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Sunday, January 27, 2008

Chewxy's WEB OF LIES Premiere Party

Currently typing this from my hotel in Singapore, hence the lack of updates. Arrived on Friday, returning today. Despite initial misgivings and the fact that I come here often, two nights in Singapore just ain't enough! (Nonetheless, I still managed to buy many books!)

A night before I went to Singapore, Chewxy threw a premiere party for his debut (live-action) short film, WEB OF LIES that he made last July before leaving for Australia. I'm still credited as the producer of this 25-minute short film despite the fact that I was only involved in its preproduction (helping Chewxy with his auditions and rehearsals). After that, I experienced some schedule clashing as preproduction of the telemovie CINTA TIGA SEGI (recently broadcasted on NTV7) started just when Chewxy and co begun their 3-day marathon shoot.



WEB OF LIES is a pseudo technogeek/noir film starring Sarah Low, Alfred Loh, cutie Grace, Shuba, 'PLEASE GIVE ME A JOB' reality show winner Justin Frances and a special cameo appearance by Suanie. Here's a trailer Chewxy cut for WEB OF LIES.


WEB OF LIES


The party itself was fun, meeting the cast and crew (basically a 2-men crew, with Chewxy doing everything, and Eunice as the make-up artist) of WEB OF LIES again after nearly half a year (among them all, Grace was the only one I met recently)


Suanie and I, eating. Photo from Chewxy's blog


WEB OF LIES, being a first-time work by a self-taught filmaker, obviously had its flaws (which I have addressed to Chewxy prior to the premiere), but the enthusiasm of those involved cannot be questioned. Their camaraderie brought back memories of my early video experiments A BORING STORY and FORCED LABOUR (watch them at the short films section), and made me lament a little that I wasn't involved in their shoot. And the most flattering thing I can say about it is that it may have prompted myself to do a film noir of my own (my upcoming CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY, which I'm still casting for) Chewxy's attempts to tackle a film noir reignited my years-long personal love for that genre, hence making me want to do it myself.

After the premiere of WEB OF LIES, Chewxy screened the N95-shot video that I made for the PC.com Magazine Awards Night, the newly titled FROM BHOL LE WITH LOVE, to some amused laughter.

When half of the party crowd had left Chewxy's house, we had a secret screening of KURUS from the screener DVD I had just acquired that night. I was bringing the DVD to Singapore, so I needed to ensure that everything's fine, besides, press screening is next Monday, I wanted to make sure there ain't any glitches in the film that we didn't spot during editing.

Everything was fine, and somehow, my friend Isabel's composition (I told her to reference Debussy's works) added a whole different layer to the film.

So yeap, definitely looking forward to tomorrow's press screening. Will keep you all updated with photos and stuff :D