Operation TBT

Last Sunday, we embarked on a "publicity stunt" codenamed Operation TBT. Our TRUTH BE TOLD standees ended their run at GV Plaza and GV Vivo. If we don't bring them back, GV will throw them out with the trash.

Of course we wanted them back! Our hard-earned $$ are in those 4 by 7 feet styrofoam! But we can't fit them into any vehicle we can get our hands on so we thought of the next best solution - walk home with it!

We stay in the city outskirts, so the walk won't take very long. The added advantage is that we're creating free buzz for our movie!

Special thanks to our friend Ai Ping (above) for coming along to execute our crazy idea. At Plaza Singapura, we carried the standee from GV down to the street level via the escalators.

Ai Ping took this beautiful shot - all for LOVE indeed!

I guess our standee frightened away the "cows"

A detour - can't resist a photographic opportunity!

The river crossing...

Almost home...

A final pose at the place where it all started - Block 33 Taman Ho Swee

Into the elevator and finally on to home!

Total hours: Nearly 2! We took a leisurely stroll from Plaza Singapura back to Tiong Bahru and make lots of pitstops along the way to take pictures and rest a little. And it did turn some heads!

On the same night, we brought back the other standee at Vivocity. The journey was longer and less adventurous. I guess we were getting tired and the scenery wasn't as appealing!

But both standees are now safely back home. Operation TBT is a success! The idea may be a little crazy but hey, filmmaking doesn't have to be stressful or depressingly serious all the time. We had fun!

TRUTH BE TOLD wins Best Original Film!

As we jokingly put it, we've finally collected our very first set of "leaves"!

TRUTH BE TOLD was awarded the Best Original Film in Competition at the 5th Asian Film Festival of Rome! We share this honour with Tan Chui Mui's LOVE CONQUERS ALL.

The jury has this to say about TRUTH:

"... an uncommon sociological analysis of a chameleon-like place such as Singapore."

We are extremely delighted to get this award. I think it serves as a great morale booster, not only for us, but for all Singapore filmmakers. Imagine the kinds of stories you could tell about Singapore and the world is just as keen and curious to see it!

That definitely spells H-O-P-E to me.

:)

TRUTH BE TOLD Blog Aloud

Event: TRUTH BE TOLD Blog Aloud
Date: 28 September 2007
Time: 7pm
Venue: GV Vivocity's Cinema Europa

TRUTH BE TOLD Blog Aloud simply means watching a sneak of our film followed by a post-screening Q & A with the filmmakers and with our lead actress Yvonne Lim.

But it's less of a Q & A than a sharing session since Asians are known for not asking questions! Here's video footages of the post-screening discussion:

Part 1 / 4

Part 2 / 4

Part 3 / 4

Part 4 / 4

TRUTH BE TOLD Press Screening

Event: TRUTH BE TOLD Press Screening cum Sneak Preview for Residents at Block 33
Date: 28 September 2007
Time: 10 am
Venue: GV Tiong Bahru

To show our appreciation for the residents at Block 33 Taman Ho Swee who helped us out during our principal photography, we invited them to a free sneak preview of TRUTH BE TOLD.

Our lead actress Yvonne Lim also made a special guest appearance to catch the movie with the elderly folks!

And today being Yvonne's birthday, the residents bought her a bouquet of flowers and sang her a birthday song!

TRUTH BE TOLD Charity Premiere

Event: TRUTH BE TOLD Charity Premiere in aid of the Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society
Date: 27 September 2007
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: GV Max at GV Vivocity

Tonight, our wildest dream came true - the premiere of our first feature film TRUTH BE TOLD! And not just in any cinema but at GV's newest cineplex Vivocity and in GV Max containing Asia's biggest cinema screen!

TRUTH BE TOLD posters across all lightboxes on the 2nd level of GV Vivocity

Our Guests-of-Honour Mr & Mrs Matthias Yao posing a shot with our main sponsor, our charity beneficiary and with our main cast and of course, us!

Our main cast (L to R): Bernard Tan, Liang Tian, Yvonne Lim & Steven Woon

And not forgetting Louis Lim, everyone's favourite "HDB Officer Mr. Tan!"

Our guests outside GV Max, waiting patiently for the screening to start...

GOH Mr Matthias Yao making an entrance into the GV Max theatre

Speech from Mr. Lee, Chairman of our charity beneficiary - Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society

Our turn at the mic - we try our best not to make it an Oscar speech though we have so many people to thank for helping us to get to where we are today...

GV's Managing Director Mr. Kenneth Tan, a strong supporter of the local movie scene. He is one of the very first people that we spoke to when we started making this movie.

Our lead actress Yvonne Lim, once again, rallying people to support local films by watching them!

Our main sponsor, APB, presenting the cheque to THK.

A Thank You plaque for APB

One each for Eng Tiong and I (special thanks to THK's Centre for Family Harmony for the gifts!)

One for GV

And finally one for our GOH, Mr Matthias Yao.

With that, the premiere screening of TRUTH BE TOLD starts! This is the first time we're showing our movie to an audience - 600 strong, to be exact! We've no idea how they will react to our film. My heart rate is probably going at miles per minute.

As the film progresses, the audience react to it at the right moment, with the kind of emotions and reactions that I have dreamt of... The feeling is truly, truly heartfelt that I would have bow down and give thanks to the Powers-That-Be who had answered our prayers!

At the end of the screening, I have a moment with our GOH to chat about the movie. When he says that he'll be frank, I brace myself for the worse. (Oh no, he hates the movie!) But I'm pleasantly surprised - he likes it! He finds it authentic and the "residents" in the movie are real to him. As mayor and MP, he comes across such personalities in his estate.

All in, it is a great night. Eng Tiong and I wouldn't have want it any other way. It's a great start in celebrating the birth of our first film baby!

P.S. Mr. Matthias Yao emailed me the next day, just to tell me how his wife has enjoyed the movie too. An avid movie-goer, she thinks TRUTH BE TOLD is one of the best local movies ever made!

Press Conference

Event: TRUTH BE TOLD Press Conference

Date: 27 September 2007

Time: 2pm

Venue: GV Vivocity Gold Glass Hall 2

Panellists: Kenneth Tan (GV's Managing Director), Yvonne Lim (Lead Actress), Teo Eng Tiong (Co-Producer/ Director) & Lim Jen Nee (Co-Producer/ Writer). Also in attendance are the rest of our main cast - Bernard Tan, Liang Tian and Louis Lim

This is the first time ever that Eng Tiong and I attended a press conference, let alone being on stage where the limelight was cast on us!

Kenneth had to keep telling us, "take it that you're speaking to a friend." With so many pairs of eyes staring at you, plus photo and video cameras... erm... I really need to imagine harder!

Kenneth Tan (Golden Village Managing Director)

Lim Jen Nee (Co-Producer/ Writer)

Kenneth gave a really fantastic speech. We'll post up the whole press conference video here if we could OR you'll just have to buy the DVD once it hits the stores!

Teo Eng Tiong (Co-producer/ Director)

Mediacorp Artiste Yvonne Lim (Our female lead)

Everything went well!

Eng Tiong, Jen Nee and Yvonne with our movie poster

And something extra - each of our press kit is handmade personally by us. We created a limited number - 30 books. We thought that the usual Singapore movie way of photocopying them out on A4 papers and putting them into a paper folder feels like an afterthought.

After we've been to a few film markets and collected various kinds and types of movie info leaflets to booklets, we decided we wanted to put in a little more effort to do up our press kit, which also ties in nicely with our movie and also exemplifies who we are.

Our press kit is a homemade, handmade "journal-style" booklet. Every single page is printed and then using a simple ruler and penknife, cut down to size. Eng Tiong then did the painstaking task of binding the pages together and adding a cover to it.

TRUTH BE TOLD Opens Today!

TRUTH BE TOLD opens in Golden Village cinemas today!

We need your support. Please book your tickets at http://www.gv.com.sg/moviedetails/gv_moviedetails_2550.jsp

The opening weekend is important to us. We need all of you to help create a box office miracle for this independent film.

For group bookings, please contact Golden Village corporate sales:
Chuang Pei-sing
Email: chuangps@goldenvillage.com.sg


And here's another movie review by Loo Huei Hong on his personal blog. Read it here.

We're on Radio100.3

Catch our "live" interviews on 2nd, 3rd and 4th October 2007 on Radio100.3 at 11.10am!

The past week has been a whirlwind of activities - press conference, charity premiere, press screening, TV show, Blog Aloud session and radio interviews.

Give us more time as we slowly post them up on our web site or our blog. We've tons of pictures and videos!

Overall, we've received overwhelmingly positive response and feedback from the audience thus far. To let the audience finally see TRUTH BE TOLD is a really scary experience - imagine facing a firing squad...

One film review just published is by Stefan Shih. Read his article here.

TRUTH BE TOLD opens in Golden Village cinemas* on 4 October. Please come support our movie!

*exclusively in GV Vivocity, GV Plaza Singapura & GV Tiong Bahru

Announcement: Winner of Spot our Poster/ Trailer Contest

As we're only 3 days away from our movie premiere, we have to end this very informal contest.

Here's the final tally of spotters:

1. Kerk Sheen x 1 trailer spotting at GV Tampines with Blood Brothers (the first entry with 881 doesn't count as our trailer is not inside!)

2. Luku x 1 poster spotting at GV Plaza

3. Janet x 1 trailer spotting at GV Jurong Point with 881

4. Bookworm x 1 trailer spotting at GV Jurong Point with The Invasion

5. Aeon x 2 trailer spottings at GV Plaza (twice) with Rush Hour 3 & 881.

6. And to be fair, Lachlan left a comment on my Facebook x 1 trailer spotting at GV Tampines with 881.

Thus the winner who gets a pair of tickets to the Charity Premiere of TRUTH BE TOLD on 27 September is... AEON!

Please do get in touch with me via my email by noon on 25 September 2007 (that's tomorrow!) - jennee@pilgrimpictures.com.sg.

In your email, please include:
1. Full name (real one, of course!)
2. Contact number
3. Address

Thank you all for your help! I hope you guys had fun like we did poster/trailer-spotting! (In fact, just last week, we walked in on our trailer playing with the screening of The Invasion at Vivocity! Totally didn't expect that. But it was an awesome feeling!)

Posters at Plaza Singapura

More poster spotting, this time our key art!

Normal-sized Poster

Producer Jen Nee posing with our poster in an LLB - Large Lightbox

Standee!

Subtitling TRUTH BE TOLD

We were at Mega Films Enterprises subtitling our film to English and Chinese. They are the only laser subtitling facility in Singapore. If I'm not mistaken, all Holllywood movies with Chinese subtitles for Singapore release are done here.

With the subtitling complete, TRUTH BE TOLD is now all ready to roll!

Mega Films' Elsie preparing a reel of our film.

Director Eng Tiong doing the "spotting" i.e. looking through the subtitles, making sure the timing & the sentences are right.

Trailer & Teaser Poster Spotting

Teaser poster at GV Vivocity, just outside hall 8 & opposite the female restroom


Teaser poster at GV Plaza Singapura, just outside the female restroom

Trailer playing at GV Plaza Singapura, before 881.

TRUTH BE TOLD *Blog Aloud @ Cinema Europa*

Meet our female lead Mediacorp artiste Yvonne Lim and of course, us (Eng Tiong & Jen Nee) in person on September 28!

We'll share with you the truth behind the making of TRUTH BE TOLD.

Title of Film: TRUTH BE TOLD
Date: 28 Sep 07, Friday
Venue : Cinema Europa at GV Vivocity
Time: 7pm screening time (running time 95 mins)
Blog Aloud (Q&A with director & cast): 8.35pm (45mins dialogue session)
Ticket Price: $10
Student Price: $8 (only for sale at Vivo Box Office)


Book your tickets here!

Win Tickets to Our Premiere!

Eng Tiong posing with our teaser poster.

Our teaser poster will be up in GV cineplexes this week! The above picture is a test of our poster in the lightbox. Looking good!

In addition, our trailer will also be out this week in selected GV theatres.

Help us spot our posters and trailers! Leave a comment and tell us where you've seen them. Especially for our trailer, let us know:

1. Which GV cineplex?
2. Which movie you've caught with our trailer?
3. Which hall?
4. The movie's showtime

That'll greatly help us evaluate our marketing strategy!

For your kind help, we've rummaged through our drawers and closets to find a good reward...

The one who spots the most teaser poster locations & trailer spots will win A PAIR OF MOVIE TICKETS TO OUR CHARITY PREMIERE OF TRUTH BE TOLD ON SEPTEMBER 27, 2007!

Happy spotting! :)

Test Screening at GV

Back in Singapore, we've tested our 35mm trailer and feature at a GV Grand theatre last week. Our DP Amandi was also with us. It felt great to finally watch our baby in 35mm film print and in a commercial cinema theatre!

Everything looks in order - no damage to our film on the way back from Hong Kong. Phew!