Innovation in Film Production in Singapore

Ilo Ilo is innovative, it’s the story of a boy who keeps a pet chicken in his HDB flat but eats it for family dinner in the end. But seriously, it’s not a bad film.

Still from Ilo Ilo – Main character gets a haircut from his domestic helper at night.

Scene analysis or Script analysis

Dear Prof. Sebastian,

Here is the script analysis (for version 4.4) and additional information which I decided to add after seeing what Jack (from g1) did.

1. Long takes. 2 or 3 or 4 long takes can be used for the film. Why? I appreciate coverage, but after doing a documentary for two months, I’m sick of it.

2. Tracy is not the most beautiful person in the mainstream sense. Not like a L’Oréal model that you see on posters around Singapore town (which may or may not be photoshopped). But someone who doesn’t care so much about her appearance and focuses on the important stuff.

3. Regina is the mysterious kind of character that you don’t know what she’s thinking about. Like a word written in a foreign language that you think looks like a good word but could also be an ordinary word.

4. Nick is the chaos man. More careless than the average person. Loses his things quite often. And treats his stuff the way a baby plays with toys.

4.5. I would say these characters work in some advertising company. They appreciate photography and think it’s funny to play with it. I won’t say more because I may change the story again.

5. Colour. With your suggestion of using the Academic Chair Sorensen’s new video wall in the ADM lobby, that would be the most colourful thing in the story. Not as ‘colourful’ as Tracy our hero.

6. The setting. Why did I choose ADM? For both practical and artistic reasons, factors that go hand in hand. 6a. It’s affordable – no transport needed – and less tiring for the crew: we have fantastic ADM toilets, water cooler. But maybe more tiring for the actors who may not live nearby. I’m making up for the actors’ expense by preparing as much as possible, so that we can do it in no more than 4 takes per shot. Really. 6b. Artistic freedom – with more time, we can have better quality for this project I hope.

Best wishes,
Ken

Reflection on “The English Surgeon” Documentary

Hearing the title, “The English Surgeon”, I didn’t expect to find our characters in cold, unglamorous Ukraine. I thought of tea and biscuits and little old ladies that looked like the Queen. I noticed the main patient, Marian, living in the desolate-looking country where nothing is growing, walking past what seems to be a graveyard. I don’t think rich people live near run-down overgrown graveyards. That’s a good establisher sequence, especially when he walks into his cavelike dark home. The surgeon’s introduction was also great, seeing how he was drilling into wood to make a box for-we’d never guess-a surgeon’s chair, to be shipped somewhere. The drilling bit sort of let me make the association between drilling wood and drilling into someone’s head to remove tumours. And it would be the poor Marian’s head we would soon be seeing opened up and ‘cured’.
Regarding the sound aspect, I recognised a few themes being repeated and used. It felt appropriate at all times.
Out of curiosity, I googled the release date, 2007. Before Russia invaded Ukraine. And I also saw the runtime, 94 minutes. It felt shorter when I was watching it.
Characters – looking back, I guessed the filmmakers had footage of many other patients they ‘saw’ at the hospital, but chose few of them for the sake of time. I wouldn’t mind watching more but it’s emotionally very heavy seeing people in pain. So the characters that were featured were good for the story. In the sense that I don’t think the story wandered off because we followed the ‘wrong’ character.
Journeys – I like the shots in the car. I imagine that in Ukraine, unlike Singapore, travel by car is a longer journey and important conversations would take place between our main characters: the doctors. So it was a good decision to set up a way to record what they said. It seems that some of that car footage was from fixed cameras. Otherwise the camera crew would die of cramps from filming everything and not moving throughout the car journey.
Aftermath – I was thinking about how the surgeon visited the little girl’s grave at the end. We saw a repeat of the little girl on archive footage and I guess it’s because they didn’t have other footage that would honour that person. Also in case we the audience were confused as to which female person we’re looking at being shown to us. At this point I was thinking about the people in my life and tearing up. Incidentally, a friend of mine passed away a week ago from cancer. The cancer was in various parts of his body and he had been receiving treatment for around 2 years already without much success. So things like cancer and tumours – it’s good if they can be diagnosed early like the doctor said. In places like Ukraine where average people seem to be poorer than people in Singapore, diagnosis often comes too late as we see in the movie.
Morality – while I agree with the statement that filming people in suffering is exploitative by nature, I also think that the filmmakers were respectful of the people they recorded, and did not dishonour anyone. Things would be different in other countries. I have two points on this. 1. In Singapore, many of us stay in HDBs, and many of us have access to the Internet. On the Internet people say a lot of mean things and information gets around quickly to people you’d never intended to know. I think that out of fear of shame (Who are these people with the camera? What if my neighbours see me in this state? What will my friends at school think of me?) many people would refuse to be filmed and a documentary like this would be more difficult to make. 2. From past experience, it is not easy to shoot in a hospital, because of many reasons.
On the other hand, the people in Ukraine may not be aware of the exploitative nature of this documentary. They may not even know what a documentary is, or not have watched documentaries themselves. But it seems that BBC is fine with it, so things appear to be OK.
One last point, I think it’s also a film about friendship. The English surgeon and the Ukrainian doctor are friends for fifteen years. I don’t think I have had any close friendships for that long. So these two gentlemen seem very committed to saving people’s lives and their friendship is a positive thing. They look like a great team in spite of all the hard decisions they have to make every day at work, and all of the failures they’ve had to overcome from a nosy government or botched operations.

Camera Concept

I’m thinking of using a static camera and longer shots which require slightly complex blocking, like in old black-and-white movies when the movie camera was less mobile. So there is less focus on the editing- the viewer will see more of the ‘pure performance’ from the actors.

camconcept_ken_19sep

Edit: changed the lights setup
Extreme example of what it could feel like: from Abbas Kiarostami’s work.

Update on our progress

So this week we are shooting at least three more scenes. Kaizer’s doing 2 of them because I’m not free when he’s meeting the people of MD.
(1) – For Wednesday, Kaizer booked a room at the “*SCAPE” building (located at the Somerset area). We can use it for free (a few hours a week); one of our friends knew about it. He’s using it to interview a former guitarist of MD, Petrina.
(2) – For Thursday, the MD’s having an introductory session in ADM in the evening. We’ll grab some footage of the president, Vanessa, talking. And interview one of the main guys [“Ris D?”]. We did a little shooting plan:
Plan for 01 SepWe’re planning to cover the event with 2-3 cameras. As for the sound, I want to have one shotgun mic pointed to the person(s) speaking and one set up for the room tone.

The room could have a fluorescent softbox light, so we can use that too.

(3) – For Friday in the afternoon, Kaizer’s meeting a former MD guy at Lasalle university; following that, Syaz, a guy who did video for some of the MD performances.

Interview set up with Nadia

Lastly, jumping back to our interview with Nadia the previous week, here’s a breakdown of of our set up:
Set up 01As the main cameraman for this project, I’d read up on how other cameramen light for their video work. Some of them share their lighting diagrams online. I’d like to do the same here.

Documentary Idea

Currently the documentary I’m working on with my classmate Kaizer is – “Music District” (MD for short). The music co-curricular activity / club that seems to have started in the Nanyang Technological University (NTU)’s School of Art, Design and Media (ADM).

How did we get access to this topic? Kaizer joined the MD some time back. And since he’s a filmmaker, he got his hands on a bunch of footage since 2008 (the first ADM cohort graduated in 2009) and is active in the MD scene. He has performed with his band mates in school, playing guitar and singing.

MD does four main performances a year: on Valentine’s, Freshman Orientation Camp (FOC), Halloween, Mid-Autumn Festival.

One thing that’s special about this club is the lack of a direct school authority figure. No staff member in charge. All student effort. Although Kaizer tells me that the associate professor Peer supports the MD. And the MD uses some lights from the ADM film store.

Kaizer and I have started shooting already. Prof. Moody is fine with the idea.

Day 1 – Thursday, 18 Aug: MD sets up “Open Mic” at the ADM Lounge. The “Open mic” session means anyone can sing a song at the lounge. They announce that they are having auditions for the next cohort of MD people. The audition venue is the former MD room – now the foley sound studio. The audition timings are 5-6pm. The auditions are scheduled for next week.
Day 2 – Auditions week (only 2 days actually) So we set up our cameras and light at the foley sound studio to grab some footage. We are done by around 9pm.
Day 3 – Interview with Chris and Kapilan, MD guys who play some instruments.
Day 4 – Interview with Nadia, former MD member & singer. See how we did the video here.