Major Detour

Since the last time I wrote in here, it's been a really hectic & tiring month. We have been preparing to shoot our short film 'Dollhouse' in early December.

And we've just finished shooting 'Dollhouse' on Sunday. Yay!

So how is this in relation to 'Exposed!'? A lot!

• Shooting 10 screen pages a day, complete with perfect lighting & involving multiple scenes, is pretty much impossible.
  
• We'd better get people to take care of art direction, wardrobe, props &... food! We can't possibly be able to handle everything ourselves and expect perfect results. But we'll have to worry about costs.
  
• Think of the post-production solution waaaay in advance. Especially shooting on HDV... 720p or 1080i at 30, 25 or 24 frames, etc. Currently not all editing systems support all these different formats. Yes, it sucks! Also, whether you're going to put the stuff back onto 16 or 35mm film... the list goes on.
  
• Time... have lots of it as much as possible for the pre-production process. This probably ties in with having enough people to work on the project. We didn't have the luxury of having assistants helping out during the pre-production period. What happens is, at 2 am in the morning on the last day of our shoot, we are still preparing props. Exhausted is just a mild word to describe our state of mind.
  
• Storyboard is extremely helpful. It communicates so visually, as a film should be, what the story looks like. It helps to come out with the imagery so that everyone, especially the camera & lighting people, will have a very clear idea of what the director is looking for. Afterall, most people watch movies, not read the scripts!

A little update about "Exposed!" before I end this entry:

We're thinking of casting a wider net (across Asia) in search of an actress for our main lead. We also thought that we probably have to extend the filming days to 15-20 days. So all these add up to more cost.... and we wonder when this film will get made!

Taking Shape

We've been meeting so many people! This week alone, we've practically at least a meeting each day from Monday through Sunday.

We've met up with another veteran actor whom we wanted for the role of Renee's father, Ah Seng. A big confidence booster is that he agrees to be in the movie straight away. Of course we have to work out the details but this is just as good to hear because that means that we can "attach" him to our project. When we meet with potential investors, we can tell them that this particular actor is willing to play this role.

We're getting excited. We see the whole movie starting to form as we meet more and more people. From the story's first inception in our heads, to putting it down on 99 pages and now putting real people together to play it out...

We always joked that this movie is like our baby. It's an inexplicable joy to see our baby taking shape, like how an expectant couple sees the foetus in the womb under the ultra-scan.

It's truly beyond words. I can't imagine how we'll feel when the whole movie finally gets made and projected on the big screen. Like a parent seeing her child getting married.... That will be THE day of all days that I've always longed for. I'll probably break down in tears...

Sometimes, a "Mistake" Can Be a Good Thing

I'm pretty down this week so I'm going to talk about the movie Jaws to perk me up, at least for a little while.

We happened to watch E! True Hollywood Story about Jaws the other day. Just for the record, I wasn't even born yet when Jaws came out in 1975. (It's a different story for Eng Tiong, but this is my entry, isn't it?)

I only remembered watching Jaws 3-D in the cinema when I was young. That film came out in 1983. I caught Jaws on TV. Can't exactly remember when though.

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that E! THS on Jaws tells of how painful the whole production process was. One of the headaches is that the mechanical shark malfunctioned most of the time. With the shark as the star of the movie, that is indeed a HUGE headache.

But they found the most clever way of getting around the problem. Instead of showing the physical shark all the time to show that it's a big, scary, menacing beast, they decide to show how it is so. They infer the nasty characteristics with end results - what is left of a woman; what is left of a boat, etc. They "replaced" the physical presence of the malfunctioning mechanical shark with bright, yellow barrels. And guess what? It worked! That scared the shit out of us!

Wow.

And I wasn't even born yet.

If I remembered correctly, Steven Spielberg had a similar treatment with Jurassic Park. In the opening sequence, we see workers moving a huge metal cage. Wooo.... mysterious. What's inside? The next thing we know, a worker got caught in the cage and we can only hear his wretched screaming. Whoa... something really nasty is in that cage. So nasty to make a grown man scream like that and killed him. What is in that damn cage?

So, right at the beginning of the movie, you're hooked. And that's the power of a good movie.

Steven Spielberg is probably one of the best screen storytellers. We've a lot to learn from his movies!

But, like what Eng Tiong always said - sometimes, great works are "mistakes." I have to agree.

Not that "mistakes" are wrong or bad, they are just the end products of a gruelling battle, of overcoming obstacles after obstacles to finally reach the destination. Like Jaws, the problem became some sort of a blessing. Maybe it doesn't happen all the time. But it's great to know that - sometimes a "mistake" can be a good thing.

:)

The Ball is Rolling - Finally!

We've accomplished quite a lot this last week - we've finished the business plan and most importantly, met up with even more wonderful people.

The Business Plan
Eng Tiong and I always wondered how the hell do we do the damn business plan. Even after attending this and that course about film financing, we're pretty much left more confused than ever.

A moviemaking business plan is slightly different from a traditional business plan people do to start a business. I've a thick book on entreprenuership that has a sampled business plan but I can't exactly use that verbatim.

So Eng Tiong trawl the internet and found some! And they are for sale! Unbelievable! It really takes a lot of guesswork out of the equation. Of course, the plan is based on the independent American film market. So we have to change that to reflect the local scene.

I basically do some research, reading up on the Media Development Authority's policies, schemes, press releases, etc, etc, etc. I've even compiled a database of local films made since 1991. ("Medium Rare" started the next wave of moviemaking in Singapore since the Shaw and Cathay Keris moviemaking days in the 1970s.) Most of the information are gathered from MDA's website but it isn't updated so we've added in the latest figures/ productions that we've found from other sources.

Meeting People
We've met up with really wonderful people, including a very popular actress who used to act alot for TV. The feeling we get is - the ball is finally rolling!

Meeting Actor for Old Teo's Role
We've met up with a really experienced actor for the role of Old Teo. And it's all thanks to the earlier meeting we had with the popular actress (sorry about the mysteriousness but I can't risk getting sued). And that meeting with the popular actress is all thanks to a really wonderful artiste management company that we got acquainted with.

Old Teo is one of the 2 lead roles. Like our main character Renee's role, we already have someone in mind for Old Teo even before we pen the script. And that someone is this actor that we are meeting. It's great that we've got to see him face-to-face, telling him about the story and our convictions for making this movie.

We will hopefully hear from him in a week or so.

The next step is to find the rest of the supporting cast and the key production people. That's part of packaging. Once completed, we'll go out and find investors. The budget is now set slightly higher because we're taking into consideration the cost of transferring the final cut to film. (Cos' most cinemas still show movies the tradtional way.) But all in all, we're relatively comfortable with the new figures because we're confident that our movie will be great and therefore, it'll be picked up for distribution and you'll get to watch it in the cinemas (and DVDs, cable TV, etc, etc, etc)!

A Detour

Eng Tiong has finished translating the dialogue in the script to Mandarin. (Oh, I didn't tell you? The story is mostly in Mandarin, unless otherwise stated.)

I can't write Chinese for a living. I wrote the script in English with Movie Magic Screenwriter. There's no Chinese input. So I have to output the script as a text file so that Eng Tiong can input the Chinese dialogue next to the English ones in Word. It does alter the screenplay format a little bit. The margins seem not quite right but other than that, we're happy with those 99 pages.

This past week sees us doing less of "Exposed!" but for a good reason.

We're busy working on developing new projects for the upcoming SuperPitch and Animation SuperPitch, and the Singapore Film Commission Project Development Scheme. All the submission dates are due either this week or next week.

We may get something out of it or we may get nothing. No problem. At least we try. We'll keep trying till we get it someday.

Also, in the pipeline is a short film. The working title is "Dollhouse." I'll probably set up a separate blog for it sometime in the future. So I won't reveal much here. The only thing I'll say is that this story has been languishing in my ideas book since April and we thought we'll do it now as some sort of a prep for making "Exposed!" We haven't done a drama for some time now and this short film is like a refresher course. It's also a good time to try out and explore the technical aspects. Afterall, we haven't put HDV cameras to the test yet.

I'm looking forward to doing it! If anyone out there is interested to join in as crew, just email us! We don't mind if you don't have any production experience whatsoever as long as you are willing to learn. We are all still learning. So attitude is the key!

Guerilla-Style

We spoke to Juan Foo of Ground Glass Images who had made films such as Return to Pontianak and most recently, Perth. He's also our senior in Ngee Ann Polytechnic. So it was great catching up with him.

It's even better that he didn't paint a rose-tinted picture of the independent filmmaking scene in Singapore. He's been there and done that.

We definitely get the idea that it's a long and tough road which may not lead to any light at the end of the tunnel. So we must be very sure what we want to achieve out of this.

One thing for sure - we want to make at least 1 damn movie so that we can decently call ourselves filmmakers and die in peace. That is truly and sincerely our most basic wish.

4 movies, 10 movies a year? We hope so but that will probably take a very long time.

It's been a really trying period for Eng Tiong and I. There are so much frustrations. It's been a rollercoaster ride through the emotional realm and a zig-zagging decision-making process. I'm sure there will be more to come.

One thing we now know for sure... there is no hard and fast rules to go about making a movie. If we want to get it made the way we want to, just do it. We don't have to play by the system. The biggest consequence is that it may not get screened and earn the kind of money and prestige that others do.

What the hack! Stick with our basic wish of dying in peace with a movie in our name. Whatever comes after that is pure bonus.

So we may not want to seek more funding. We're going to do it guerilla-style - the way we know it. Let's get rid of all the rubbish about pre-sales, agreements, ya-da, ya-da that clog up our creative channels.

Let's just get the movie made!

Learn how to Write a Business Plan... (Yes! Even for Making Movies!)

We've just been through a steep learning curve last week. We attended a seminar on "The Business of Film Financing and Exploitation" by Ted Perkins.

The most valuable is knowing how to write a business plan - for movie-making. For all those filmmaker-wannabes out there, yes, you've heard right. We have to learn how to write a business plan. Unless, of course, you're really rich or have ready money to make your movie straight away. For the rest of us, we'd better get going with the business plan. That's the first step in sourcing for money.

But like any other business plans for other fields, I feel that having a business plan is really a good start whether I'm sourcing for funding or not. A plan makes my idea clearer and helps me develop a strategy. It will also spell out the kinds of risk involved for the investors. So everyone chips in with eyes wide open. That's very important.

I'll be working on the budget, the package and the business plan. I find that they go together hand in hand.

So for anyone (including Kee) who's interested to partner up or something, please be patient. Drop me an email if you're seriously interested. It's a huge learning process and the last thing we want is to get everybody into trouble - financially or legally - and doom the project forever.

We have more movies in the pipeline, remember?

Good, Cheap, Fast

Over the past few days, I've been working on the budget. In fact, I'm still working on it.

How tough can it be to punch in the numbers? Well, pretty much easy, really, unless you come out with such a high figure that you know it's impossible to start the production anytime soon.

Speaking about starting the production, Eng Tiong and I have made a decision. We are not going to rush this production.

The initial plan is to finish the shoot this year so that we could enter this film for the Singapore International Film Festival. But the deadline, for at least some sort of a rough cut, is mid-January.

That pretty much means that we have to shoot by November. With such a timeline, that means that getting investors and/ or sponsors will have to be all ready by end October. In turn, that means that we have to get the package up by, erm... yesterday? Or was it last week?

If we're to rush out a rough cut for "Exposed!" by December, it'll probably mean that we can't secure enough sponsors or investors. So that means the numbers I've punched in are less likely to be reduced and therefore we'll need to strike lottery and 4-D at the same time to make the film.

So we decided to forego the SIFF 2006. We're going to postpone the shoot to 2006 so that we can have more time to find investors, partners and sponsors.

It didn't feel good that our 2005 New Year resolution is going to be delayed a year. I was looking so much forward to making our first movie, to finally making our dreams come true. But we have to be realistic with our timeline.

There's a saying:

"Good, cheap, fast". Choose only 2.

The most important thing is to get it made cheap but great! Even if it takes a little longer, it'll be worth the wait.

Packaging

"Package" - film term for whatever you put together into a production entity to make it attractive to potential investors, financiers, etc...

We are now packaging Exposed!

The screenplay's completed. Just freshly out of the oven, really. It's the 5th draft. I know, I said in a previous post that we've got to get the production off the page asap but a story is not set in stone. It shouldn't. If there's room of improvement, we'll go for it. This version will be the one that's locked in for production. Of course, I'll be expecting some changes along the way.

So the screenplay is element number #1 in the package. Just let me repeat the 1-liner:

[Amended as of 24 September 2005 -
"A reporter becomes the subject of scrutiny when an assignment takes her back to the neighbourhood she ran away from 10 years ago."

This new 1-liner has just been thought of this morning. Sort of like an "Eureka!" moment for Eng Tiong and I. We know the importance of getting the 1-liner right.

Till we find a better logline, this is it!]

"In a neighbourhood she ran away from 10 years ago, a TV reporter has to keep her own skeletons in the closet while unearthing a most shocking story. "

Element number #2 - the producer
Jen Nee (yours truly) will be the producer. The credit is important because we want to own major rights to the movie. It's also a great opportunity to learn the ropes. If not now, when?

Element number #3 - the director
Eng Tiong will be the director. Similarly, we've to put to use what we learn in school and all those years of slogging out in the wedding videography industry thinking on our feet. The time to perform is now.

(As a side note, we may switch roles for the next movie. Yes, we've more story ideas in the pipelines. That's why it's important that this project is not going to be our first and the last!)

Element number #4 - main cast
Female Lead for Renee Donovan, TV reporter
We've long had our female lead in mind. When we first seriously sit down to draft out the treatment early this year, the first actress we've thought of is her. In a way, the story is written with her very much in mind.

We've contacted her and just sent her the script this morning. We're definitely keeping our fingers crossed.

Male Lead for Old Teo, old neighbour
There's also 1 particular actor we have in mind for some time now. We've yet to approach him.

Male Lead for Damien, cameraman
Finding a suitable actor for Damien is harder. Originally, Damien's character is very much in the shadows but sometime in the 2nd or 3rd draft, we flesh him up and he got "promoted" to a leading role.

We're still searching for Damien. If anyone's interested, give us a call! (Damien needs to be lean-built and about 36 years old.)

Element number #5 - budget
I've just completed breaking down the script and a preliminary shooting schedule. We're giving ourselves 10 shooting days at an average of filming 9 to 10 screen pages a day. It's quite a lot to accomplish in 10 days but remember - we only have 1 location. Most of the scenes take place in the same block of flats or a couple of metres away.

I'll be working on the budget today. We will be pumping in our own money. It's probably not going to be enough but let's see what's the shortfall. That's what packaging is mostly about anyway - finding more money.

To be perfectly honest, a lot of things are not working in our favour. Nobody's heard of Lim Jen Nee or Teo Eng Tiong. We're wedding videographers. We've never garnered any prestigious awards in short films like the others do. We've not much money. The story genre's a drama, not the hottest favourite of Asian horror.

But what the heck. We have to start somewhere. And nobody's going to tell us what we can't do. At this point in time, nobody believe in us. But we do. We're not going to give up.

We'll create our own destiny.

Film is Business?

Like everything else, the money (or rather, the lack of it) gets in the way.

About 10 years ago, as a film student, I always thought that film is art. That's why we study film theory and everything else about filmmaking.

I remembered a lecturer used to tell us that film is business. I didn't believe him. How could it be? Explain to me Battleship Potemkin and The Birth of a Nation or Citizen Kane and tell me that it's business.

Fast forward to January this year - Eng Tiong and I attended Dov Siemen's 2-Day Film School. He's from Hollywood and taught people like Quentin Tarantino. So he's invited by MDA to be here in Singapore to conduct his famous seminar. Eng Tiong and I've been out of school for some time so we thought we should attend the seminar to revive that student spirit and passion we have for filmmaking.

At the seminar, Dov Siemen, too said that film is business. Now much older (and hopefully, wiser), I totally agree.

As a student, there's this romanticised idea of what an independent filmmaker is. It's not much of a difference from a struggling artist who believes and sticks to his ideas and ideals at all cost. It's about personal expression. I didn't think money mattered.

Until I grow up and realised that there're bills to pay. Oops. Welcome to the real world.

Not that I don't believe in film as art anymore. I do. But that comes after I've gotten my 3 square meals a day, pay for the roof over my head, transportation expenses, business overheads... Then let's talk about pure film art.

I think we can balance art with commerce. It need not be one or the other. In fact, it's important that both work hand in hand. We can make a great movie that lots of people love to watch and that ensures our survival so that we can make another one. And the cycle continues.

Ultimately, I realised it's about telling an engaging story.

After the Dov Siemen's seminar, we decided that we're going to make our movie. It has always been our dream to go into filmmaking. What stopped us before is money, money, money.

We still lack it but let's work with what we have.

So instead of film, we're going to shoot on high definition. Just make sure we light properly!

In terms of the story, Exposed! will be a great movie for us to start with because:
1. The story takes place in 1 location.
2. The story happens within 12 daylight hours - i.e. no night scenes

So that would save us quite a bundle!

The story is great! It's definitely engaging. I can't reveal much of the plot here but as the screenwriter, it's definitely a work of love, passion and damn hard work!

Flashback: About Us

We've been running Pilgrim Pictures, our video production house, for nearly 4 years now. The stuff we've been doing are mostly wedding videos and a couple of corporate jobs. In fact, our very first job is a wedding video.

I have a love-hate relationship with producing wedding videos. Eng Tiong has no qualms about it. He actually enjoyed them tremendously.

We came from Ngee Ann Polytechnic's School of Film & Media Studies. Specifically, the Film, Sound and Video programme. We were amongst the top graduates. And that explains my grudge in doing wedding videos - ego, pride, snobbery.

In the world of video production, wedding videos (in most people's minds anyway), are the most lowly. I thought we were meant for "bigger" things.

The change in mindset came. Rather gradually, I might add.

Doing wedding videos is one of the most challenging productions. If you think about it, many things can go wrong - getting lost enroute to the bride's place, running out of tape, dirty tape head, waiting for the condensation in the camera to go away, lost of the sound signal in the middle of a speech or sermon, failing to capture that most important "pronounced husband & wife" kiss, etc, etc, etc... Even with the best preparations and intentions, shit happens. We just have to deal with it there and then. There's no retakes. Everything is "live".

I still get jitters doing wedding videos. It's stressful. Especially for someone like me who needs everything to be perfect, screwing up, even just a little, is very hard to stomach.

In contrast, Eng Tiong thrives in such situations. He thinks very well on his feet. He always tells me to relax, "It's a wedding, for goodness' sake!"

Before, I always have difficulties telling people, especially professionals in the industry, that we do wedding videos. I hate to see that look on their faces - like it's a loser's job.

But today, I'll gladly tell people that we are wedding videographers because I bet a lot of them can't take such working conditions and do a really fantastic job out of it.

We know what it takes to do a wedding video and do it well. We've won 3 international awards for the wedding stuff that we do at the Wedding & Event Videographers' Assocation (WEVA) Creative Excellence Awards - in the United States. We've received lots of compliments from our wedding customers and many have become our friends.

Like what Eng Tiong always say - "Even for the most "lowly" production like a wedding video, we put our hearts and minds into it and do it really well. Just imagine how it would be when we put our hearts and minds into making our movies..."

FADE IN: So what's the story about?

A shot at a one-liner:

[Amended as of 24 September 2005 -
"A reporter becomes the subject of scrutiny when an assignment takes her back to the neighbourhood she ran away from 10 years ago."

This new 1-liner has just been thought of this morning. Sort of like an "Eureka!" moment for Eng Tiong and I. We know the importance of getting the 1-liner right.

Till we find a better logline, this is it!]

"In a neighbourhood she ran away from 10 years ago, a TV reporter has to keep her own skeletons in the closet while unearthing a most shocking story."

It's strange. I find one-liner's the hardest to write. The story gist in 30 words or less. Someone somewhere said not more than 25. It's so much easier to tell the gist of other people's films but when it comes to my own, I'm at a lost.

The story takes place in a single location - a particular block of flats in Tiong Bahru. The inspiration for this story isn't hard. Eng Tiong, the other pilgrim in Pilgrim Pictures, grew up there.

The initial story is actually a horror film. Through the many intense discussions and really heated arguments, the story's genre has evolved into a drama with a touch of mystery/ suspense.

We're Making a Movie!

We're making a movie!

Yay!

That was our new year's resolution....

Not that we haven't been doing anything about it. We did. Just that the story is stuck in development hell. We re-wrote the treatment at least 4 times. Changed the storyline & characters at least numerous times more.

The screenplay is at the 4th draft. It'll probably be the final one because, hey, it's September! We need to get the damn thing off the page!

So that's where this blog starts...

(SCREENWRITING TIP: Enter a scene as late as possible.)