My First Experience In Pitching My Film In Japan

PITCH (filmmaking)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A pitch is a concise verbal (and sometimes visual) presentation of an idea for a film, generally made by a screenwriter or director to a producer or studio executive in the hope of attracting development finance to pay for a screenplay to be written. Pitches are usually made in person, although they can be made over the phone or, occasionally, pre-recorded on audio or videotape.

A good pitch is generally between five and ten minutes long and lays out the premise, hook and essential beats of the story, along with thumbnail sketches of the principal characters (often including the names of actors who might play the roles), and a clear idea of the genre, tone, likely audience, and budget level.

If an executive is interested in a pitch they may ask to see a treatment. If not, they will often follow up with "What else have you got?".

For this reason, a wise supplicant will be prepared to pitch a second and possibly third idea without hesitation.

I've been gripped by this vaguely familiar feeling of melancholy in the past few days. I wondered whether it had anything to do with the ELEPHANT AND THE SEA trailer I was editing, or the fact that my laptop adapter had gone crazy (laptop abruptly switches off by itself when it's plugged in, no problems when using batteries), or the awareness that I was going to get sick, or because I was stuck in limbo between productions, maybe none of them, maybe a little bit of all of them.

The 3 phone calls I received after the Akihabara (Tokyo) stabbing rampage

The horrible stabbing spree at Akihabara this afternoon has already made international news. When that happened, I was actually at the MOS Burger near my dorm, having a production meeting with Maiko.

I didn't know anything until after the meeting ended and I was on my way to the Takadanobaba Station to catch a train. As I was on my way there, I got a phone call from Jason, my Hong Kong friend.

"Hey, where are you?" He asked.

"Taking a train to Shibuya." I said.

"Oh, then you're not at Akihabara then. There was a loony who went around stabbing at people with a knife. You better be careful." He said.

"Hm. I see." I continued walking, not aware of casualties then, just a little bothered that something crazy had happened at a place I visited just last Saturday.

Why Filmmakers Need to Know the History of Cinema

Tim Sharp, a classmate of mine during filmmaking classes in Perth sent me a really good article of his where he emphasized why a filmmaker should know his cinema history, and lamented that the lack of this awareness contributed to the sad state of affairs seen in the current Perth filmmaking scene. When reading his article, I felt that the issues he discussed are pretty universal. So I definitely recommend this to anyone who has anything to do with the film industry, or wants to do something with it.

Here are some nice quotes that I agree with:

THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA Trailer

I just woke up from my beauty nap at 2am and received an email from Todd at Twitch telling me that he had just posted up the teaser and new trailer of THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA on their awesome site (I visit them daily). Awesome, thanks, man! I haven't even actally posted the trailer anywhere else as I've just finished editing it yesterday. (hence the lack of blog updates)

Soundtrack Preview of THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA

Heya all, I've finally written my first post on THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA blog. Just as I've mentioned, my role for the upcoming film is associate producer, I joined in only during post-production (months after the film made its world premiere in Rotterdam Film Festival 2007) to help refine the film for Malaysian release. Shortening some scenes, and adding some music.

The video below is a preview of the film soundtrack.



So, what do you guys think about my first attempt in composing a film score?

(THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA is showing at Cathay Cineleisure Mall on the 21st of August 2008, it had been shown in more than 20 film festivals)

Tags: the elephant and the sea, woo ming jin, edmund yeo, trailer, soundtrack, music, youtube, video

Kwak Jae-Yong's Cyborg She / My Girlfriend Is A Cyborg 僕の彼女はサイボーグ starring Haruka Ayase

I'm not sure what is the actual title of this film. Some articles call it MY GIRLFRIEND IS A CYBORG (a literal translation of its Japanese title), while Wikipedia called it 'CYBORG SHE', prefer the former, it's catchier.

This film is directed by Kwak Jae-Yong, the Korean director of MY SASSY GIRL. It was said that this will be the last film of his 'Sassy Girl trilogy', after MY SASSY GIRL, WINDSTRUCK.

MY SASSY GAL is widely considered a classic Korean romantic comedy, and (deservingly) made a huge international star out of Jun Ji-hyun, although I personally thought that Cha Tae-hyun's performance was a little underappreciated. It's one of my personal favourite Korean films, I've also seen Kwak Jae-Yong's subsequent films, THE CLASSIC and WINDSTRUCK. THE CLASSIC was a decent pure tragic tearjerker, while WINDSTRUCK was a mild disappointment, because it felt too obvious that he was trying to recapture the magic in MY SASSY GAL. By doing that, I felt that he was recycling his old tricks, instead bringing in something new. After all, Park Chan-Wook's films from his REVENGE TRILOGY are pretty different from one another, why can't Kwak Jae-Yong do the same?

THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA Showing at Cathay Cineleisure on 21/8/2008!

Heya all, after winning a couple of cool awards at important film festivals last year, THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA, directed by Woo Ming Jin, will be screening EXCLUSIVELY at CATHAY CINELEISURE MALL on the 21st of August, 2008 (You can read about Ming Jin the Mentor's blog post about his adventures at the 25th Torino Film Festival where the film became the first Malaysia film in history to win itself a Special Jury Award at the festival! Or you can read about what I did at the Elephant and the Sea screening at the Santiago Film Festival in Chile last August)

I hopped aboard as the co-producer of the film after joining GREENLIGHT PICTURES last year, and was involved mainly in the postproduction of the project, and securing its Malaysian theatrical release (countless visits at the Censorship Board in Putrajaya)

Faithful Dog Hachiko does exist!

This post will reflect my sheer ignorance.

Quick thoughts on the Spring 2008 Japanese doramas I'm watching now

Since scoring myself a free television last month, I've been watching the Japanese doramas every night even though there aren't subtitles and I struggle at most times to understand the language. But hey, thanks to the fact that the performances in most doramas are really... 'expressive', I can just read their faces and body language and deduce what's going on.

So, here are some brief thoughts on the doramas that have been airing the past few weeks. (I'll borrow the synopses from Tokyograph's Spring J-dorama preview)

Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon 三國之見龍卸甲 starring Andy Lau and Maggie Q

I remember THREE KINGDOMS: RESURRECTION OF THE DRAGON solely for one reason. It was the one film that was going to screen in Malaysia on the week I left for Japan. Thanks to my departure, I was deprived from my much-wanted Maggie Q dose. I also remember watching the trailer just before the laughably bad (but still laughable) AN EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS, and realized later that the trailer itself was better than AN EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS.

Preparing for New Japanese-language Production.

I mentioned last Sunday that reading through Kawabata Yasunari's Palm of the Hand Stories had given me inspiration for a new short film, and I was going to meet up with fellow film student Maiko to brainstorm some ideas.

Everything went on smoothly then and I managed to write the first draft of the script. It's shorter than anything else I've written, but only because of its lack of dialogue. The film's most likely going to be around ten minutes long. And it still doesn't have a title.

I've just returned from another production meeting with Maiko, earlier in the afternoon and things are starting to fall into place. The film can be done with the financial backing and assistance of the university, but Maiko has to submit the proposal and script (translated into Japanese) by end of the month.