I got myself a Blackmagic Cinema Camera recently for two TV shoots. (one of them is BUDDYZ Season 2, which is currently airing on Astro Ria every Wednesdays and Fridays at 8:55pm, each 5-minute episode is available on Youtube a few hours after it's on TV, here's episode 3)
One of the most convenient things about the camera is that I could just re-use my old camera lenses from my Canon 7D, even got myself a new Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 lens to help with wide shots. This morning, while doing some location scouting for my new short film Floating Sun, I managed to put the lens to good use.
As I prepare to shoot my new short film "FLOATING SUN" at the end of June, I traveled early this morning for a round of location scouting with James Lee the producer, TK the production manager and Lesly the cinematographer.
Armed with my new phone, the Huawei Mate (technically, with its 6-inch screen, it's really a "phablet" and not a phone), I traversed into a place which was absolutely wonderful (and photogenic) for my film, taking some photos.
Immediately I knew I was going to shoot my film here.
A new short film of mine, SPRINGTIME NOSTALGIA, is premiering at next week's Shanghai International Film Festival, followed by a screening at the Taipei International Film Festival in early July as part of an "in focus" program for actress/producer Kiki Sugino.
This Ikebana-themed short that was commissioned by Kao last year
The kind folks of Taipei International Film Festival posted a one-minute excerpt of the short film on Youtube which featured the three main cast members, Kiki Sugino (who did EXHALATION with me back in 2010), Qyoko Kudo (who did KINGYO with me back in 2009) and Eriko Ono (who was probably a baby when I collaborated with the aforementioned two actresses in my previous works).
I really liked the synopsis that they have written in Chinese.
A man who loved Ikebana once asked: "If I were to disappear one day, will you look for me?"
After he disappeared, the woman loses her sense of smell. The woman goes to an Ikebana class, the teacher notices her flower arrangement and is shocked, she asks the woman who had taught her this arrangement.
The woman remembers the man and wonders: "If we were to meet again, what will he remember?"
Beautiful and poetic imagery, it is as if these vivid colours were trying to conceal a piece of missing memory.
Sometimes, I feel that these film festival synopses are cooler than my actual films.
You might not have heard of the Japanese writer Mieko Kanai (金井美恵子), but she wrote the short story "The Moon" that inspired my short film "LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER".
I stumbled upon her works by accident. It was September 2010. My uncle (father's younger brother) passed away suddenly, my parents, who were in Tokyo with me for my graduation ceremony, had to fly back to Malaysia immediately.
I was left alone in the hotel that my parents were supposed to stay for a few more days. Overwhelmed by solitude, I went to my favourite Aoyama Book Center in Roppongi, hoping to distract my mind with literature.
Going through the shelf, "THE WORD BOOK" by Mieko Kanai, a collection of her short stories, caught my eye. Maybe it was the cover. THE WORD BOOK came out in the 70s, but it only just got translated into English that year.
I flipped through the book, went through some stories, and found myself captivated by the imagery of her dream-like tales. I didn't buy the book immediately, but her words lingered. (I bought the book a few days later on Amazon)
This is the opening paragraph of "The Moon":
According to Mother, I was already old enough to go on errands all by myself, even at night. "The chicken butcher and the green grocer just in front of it, near the castle at the edge of the shopping area, should be open till nine, and I want you to get me a chicken and a package of mushrooms there, I'm sorry you have to go at night like this, but I couldn't say no. "Your older sister" - she had died at age six - "used to take a little wicker basket and go buy the enriched powdered milk she always drank," Father said, laughing good-naturedly; but Mother looked a bit sad. Then I went out into the town, where the last dim twilight had been swallowed up in night."
Another one:
Oddly enough, our accounts of our memories of the dead begin with the arrival of news of a sudden death. When this call comes, we are dazed, left speechless. Those who were close to the dead person may have the impression of things occurring in a dream whose meaning is out of reach. Like words heard in a dream - or rather, in a dream one was trying to recall while only half-awake..
What was sad, in what words? We have no idea. There are only traces of the raw reality of having been informed of something truly frightening. One's very irritation of being unable to recall the significance of words spoken in a dream feels like something that is happening in yet another dream, a nightmare. Thus, confronted with news of a sudden death, they (I) feel vertigo. Then they start to talk about you, who have already turned into a memory - about their memories of you, which are somehow lacking in reality. They emphasize the fact that you are no longer in this world as they speak of you, so the memories all become beautiful, taking on a tragic tone. Even the most boring memories are enveloped, in this place, in deep, tragic shadows.
And finally:
When I got home, I found everything just the way it had been when I left, with Mother lying on a rattan chaise-longue in her usual place in the sitting-room, listlessly reading a book with a russet cover. When she saw my face, she looked a bit angry and said, "Where were you off to, young man? I was afraid you'd been kidnapped and would never come back!" I started to open my mouth to explain what I had seen, but I was in the grip of a melancholic fretfulness and couldn't say a word. Then Father spoke: "You were looking at the moon, weren't you?"
I blinked and just said "Unh" in reply. father took the packages of good, saying, "It'll take thirty minutes to cook the chicken, so go take your bath, you're big enough to wash yourself now, but I'll wash your hair for you."
It was after that Mother died, though I don't know if it was a year after, or a month, or a week, or a day.
The story shifted from the point of view of a child, and then to an adult, I wasn't sure whether it was the same person, or whether it was told from the perspective of the child and his father.
A few months later, I made LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER, because I needed to get these images out of my system. It usually happens this way. (my earlier short films, LOVE SUICIDES and KINGYO, were loose adaptations of Yasunari Kawabata's short stories as well)
Retyping the words from "The Moon", I am mildly surprised by how faithful I had been to the source material.
Two years after that, right now, I became a part of James Lee's HUNGRY GHOST FESTIVAL: 3 DOORS OF HORROR omnibus, I find myself, once again, drawing from the Mieko Kanai pool of inspiration, this time, it's from the short story "The Boundary Line" (also from "THE WORD BOOK"), which revolves around a drowned female corpse. The other two directors, Ng Ken Kin and Leroy Low have finished their segments (Leroy finished his shoot just a few days ago), both will most probably be great, so I'm now preparing for my shoot (scheduled at the end of June). Yesterday, I have secured most of the key cast members for the film. Soon, I will continue revising the script to see what is there to fix. I usually work on my script until during the shoot itself.
Going through the "THE WORD BOOK" again, I realized that another Kanai book "INDIAN SUMMER" had just gotten translated earlier this year. This book review is written by Paul McCarthy (who was the translator of THE WORD BOOK!).
Through this review that I found out Mieko Kanai had been living in Mejiro for decades, the very same area that I've stayed in for the past five years.
The fact that she's in the neighbourhood made me wonder whether this is the reason her works resonated with me.
On the 30th of May, the screening of Woo Ming Jin's WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER was held right after the screening of my short films at CineMalaysia Film Festival (a film festival for Malaysian films held in Tokyo).
Three years ago, the film had its Japanese premiere at the Fukuoka Asian Film Festival, but it only had its Tokyo premiere 3 years after that.
As producer of the film, I did a brief Q and A session after the film was done. It was already 11:20pm then, I was surprised most audiences chose to stick around. Japanese audiences are some of the most polite in the world.
I have just spent three nights in Tokyo to attend the CineMalaysia Film Festival シネ・マレーシア, a great film festival organized in Tokyo to show Malaysian films. This was its inaugural edition. The film festival ran from the 24th to the 31st of May. I was around for the last two days.
A number of my short films were invited for screening in this film festival. LOVE SUICIDES (2009), KINGYO (2009), EXHALATION (2010), INHALATION (2010), and LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER (2011).
In addition to that, two films I produced were at the festival too. One was WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER (2009) by Woo Ming Jin, another was GIRL IN THE WATER (2012) by Woo Ming Jin and Jeppe Ronde.
I got to autograph the poster. Yay.
Here's a video of my Q and A session after the screening of my short films on the 30th of May. I was very surprised that the attendance was so good.
These days, the Malaysian director and independent film pioneer James Lee had been uploading his works on his Youtube channel Doghouse73pictures. Both short films and feature films, from his earliest to his latest.
Today, in conjunction with its screening at the CineMalaysia in Tokyo (a new film festival that is showing only Malaysian films), James has uploaded his 2009 gangster film CALL IF YOU NEED ME 黑夜行路 online for us all to see.
This film, which stars Pete Teo, Sunny Pang and Chua Thien See, won the Silver Digital Award at the Hong Kong Film Festival 2009. It chronicles the lives of two cousins and a woman who came between them.
The first time I saw it was around 2009, on an editing suite. An associate producer of the film was making DV copies of the film to submit to film festivals and had to make sure each copy was fine, it was tedious job, since she had to rewatch the film over and over again. So I agreed to liberate her from her pain by volunteering to help her "check" one of the tapes, which actually allowed me to catch the film.
Slightly different from the domestic dramas that James had been doing up until then, I was rather fascinated by some of the genre conventions that he had to work with when making this film. Of course, after that, James would actually cross over to more commercial, studio fares, like PETALING STREET WARRIORS, THE COLLECTOR and a few others, but this film, I find it interesting because there's something rather pure about it.
Anyway, James Lee and I will be collaborating on my next short film project, "FLOATING SUN", with me directing and James producing.
