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Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Directing 101 with Edmund Yeo

Another four more days and everyone will get to watch 3 DOORS OF HORRORS on Youtube, the omnibus film that my new short film FLOATING SUN is part of.

FLOATING SUN features a floating corpse, and it wasn't easy to tell my actress how to not just act as a floating corpse, but to become one.

Luckily, produce James Lee had managed to snap a few important shots of my efforts in directing these challenging scenes, and he had posted this on Facebook, which cracked me up.

Directing 101 with Edmund Yeo

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Introducing Ng Ken Kin and Leroy Low (the other two directors of the "3 Doors of Horrors" omnibus)

I first met Ng Ken Kin and Leroy Low, the other two directors of "3 DOORS OF HORRORS" in March, when James Lee gathered us all for a meeting about the omnibus project. Each of us has vastly different backgrounds, Ken Kin is a veteran in the film and TV industry who had done quite a lot of short films and TV programs. Leroy is a young music video director who had done a few music videos with some of the most popular Chinese pop stars in the country during the last two years.

"3 Doors of Horrors" (omnibus with my latest short film) on The Hollywood Reporter

August 17th, exactly a week from now, my new short film FLOATING SUN, which is part of the "3 DOORS OF HORRORS" omnibus horror will be launched online.

It's great to see this being covered by The Hollywood Reporter yesterday.

Sunday, August 04, 2013

Jia Zhangke's PLATFORM, Fatih Akin's EDGE OF HEAVEN... and Cucurrucucu Paloma

The preparation of a new screenplay is filled with challenges, and tiny little joys.

The past two days, in order to get into the right mood to write a new story, I was watching films that are relevant to what I intend to do.

Two days ago, I finally caught Jia Zhangke's monumental PLATFORM (2000). I was overwhelmed by its ambition and scope, its execution and style reminded me of the earlier works of Theo Angelopoulos (THE TRAVELLING PLAYERS and ALEXANDER THE GREAT came to mind, I think Angelopoulos shifted styles after VOYAGE OF CYTHERA as his stories became more intimate and more focused on one protagonist).

I realized I have never seen that many of Jia Zhangke's works. A few of his short films, and maybe just his later film, THE WORLD (2004). But I still keep this 2010 photo of myself with his muse (now his wife) Zhao Tao because of the Jia Zhangke photobomb.

With Zhao Tao and Jia Zhangke

Now that I look at it, the year 2000 was an amazing year for Chinese cinema. Wong Kar Wai's IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, Edward Yang's YI YI, Jia Zhangke's PLATFORM, Ang Lee's CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON etc. Regardless of what you think of these films, they have all left a mark in history, influencing filmmakers and the film business in ways beyond description.

Pondering the Importance of Being Prolific

Now that I am utterly sure that no one reads this blog anymore, I think I can try to revert it back to what it was when I started this 9 years ago.

A journal for my own thoughts.

Thursday, August 01, 2013

Autumn Di Hatiku ended today.

Today marks the beginning of August, and also the end of the web series "Autumn Di Hatiku" (watch it here) which I co-produced, co-wrote and co-directed.

Reception had been more than I imagined. The media coverage was amazing. The stars of the Autumn Di Hatiku were almost ubiquitous, appearing in newspapers, magazines, TV shows etc.

When it comes to the film and TV business, creativity is one thing (and the fact that we were given full creative freedom by Tonton for this show was a rarity that fills me with gratitude), being backed by a team that trusted us entirely and did so much when it came to promoting the show, the whole experience was quite joyous.


To mark the final day of Autumn Di Hatiku, Tonton and Gua organized a "chat with the fans" session with Autumn Di Hatiku stars JS Kim (the titular Autumn) and Anas Ridzuan (the morally ambiguous Kai) this afternoon.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

The full list of Golden Wau Awards nominations

Having a new set of awards to reward Malaysian Chinese cinematic achievements is a nice idea, especially considering the increase of Malaysian Chinese films in the country during the past few years.

So we now have the Golden Wau Awards, which is kinda like the Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan, or the Hong Kong Film Awards in Hong Kong, except, this one is in Malaysia.

Monday, July 29, 2013

WATCH THIS: Trailer of 3 DOORS OF HORROR (a horror omnibus that I'm part of!)

FLOATING SUN took only two days to shoot, and perhaps a few days to edit.

But the process of trying to perfect it had been rather exhausting. The colour grading, the audio mixing, the music, they were tricky, because I am working on a genre that I wasn't exactly familiar with.

The entire month of July has passed by without me noticing.

The film is finally done.

[FLOATING SUN] Fiona (Emily Lim 林佩琦) and the drowned corpse of Xiao Hui (Candy Lee 李佳洁)

In case you don't know, FLOATING SUN is part of a horror omnibus produced by James Lee called 3 DOORS OF HORROR. The other two directors participating in this are Ng Ken Kin and Leroy Low.

Yesterday, James finally posted the trailer of 3 DOORS OF HORROR, and it looks pretty great!

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

The Media Coverage of AUTUMN DI HATIKU

In my last post, I mentioned about the web series that I co-directed and wrote, AUTUMN DI HATIKU.


14 episodes had came out, so the series has already reached its halfway mark.

What truly amazed me in the past few weeks was the media coverage of this series.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Introducing "Autumn Di Hatiku", a web series I wrote and directed

This is the story of how I got this beautiful Autumn Di Hatiku pillow.

I received an Autumn Di Hatiku pillow


When cast members constantly live-tweets your film shoot...

On the 28 and 29th of June, I was shooting my new short film, FLOATING SUN, which is part of the HUNGRY GHOST FESTIVAL: 3 DOORS OF HORROR omnibus project produced by James Lee.

I like to see photos of myself working. This is me directing my new film FLOATING SUN #幻日

The other two directors, Ng Ken Kin and Leroy Low had long finished their segments, so it was up to me to ensure that I wouldn't screw up.

Once again, my cinematographer was Lesly Leon Lee, who shot my first two short films CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY (2008) and LOVE SUICIDES (2009), and later, my one-minute Prada short film "NOW". Because of this, I couldn't help but find myself comparing the current film shoot with those from 5 years ago.

One of the biggest differences nowadays is the advent of social media and smart phone technology. Cast and crew members can now easily live-tweet/ live-blog/ live-facebook/ live-whatever the entire process of the shoot. Of course, being generally open to such things, I agreed to let everyone post up videos or photos of the shoot as long as I look flattering, and as long as they don't spoil the story.

FLOATING SUN, which is loosely based on a Kanai Mieko story, stars Emily Lim 林佩琦, Daphne Low 刘倩妏, Candy Lee 李佳洁 (whom I last worked with in last year's short film DOUBLE which I produced), Steve Yap 叶良财, Candy Ice 林冰冰 and Azman Hassan (who had appeared in almost every single important Malaysian independent film out there).

It revolves around a drowned corpse.