Jasmine

This is a short story of a taxi driver uncle and his tipsy girlfriend from China, heading for the local "mama shop"; thereafter giving the mama a difficult time and making a mess of his place.

"Mama shops" are the little Indian neighbourhood convenient stalls commonly found in Singapore. "Mama" means 'uncle' in Tamil.

This is a fun 4-minute video, directed by Dylan Tan and Caleb Lee as the DP.

The shop has character, complete with real Indian flower garlands. Nothing there were film props! :)

As luck had it, while we were filming, there was another show going on nearby - a getai - a street concert staged during the Chinese Seventh Month Hungry Ghost Festival. Isn't the cultural diversity wonderful in Singapore? :)

Capturing clean sound was hell though! 

And here is everyone in the team...



I will post the finished works here when it is available. Watch this space. Or you can follow this blog by email and you will be informed of any updates.

Kopi-O Kosong

This a film made under Singapore's Cine65 Mentorship Programme 2014, where four scripts are chosen among many applications. Each group of students is to produce a film that expresses the Singaporean identity, mentored by an industry veteran.

Kopi-O Kosong is a Singaporean term for Black Coffee without milk and sugar. There are plenty of variations as to how you want your coffee to be in Singapore. It is quite involved and complicated and would require a separate post altogether.

Here is the short film...

My Wine Kaki This Week

Kaki means 'leg' in Malay. However, "Wine Kaki" does not mean 'Wine Leg', but 'Wine Buddy'. Similarly, "Hentak Kaki" does not mean 'Shock Leg', but about one 'hitting the glass ceiling'. Wine making is my other love next to acting and film making. :)

This week, I share my grape wine with my friend Gillian Tan at Tiong Bahru, after the shoot for the Singapore Writer's Festival's "Tin Kosong", directed by Saniff Olek.

Here's a trailer of Utter 2014, which "Tin Kosong" is part of.



Watch this space for the next edition of "My Wine Kaki This Week!"

Speak Good English Movement

My blog post "Slang, Lingo and Colloquialism" has got me invited to the launch of the "Speak Good English Movement" on the 28th May 2014. The Movement, probably unique to Singapore, emphasizes the use of proper standard English. 

Singapore is a country comprising many races, languages and dialects. When I was a kid, I spoke mostly Chinese dialects, no Mandarin and some English and Malay. Fast forward forty years and the government had since rationalised the Chinese language to mean Mandarin and the common language among all races to be English. However, given the interesting cocktail of languages spoken locally, English as it is spoken soon slipped sloppily into Singlish. And now Singlish has taken into a life on its own and by its current form has already become mostly unintelligible to foreigners. This is what got the government worried and hence, the Movement.

I have lived and worked in Europe, Africa, Australia and different parts of Asia. For me then, it was essential to speak a form of English that is understood by everyone - sometimes I even slow down and pick simpler words when I communicate with non-native speakers.

However, when it comes to films, the debate is not just whether it should merely communicate with the  audience, but also portray the culture as it is - untainted.

The argument is whether standard English, or for that matter, standard Mandarin, or any other standard languages ought to be used instead of their localised forms. Recently, a seasoned film maker told me that any film made strictly in any standard language will not be watched by many people because nobody speaks purely in any standard language in real life. He cited that even Hollywood films do not speak standard English, but their own form including many slangs and colloquialisms.

I do agree, but I think Hollywood also knows that if they do go overboard with their slangs and colloquialisms, then they are also likely to lose their audience. So I suspect that they do choose their words carefully to portray the local culture but also to make sure that they are intelligible to non-native speakers.

I guess the secret lies in the balance. That is, what language subsets should I use such that I project the local culture while I make the film understood by the critical mass. And it will be a bonus, if the lingo chosen, though not universal, would sound catchy and smooth enough to start a new trend.

Film Review - Filial Party

I managed to squeeze some time out today to watch "Filial Party", as I have promised Boris Boo, the director, that I will do so.

I was suitably entertained by the well researched local stories that I think the heartlanders and common people in Singapore would relate very well to. They are little stories surrounding parents, children's emotional baggage of their parents passed and living, money, materialism, middle-age joblessness, old age senility, extra-marital affairs... etc.  All told through big comedy expressions popular in Malaysia and Singapore.

In think Boris' jokes are a little more subtle and less slapstick as those of Jack Neo, a local film maker who has consistently scored at the box office.  I like the dialogue of mixed languages of English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Malay and Tamil - that offers the feel of street level Singapore. However, I wonder if those outside Malaysia and Singapore would be able to follow the dialogue or would find the linguistic cocktail amusing enough to embrace. For more about the use of standard language or otherwise, click here.

In short, the story is about a reality show that requires its participants to demonstrate their filial piety to their parents - in the process going through the sub-plots of sob stories and dilemmas - many of which question the moral fabric of today's society.

Lastly, like many other local productions, product placements are strong in this movie and one can certainly be forgiven for thinking of it as a Prudential Show at some point. A bit of subtlety would have been helpful, as research shows that subliminal advertising is way more effective. Perhaps the sponsors did not see it that way.

Overall, I think the movie is much better than what was said in the Straits Times film review. I like my film to both entertain and inspire, and that I think "Filial Party" has achieved!

How many star rating?

I don't know. I never believed in stars.

Slangs, Lingo and Colloquialism

Recently, I sent a letter to the Straits Times Life, about the use of standard English in films. The letter, edited for brevity, is published as follows:

As in most articles edited for brevity, some interesting details are lost. So, here you are... the original letter:

Dear Sir/Madam

I refer to the letter by Mr Yeoh Teng Kwong, of the above-mentioned reference.

I agree with Mr John Lui about promoting local music and films. I also agree with Mr Yeoh about producing art with universal appeal and standard English to reach a wider audience.

I know this because I have acted in the lead role of two short films that have gone viral on the Internet.

The first one "Hentak Kaki", about an army Warrant Officer hitting his glass ceiling due to his knee injury, was scripted in a typical Singapore Armed Forces lingo. It speaks to all male Singaporeans instantly and went viral as they can identify deeply with every word spoken. It has a combined online hit rate about 200,000 hits. This is a good score considering that local  full feature film trailers with a significant marketing budget barely hit 50,000 hits. However, I suspect that because of the very localised lingo, the film did not travel much beyond Malaysia and Singapore, even though the film expresses issues that are common in any army in the world.

The other short film that has gone viral is "Gift", which is a story about a misunderstood father and his disgruntled son. This film has a combined online hit rate of about 5 million hits and counting. Besides South East Asia, USA and Europe, the film has gone viral in far away and exotic places like Brazil, Ukraine, Russia, Croatia,...etc. Moreover, we are also getting a spontaneous response from audience from all over the world volunteering to translate the subtitles into their native languages as they want to make the film more accessible to a yet wider audience. Incidentally, the film uses standard English. :)

"Gift" is so successful that I am now getting calls to give talks in schools, to act in foreign feature films and from investors who want to produce feature films of a similar story line between a father and his son.

Below are the links to the two films, so that you can experience them for yourself.

"Hentak Kaki"
http://youtu.be/TukUlXU6P84

"Gift"
http://youtu.be/1DUYlHZsZfc

Further, another short film worth studying would be "Detour", which I acted in and had won a handsome swoop of four categories for the Best Director, Best Script, Best Performance and Best Fiction awards at the recent 5th Singapore Short Film Awards 2014. The film uses Hokkien, with one or two English words. The full film is not online yet as it is making its rounds in the film festival circuits, but a trailer is available at:

http://youtu.be/XvgMSX5XH90

I think films with universal values travel, but films with mainstream languages travel further. Let's see. The jury is still out there.

Michael Chua

5th Singapore Short Film Awards 2014 - "Detour"

"Detour" won the Best Fiction, Best Director, Best Performance (Michael Chua, Presley Lim & Yolby Low) and Best Script awards in the 5th Singapore Short Film Awards 2014.

Written/Directed by Michael Kam
Produced by Mabelyn Ow
Shot by Amandi Wong
Edited by Alicia Lim 

The judges felt that the film stands out for Iits economy of dialogue, the development and movement of the scenes, and the wonderful acting.  They also said that the director had led the development of the story and cast very well particularly in a sensitive topic like this one involving children.

For more about "Detour", click here.

The list of the other winners should probably be up soon at The Substation's website (www.substation.org).

This is my second time winning the Best Performance Award.

The other one was in the 3rd Singapore Short Film Awards 2012, via the short film "Hentak Kaki". See here

When the results was announced, I was a little surprised at winning the Best Performance this time round, as there were a few other nominees whom I felt had delivered their role very well.

Thinking it through later, I suspect that it was probably the chemistry among the three of us in the cast that made us win.
So directors out there, do look out for the chemistry among your actors. It was also a major factor how  "Hentak Kaki" won.