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Friday, August 14, 2009

KOFIC Tour, Korean BBQ and the awesome Hongdae area

Me drinking Pepsi


Yesterday was my second day in Seoul. I managed to eat some delicious Korean BBQ for dinner.

My short film, KINGYO goes to the 66th Venice Film Festival

The woman (Rukino Fujisaki) whispers something to the man (Takao Kawaguchi)
Rukino Fujisaki and Takao Kawaguchi in KINGYO


I knew about this a few days ago, but now the line-up's for the Corto Cortissimo (international competition of short films) of the 66th Venice Film Festival is officially out, I can finally announce it myself too.

My short film, KINGYO, will be making its world premiere at the 66th Venice Film Festival next month. To be in the oldest and one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world is an honour beyond my wildest dreams. Of course, this would never have happened without the cast and crew of KINGYO, thanks, guys. Some of us will be going to Venice.

KINGYO cast and crew. January 2009

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Arriving at Seoul

Reached Seoul this morning. Took a bus to the service apartment booked for us. Then headed off to the Kofic (Korean Film Commission) offices at 1pm.

It was raining.

That's the Nandaemun, located in the heart of Seoul.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Heading to Seoul for WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER post-production

I was sifting through the photos I took with my old camera when I found a number of production photos from WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER, a feature-length film I produced earlier this year. The film's written and directed by Woo Ming Jin.

This film, financed by the Asian Cinema Fund and the Hubert Bals Fund, was shot back in March at Kuala Selangor, and after returning to Malaysia last Monday, I've spent quite a number of days finalizing its edit with Ming Jin. We will be bringing the entire film to Korea tonight for the final stages of its post-production, like colour correction and film transfer.

The film shoot lasted for nearly two weeks, and because it was quite hectic, I didn't really snap any photos most of the time.

Sunday, August 09, 2009

Genius kids make me feel puny

Sorry for the lack of updates since I came back to Malaysia, been really busy with stuff. And I feel demotivated since internet connection here's light ears slower than the one I had in Tokyo, have difficulties uploading photos, let alone videos!

Anyway, I was at the first day of the Klang Creative Fest 2009 yesterday because there was a screening of a couple of films I was involved in, like KURUS and THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA, and after that I presented my short films, CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY (which just got invited to next month's Calgary Film Festival, I'm surprised it still has festival life!) my little-seen experimental video essay FLEETING IMAGES (I decided to take it out cos it got invited for competition at next month's Singapore Short Film Festival), LOVE SUICIDES (gonna be in competition at next month's Split International Film Fest in Croatia) and then AFTERNOON RIVER, which was shot in Klang back in April and was really commissioned for the Creative Fest. In the end I decided to throw in my Groundhog Day-influenced romantic comedy 3PM because I wanted my screening to end on a lighter note, and people were influenced about my Japanese works (I didn't screen Kingyo for reasons I will explain in a few days)

But prior to my screening, I was walking about the fest, and saw many things that humbled me. Like genius kid painters.

Monday, August 03, 2009

Presenting my short films on 8th of August (Saturday)

I'm presenting three of my short films at the KLANG CREATIVE FEST, held in Klang Centro (map) on the 8th of August, 4:30pm. (exactly a year after the opening of the Beijing Olympics 2008 :D )

The first one will be the comedy, CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY, which won an Honourable Mention award and a Best Acting award (for lead actress Kimmy) in the BMW Shorties 2008 before screening at the Dubai and Naoussa Film Festivals (Greece).

Sunday, August 02, 2009

Some stills from my new short film THE WHITE FLOWER



The shoot for THE WHITE FLOWER ended around 12:30am this morning. I borrowed my friend Zhi Feng's house for the shoot. Everything was so hectic that I forgot to whip out my own camera until we were about to finish things.

Rest in peace, Ah Teong

The second day of the The White Flower shoot went on smoothly. I managed to wrap things up half past midnight. I will write about that later.

I came home just now and received a MSN message from my dad that Uncle Martin, the husband of my dad's sister (I called him 'Ah Teong', which was from the Teochew dialect), had just passed away this morning from cancer.

Saturday, August 01, 2009

THE WHITE FLOWER shoot - Day 1


Cast and crew of THE WHITE FLOWER
The cast and crew of THE WHITE FLOWER on top of the Futtsu Viewpoint structure. From left to right: Niklas the cinematographer, Zhu Dan the actress, me, Toro Inamura the actor, Kong the assistant director/ reluctant actor


31st of July. Principal photography for my short film, THE WHITE FLOWER (mentioned in my previous post) began.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Preparing a new short film, THE WHITE FLOWER


(Photo by Martha K)


I'm flying back to Malaysia next Monday (3rd of August), and thus ends the dream-like 3rd session of my stay in Japan. Long have my Finnish friend Niklas and I have spoken about working on a project together, in fact, when we went to explore the abandoned ruins in Sagamiko back in May, our true intention was location scouting.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Quick thoughts on BMW Shorties 2009's finalists

(UPDATED 26th of July, 2009: Yasmin Ahmad has passed away. Rest in peace.)

I received a DVD of this year's BMW Shorties finalists two days ago because I was asked to voice my thoughts on the films. I watched them yesterday evening and gave BMW Shorties' Seet Heng some brief commentary, the original entry is posted here on the BMW Shorties website.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

The shotgun-carrying Chinese lady... acts

Two weeks ago I wrote about how I helped Zhu Dan, the shotgun-wielding Chinese lady, secure an acting role in a short film by my Thai friend Kong. (who will be adapting a short story by occasional Guestblogger Justin later this year, produced by my KINGYO producing partner Maiko, with the help of some of my crew members as well)

Zhu Dan with shotgun


Yesterday afternoon, Kong, who is now editing his film, needed to do some re-shoots of some scenes with Zhu Dan, thus they managed to re-enact the exact same shots from last month. Yes, the photo above, and the videos below, are shot a little more than a month apart (photo above taken on the 20th of June 2009, videos below taken on the 22nd of July 2009). Bet you can't see any differences at all!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

LOVE SUICIDES in competition at the Festival Internazionale del Cinema d'Arte

Lying at the beach


I've never mentioned this earlier because their website is only in Italian and I wasn't sure about the details.

But I was emailed earlier that LOVE SUICIDES will be screening at the Festival Internazionale del Cinema d'Arte in Bergamo, Italy today. The film is one of the 18 short films around the world selected for competition under the Sottoventi category (PDF of the entire line-up). Once again, I'm honoured.

I hope the screening will go well!

LOVE SUICIDES will also be screening at some other European festivals over the next few months, you'll be hearing about it here.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Visiting Tokyo DisneySea

in front of Mount Prometheus in Tokyo DisneySea

I had slightly more than 2 hours of sleep before I woke up at 5:30 in the morning and prepared for my first ever trip to Tokyo DisneySea.

Prior to the opening of the Hong Kong Disneyland, I always felt childishly gleeful that I could brag about having visited every single Disney theme park in the world:

Friday, July 17, 2009

Cure Rubbish, band name or manifesto?

When I walked past the NHK Broadcasting Centerbuilding at Shibuya last Wednesday night, I saw a band setting up for a performance.

There was a sign next to them, and the words 'CURE RUBBISH'.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

I was a dino dork

The first time I went to Ueno Park was last November, when autumn's touch had infused upon it the colours of red and gold. (Not to be narcissistic, but I did take some bloody good photos that time) What left the most impression then were the wilted lotuses at the Lotus Pond (part of the Shinobazu Pond).

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

She must've felt out of place watching The Galaxy Girls Club

Last Saturday, when I went off to Akihabara to buy some blank DVDs, I happened upon a live event at the Live Park in Akiba (which, to the uninitiated, is not a real park, but the first floor of the Sato Musen electric store, opened earlier this year for numerous mini-concerts and live events, I heard mostly to convince authorities to reopen Akihabara's 'Pedestrian's Paradise' that had been closed since last year's Akihabara Massacre)

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Mitama Matsuri at Yasukuni Shrine 2009

(UPDATE: Check out the photos and videos of MITAMA MATSURI 2010 too if you like this post)

I went to the Mitama Matsuri (Soul Festival) at the Yasukuni Shrine yesterday. It is a festival that honours the dead.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Sichuan Hot Pot... in a rice cooker

Last night was the last night of Steve's visit in Tokyo. My friends from China, Yang Yang and Zifeng invited both of us to have the much famous Sichuan (or Szechuan) "ma la" (numb and spicy) hot pot over at Zifeng's place. The meal was prepared by the chick, Echo (or Ecco, not sure), who's from Chengdu, Sichuan.



Great meal!

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Hozuki Ichii (Ground Cherry Pod Fair) at Senso-ji 2009

The last time I went to Senso-ji at Asakusa was nearly two months ago, for the Sanja Matsuri (check out the breathlessly evocative photos I've taken of the festival here).

When I went there again yesterday, they were having the Hozuki Ichi (Ground Cherry Pod Fair), in which hundreds of street stalls were set up to sell ground cherry pods and wind chimes.

Friday, July 10, 2009

The BEAUTIFIED TABOO art exhibition

I brought Steven to the BEAUTIFIED TABOO art exhibition at SuperDeluxe in Roppongi last night. The BEAUTIFIED TABOO, in its second year, is the brainchild of Tokyo-based German/Vietnamese artist Vivienne U.H. Doan. Let me quote its origins from a Japan Times article.

(The BEAUTIFIED TABOO) is an exhibition showcasing works by some of Tokyo's better-known experimental and international artists that attempts to investigate, as well as beautify, taboos.

Doan got the idea when she started to question both Japanese and foreign people on what they felt was taboo. Intrigued by the variety of answers and feelings she encountered, she took the ideas and "beautified" them, adding an artist's perspective to socially explosive concepts. Naturally, ideas relating to the human body, sex, violence and death are well represented.


Here's a list of the featured artists for this year's exhibition:

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Wannabe artistic shots of Hachiko statue

I've written about the sad and tragic tale of Faithful Dog Hachiko last year. The Hachiko movie starring Richard Gere is also coming out next month, (But I'm not sure whether to see it since... I already knew that Richard Gere's going to die in it :(:(:( )

Now armed with a new camera, I decided to take some artsy shots of its statue.

Summer Fair of Zoshigaya Kishibojin Temple

Yesterday, before I was about to break Steven's mind by bringing him to Harajuku and Shibuya (photos will come in next post), we dropped by at the Zoshigaya Kishibojin Temple for its summer fair.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Mutsumi the late-night singer

It was already around 11pm when I was heading home after taking all these photos of Shinjuku from the previous post. But as I walked out of the Shinjuku South East exit, I found a young woman sitting on the floor, preparing to perform. A scattered few were gathered before her. She was the one and only musician I saw last night.

The view of Shinjuku twilight from the top of Takashimaya

Despite having gone countless times to the Takashimaya in Shinjuku, I have never really bothered to go to the top few floors because I thought there aren't anything there but restaurants. So when an acquaintance from Malaysia came and I was showing him around, we went up and I was surprised by what I saw.

There was a nice garden for people to take walks.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Visiting the old lighthouse at Miura Kaigan

Yesterday afternoon I headed off to Miura (a seaside city situated at Tokyo Bay) with dorm mate Tristan, to check out an old lighthouse. Along with Tristan were Pong, whom I met a day earlier when we went to see the Gundam statue, and Jack, whom I've never met prior to the trip.

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Life-size Gundam in Odaiba and its adoring visitors

After hearing so much about the life-size Gundam statue in Odaiba, I finally decided to visit it. It was the evening of the 4th of July, which is more than a week before its official unveiling. But already many have gathered over there to take photos of it.

Friday, July 03, 2009

The Chinese lady with a shotgun

This is my friend, Zhu Dan, from China. She's really nice and friendly.

Zhu Dan with shotgun

But she's slightly intimidating because she carries a shotgun with her all the time.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Night cruise on the Himiko waterbus

It seems that we have reached the second half of 2009. After completing '3PM', my third short film in six months yesterday afternoon, I can't help but feel a little wistful, a little melancholic, the familiar condition known as post-creativity depression is back.

So despite having finished my film, I actually chose to remain in the editing lab, and finally at night, I took out snippets of videos I shot more than a week ago with my own camera and looked through them, just so I could edit them and give myself something to do.

On the 20th of June, Lia the Artist told me and Niklas about the futuristic-looking waterbus "Himiko", designed by famed Japanese animator Reiji (or Leiji) Matsumoto ("Captain Harlock", "Spaceship Yamato", "Galaxy Express 999").

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Yakitori is yummy

On Saturday night I went to a Yakitori restaurant at Shin-Okubu with Eric (my friend, not my dad).

With Eric at Shinjuku Station East Exit
(Eric and I at the Shinjuku Station East Exit, before making our way to Shin-Okubo)


And dammit, the food's so bloody good!

Sunday, June 28, 2009

TRANSFORMERS 2 will be the biggest film in Malaysia

On a lighter note, Sebastian had been pretty depressed about the unanimous love my beloved home country had for TRANSFORMERS 2.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Reflecting on Michael Jackson (1958-2009)

michael jackson

When I woke up this morning and saw the news of Michael Jackson's death, I was quite affected by it. I grew up as a fan. As a child I listened to all the cassette tapes I had with me then, OFF THE WALL, THRILLER and BAD. I didn't know how it all started, I can't remember. The King of Pop then was at the pinnacle of his popularity, television was often dominated by his electrifying performances, or the music videos.

In kindergarten I drew pictures of men grabbing their crotches because that's the pose I remember most from Michael Jackson's dances, to the consternation of teachers.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Short interview with me on BMW Shorties website

Did a quick email interview with the peeps at BMW Shorties two days ago, and the interview was immediately up on their page yesterday. Good job using the cast and crew photo from 3PM too!

An excerpt.

Filmmaking has been around for decades, how do you innovate and make your film different?

Actually, I don’t self-consciously try to be ‘innovative’ and do things ‘people had never done before’. Normally I just find a story I really like to do, and hope that my personal filmmaking sensibilities can do justice to the story, enough to make it unique. I’m not sure whether I am original, it’s really up to my audiences to decide that.


Read the rest here.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

A very sweet gesture from the 3PM cast and crew

So I've wrapped up the shoot for my newest Japanese short film, 3PM last Friday. And had am now editing it.

Here's a photo of the cast and crew sent to me by main actress Yumiko Kitazawa (you can also read about the shoot from her blog, but it's only in Japanese).

The Cast and Crew of 3PM
From left to right: Yumiko the lead actress, Ko the sound guy, Kabayama the camera assistant turned lead actor, me, Erika the cinematographer and Yuiko the producer/ assistant director


Like I said, I've immediately started work on editing the film the night when I finished the shoot, and things seem encouraging thus far.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Happy Father's Day, dad

As I look out through my window right now, the world is absolutely grey, and obscured by the rain. Perhaps I'm going to be stuck in my room the whole day. On the other hand, I checked the weather forecast in Kuala Lumpur and it seems cloudy, and there will be rain too in the afternoon, but the rains of tropical Malaysia are ferocious, but fleeting, often ending in mere hours, while the rain of Tokyo often drag on for days. So rain or not, I doubt it will do much to affect Father's Day for dad.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Completed the shoot of my new short, 3PM, edited a rough cut too

Just got back from the editing lab moments ago. Managed to wrap up the shoot for my new Japanese short film, 3PM. It was a fun shoot, exhausting it was. It's been a while since I've actually made a comedy (though many argued that CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY is just some some film with some comedic moments, and not really a comedy), I needed to do once since I've been making three consecutive depressing films (four, if you count my little-seen experimental video, FLEETING IMAGES).

Like I said, 3PM is a zero-budget film much smaller in scale than KINGYO, and set mostly in one location. I only had a skeleton crew (Me, Kou-san the sound guy, Erika the director of photography, Yuiko the producer/assistant director) , but just as I've always believed, as long as everyone's passionate, things can run pretty smoothly. That was the case of the 3PM shoot.

Even though we had some cute Waseda University cheerleaders briefly interrupting the shoot with their practice session at our location, but that lasted barely more than half an hour, and although they did their best to distract me, I managed to valiantly relocate the shoot to somewhere nearby.

Spirits were still so high that I immediately started work on putting together a rough cut of the short film in the evening, and worked on it til just now. Things look quite promising, I managed to try some stuff I never tried in previous works, yet I'm a little surprised by its length. The whole thing is nearly 16 minutes. I thought it'll be 10 to 12 minutes. Whoa. I might have some snipping to do.

Here are some stills.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

LOVE SUICIDES in competition at the Paris Cinema International Film Festival

[Love Suicides] The girl (Arika Lee) looks at the sea
Love Suicides


I have mentioned this briefly back in April, but I'll mention it again since I've gotten more details now that the official line-up of next month's Paris Cinema International Film Festival is out. So yup, LOVE SUICIDES, my first ever Yasunari Kawabata adaptation before I made KINGYO, is one of the 17 short films around the world selected for competition at the Paris Cinema International Film Fest.

Roppongi Hills at Night

After finishing dinner yesterday evening, I was gripped by a sudden urge to catch a film. I thought of seeing Ahn Hung Tran's I COME WITH THE RAIN, starring Josh Harnett, Lee Byung-hun, Takuya Kimura and Shawn Yue.

I rushed off to take the train to Roppongi, but despite my best efforts, the film had already started when I reached Roppongi Hills. Even though I told the lady that I didn't mind about missing the first 5 minutes of the film, she told me that only the first two rows of seats were available. I didn't want to subject myself to such exertion of effort when seeing a film, thus I decided not to bother in the end.

Left in Roppongi without anything to do, I decided to take some photos instead.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Street musicians of Shinjuku on Friday night

I went out to Shinjuku last Friday night because I thought it's depressing to stay at home on Friday nights. I had managed to shoot some inserts for my new short film, 3PM, and had an encouraging line-reading session with my new actress Yumiko (read more about the production here) Some self-celebration was a welcome.

So bringing my new and beloved camera, I ran off to Shinjuku to snap photos of its night scenery.

CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY airing on Astro Citra tonight

Kimmy Kiew in Chicken Rice Mystery


Was more than a little surprised when Nico of Fleishman-Hillard (organizer of BMW Shorties) told me yesterday that CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY will be airing on Astro Citra tonight at 8:30pm.

Abura Soba is a dangerous addiction

Hello. My name is Edmund Yeo and I think I'm addicted to Abura Soba.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Shooting another Japanese short film, "3PM"

No, it's unlikely that I'll pull off what Tan Chui Mui did last year by making 7 short films in 7 months, but I'm trying to shoot at least one short film every 2-3 months. January I shot KINGYO (which you should know by now, is a Japanese production), April I shot AFTERNOON RIVER (Malaysian), and now, in June, I shoot my newest short film called 3PM at Waseda University.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

"Edmund Yeo: Hot young Malaysian filmmaker tackles classic Japanese literature" - Interview with Toronto J-Film Pow Wow

Sitting on a sofa outside Hotel Royal


After returning from last Saturday's Fuyajo Cinema Festival in the morning, I had a quick nap before getting up for an interview with Chris Magee of Toronto J-Film Pow Wow.

You'll get to read about a childhood incident that might have started my filmmaking dream.

it was how his parents approached the films that set Yeo on the path he's on today. "There was a time when I went to watch "Tremors" with my parents in the cinema when I was really young," Yeo remembers, "I was freaking out. Mom thought the best way to calm me down was to totally deconstruct the illusion of films, like pointing out how some stuff was just props, how they were just acting, how the guy didn't really die, how the monster was just a construct. Perhaps that deconstruction led to the whole discussion about how films were made." Yeo's mother explained that the person in charge of the props, actors and the monster worms in "Tremors" was called a "director". The lightbulb went on for Yeo.


You can read the full article here.

Thanks, Chris.

(I assume the 'hot' in 'hot young Malaysian filmmaker' is a reference to my physical attractiveness, which had long been overlooked. Hah.)

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The 4th Foreigner's Traditional Japanese Dance Exhibition

The 4th Annual Foreigner's Traditional Japanese Dance Exhibition (第四回外国人日本舞踊大会) was held in my university earlier this evening. I didn't know a thing about it until the night before when Niklas showed me a website.

I was curious, so I decided to tag along, immerse myself more into Japanese traditions! I will remain an ignorant foreigner no more!

Monday, June 08, 2009

Picnic in Yoyogi Park

After spending an entirely sleepless night at Shinjuku, I caught a few hours of sleep before Maiko's call woke me up. (read more about it on my previous blog post) After that I got ready and headed off to Yoyogi Park for a picnic with Niklas, Lia The Artist and her friends: Jennifer and Yuu The Installation Artist.

Not a fan of summer afternoons, as the weather had turned a little too hot for my liking. Yet being at Yoyogi Park, bathed in the glow of the glorious summer sunlight would have been great for me to test my new camera.

Happily I took out my new and very beloved Panasonic DMC-LX3 and wanted to see what sort of masterful photography I could conjure in such an environment.

... then I realized that I forgot to bring the batteries.

"Eeeeeyaaaaaaargh!" I eeyargh'd in shock.

I decided to go back to my roots and snap photos with my cellphone instead.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

Testing my new camera on the second night of Fuyajo Cinema Festival

After having complained endlessly about my old camera, and also NOT having a camcorder for the past 6 months, I've decided to rectify all these issues by buying a new camera that could serve as both. So I went off to buy myself a Panasonic DMC-LX3. As I was buying it, I realized how outdated I've been, I was offered to buy a 16GB memory card, and all these while I've been stuck with a 1GB one.

With the new camera, I headed off to Shinjuku Wald 9 again for the Fuyajo (Sleepless City) Cinema Festival, preparing for another sleepless night, and hopefully to catch some other films, and also visit my friends from my uni lab, who had offered to look after the cup noodles booth (free cup noodles were given to everyone who came for the festival).

When I arrived, they were watching the football match between Japan and Uzbekistan of the World Cup qualifiers. Japan had already scored, so they were happy.

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Kingyo's test screening at Fuyajo Cinema Festival in Shinjuku Wald 9

The work-in-progress version of Kingyo finally had its test screening at the Fuyajo Cinema Festival in Wald 9 last night (or technically, this morning, since it was screened at 12am)

A couple of the cast and crew came.

I was happy to see main actress Luchino Fujisaki again. We just ran into each other at the elevator.

Here's a photo of her with Maiko the Producer and I.

Kingyo producer Maiko and star Luchino Fujisaki

With Luchino


(Luchino also had a brief blog entry about her thoughts just before the screening. It's in Japanese though)

We then took a group photo, this time with Lia the Artist/ Asst Director/ Production Designer's much nicer camera.

Friday, June 05, 2009

R. I. P. David Carradine and Shih Kien (Shek Kin)



It's a little sad that I learned of both deaths within minutes of each other. David Carradine was found hanging in his hotel room at Bangkok (article here, either it was suicide or a sex game gone wrong). He was 72.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Piano virtuoso in Bic Camera Yurakucho

I was taking a walk around Bic Camera Yurakucho, checking out cameras and stuff when something in the distance caught my eye. I saw an old man sitting before one of the electronic pianos, pounding the keyboard relentlessly, and some shop assistants were looking at him.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Really tiny car

I was on my way to catch Star Trek in Shinjuku two days ago when I saw an unbelievably tiny car passing by.

Immediately I took out my cellphone to snap a photo. (I wasn't the only one)

Tiny car in Shinjuku

Tiny car in Shinjuku 2


On the other hand, Star Trek's pretty entertaining. Don't think the ending matched up with the intense intro though.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Waseda High School parade

I took these photos back on the 23rd, more than a week ago. I was on my way back to the lab when I saw a parade of school clubs from the nearby Waseda High School (which is separated to Junior and Senior high, I assume the ones I saw were from Junior High)

Not something you'll see everyday, so I whipped out my phone and started snapping.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Review of KINGYO at Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow

[kingyo] A nocturnal conversation at the carpark


Marc Saint-Cyr (you can check out his blog here) had posted a review of KINGYO on Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow. (one of my favourite blogs on J-films! I gave them a nearly-completed version of the film for the 1st anniversary celebration party they held last week)

Here's an excerpt.


What especially makes "Kingyo" a success is how its experimentation never reduces it to a chilly or pretentious aesthetic exercise, but instead remains constantly in service to its characters and their emotional states. Often, the professor and the young woman will inhabit the same space, yet they are nonetheless isolated through the split screen. There is also the scene on a bridge overlooking Akihabara, with special attention given to the two characters’ hands resting close to each other on a railing. Through such moments in the film, Yeo clearly focuses on the distance that can grow between two people, be it in the case of the man and his wife or him and his mistress.


Read the full review.

Remember, if you live in Tokyo, you can catch a test screening of Kingyo at Shinjuku Wald 9 next Friday.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Exploring the ruins in Sagamiko

Ruins of buildings and abandoned places, known as 廃墟 haikyo in Japanese, are ripe for exploration and photography among enthusiasts. There are many blogs and websites dedicated to them, books published as well. Tokyo Times, for example, has a lot of wonderful photos of these tragic, lonely places.

Early this morning, Niklas, me and a mysterious lady friend embarked upon our own ruins-exploring adventure, which, come to think of it, is almost like treasure-hunting in a console role-playing game, but without the treasure, or leveling up. We headed off to Sagamiko, a town at the Kanagawa Prefecture, the train ride lasts an hour from our place.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

New short film, AFTERNOON RIVER, follow-up to KINGYO

So yes, I have completed KINGYO last week, and gearing up for its screening at the FUYAJO CINEMA FESTIVAL in Shinjuku Wald 9 on the 5th of June.

Time to rest? Barely. After taking a breather for a couple of days, I began work on my latest short film, AFTERNOON RIVER.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Where are they now? The cast of SUMMER VACATION 1999

Last Friday when I was sitting in a class taught by the Director of Photography, Kenji Takama (the second DEATH NOTE film, WELCOME BACK, MR MCDONALD), he showed us a couple of his earlier films. One of them was a 1988 film called SUMMER VACATION 1999 (1999年の夏休み), directed by Shusuke Kaneko (the two DEATH NOTE films, AZUMI 2) The film is an adaptation of a shounen-ai (boy love) manga called Tōma no Shinzō トーマの心臓 (Heart of Thomas, or Thomas' Heart) by Moto Hagio.

Here's the synopsis from IMDB.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

The Saddest T-Shirt In The World

I was hanging out at the Nakano Broadway shopping center when I saw this T-shirt.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

My short film, KINGYO, screening at Fuyajo Cinema Festival (Shinjuku Wald 9) on 5th of June

The Wife (Kudou Amane) is delighted to see the goldfishes
Amane Kudo in KINGYO


An unfinished cut of my 25-minute Japanese short film, KINGYO, will be screened at the Shinjuku Wald 9 for the Fuyajo Cinema Festival (click to their site for more info) on the 5th of June. Fuyajo (不夜城, translated as 'city without night') is an all-night event that runs from 10pm to 6am the next day. It's running on the 5th of June, and then the 6th of June.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Kingyo is completed. Goodbye, Toho Studios

The Maid (Luchino Fujisaki) has a solitary moment
The Maid (Luchino Fujisaki) in Kingyo


And so it's finally done. After an occasionally tedious post-production process that lasted for five weeks, I have completed my first attempt at a Japanese-language short film, KINGYO.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Sanja Matsuri 2009 at Asakusa

After hanging about at the Rei Ayanami-invaded Akihabara, I made my move to Asakusa. In truth, Asakusa was my primary destination, Akihabara was just a detour for me to buy my FireWire.

My friend Niklas had told me that a Matsuri (festival) was going on, so I wanted to take a look at it. I arrived at Asakusa at 3pm and already I could hear faint sounds of drums from above. The station was crowded with people moving to the exit, and as I tried to wade through the chaotic sea of humanity, initial curiosity giving way to excitement, I finally made my way out of the underground station and saw the parade.

I will now copy and paste Wikipedia's explanation of Sanja Matsuri.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Rei Ayanami invades Akihabara

I went to Akihabara earlier this afternoon to buy myself a firewire cable. As I walked out of the station, I saw a large crowd gathering nearby.

It was because of the Rei Ayanami cosplayer.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Running into Takuya Kimura at Toho Studios

[kingyo] A nocturnal conversation at the carpark
Yes, my Japanese film, Kingyo's pretty much done


For the third day of the week, Maiko and I were at the Toho Studios, this time with coursemate Linto, who was helping to transfer KINGYO into HDCAM for a public screening at Shinjuku Wald 9 next month (will tell you guys about it when I have more info)

I never realized that making a transfer like this is such a long and tedious affair. Initially I thought it would just be a 3-4 hour affair, at most, I ended up in the studio for nearly nine hours. And no, the transfer still isn't complete.

As we waited for Linto to do the transfer, Maiko and I headed to the Toho cafetaria for lunch. It was just at the building opposite ours, but as we were on the way, I noticed a couple of production crew members walking about. And then when we reached the cafetaria, a Toho Studios employee (they all wear a black jacket with the white words Toho Studios written on the back) was speaking to a man by the entrance.

I couldn't see his face until I was entering the building. Then I saw his face, he was pretty tanned... Louis Koo-level tan, slightly taller than I am, and had a ridiculously familiar face.

Friday, May 15, 2009

A dream of a love story from my past, and the girl who went to Yokohama

I seem to dream a lot lately. Yesterday was strange. I woke up from a dream, and when I dozed off again later in the evening, I had another dream again.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Photos from the ONE LOVE JAMAICA FESTIVAL 09

At around half past 3 on Sunday afternoon, I went with Eric (my friend, not my dad), to Yoyogi Park for the One Love Jamaica Festival 2009. (additional photos of the festival can be found in Glen's blog and Neil's blog... which, at least, were taken with a real camera)

As I met up with him at the bridge near the Harajuku station, I saw a couple of guys offering free hugs.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Sweet Success - Interview with The Star

Just found out that I was on The Star today when Kien Keong told me about it via Facebook chat. Last week Sandra Low conducted an email interview with me, being one of the winners of last year's BMW Shorties with Chicken Rice Mystery. It's a great article worth a read because not just me, but Grand Prize winner Nazim, Audience Award winner Moe and co-Honourable Mention winner Maha were interviewed as well. Click the link below:

SWEET SUCCESS

My excerpt is here:

Happy Mother's Day, mom

For the four time in five years, I'm not around to celebrate Mother's Day with my mom. Of course, I usually say that I don't need a special day to shower my mom with affection or gratitude when I do that everyday with understated grace and subtlety.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Spotting a sumo wrestler in Italian restaurant

I was having dinner with my friend, Niklas, at an Italian restaurant in Takadanobaba (all-you-can-eat for 1500 yen, pretty good deal, had lots of pizza and pasta) yesterday evening. Then one particular customer heading towards the counter after his meal caught my eye.

The physique! The top knot! It was a sumo wrestler! More than a year in Japan and that was the first time I saw a sumo wrestler in the flesh! So I whipped out my mobile phone (which is much more reliable than my camera these days) and started snapping a photo... from the distance, because I was too intimidated to approach him and take a photo.

So you have to look closely at the photo (or click for larger version), behind Niklas and the two waitresses, there's the sumo wrestler!

Monday, May 04, 2009

Guy lying on the streets, wasted

Nearly a year ago (May 8th, to be exact), I had all-you-can-eat Shabu Shabu with two of my old Japanese friends, Ai and Iyo, whom I knew from my Perth days. I even have it on video.

Last night, another old friend of mine, Noriko, came all the way from Kyoto for a visit. (As I've mentioned, it's Golden Week) So I brought them (Ai, Iyo and Noriko) to all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ at Takadanobaba instead.

With my camcorder dead, I could only snap some blurry pictures.

Sunday, May 03, 2009

How I spent the night at Toho Studios

As mentioned before, I've been doing the rest of the post-production of my Japanese film, KINGYO, at the famed Toho Studios.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Colonel Sanders dressed up as Neon Genesis Evangelion's Eva-01

Taken at the KFC restaurant near the Seijogakuen-Mae Station 成城学園前駅 when I was on the way to Toho Studios yesterday.

Colonel Sanders dressed up as Eva 01


Sunday, April 26, 2009

Odd dream from an afternoon nap

I always seem to get the weirdest dreams from afternoon naps, I think. Just like moments ago, when I unknowingly slip into a nap while watching something and dreamed of someone who had plagued my mind for the past few weeks.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Brief visit at Toho Studios, and foreshadowing Tsuyoshi Kusanagi's arrest

So yes, I've totally buried myself into the post-production of my film, KINGYO, in the past week, managing to find my stride again, rediscovering the excitement I had for the project through editing (hate to find that spark when you were separated from it for so long!), experimenting more with the possibilities of split screens.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Back in Tokyo, back to editing KINGYO

Kudou Amane as The Wife in Kingyo


I've returned to Tokyo since Sunday night. It's been a hectic few days. I actually had a film shoot in Klang on Saturday and had managed to do another quick short film with the help of Lesly and Han, that film was an experiment with the Nikon D90, which I saw Ming Jin and Lesly used for their short film, THAT DAY WE WOKE UP. To be able to complete another short film, what a joy!

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

LOVE SUICIDES goes to Paris (Paris Cinema International Film Festival)

[Love Suicides] The girl (Arika Lee) plays with the red balloon
Arika Lee in LOVE SUICIDES


Today was like an emotional roller coaster.

I woke up and saw a MSN message from Fei Ling, telling me that she couldn't do my short film, EXHALATION, due to the fact that she's swamped with work (girl has a day job). I've intended to shoot the short on Thursday, with Lesly's D90, and with Ming Jin producing, but of course, since the screenplay's tailor-made for her, once she can't do it, I can't really get a replacement. So I called it off, and was in some sort of melancholic funk, despite trying very valiantly to suppress such feelings.

Afternoon came, I remained busy editing WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER, while my mind wandered. I was supposed to go to Klang with Lesly on Saturday (I'm returning to Tokyo on Sunday), check out the locations, shoot the places for an upcoming project in August. Then I thought... what happens if I try to immediately shoot a short film while we're looking at the locations! And voila, I felt better!

And then I received an email from the Paris Cinema International Film Festival telling me that my short film, LOVE SUICIDES, had been selected for presentation at the international competition this July. My jaw dropped open.

LOVE SUICIDES write-up on Twitch

[Love Suicides] The woman (Kimmy Kiew) is pensive


Being a long-time reader of Twitch, I, was more than surprised and delighted when Todd did a write-up on my Yasunari Kawabata-inspired short film, LOVE SUICIDES.

There's coverage from a Spanish site too!

Thanks, guys!

CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY goes to Greece (Naoussa International Film Festival)

Dad (Chye Chee Keong) playing PS2 with Pinky the Pink Elephant
Dad (Chye Yang) pesters the Boy (Lim Ming Wei) into playing the PS2 with him in Chicken Rice Mystery


I actually received this email a couple of days earlier, and had posted it on Twitter (and Facebook) as well, about my short film CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY getting invited for screening at the Naoussa International Short Film and Video Festival.

It's the first festival screening of the film since last December's Dubai Film Fest. Here's the trailer of my short, if you haven't seen it before.

Sunday, April 05, 2009

THAT DAY WE WOKE UP, a short film by Woo Ming Jin

I've actually put aside WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER in the past two days to finish up my editing on an earlier short film by Ming Jin called THAT DAY WE WOKE UP.

Thursday, April 02, 2009

WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER shoot has ended

Sunrise at river [WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER]


Fei (Chong Shun Yuan) and Li Li (Foo Fei Ling) hanging out [WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER]

The two pictures above are screencaps from the film's raw footage, haven't done any colour correcting or anything



Wow, it's been a while since I've updated this blog. Despite having Internet access at Kuala Selangor, it was hard to really write about anything during a film shoot. Somehow, I just didn't seem to have the mood for it since all my attention's placed upon the film itself.

The 12-day shoot took place mostly in Kuala Selangor (except the last day, when we went to the famed waterfalls at Ulu Yam instead) and was an emotional roller coaster, and an intense physical exercise. We went to the jungle, to the river, to the middle of the sea, to shoot, then we shot at a salted fish factory and also a cockle factory. I was constantly assaulted by mosquitos during mornings and evenings (insect repellants can only help that much), and was also sunburnt.

It's all worth it though.

Ming Jin had gone off to Tokyo last night to attend his sister-in-law's wedding, so it's now up to me to edit the film.

Hopefully this will be considered as a worthy follow-up to Ming Jin's previous film, the award-winning THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA.

Monday, March 16, 2009

WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER shoot begins, tentative Chinese title

Well, today's my dad's birthday, so happy birthday, dad. Too bad he's KO'd by a bad case of flu and had been sleeping the whole time in his room.

I'm heading off to Kuala Selangor in a few hours for the WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKING FOR WATER shoot. The shoot will begin tomorrow, and will last until the 30th. However, there will be 2-3 days of break, so I'm looking at a 10 to 11-day shoot instead of a non-stop 14-day one. I'm quite excited, but I feel a little regretful that I have to, once again, miss ANOTHER local screening of CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY (well, if they're still screening it despite my absence) I'm not THAT elusive, but it's just unfortunate that all these tend to happen while I'm not in Malaysia, or when I have something else to deal with, like this film.

I've posted on Twitter and Facebook asking for help with translating the film title, WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKING FOR WATER, into Chinese... because it is, after all, a Chinese-language film. Most friends translated it literally and I got some really amusing titles, like:

欲女止渴记 (sounds like a Hong Kong Category 3 film)
火烧女郎寻觅水 (totally literal translation, funny)
火女求水记 (also a cute and literal translation)
猛女灭火 (feels like another Hong Kong exploitative film, like Chicks in prison or something)

So, ah, noticing that most Chinese film titles aren't literal translation of the English titles, I eventually settled for something simpler and more relevant to the story. So the film's Chinese title, for now will be called 遗情.

Friday, March 13, 2009

The pain of replacing an actor

An excerpt from the journal I wrote in 2006 during the making of GIRL DISCONNECTED, my student short film.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

20th Century Boys: Chapter 2 - The Last Hope 20世紀少年<第2章> 最後の希望

20th Century Boys: Chapter 2 - The Last Hope film poster


I made sure I was able to catch a film in Tokyo when I went back, and I ended up seeing 20TH CENTURY BOYS: CHAPTER 2 - THE LAST HOPE, the second film of the planned trilogy directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi. I saw the first film last September, which I rather enjoyed despite its flaws (read my review).

Set 15 years after the events in the first film, the protagonist of this film is the now-adult Kanna, played by Taira Airi, whose hairstyle in the film made me gape in awe.

Why did you bring your kid to the WATCHMEN film?

Watchmen movie poster


To the woman sitting behind me with her kid when I saw WATCHMEN two days ago:

Normally, I don't give a crap about the Malaysian rating system. Films that are rated 18 and above in Malaysia are mostly heavily-butchered, and tamer than most films that are rated PG in other countries. So I'm unsurprised that you overlooked the fact that this film is rated 18-PL (for overseas audience, this rating is reserved for films contain more than one element, either violence, sex or political/ religious content) and brought your kid along to see the film with you.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Introducing 'WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER'

I've returned to Malaysia last night. The postproduction of my Japanese film, KINGYO, has to be postponed until April.

The main reason why I'm in Malaysia right now is because I'm producing Ming Jin's new feature film, WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER (good title huh?). This is his official feature film since THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA (KURUS and CINTA TIGA SEGI were TV movies).

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Production stills from my Japanese film, KINGYO

I've spent the last two days editing my Japanese film, Kingyo, which I finished shooting end of January a day before flying back to Malaysia for Chinese New Year, I have posted some stills from the dailies few weeks ago ('dailies' is the term used to describe raw, unedited film footage, it's known as 'rushes' in UK and Aus, I normally call it 'rushes' too). I only have two more nights left in Tokyo, so am trying to do as much as possible. It took me a while to familiarize myself with Final Cut Pro, and also the Mac, since all these while, everything I've done have been edited on Adobe Premiere Pro. Thankfully, it didn't really take that long for me to get used to things.

Progress is smooth, although I'm unlikely to finish anything until I return to Tokyo again in April. For the time being, I'll just share some production stills taken by Chou-san (he's from China, the surname 张 'Zhang' is read as Chou in Japan, which is what everyone calls him). My last post only had a single picture of my lead actress, Rukino Fukisaki ("Hellevator: Bottled Fools"), so I'll put some here.

An odd, unexpected dream

On the first night I returned to Tokyo, I dreamed of someone I never thought I would dream of again. The last time I dreamed of her was two years ago, which I had chronicled in painstaking detail to my friend Sebastian during a melancholic rant in Valentine's Day 2008.

In my dream, she and I were both in some sort of a bare living room adorned with illogically minimalistic decoration and furnitures, bathed in ethereal white glow. Even though it had been nearly three years since I've last seen her, when she had seemingly vanished from my life with inevitable finality, and I myself never making any effort to find out where she was, meeting the dream-her again made me joyous, a joy mirrored by the smile on her face that I have seldom seen on the face of her real-life counterpart.

Together we spoke, about many things, all kinds of things, but none of them I can really remember. Perhaps we spoke about nothing, yet because we were merely speaking, nothing felt like many things, or everything, or anything. Her voice from my memories used to sound like a lilting whisper, yet the voice of the dream-her was boisterous and snappy.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Flight Fright

I'm in Tokyo again, but only for a week. Had to settle some things before flying back to Malaysia next Tuesday to continue preparations for Ming Jin's new film, WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER (I'm producing and editing).

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Running into Hong Kong actor Nick Cheung and director Dante Lam

This happened on the 9th of February, the day before I saw snow for the very first time in Berlin. I was hanging out with the Singaporean filmmaker Michael Kam.

With Singaporean filmmaker Michael Kam


We were walking around at the main area of the Berlin Film Fest, Michael wanted to buy some souvenirs. But as we walked towards the Berlin Palast, I noticed a very familiar face.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

My short film FLEETING IMAGES showing at HELP University tomorrow night

[FLEETING IMAGES] The young woman in a car.


My short film FLEETING IMAGES will be making a premiere of sorts at HELP UNIVERSITY's Theaterette tomorrow (that's Thursday, 19th of February). It's one of the ten shorts at the Asiapromote Power and Grace Competition Screenings. The screening begins at 8pm.

Footsteps in the Snow

Returned to Malaysia just a few hours ago.

The past few days had been great. It's unfortunate that I didn't take a single photo during my brief trip in London. Three nights were too short for me, especially when I had such a hectic schedule. I saw a play starring Richard Dreyfuss called Complicity at the Old Vic, then I met up with a number of old friends from secondary school whom I've never seen since... secondary school, and after that, I went to do some hardcore book-hunting at the numerous antique bookshops in Charing Cross Road. So no, definitely not that much time to take photos.

But I'll rewind a little to the morning of 10th of February.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

A Conversation With Quentin S. Crisp



Justin Isis has interviewed Quentin S. Crisp before, and that interview is probably the best place to start for general information on Crisp's writing and clothing style. The purpose of the following interview is to whore out Shrike, Crisp's soon to be released novella from PS Publishing. Before reading this you should order Shrike, especially the jacketed hardcover version. Shrike is one of Quentin S. Crisp's most exciting works to date, and by 'exciting' I mean 'tenser than injecting Red Bull directly into your blood stream'. Brief responses to Crisp's statements are given in [ ] brackets.


Saturday, February 07, 2009

Arriving at the Berlin Film Festival

The flight to Berlin was a long one, but I needed to transit in Amsterdam first for 3 hours. I slept through most of the flight, so I was fine.

This is Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. I arrived at 5am in the morning.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

NTV7's The Breakfast Show thought I was a headcrab zombie

As I waited to enter the studio to talk about videoblogging on NTV's The Breakfast Show in Monday morning, three thoughts were in my mind:

Sunday, February 01, 2009

I'll be on tomorrow morning's NTV7 The Breakfast Show

It happened on Friday morning.

I woke up and saw a Facebook message and an email waiting for me, inviting me to appear on the 2nd of February's (that's tomorrow morning) edition of NTV7's The Breakfast Show. I'm supposed to talk mostly about videoblogging (that's why I posted this tweet on Friday, and got some interesting links in return), and also (hopefully) some stuff about my filmmaking.

I'll be arriving at the studio around 7:30am tomorrow morning, so I think I might appear around 8 to 9am? Quite early, I hope I won't be yawning repeatedly (or worse, dozing off) during the show! The chances of me embarrassing myself will be quite high, due to my personal discomfort with the camera (despite my acting aspirations!) I think it also had to do with... self-consciousness and vanity, I always worry that I don't look pretty enough, and the fact that I'm going to be on national TV will make things more complicated!

Friday, January 30, 2009

Snapshots of Chinese New Year 2009

When it comes to taking photos, I like taking the candid moments, when people are just talking, eating, doing things normally, everything without having to pose for the camera. Posing is fine, but I often ask people NOT to look at the camera when I'm snapping photos. I want... REALISM.

I didn't have my camera with me, I think I left it in Tokyo. So I used my sister's Nokia N78 instead.

The first day of Chinese New Year, as usual, was a visit to my uncle (dad's elder brother's) house. He and his family used to live in Malacca before moving over to Shah Alam 2 years ago, which is great, because going to his place takes only around half an hour as compared to nearly 2 hours in the past.

The entire family from my father's side were gathered, on that day, at my uncle's place. My dad's elder brother and his wife, my dad's eldest sister and her husband, my dad's youngest brother, my cousins, my cousin-in-laws, and the like. Seeing that one of my cousins is pregnant, I know that there will be more people at the family gathering next year.

Just some snapshots from my uncle's house.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

John Woo's Red Cliff 2 赤壁 - 決戰天下 is rescued by Zhang Fengyi's Cao Cao

Red Cliff 2 poster


Before starting my review of RED CLIFF 2, let me tell you some of my thoughts on RED CLIFF 1, which I watched on DVD back in October.

I found RED CLIFF 1 somewhat entertaining, after suffering string after string of mediocre Hollywood films by John Woo, with the bad taste of PAYCHECK still fresh in my mouth, my expectations were low. So without any expectations, I enjoyed RED CLIFF 1. The manly (and somewhat homoerotic) bonding between Zhou Yu (Tony Leung) and Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), a John Woo trademark, remains quite amusing, Zhang Fengyi's turn as the charismatic baddie Cao Cao is the best performance in the film, the action scenes are big-scale and rather fun. In the end, RED CLIFF 1 was entertaining enough for me to not give RED CLIFF 2 a pass.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

'kingyo' shoot ended, I returned to Malaysia. Chinese New Year came.

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR! GONG XI FA CAI!

The shoot for KINGYO (my new film, some screenshots here, you can even read about its write-up on Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow, Edmund Yeo reworks Yasunari Kawabata in his latest short film "kingyo") ended on last Thursday night, amidst a heavy rain in Akihabara. As I was drenched in the rain, I was reminded of my CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY shoot nearly a year ago, when the end of a shoot was signaled by a heavy rain as well.

After 4 hectic days of shoot, I felt relieved that everything progressed so smoothly. While I've always seemed optimistic to most people, previous experiences in student productions had taught me to always expect the worst but hope for the best during shoots. When a shoot ends, I always feel relieved, and giddy with joy that I managed to survive. And then there's always a feeling of gratitude towards my cast and crew, for enduring that journey with me.

Cast and crew of 'kingyo'
The cast and crew of kingyo had seen some crazy stuff during the shoot


Maiko the Producer handled this perfectly. We huddled together, the cast and crew, with Maiko thanking our main actor Takao and main actress Rukino, and I was given two bouquet of flowers to present to them. Then Takao and Rukino spoke about how they felt regarding the shoot, and I also gave a speech (with assistant director, Lia the Artist, translating) about how I genuinely enjoyed the shoot and how I would love to work with them again. Josha the Cinematographer was then asked to lead this ritual, where he made a solemn announcement about how the kingyo shoot has officially ended, and then, all of us clapped our hands once, in unison. I've never seen anything like this before, but this ritual definitely brought a feeling of unity between us all. I would definitely 'import' this to my next productions in Malaysia.

I rushed to the airport the next morning, bringing the raw footage with me in a 1TB hard disk (while Maiko the Producer keeps another one with her in Tokyo). I would've wanted to edit the film immediately, unfortunately the digitizing was done via Final Cut Pro, and the hard disk was formatted only for Mac. I ended up not being able to edit the film because I use a laptop, and because I normally edit using the Adobe Premiere Pro (yes, all my short films, and Ming Jin's telemovie CINTA TIGA SEGI, the entire THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA, were done with Premiere Pro). Quite a hassle.

I returned to Malaysia on the 23rd (Friday night). A couple of days have passed, I've seen numerous films since then. RED CLIFF 2, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, IP MAN, BEAST STALKER etc. Perhaps I'll review them soon.

Chinese New Year arrived three days ago, and I am now in Ipoh, my mother's hometown. I even met up with Ming Jin just now, because Ipoh is his hometown too. We spoke about his feature film we are about to shoot (I'm producing), I also spoke about my surreal misadventures during the kingyo shoot, a project I've first expected to be small and simple, but ended up becoming the biggest project I've ever done, with a massive crew of such unbelievable professionalism that I thought I was doing a commercial film instead of an 'indie' film. Now that I'll be in Malaysia for quite a while, I'm eager to do another short film, something simple and small, can be finished in a day or two. Funny how I'm already thinking of another project before I even started editing this one!

Well, that's what I've been going through in the past few days.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Sneak peek of my new Japanese film, KINGYO

Today's going to be the last day of my shoot for kingyo. It's 3:48 am right now, and I'm off to bed soon. But while I was digitizing the footage I've shot onto a newly bought external hard disk just now, I did some screen captures of them, just to share with you all an early look of my new film. The following pics are of the three primary characters in my film, I haven't done any colour correction at all though.


Kingyo preview 2

Kingyo preview 3

Kingyo preview 4

Kingyo preview 5

Kingyo preview 6


What do you guys think?