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Sunday, August 15, 2010

Film shoot for a one-minute epic. Day 1

I was shooting my 1-minute epic last night.

Lust, Caution. Moon Lai.


Yes, you read that right. I was making an epic short film that is 1-minute in length. It's not the easiest thing to do, hence the pained expression etched upon my movie star-like face.


Directing fills me with angst


The cast members of this film are Moon Lai (Fooi Mun, the lead actress of THE TIGER FACTORY, which was shown in Cannes Film Fest earlier this year) and Arika Lee (the little girl from my award-winning short film LOVE SUICIDES). Here, Moon Lai was helping Arika fix her hair. It's not because I couldn't afford to hire a make-up artist, nuh-uh, I just thought it was a good bonding session for both of them.

Moon Lai fixing Arika's hair


Arika is notably less grumpy than she was two years ago when we were shooting LOVE SUICIDES. She was 7 then, 9 now. I'm glad she didn't seem to look any different.

Arika with a Prada bag


Mine was a film of sheer retro goodness, hence I borrowed the qipao from mom.

Moon Lai descending the steps

Moon Lai in qipao

Moon Lai viewing the distance


Hui Jing, who was a university junior of mine (at Murdoch University) during my Perth days was the assistant director for the day.

Me and Hui Jing, preparing a shot


It was a grand-scaled narrative condensed into a one-minute short, I also had to plunge into the deepest depth of human nature while making my own sociopolitical statement about humanity in general, a crystallization of our epoch.

Arika is mysterious

Moon Lai is pensive


Today's the second and last day of my shoot. Hopefully it'll be as epic as I hoped.