppers - just some inadvertent comic reliefs! 

I have not updated this blog for the last four weeks because I was busy on set and also was looking for a video editing tool to cut out clips to be uploaded here. So, here it is.


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Smell

After a busy month of shoots, now it's time to clear the laundry! The maid complained that they are dirty and even smelly! Quite embarrassing, but not entirely my fault really. Productions have costumes, but there are times when the directors prefer something different during production. So, I usually ask what is needed the day before and bring a few sets of clothes. Some shoots are long and stretch for weeks and  the same clothes have to be kept in the same conditions for weeks for the need of continuity. 

Fortunately, cameras cannot smell. Imagine if it can, we will need an odour designer, on top of the sound designer, set designer, costume designer...etc. Then, further to the shout out of "silence on set" before slate, we will probably need a shout out (by a smell-recordist) to the effect of, "all other smells neutralised...", or better yet, "...all smelling good!". Then, ambient  smells,  prop smells,  costume smells, ...etc.will have to be closely monitored and managed. Quite a job!

But this will add yet another dimension to even the advance 3D cameras. 'Smell' will be an opportunity for film-makers, advertisers and web-designers to evoke emotions that will cause literally compulsive response. That is a new frontier that can spearhead new trends in online marketing, online games, movies and even remote aromatherapy healing.

Scripts will have to carefully consider the odours they intend to write into their story. For instance, smells picked up at the crime scene can be useful subtle hints for the audience to explore the riddle of "who has done it"!

This is not too far fetched as it sounds as the technology is already here. 'Scentography' experts claim that they are able to encode digital odours as digital data and then play them back as smells. It is possible to generate billions of odours by blending different proportions of 100 to 200 'scent primaries'; just as a computer monitor can display millions of colours by mixing different proportions of red, green and blue. For more information about 'odours', click here and here.

And all these are not entirely new. In the late 1950s, Americans were treated to "Behind the Great Wall", a documentary employing 72 scent cues, ranging from nightclub smoke to Oriental spice, synced to scents pumped through the theater's ventilation system and dispensed from under each theater seat.

With the advent of technology, film making can only get more interesting! :)

With 3D cameras and smell capture, the next seemingly immutable dimension would be 'time'. Can we stretch and compress time when we tell the story, just like when we are in a dream? Can the audience be made to experience that time drags on slowly in painful hard times in the story? And so much faster in happier times? Can we? That is, barring the use of drug induced hallucinations! :)