Cannes Day 8: The Tiger Factory day!

Spent the entire last week trying to finish up my Master's Thesis. It's due end of this month, but I had other things to do, so had to get it done earlier. I succeeded.

Now, on with my penultimate post for the Cannes trip.

Cannes Day 7: Pretty uneventful aside from the Directors' Fortnight Party

Nothing happened on my 7th day in Cannes. That was the 20th of May, just a day before our press conference and screening. We continued going around giving out invitations to friends and people who were interested in catching THE TIGER FACTORY.

After that we bumped into Lee, editor of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's eventual Palm D'or winning 'UNCLE BOONME WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES', and the actress Wallapa (who played the princess in the film). We went off to have some kebab. Lee gave us tickets to the Uncle Boonme gala screening too, awesome!

Cannes Day 6: Lee Chang Dong's Poetry

Been busy writing my masters thesis (due end of June), giving my mid-term thesis presentation in Wednesday (just two days after I got back from Cannes) and being repeatedly pestered to give advice for someone else's graduate film project that I had no time to update my blog.

19th of May. Went to the gala screening of Lee Chang Dong's Poetry. That was probably the highlight of that day, I can't remember anything else from that day.

Cannes Day 5: Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy

After meeting Abbas Kiarostami at MK2's Jia Zhangke party, I knew I had to catch his film.

Nespresso in Cannes Film Fest

At the main Palais building of the Cannes Film Festival, where the Market is held, and just between the theaters showing the competition films and the Un Certain Regarde films, there's a Nespresso Cafe that provides free coffee to people with festival accreditations.

Cannes Day 4: Prof Ando brings us to nice restaurant

I've returned to Tokyo this morning. It's been an enjoyable trip in Cannes. The reception for THE TIGER FACTORY was very warm, there was a nice standing ovation, but I'll get to that later.

Cannes Day 3: Jia Zhangke, Wang Xiaoshuai, Kiarostami, etc.

Discovered a nice bakery at Juan Le Pins in the morning.

Cannes Day 2: Finally saw some celebrities

I'm staying in a hotel at Juan Le Pins, which is one station away from Cannes.

As I took a walk around, I realized Juan Le Pins is quite a charming little place.

First day in Cannes

I arrived at the Charles De Gaulle Airport on 4am. I was supposed to wait for 3 hours before the transit to Nice.

My award-winning short film, LOVE SUICIDES now (temporarily?) online

My short film, LOVE SUICIDES (2009) has also been temporarily uploaded online last month as part of Brazil's Fluxus 2010 - International Film Festival on the Internet, so I decided to allow the folks at GUA to host the short for a while as well.

Watch CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY online (a suitable film for Mother's Day?)

Today is Mother's Day, so I thought it would be the perfect time to share with you all my very first non-student short film, CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY (2008), which is now uploaded on Youtube

Singer Yui Ibuki 伊吹唯 performing in front of Shinjuku Station exits

On the 6th of May, before I caught sight of Denis the tap dancing painter, I saw Yui Ibuki 伊吹唯 performing at the West exit of Shinjuku station (I was on my way to Yodobashi Camera to check out some camera lenses).

Denis the Tap Dancing Painter

Last night, as I was heading home from Shinjuku, I saw Denis, a tap dancing painter. I can assure you that it's not really a common sight in Shinjuku. The guy had a lot of showmanship and had attracted a large crowd of people during his performance.

Another afternoon in Asakusa, then at the Lucie Rie exhibition in Roppongi

On Sunday, the posters of THE TIGER FACTORY were finally delivered to us. They looked good. To celebrate that, Professor Ando decided to organize a short tour in Asakusa for Ming Jin and the rest of us THE TIGER FACTORY gang.

THE TIGER FACTORY trailer

This teaser was also posted on Twitch and the official Directors' Fortnight website.

Here's some info of the film:

Met old friends. I realized I had an eventful year.

The Japanese Golden Week had begun. I met up with three of my old friends, Ai, Iyo and Maiko. Not Maiko the Producer, but another Maiko, who, like Ai and Iyo, were friends I met during my Perth days in 2005, when they were exchange students.

Preparing THE TIGER FACTORY for Cannes

The past few days went by in an even quicker blur. Day became night, night became day, sometimes I didn't sleep, sometimes a nap is treated as a sleep, I have lost all sense of time.

I went back to Malaysia for 3 nights to:

Behind a scene of THE TIGER FACTORY

This was shot on the 6th of March (my birthday!), during the 4th day of THE TIGER FACTORY shoot. Pang the Sound Guy had to play a minor role, so it was up to the director Woo Ming Jin himself to carry the boom mic.



Making films in Malaysia, you kinda have to do everything.

(another 2 hours before I head off to Narita Airport)

Returning to Malaysia for 3 nights to finish THE TIGER FACTORY edit

Pearlly Chua and Lai Fooi Mun in THE TIGER FACTORY

Ever since the news announcement of THE TIGER FACTORY's Directors' Fortnight selection in the Cannes Film Festival (once again, I would like to point out that the film is a Malaysian - Japanese co-production, which wasn't mentioned in the initial press release, nor written on the official website!!) I haven't been getting any proper sleep. Last night I slept (more like fell asleep before the computer) at 12am and woke up at 3am. Then after that I just started replying to many emails from some publicists and distribution companies who had interest in our film, and then had email exchanges with Prof Ando the executive producer, who was also awake.

THE TIGER FACTORY goes to Cannes Film Festival

Dear all,

The past two days had been a blur. Woo Ming Jin's THE TIGER FACTORY, which I produced and co-wrote, had been selected for The Directors' Fortnight section in next month's Cannes Film Festival.

My short films, LOVE SUICIDES and KINGYO will also play at the Singapore International Film Festival tomorrow (with LADYBIRD'S TEARS)

I mentioned in my previous post that the Thai-language short film that I wrote and produced, LADYBIRD'S TEARS, will be having its world premiere at the 23rd Singapore International Film Festival tomorrow (19th of April, 2010).

Aside from that, both the shorts that I wrote and directed, LOVE SUICIDES and KINGYO will also be part of their Asian Shorts program. It's quite an honour to have 3 shorts that I was involved in being presented at the film festival.

Ladybird's Tears, a short film I wrote and produced

Back in January, I mentioned that I was reworking somebody else's film. The film will end up being called 'LADYBIRD'S TEARS', directed by my Thai friend, Kong Pahurak, and starring Zhu Dan (who can be seen in my upcoming short THE WHITE FLOWER, which Kong acted in as well).



In the previous post, I mentioned that LADYBIRD'S TEARS were assembled from footages of Kong's unfinished experimental short film STARDUST MEMORIES. I saw some potential in what he did, and decided that it would be a bit of a pity to leave the film in the can. The pictures you see here are actual screenshots of the film.

Goodbye Cherry Blossoms

The rain 2 days ago removed most of the cherry blossoms from sight. How fleeting they were, and how hard it is to not feel a tinge of melancholy to know that I won't see them for another year.

Road trip in Slovakia. Adieu.

Time for me to upload the rest of the photos I took while I was in Bratislava (check out the earlier Bratislava blog posts and photos here). I was waiting to do this only when I was able to edit together the video I took on that particular day.

Would I recommend another to join the film industry?

Well, dad had came for a visit since Friday. The following photo was taken on his first day here, in Shibuya.

The 8th day of Chinese New Year 2010

21st of February. It was the 8th day of Chinese New Year, 2010. Some Chinese families of the Hokkien dialect group have a special praying ceremony when it's midnight, during the beginning of the 9th day. (Not mine though.)

Here's from Wikipedia about the 9th day of Chinese New Year.

Remnants of Jaya Supermarket

I'm sharing some of the first few photos I took after I got my Canon EOS 7D on the 21st of February.

Welcome party (and cherry blossoms) in Toho Studios

I'm going to elaborate upon the previous post.

Cherry blossoms in Toho Studios

Well, it's the time of the year again for the blossoming of cherry blossoms (sakura) in Tokyo.

I've managed to retrieve my old Panasonic LX-3 after sending it off for repairs prior to my trip to Bratislava, so I managed to snap a couple of photos with it last night when I was at Toho Studios. Nowadays I actually carry two cameras around, my LX-3 (it's more inconspicuous) and my Canon 7D... which I use only when I want to take photos that can only be taken with a DSLR.

So for now I'll just share the photos that I took with the Panasonic LX-3. The entire story of why I was in Toho Studios will come later.

Last workshop in Bratislava

26th of March. Friday.

We had our very last workshop session.

Just to explain a bit more on the Script & Pitch workshop that I have attended without giving away supremely confidential information...

Slovakian Sushi

Thursday. 25th of March. I remember that mostly because I had sushi for lunch. To think that I came all the way from Tokyo to Bratislava, just to have sushi! How fun!

More photos of Bratislava

24th of May. Wednesday. Went off for a walk in the Old Town area to buy some souvenirs for friends.

I ate a lot in Bratislava.

Day 2 of the workshop in Bratislava. But this isn't going to be about my (CONFIDENTIAL) workshop.

Blooming flowers

Second night in Bratislava. It's currently 5:30 am. I've been awake since 3:30 am. Thinking about my script, it's a feature-length film, so it's nothing I've ever done before. Need a while to ponder.

The first session of the workshop was fun. 3 people in a team, a tutor and a story editor trainee. We all discuss about our own screenplay, mine and another girl's, Anita from Slovakia, are in early treatment form, while another guy, Alexis from Greece, already has his script in its first draft. We take turns discussing and deconstructing each other's stories, it's not something you get to do everyday, so it's fun.

I'll give more details later.

Didn't take any photos that are worthwhile, so I'll just post up some photos I took near my dorm in Tokyo, just a day before I came to Bratislava.

Photos of Bratislava at night

After posting my last blog entry, I noticed that the sky had gone dark. It was half past six, a bus was to take me to dinner at 8:30pm, plenty of time for a walk, and so I exited the hotel.

I'm now in Bratislava, Slovakia

I recently watched 'UP IN THE AIR' while I was on the plane back to Tokyo. I felt that I could totally relate to George Clooney's character.

After 3 nights in Tokyo, I took to the skies again. This time I was heading towards Bratislava, in Slovakia. I'm one of the 20 participants invited for the Script and Pitch Workshop.

Chinese New Year 2010 Day Two

This is a flashback to February 15th. The 2nd day of Chinese New Year. The photos I took that day were the last ones I took before my original camera, the Panasonic LX-3 had its untimely death.

I had just brought the camera to the Panasonic Service Center in Akihabara for repairs, and had been forced to convert to using DSLR since then. (In case you hadn't noticed, the production photos of THE TIGER FACTORY, and the ones of my dad's birthday dinner, those were taken with my new Canon 7D).

Petronas Twin Towers, the unclear future, and a traffic jam

On my last day in Malaysia (which was dad's birthday), I was at KLCC in the afternoon to meet up with an old friend, so I decided to snap a photo of the Petronas Twin Towers.

Dad's birthday dinner 2010

Anyway, just as I've mentioned in my previous post. Yesterday was my dad's birthday. He has hit the big 6-0. Good work, dad.

16th of March. Happy birthday, dad.

Today is my dad's birthday. I'm returning to Tokyo tomorrow.

Spent my birthday in the pig farm (The Tiger Factory shoot day 4)

6th of March. I spent the 4th day of The Tiger Factory shoot in the pig farm again.

Here's Ming Jin, with a piglet.

THE TIGER FACTORY film shoot day 3

It's been a busy week. No time to upload photos, nor this blog. But now that the first leg of the THE TIGER FACTORY shoot is done (it ended on the 10th of March and will resume without me during the end of the month) and I've also completed the shooting of my newest short film (I'm still consistently pumping a short film out every two months) last night, there's some free time.

5th of March. We moved to a pig farm for the film shoot.

THE TIGER FACTORY film shoot day 2

Second day of the shoot. Things went smoothly. Today's shoot happened entirely at the Moon Chew restaurant in Klang.

THE TIGER FACTORY film shoot day 1

Have started shooting Ming Jin's new film, THE TIGER FACTORY, today/ yesterday (it's 1:22am when I'm writing this).

The film shoot is divided to two blocks, and will last throughout the entire month of March. Or April, still not sure. But the first block is from the 3rd til the 10th.

I'll be spending my birthday (6th of March) in a film set.

Chinese New Year 2010 Day One

As usual, on the first day of Chinese New Year (which was also Valentine's Day this year, not that it meant anything to me) we visited my uncle's (dad's elder brother).

He and his family used to live in Malacca until recent years. They now live not that far away. (perhaps 20 mins via car, as opposed to the near 2 hours back then)

Chinese New Year Eve 2010

Heya folks and Happy Chinese New Year.

It's been a while since my last update due to the slow internet connection (I feel demotivated), the sudden malfunctioning of my camera (couldn't open its lens suddenly on the second day of Chinese New Year, when I was in Ipoh), and mostly because I was busy preparing for this new film with Ming Jin that I'm producing (and editing).

Did anyone miss me? Guess not.

Anyway, I'll start it off by sharing with you all photos from the Chinese New Year Eve (13th of Feb).

A radio interview that almost happened. Almost.

A few days before I returned from Tokyo, I received an email from a radio station asking for an interview with me. So I said yes, I was coming back to Malaysia anyway.

After coming back, I remained in contact with the guy on e-mail, finally confirming the time for the interview. I was asked to go to their studio on Chinese New Year Eve.

Dilapidated buildings in KL had a strange charm

I think I picked up photography after I went to Tokyo. Everything was new, fascinating, so I decided to snap photos of them and post them online. To share with others the views of a foreigner in Japan.

It's no coincidence also, that I got into photography around the same time as filmmaking. Somehow after I started making films, things around me just felt a little different, and I just cannot resist the urge of taking snapshots of things I liked, at that very moment.

These photos were taken yesterday when Ming Jin and I, along with the current Greenlight Pictures team, went to KL to do some research for our upcoming film project.

Twilight train in Shah Alam

8th of February. After resting for a night, I immediately headed off to the new GREENLIGHT PICTURES office in Shah Alam for a meeting with Ming Jin. Actually, we are going to prepare for another film shoot over the next few weeks, and you'll be hearing a lot about our project soon.

This is the new office.

Back in Malaysia, not used to internet speed

I've been back in Malaysia since 3 nights ago. But somehow it felt longer than that.

The net connection here had been so horrendously bad that I don't even feel motivated enough to surf the net anymore. I ended up just sitting in front of my PS2 one whole day trying to complete Persona 4.

I didn't sleep at all the night before I leave Tokyo, mostly because I wanted to save all the sleeping for the flight. And it worked. I think I was only awake for 1 hour out of the entire 7-hour flight, mostly to eat the food that they served me.

(The in-flight entertainment wasn't working, so I couldn't catch any films in the plane at all.)

The plane departed from Tokyo at 10:30am, Japan time, and arrived at Kuala Lumpur at 5pm-ish Malaysian time (6pm in Tokyo).

Here's the skytrain of KL International Airport.

Shinagawa is like a sci-fi city

I'm heading to the Narita Airport in around 4 hours. Been busy with so many things in the past few days as I prepare to fly back to Malaysia.

Aside from going through another editing session for someone else's film, one of the things I did was extending my Japanese Visa. So I had to go to the Immigration Bureau at Shinagawa.

Arriving at the station early in the morning, I felt intimidated by the huge wave of people, all seemingly heading towards one particular direction.

Snow in Tokyo

Yesterday (1st of Feb) was a pretty rainy day.

But when I was having dinner with a friend, it suddenly started snowing.

40 hour editing marathon for EXHALATION

I was supposed to put together a rough cut of my latest short film EXHALATION by today.

I took almost a 2-week break from its editing to wait for Maiko the Producer to finish her Masters thesis, Torigoe the Sound Guy to the sound mixing (he had 3 productions lined up before him, EXHALATION, unfortunately, was number 3), and for Woan Foong the Composer to send me the music pieces (we last worked together in my last completed and still-unreleased short THE WHITE FLOWER). To kill time, I ended up helping to put together Kong's film, which is now called LADYBIRD'S TEARS.

But once Kong's film was out of the way, and Maiko was done with her thesis, and Woan Foong had sent me her avant-garde music pieces, things were set into motion again in order to hit today's deadline.

On the 28th, I went to Tokyo University of Arts at Yokohama to do some additional voice recording for actor Hiroyuki Takashima. It was actually my first time in Yokohama, I was surprised by the Western-styled architecture. I snapped photos like a tourist.

Maiko the producer receives Waseda University's cultural award

Yesterday, as I walked out of my place, the sky was very blue.

The busy labs in Waseda University's GITS building

GITS = Global Information Telecommunications School.

The final thesis presentation for Masters students is drawing near. Everyone's been busy in their labs.

Last night I went to check out Sakai Lab (lab of WHITE FLOWER assistant producer Liu Jin and Lia the Artist).

Black and white photos do seem more dramatic...

This is a quote from one of my heroes, Andrei Tarkovsky, on colour cinema.

When we watch something going on we don't notice colour. A black-and-white film immediately creates the impression that your attention is concentrated on what is most important. On the screen colour imposes itself on you, whereas in real life that only happens at odd moments, so it's not right for the audience to be constantly aware of colour. Isolated details can be in colour if that is what corresponds to the state of the character on the screen. In real life the line that separates unawareness of colour from the moment when you start to notice it is quite imperceptible. Our unbroken, evenly paced flow of attention will suddenly be concentrated on some specific detail. A similar effect is achieved in a film when coloured shots are inserted into black-and-white.

Colour film as a concept uses the aesthetic principles of painting, or colour photography. As soon as you have a coloured picture in the frame it becomes a moving painting. It's all too beautiful, and unlike life. What you see in cinema is a coloured, painted plane, a composition on a plane. In a black-and-white film there is no feeling of something extraneous going on, the audience can watch the film without being distracted from the action by colour. From the moment it was born, cinema has been developing not according to its vocation, but according to purely commercial ideas. That started when they began making endless film versions of classics.

Unexpectedly ended up at the GREEN DAY concert in Saitama!

Yesterday, while I was having lunch with a friend at Acacia restaurant, Shinjuku, she told me she had two free tickets to the Green Day concert in the evening at Saitama and whether I wanted to go.

Erna reviews KINGYO

I was just saying in my previous post that it's not everyday someone would bother to write a review of your short film.

I need to rephrase that.

It's not everyday that you have TWO people writing about two different short films of yours.

Here's an excerpt from Erna's KINGYO review.

An ex-colleague of mine was rather disdainful about Edmund, saying that he thought far too highly of himself.

He obviously didn’t get Edmund at all. He’s a funny soul, who is often misunderstood. If only they could see past the hilarious fascetiousness on his blog and see the sensitive soul with a gift and love for narrative.

Emil Kloeden reviews FLEETING IMAGES

I was a little surprised when I was contacted by Emil Kloeden yesterday via Twitter for permission to use one of my FLEETING IMAGES screenshots for his review.

It's not everyday that someone would bother to write a review of your short film. Thanks, man. Here's an excerpt:

Visiting the ancient city of Kamakura

My friend, Kelly (she's from Taiwan), had been preparing to do a very small-scaled short film, and had enlisted Kong's help to shoot it.

She had wanted to shoot her place in a traditional Japanese house, and so her friend Anna, offered to let Kelly use her great-grandmother's house in Kamakura.

Yesterday, Kong and Kelly decided to go to Kamakura to look at Anna's house.

I decided to tag along because I've never been to Kamakura before.

Reworking someone else's film

I completed the rough cut of EXHALATION last Saturday. The next step is to wait for Torigoe the Sound Guy to do the sound mixing for me, which means another trip to Toho Studios (that's where I did my post-production for KINGYO, I actually spent a night there, and even ran into Takuya Kimura). But because Maiko the Producer had been busy writing her Masters' thesis (deadline 21st of Jan), she hasn't had time to book the studio and schedule the date for the rest of the post-production work.

Left without anything to do, I was once again, stricken with post-creativity depression, or boredom, or whatever you people can think of. (it should be obvious to most long-time readers by now that I'm a bipolar workaholic)

But then on Tuesday, my friend Kong, who also had to do his Masters thesis, made an off-hand remark about getting someone else to do the re-editing for his 'experimental' film, STARDUST MEMORIES, because he had been busy, and after his thesis he probably had to work on editing his latest film, THE DEAD FOREIGNER (loosely translation, original title is Shinda gaijin) which was shot a few days before my EXHALATION, and was also produced by Maiko, shot by KINGYO cinematographer Josha and starring KINGYO actress Luchino.

Not everyone likes editing, but I do. So hearing his off-hand remark, a huge light bulb flashed above my oversized (figurative and literal) head.

"Okay! I will edit it!" I said. Anything just to give myself something to busy myself with.

Young Women in Kimono at Meiji Shrine during Seijin No Hi (Coming Of Age Day)

Today's (actually, since it's 1am while I'm writing this, it's actually yesterday) a public holiday in Japan. It's Seijin No Hi (Coming-of-Age Day). On this day, ceremonies are held at local city offices for young adults who reach the age of 20. Women go out in furisode (a style of kimono with long sleeves draped down, which is necessary, since it's winter), men occasionally go out in traditional clothes, but nowadays they usually wear suits.

China Mobile Film Fest 2009 recap

Okay, I was thinking of writing my thoughts on AVATAR, which I saw and really enjoyed yesterday, but better to give a quick recap of the entire China Mobile Film Festival before I forget about it.

Ana Hachiman-gu Shrine in Waseda

I've spent a rather quiet and adventure-free New Year that was a direct contrast of the one I had last year (videos here and here).

But the New Year is a 3-day celebration in Japan, and what I like most are the shrines and temples that are set up with stalls selling food and goods during the period. And then the many people hanging around. Some would have their fortunes told, some would buy good luck charms, some were there for the food, I was traveling alone in Kobe when I ventured around in a temple, seeing the crowd made me feel a little less lonely.

Yesterday was the last day of the celebration, I slightly regret not heading off to one of the bigger shrines in Tokyo like Senso-ji or Meijijingu to snap some photos. However, I needed the rest after I finished the last 2 months of 2009 in such an exhausting manner, and also because I wanted to prepare myself for the post-production of my new film. So instead of going too far, I went to the Ana Hachiman-gu 穴八幡宮 Shrine near my place.

Celebrating a real Japanese New Year (and then running into HK actor Roger Kwok)

New Year's Eve. After finishing the EXHALATION shoot the night before, I spent the entire night transferring the footage into a computer, and then doing backup on two different external hard disks.

When everything was done. It was 5. Maiko the Producer, me and Kurihara the Production Manager (he was also the web designer for the KINGYO website) hung out at Denny's before they were able to return the rented van at 7am. I finally slept at 8:30am.

Woke up 4 hours later.

Maiko's mom had invited me over to their place to celebrate New Year with them, so at 5pm in the evening, I returned to the place that was my shooting location for the past few days (EXHALATION was shot in Maiko's hometown).

We reached at around 7pm. Just in time for the KOHAKU UTA GASSEN (RED WHITE SONG BATTLE) to start on NHK.

Happy 2010!

I'm now hanging out at Tsukui, new year has come, waiting for Maiko the Producer's mom to prepare some soba (apparently it is Japanese tradition to eat soba during new year!).

2009 had its ups and downs, but for me, they were mostly ups. Hopefully 2010 will be better, for me and you all!!!

EXHALATION shoot day 3

Last night, I shot the remaining scenes for my new film EXHALATION.

This is lead actress Kiki Sugino in her uniform (in the film she works in a Pachinko shop).

EXHALATION shoot day 2

Early in the morning, when I returned to the location for the shoot of my new film, EXHALATION, it struck me that i was going through the last few days of 2009.

It was rather apt that, in a year which I would consider a breakthrough for my filmmaking career, I would end it while making a film.

EXHALATION shoot day 1

The 3-day shoot for my newest short film, EXHALATION, had just started. It's the biggest production I've ever taken (yes, even bigger than KINGYO).

Some photos from the film shoot today. I have only 4 hours to sleep before I get up at 5am for day two of the shoot.

The crew arrived at the location at 8:30am in the morning. Everyone started preparing.

Yakiniku Christmas Dinner

I remembered last year's Christmas, it was a quiet one. I miscalculated that Ueno Park or Senso-ji Temple would be open for Christmas, but I was wrong. It was a peaceful but somewhat melancholic experience.

I kinda assumed that the same would happen this year. Perhaps I would just head off to one of the cinemas and watch AVATAR alone, but something else came up, and all of a sudden, I found myself at a Yakiniku restaurant called Buchi, in Shibuya.

LOVE SUICIDES picked up Best Director award at China Mobile Film Festival 2009

(I've announced this on Twitter and Facebook a few days ago, but haven't actually done it here, so here you go...)

Just to share some good news. I picked up the Best Director Award for my short film LOVE SUICIDES at last week's China Mobile Film Festival in Shenzhen.

KINGYO reunion party

Yes, it's Christmas, but let me post some long overdue blog entries for now.

The KINGYO team had a reunion party on the 15th of December, right after the CON-CAN Award Ceremony.

Actually, it's more like a 'wrap party' instead of a 'reunion party'. Although we finished the shoot for KINGYO almost a year earlier (principal photography was done by the end of January 2009), none of us had the chance to really had a 'wrap party'. None of us were able to be at the same city at the same time, so it was great to finally have something like that.

Here's part of the team.


(from left to right: me, Kawamura-san who borrowed us his house for the shoot, still photographer Zhang Xiaolei, production assistant Seki, lead actress Luchino, production assistant An-chan, Lia the Artist/ Assistant director, Maiko the producer and Linto the post-production technician)

The CON-CAN Movie Festival Awards Ceremony and Ando Lab screening in Waseda

Last month, the people of CON-CAN Movie Festival decided to hold an awards ceremony in Waseda University because, aside from me, another award winner Nishihara, was also a Waseda student.

The CON-CAN Movie Festival Screening in Keio University

I just got back from Shenzhen, China, two nights ago. Was there a couple of days for the China Mobile Film Fest, was mortified to be reminded again that Facebook, Youtube, Blogspot and even Twitter were blocked, hence the lack of updates. I picked up an award from the festival, but I'll get back to that later.

Last Monday (14th of December, 2009), I headed off to Keio University for a screening of FLEETING IMAGES (watch entire film here) organized by the CON-CAN Movie Festival. My film, along with 3 of the award-winning films of the festival, were screened. But that night, only me and Monica Gallab of Belgium (Special Jury Prize winner for NICE DAY FOR A PICNIC, film embedded at the bottom of the post) were present for the event.

This is Yumi the Photographer, she studied French literature.

My return to the ruins of Sun Hills Hotel and Fujino

Back in May, I explored the ruins at Sagamihara. It was an unforgettable adventure that stayed with me, so I decided to return to the ruins of Sun Hills Hotel again, for location scouting.

I don't think my handwriting is THAT ugly

Another sleepless night.

I developed an outline for my new film two nights ago.

Yesterday evening, I tried to come up with a rough film treatment. (it's typically the step before the first draft of a screenplay)

Maiko and Kong, along with An-chan, were having discussions about Kong's new short film, which was scheduled for shooting this month.

Me, knowing that it was a rare moment where I could concentrate without having any other distractions, took some papers and started scribbling some notes.

TOKYO FILMeX 2009, Sell Out! director Yeo Joon Han's Q and A session.

I felt a sense of nationalistic pride when I went to catch SELL OUT! at TOKYO FILMeX on the 24th, last month. Took me quite a while to finally catch the film since I wasn't around during the film's local theatrical release in Malaysia couple of months ago. I enjoyed the film, though I liked the satirical, comedic parts more than the musical parts. SELL OUT! Lead actress Jerrica Lai, who had a great voice and was awesome in the film, would later give another wonderful performance at the stunning WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER, produced by, well, me.

Difficult to sleep because of another new project

I've been having problems sleeping again.

The past week when my family were around, I had my most normal sleeping schedule in MONTHS. Sleeping around 1am, waking up around 8-9am, it was healthy.

After finishing my latest THE WHITE FLOWER (I now have the film in screener DVDs, but there will still be some minor tweaks here and there before it really premieres), its month-long post-production leading to some of the craziest, most irregular sleeping time for myself (I would take a brief nap from 11pm to 1-2am, wake up, orchestrate net meetings with Niklas the cinematographer and Woan Foong the composer, getting materials for them to continue the progress of the film, and then updating them by uploading some footage online for them to view etc.) I started having breakfast before I sleep at around 9-10am.


still from THE WHITE FLOWER

The best thing is that I get to skip lunch (which isn't served for free in my dorm, haha) since I often sleep through the noon and wake up around 2pm. I live like a peasant because my deluded romanticized view of struggling artists is one where everything is shoved aside for the sake of his craft or art.

So yes, after THE WHITE FLOWER was done, family came to visit, and I slept properly. They returned to Malaysia on Saturday morning.

I then started planning the storyline for my latest short film. Yes, my 7th short film of the year. A project that happened suddenly (more details in future posts, if I can remember) during a conversation in a cafe when I went to the TOKYO FILMeX end of last month.

My new film is called EXHALATION. I wrote the script back in April when I was in Malaysia just after the WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER shoot. It's an original script, and not another Yasunari Kawabata adaptation. The script was rather simple and I had planned to shoot it only in one night. Unfortunately, things didn't work out with the film's intended main actress, so I ended up making AFTERNOON RIVER instead (the first half of my upcoming short film AFTERNOON RIVER, EVENING SKY).

Since EXHALATION was written before I finished KINGYO, 3PM, AFTERNOON RIVER, EVENING SKY and THE WHITE FLOWER, I think I might have grown more as a filmmaker in the past 8 months (well, I hope so anyway), so I decided to resurrect the project but transplant the story to Japanese settings, and also to increase the scale of the film.

On Sunday, the day after my family left, I spent the entire day in my room, watching films, doing research, reading Yukio Mishima's DEATH IN MIDSUMMER anthology which I just bought two days earlier (funnily, as I try to find reviews of the book, I would end up finding a 3-year-old entry ON MY OWN BLOG written by guestblogger Justin). There was an idea of turning the story from a solo one-woman piece (initial plan was that all secondary characters were either out of focus, or off-screen, audiences can only see the main actress) to a two-hander (instead of being about one character, it's about two, Kong would point out that it's consistent with my usual theme with 'dualism')

By then, my body clock has already been disrupted. Again.

On Monday (that's yesterday), I hung out in the uni lab to do the Japanese subtitles for LOVE SUICIDES. Film will be screening in Waseda University (along with my KINGYO and FLEETING IMAGES on the 15th of December). Maiko the producer and Liu Jin (assistant producer for THE WHITE FLOWER) were there, so I had a few hours of brainstorming session with them. The film became increasingly dark, elements of child porn, child and teenage prostitution, incest etc. were discussed as possibilities for the film's plot. The film went from a nihilistic drama to a murder thriller, then to a soap opera, and then to didactic sociopolitical bore.

My head was spinning.

In the end we figured it was a bit too much, so we took a more melancholic route instead. With that, a story outline started to take its form. So excited with its materialization that I started typing it out and sent to Ming Jin. I then went home at 11:30pm and took a nap at midnight. I woke up this morning at 3am. Ming Jin said he liked the idea. I became more excited and started to think and think and think. Discussing more ideas with Woan Foong, looking at other films, reading about articles, all these to grab hold of the film's essence.

... and then, it's 10:30am.

Creativity is sleep's greatest enemy.

The Eibunren Awards Ceremony 2009

I went to the Eibunren Awards Ceremony yesterday morning with my family (who came to Tokyo for a 1-week visit). As I've mentioned before, KINGYO had won two awards, the Semi-Grand Prix and the Best New Creator award.

The Eibunren Awards is organized by the Japanese Ministry of Culture and the Japanese Association of Audiovisual Producers usually to honour documentaries or other videos dealing with sociopolitical or ecological issues. KINGYO is the first ever independent narrative short film to receive a major award from them, so they gave me the new individual award called the New Creator award.

"Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" in Wakeijuku

A few things had happened. I completed my new short film, THE WHITE FLOWER, I saw a few films at TOKYO FILMeX too (will try to write about them), parents + sister had also arrived in Tokyo for a visit (and also to attend the Eibunren Awards Ceremony on the 2nd of December).

I also intend to throw myself into my 7th short film of the year. I just need to conjure myself a script. More about that later, I hope.

I live in Wakeijuku dorm, that's the dorm Haruki Murakami lived in. The place had prided itself as the place where Norwegian Woods was based on. My feelings towards the place is a stormy one. But then, it IS situated at a pretty good location, and food and electricity are included in my not-too-unreasonable monthly rental fees.

Two nights ago, at the lounge of my building, there was this performance.



Too bad I don't get that everyday.

Finishing up THE WHITE FLOWER

25th to 26th of November. That was the deadline I gave myself to finish my latest film THE WHITE FLOWER. Since KINGYO, I haven't had a film that had such a long post-production, and to think that KINGYO was only 6 months ago. So I've reached the final stages of tweaking the film before doing my first batch of preview screeners for the film.

TOKYO FILMeX 2009, Tsai Ming Liang and the opening film 'Visage'

I had a lot of fun in last year's TOKYO FILMeX film festival. (can read about all my blog posts here, til this very day, my review of Sono Sion's LOVE EXPOSURE is still one of the most-read posts in this blog), so I definitely had to come this year. And this time, I even have a pass!

So yup, the opening ceremony was held yesterday evening, at 5:30pm (it's currently 3:20am as I'm writing this). Here are this year's jury members.

Me, kingyo, Eibunren Awards wins, mentioned in Uni Press newsletter

I have blamed my recent sleeping problems on work (the heavily intense post-production of my short film THE WHITE FLOWER), I've even constantly tweeted (+facebook status update) about it. But moments ago, a guzheng-playing Twitter friend Seren Koo replied to me by suggesting that writing down my ideas and what I want to do would liberate thoughts from my mind, and thus making it easier to sleep.

I realized that my lack of sleep seems to correlate with my lack of blog updates. Many times, writing a blog post at night for me can be quite (mentally) exhausting (despite said post being deceptively mindless!), and I can just drift off to sleep after that. Thus I will start writing something long, and insightful and mentally taxing just so I can exhaust myself enough to sleep.

Alas, the blog post you're reading now is probably not one of them.

Wrapping up my Pusan Film Festival 2009 experience (part 2)

Oh, it seems that I only have 3 photos and two videos that I haven't uploaded from last month's Pusan Film Fest, so I'll do it now.

12th of October, 2009. Last night in Busan (I realized that I've been making a mistake by repeatedly referring to the place as 'Pusan' instead of 'Busan' when the city's official name has long been changed to the latter). There was a Wide Angle party. The Wide Angle program of the Pusan Film Festival includes the documentary and short film competitions.

This is Kirsten Tan, Singaporean filmmaker currently based in New York. She had a short film in competition.

Wrapping up my Pusan Film Festival 2009 experience (part 1)

The post-production of THE WHITE FLOWER had seriously made me insomniac (or gave me messed up sleep patterns), so aside from being able to catch a nap from 1 to 3am, I've been widely awake since then.

So I decided to try to unload the remainder of photos from last month's trip at the Pusan Film Festival. I think I'll finish everything in two posts.





After the screening of WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER, the rest of my days in Pusan were spent on attending functions, parties, meeting people, looking around the Asian Film Market, trying to see a film but missing it in the end (I ended up only seeing MUNDANE HISTORY at the festival, just one film in a festival! A personal low).

17th of November. Mom's Birthday.

It's 5am now. I'm supposed to wake up in 2 hours to go for an early (press?) screening of ZERO FOCUS at Shinjuku Wald 9.

But then, it's my mom's birthday, and for two consecutive years, I've always made an issue out of it on this blog (read my 2007 and 2008 blog post). This year will not be an exception, since I won't be able to dig out some lost videos of my mom floating around on the Internet like I did last year, I'll share some anecdotes with you all.

Deciding upon the music for THE WHITE FLOWER

Today's my mom's birthday. Happy birthday, mom. But I'll get to that later.

I am still knee deep in the post-production of my new film THE WHITE FLOWER, which I'm trying to complete by end of this month.

KINGYO receives two awards at Eibunren Awards

I actually knew about this back in September, when I was in Singapore for the Singapore Short Film Festival. Maiko the Producer called me then to tell about the good news, but since the awards ceremony is in December, I didn't think there was any need to announce this earlier.

But since I've already announced about FLEETING IMAGES winning the Grand Prix at the CON-CAN Movie Festival, I'll make a mention of this as well.

So yes, my Japanese short film KINGYO had picked up two awards from Japan's Eibunren Awards: The Semi-Grand Prix (or Silver Grand Prix) and Best New Creator (also occasionally referred to as the Best New Director award) awards.

Organized by the Japanese Ministry of Culture and the Japanese Association of Audiovisual Producers, I was told that this is the first time an independent narrative short film had ever received a major award from the association. And in order to commemorate this, I became their first ever recipient of the Best New Creator award.

Definitely very honoured by this.

The awards ceremony will be on the 2nd of December. Parents and sister are attending.



Trailer of KINGYO (click here if you cannot see embedded video)

Wayne Wang's film adaptation of Yiyun Li's A THOUSAND YEARS OF GOOD PRAYERS

Caught a free screening of A THOUSAND YEAR OF GOOD PRAYERS in uni yesterday evening (a day before it opens in Japanese theaters, check out Kaori Shoji's review on Japan Times). Went because I read Yiyun Li's anthology of short stories of the same name just a couple of weeks earlier (which I really enjoyed).

Waseda Weekly Magazine (12th of November, 2009)

There's a profile of Maiko the Producer and I on Waseda Weekly magazine that came out today (actually, yesterday, since it's 2am now).

My short film FLEETING IMAGES wins Grand Prix at Japan's CON-CAN Movie Festival

I received a phone call yesterday morning from the CON-CAN Movie Festival. They told me that my experimental short, FLEETING IMAGES, had won the Grand Prix.

Waseda Festival 2009

I realized that last year, around this time, I was in Malaysia (for a brief trip to Rome and the Rome Film Festival), so I missed out the Waseda Festival.

I didn't even know about the Waseda Festival, which was held last weekend until I saw people setting up on Friday (as I was on my way to my lab to record Zhu Dan's guzheng performance).

Cute kittens

Saw these outside my editing lab in the evening just now.

Zhu Dan touches her... Guzheng

It's strange how quickly a week had just flown by like that. It happens all the time when I'm in post-production for a film. Each day just goes by in a blur, and I myself lose the concept of day and night, for the past few nights I had spent sleepless nights in the editing lab for my new short film THE WHITE FLOWER. I usually go home around 6am, sometimes I get to eat breakfast, and then sleep at around 8am, then waking up at 12pm, and then going back to work again.

THE WHITE FLOWER is a challenging film because, aside from it being constructed almost entirely with still photos (which is a nightmare to edit by itself), I myself still have to various sound jobs. Recording voiceover narrations from the three main characters, recording sound effects, downloading sound effects, discussing with my two primary collaborators, Niklas (the cinematographer) and Woan Foong (the composer) about what I need for the film through the net (Niklas is in Finland, Woan Foong is in US), because I'm a crazy nocturnal, the time difference doesn't affect me much.

I always believe that you learning something new whenever you make a film, and for me, making short films is a constant learning experience for filmmaking, that's why I've been so prolific this year (shot 6 short films this year, though only four will be in my official record this year, since I've merged two into one, and another was just a practice for a cinematographer course I took) For THE WHITE FLOWER, I can say that I learn the most when it came to sound, having to teach myself how to do sound mixing and all after recording.

Two days ago I had to record some guzheng music for the film. So I enlisted the only guzheng player I know in Japan, my good friend Zhu Dan, who is also the unfortunate main actress of THE WHITE FLOWER.

This is me carrying her guzheng into my lab.

Zhu Dan touches herself... er, wait....

Sorry, I just couldn't resist the blog post title.

Last night was Halloween. I remained rooted in the editing lab, editing my new film THE WHITE FLOWER. Which, in case you don't know, starred my friends Zhu Dan and Kong.

My acceptance speech for WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER's Cinemanila International Film Fest special mention

Woman On Fire Looks For Water

This happened a few days ago, WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER (feature film directed by Woo Ming Jin, produced and edited by me) received a special mention at the Cinemanila International Film Festival under the Southeast Asian Competition. This year's a particularly strong year for Malaysia, the best Southeast Asian film went to the late Yasmin Ahmad's Talentime and the best short film went to Focal Point, a Malaysian short film by Iranian filmmakers Alireza Khatami and Ali Seifourri.

Fireworks at Haeundae Beach at night

(What a clunky blog post title)

Argh, here lies the problem with my blogging these days. Because I do it so erratically, I have to struggle to remember things. The past few days was a blur. Attending the Tokyo Film Fest, and also editing my film. Heck, it's been nearly 2 weeks since I've gotten back to Tokyo.

10th of October, a day after the Johnnie To Master Class, WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER world premiere, and Pen-ek teaching me how to roll a tobacco, I went through a less eventful day.

Tortoise

No, this isn't about the (great) band.

Trailer of KINGYO

I never really thought of cutting a trailer for KINGYO, I had always thought it would be silly to slap together a trailer for a short film, that's why I merely allowed a preview of the film's first 90 seconds in its official site.

KINGYO screening tonight at the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival 2009

Don't think I've mentioned this before, but there's a screening of KINGYO tonight (and the 23rd) at the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival as part of the Asian Shorts 3 program. You can read about it here.