The Force May Be Strong With This One...

...depending on how chilly it is.

"Darth Vader Shows His Dark Side

Police in Malaysia are hunting a man who flashes women while wearing a Darth Vader costume.

The Star Wars flasher exposed himself to women factory workers in two industrial areas of Bandar Baru Nilai.

Priscilla, 33, a factory supervisor, said the man got out of his car, strutted about menacingly in his Darth Vader suit before flashing to 15 women workers standing at a bus stop at 7am.

"At first, I thought he was a die-hard Star Wars fan trying to impress us with his costume. But we were shocked when he showed us his private parts," she told Malaysia's Star newspaper."

Rest of the article can be found at Ananova. Courtesy of Man Method and Shy.

So Let's Recap

So far,

(a) Most of our principle cast has been finalized except for the father, who we hope Jalaludin Hassan will play for a modest sum. We could try and convince him to possibly take points, but I doubt he would. The rest of the cast & crew will, however, be getting points off the movie for the rest of their natural born lives, although I'm guessing the checks will be akin to the RM$1.50 checks I get from Musiccanteen every two-three months.

(b) The shooting dates are being scheduled as we speak. At present, shooting begins on the 25th of June and ends on the 31st of July, giving us a total of 12 full days of shooting (weekends, you see) plus whatever night shots we'll take during weekdays when I have time. We'll have the rehearsals on Friday nights before each weekend to go through specific line delivery and whatever lines don't work. The weekend before shooting, the 19th of June, will be used for a big meet & greet session for the cast & crew as well as a debriefing and consumption of fine local foods. Or I'll just cook a huge tub of pasta. I like pasta.

(c) That gives me the entire month of August for post-production, editing the fucker, any voice-overs, finishing up the soundtrack and of course, a trailer. By August the Y2k album will be sent off for mastering, leaving me with ample time to concentrate on this 90 minute feature.

(d) Whilst I'm in England for ten days starting Thursday, Ariff will hopefully sort out the scheduling, props, contracts and most important of all, the camera. We need that camera. No camera, no movie. Right now the options for the camera are either (i) sponsorship from Sony, (ii) sponsorship from Canon which may require us to use Apple, which I'm not too hot about, or (iii) sponsorship from Monash College. All three are long-shots. Worst case scenario is (iv) buy the fucker. This will either involve begging my dad or getting a Maybank credit card and paying in installments.

Phew. The time is drawing close. I should go check about those cigarette packs I asked my colleague to make. And call the make-up person. And all kinds of other crap.

I'm so glad I'm going to England.

Hah

Fourth draft. Done and done. F-ing finally. Now 91 pages long and a 110 scenes, this is it. The final version. Any other changes will be made if they don't work in rehearsal.

My head hurts.

In other news, the father figure may be resolved this coming Wednesday when I have dinner with my producer, Ariff, and a fine local actor named Jalaludin Hassan. If all goes well, the father in my movie will be played by the same guy who played Hang Tuah with a machine gun in XXRay II.

Sweet.

Juggling Melons Whilst Trying to Paint a Vetruvian Man with an Etch-A-Sketch

God, there's a lot going on at the moment.

Work-wise, there's jobs without proper briefs, impossible timelines and brain-dead servicing.

Movie-wise, there's still a camera to source, cast to be tightened down, schedules to plan and soundtracks to record.

Band-wise, there's an album to finish recording primary tracks by tomorrow, vocals to put down, overdubs and let's not forget mixing and mastering.

Life-wise, there's my girlfriends birthday, parents to apease and a little bro to teach.

Thank God I'm going to England next Thursday. The only downside to this is that I need to finish up as much as I can before going. I'm looking at my schedule till then and it's mental. So much to do, so little time, so many expectations to fulfill and failure is not an option. Not in this round of my life. I look at everything since July 1st 2003 as 'Life Ver 2.0', with new goals and beliefs.

And I will not flush it all down the toilet by breaking under pressure.

Although it'd be nice to break under pressure. I go to sleep in the wee hours knackered beyond compare, barely awake, only to discover all the caffeine I've been intaking is fucking around with my brain keeping my thought process awake. This usually leads to me opening up 'The Da Vinci Code' (which, so far, is very kickass). Then I wake up way beyond the acceptable time frame of turning up to work. Now, bear in mind that I'm a copywriter in an ad agency, and the creatives are usually expected to turn up late. I've been turning up later than usual expectations.

Eng-ga-land... Eng-ga-land... Eng-ga-land, Eng-ga-land, naaa naaaa....

I can't wait. Get all this stuff out of the way, work my buttocks off, then doze off in the plane half-way through a game of Super Mario or Tetris then wake up at Heathrow. From there it's cozy cafe's in the day, endless wandering through the streets and parties at night.

And Donnington. Musn't forget Donnington.

It may sound weird, but it's the day-to-day things that I miss, and not all of it is particularly English. Like grabbing a Reservoir Dog and Coffee n' Butterscotch milkshake at Ed's in the Trocadero. Buskers in tube stations. Having a cup of coffee in Angel and watching life walk past. Having a steak at the Wetherspoons on a Sunday afternoon.

Forbidden Planet. Denmark Street. Car boot sales.

Taking the 240 from Mill Hill to Goldersgreen. Smoking a cigar. Buying cigarettes at 3 in the morning at the petrol station. Wearing a jacket. Random conversations with unknown people in pubs. Kebabs. Chips in pita bread. Vinegar. Full Tilt. Going on the pull.

The first few days of summer when all the women go "finally! I can wear that top and skirt I bought on sale last year!" and proceed to parade the streets with once-hidden flesh.

A cup of fucking tea.

Yes. The same way New Yorkers say their pizza's and hotdogs are just different from the rest of the world, tea never tastes the same as it does in England. Tea, milk, two and a half sugars.

Till Thursday, though, it's still work work work for me. Less than a week to go. No problem... I think.

The Realization of Some Truths and Stuff

Last Saturday I wrote 4,000 words about the events that happened on that day as I was feeling particularly rant-y but had no money to go somewhere wirelessly connected so I didn't blog it, thinking I'll post it today. Needless to say, I was feeling a bit... down.

Actually, down is an understatement. It was more like I was in the seventh circle of emo.

But the rest of the weekend gave me time to calm down and think about the events of the weekend which is good, because there's no need to burn any bridges at this point in my life. There're already a few people that would love nothing more than to watch me dangle from my scrotum at a great height and there's no need to add to that list if the feeling isn't mutual.

Ok. At this point some of you are wondering "what the fuck is he on about?" Fair point. Time for a story:

The Story of Saturday

So last Saturday Ariff and I made our way to PJ to meet someone who we thought might be willing to play the part of the father, a man known in the local music scene for his jazzy guitar compositions and sound engineering skills: Rafique Rashid.

I'd met Rafique previously once or twice but we never really sat down and had a proper conversation. I was buzzing on half a cup of venti latte so I started my spiel, talking about the movie and what it's about, the motivation behind it and how we're going to shoot it and he seemed genuinely interested and an all round nice guy. We passed him a copy of the script and made our way to our next stop for the morning: 'Cravings' at Hartamas.

'Cravings' used to be called 'Gecko', and the interior hadn't changed much. Ariff and I went to the smoking area, constantly keeping our eyes open and taking in the place as a possible 'location'. After a cup of tea we approached the manager, a wonderful woman named Nyoke. We asked her whether we could shoot our little indie DV film. She asked what it was about. We told her our usual spiel about how it's a story of a Malay guy whose been living overseas, comes back to Malaysia and can't adjust. As luck would have it, she could relate because she studied in the UK too. Sold, solid gold.

After that it was a whole day of recording at Saiful's house. The interesting thing about Saiful's house in Bukit Antarabangsa is that it's built iinside a cutaway of a hill, making it (a) incredibly humid and (b) devoid of mobile phone reception. Hence all three of us were cut off from the real world as no calls and sms's could reach us. When we came out of the 'cave', the phone came to life and I received a few messages from Rafique:

'Read the script. I'm sorry but I'm going to have to decline as I don't think I'm right for the role." (Or something along those lines. I didn't save that message.)

Fair enough. Curiosity got the better of me, though, and I replied thanking him for his time and asking him why he felt he wasn't right. That's when I received this:

"More thot needed on storyline & depth & dimens'n of each character. Supportg cast too stereotypical & predictable. Jo's past, his dad, the UK, Pak Su & Diane's evolut'n need expans'n. 2 many more points to go into via sms! For starters try movin away a bit fr Jo's constant one-dimensional aggro. If not he comes across as nothin more than a vulgarly idealistic yuppie prick (his moral antithesis) and the wonderful irony of that fact will be lost."

Ouch.

For one thing, I wasn't prepared for an sms of such magnitude. I had that tiny feeling that he didn't think the script was all that to begin with from the first sms, but this was something else. After that sms, season 4 of South Park could do nothing to turn my frown upside down. Not even Mr. Hanky singing a Lion King style song on the importance of poop in the circle of life.

Ariff called later and we talked about this at great length, and his responses have firmly placed my faith in him as the producer. When the director goes emo, at least the producer's still level headed.

"I think this is simply a case of different expectations," he said. Or didn't. I can't remember the exact words, but here's the gist:

"When he heard us talk about the movie, he probably had an idea of how he thought the film was going to be, but he hardly knows you, your likes and dislikes, hence he didn't expect the script to be like that. If he had known you and me better and read your blog and knew what you like in movies, he would've read the script and gotten what he would've expected you to write. But you can't let this criticism bring you down. The reason I came on board is because I think the script is great, but more than that, I see your enthusiasm and drive to make this movie and I believe in that, and I think everyone else also believes in that and feeds of your positive vibe. If you start going emo, then they'll start going emo, the whole vibe's gone and nobody believes this movie will happen. But regardless, if you wanna go all emo and not do the script, fine, but I'll take that script from you, find a director, find an actor, and get the fucking thing done myself. That's how much I believe in your movie."

What a lovely Ron Howard moment.

Rafique not liking the script, well, I guess I should've expected that. The man is surrounded by people in the creative arts, people who delve into depth and character study. Hell, from what I've heard, his brother is in theatre and musicals. I'm guessing the man's use to something a bit more... high-brow. Something a bit more mature. And as everybody knows, I'm about as mature as a nine year old nutsac.

It made me realize a lot of things. Number one, not everybody's gonna love this movie. No one movie can boast the admiration, respect and love of every human being on the planet. It's just not possible. I've been lucky enough that the few people who've read the script liked it. The thing is, these are the type of people who would like it, and I'm glad that the type of people I've got this movie in mind for like the script. But a lot of people won't like it and there's nothing I can do about that. It's not their cup of tea, fair enough. Experimental art-house cinema is not my cup of tea. I can appreciate it and respect it, but I can't watch it without feeling incredibly impatient. That's just me.

A lot of people in the more artsy scene would probably think this movie is derivative shiite pooped out from a lifetime of Hollywood brainwashing and for once they'd be right. I'm the type of guy that would put 'Back to the Future' in his top ten list of films alongside 'Goodfellas', 'A Better Tomorrow' and 'Swingers'. I'm the type of guy that prefers 'Mallrats' to 'Chasing Amy' when it comes to repeat viewing. The type of guy that loves Harold & Kumar and thought The Thin Red Line was waaay too long. The type of guy that quotes 'The Big Lebowski', 'Scarface' and 'Evil Dead II'. The type of guy who thought 'Lost in Translation' was just okay (I know a few people out there who'll resent that last comment).

In short, ladies & gents, I like to entertain. I like movies that make you react and would like to make movies like that. Bruce Lee once said that he wants people coming out of the cinema kicking and punching the air, going whoo-whoo-whoo and signing up for Kung Fu lessons. Does this mean he wants the entire male population of the world to be badly dubbed killing machines? No. It means he wants people to walk out the cinema thinking about how fucking cool the movie was. He wants to entertain. Plain and simple. And there's nothing wrong with that.

On Sunday, just before I was about to hit the stage with Y2k, I got another sms from Rafique:

"Be careful my young friend. Remember - controversy is easy, quality is hard."

A fair point. I just reckon quality is subjective.

Epilogue

Sunday night rolled around and I met up with Ariff at Penang Mari in Taman Tun together with my girlfriend. Earlier that morning he'd gone to meet up with Rafique to pick up the script and they talked for an hour about why he wasn't happy with his part, the lack of depth, etcetera, but the vibe Ariff got was that he liked the story. But Ariff and I had both agreed on one thing: to stick to our vision and belief of the script and not pander to everyone's comments. Rafique sent his regards and if he somehow ends up reading this, 'Cheers, mate'.

But we were still stuck with no dad. After a moment, Ariff offered a suggestion.

"If we could get him, would you be okay with having Jalalludin Hassan in the movie?"

I replied with a hearty, "Fuck yeah I'd be okay!"

For those overseas, Jalalludin Hassan is a veteran actor in Malaysia and used to host Malaysia's 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire'. I actually wrote the role with him in mind as he's one of the few actors in Malaysia I actually think is half decent.

"But how are we going to pay him? Can we afford him?" I asked.

"If we can get the money, why not?" Ariff replied.

A few calls later, and we'll be getting the contact details within the week.

My producer kicks ass.

Produce! Produce, I Say! Produce the Seed of My Creative Loins!

Met up with Ariff Akhir (my producer) today, and am pleased to say I won't be calling him Fucker Bin Fucker anymore thanks to his active participation, good ideas and overall niceness.

Of course, when I feel like it, I'll call him Fucker bin Fucker anyway. 'Cos I'm a cunt.

Something that may be on your minds (or not 'cos I know quite a few of you skip these moviemaking entries) is the question: 'What does the producer do?' After reading the two books I passed Ariff (From Script to Screen by Linda Seger and Make Your Own Damn Movie by Loyd Kaufman) he came up with the following verdict:

"The producer is the director's conscience. He also represents the audience," said Ariff. I couldn't agree more.

Of course, this is a nice, short way of saying what a producer does. We then went on to the nitty gritty and discussed scheduling, cast, props, budget, locations, make-up, distribution, marketing, the whole shebang. And we still don't have concrete answers yet. I'm gonna have to sit down with the dude and discuss this a whole lot further.
One of the topics of discussion was the production company name. I originally wanted to use 'Checkered Red Productions' because (a) I have a thing for the colour red and (b) I have a major thing for chicks in checkered red skirts. Something about checkered red skirts just gets my libido going in ways one could never describe. Checkered red skirt and knee length socks and a white blouse tied up and pig tails. Sucking a lollipop. Mmmm...

See what happens when you send your son to an all boys school during puberty and don't expose him to high school girls in uniform?

But the issue is this: the production company that's been putting out the creative endeavours of Doghouse 73 pictures (a collective of some of the most well known independent filmmakers in this country such as Amir Muhammad and James Lee) is called 'Red Communications'.

Red Communications. Checkered Red Productions. Bit of a similarity there. I want the colour red. I like red. Checkered red. Skirts. Tied up blouse and a belly button ring. Drooolll...

Ahem...! So yeah. We decided we'd try and come up with a few other names, although I can't think of any at the moment.

Hmmm... think, dammit, think...

Lollipop Productions - Bit too feminine.

Suck My Pop Productions - Hehe... 'Pop'... sounds like...

Jailbait Productions - Ok... Must... Shut... Libido... Up...

Barely Legal Productions - Aaargh! I can't help it!

Cock Tease Productions - Really going overboard here...

Lolita Productions - It seems that in my quest to try and find a name for a production company I've inadvertedly come up with numerous names for a porno company.

I now can't get out of this train of thought. Must try...

Kleptomaniac Productions - Because I have a strong feeling that anything we can't afford for the production we're gonna end up stealing.

Selamba Productions - To the foreign it sounds exotic, but if you know Malay you'd know it's anything but.

After Hours Productions - Because that's when the script was written.

Salsa Productions - A Y2k in-joke.

I Haven't A Fucking Clue What To Call Us Productions - Because I don't.

Some Slight Progress

So I met up with el producer last night, Fucker bin Fucker a.k.a. Ariff Akhir, singer/songwriter extraordinaire who will be appearing in the movie briefly in a flashback. We sat at Burger King under the shadows of a huge inflatable Darth Vader (I have to take photos of it to show you, it's warped) eating whoppers and discussing the movie. In particular, the role of the father (of course, by 'role of the father' we mean in the context of the movie, not the role of a father figure in general from a psycho-analytical or sociological sense, although talking about the 'role of the father' in the same paragraph that has a reference to Darth Vader is kind funny. I make funny. Sorry. Back to the plot).

"What news of Rafique?" I asked.

Apparently trying to contact the guy was tougher than getting an elephant's dick in a durex but one must try. He spent half an hour crafting a masterstroke e-mail, sent it to Rafique, only to discover his mailbox is full. He then tried to call Sae Hon (I think that's how it spelt) to ask for his number, but couldn't get through to him. Once he did, he didn't have the number. Finally, a quick call to Pete Teo and lo, a number was found.

Fucker bin Fucker then went around Darth Vader's large red wobbly light saber to discuss matters. Five minutes later...

"He's interested. We'll meet him this Saturday morning to discuss it further."

Aha. The producer can produce n' shit. Sweet.

This also made me realize a common difference between those above the age of 30 and those below when it came to cold-call-casting. All the young dudes exclaim, "sweet, dude, count me in," whilst the more mature generation say they're "interested". Hassan was interested. Now Rafique is interested.

If all goes well this Saturday my cast will almost be complete. All that's left are a few of the filler roles: the British guy in the pub and his sarong party girl, a random clerk here and there, shouldn't be a problem. Fingers crossed, fingers crossed. On the same day I'll probably go check out 'Cravings' and see if they're interested.

No. Persuade them to be interested.

The Kindness of Strangers

It worries me greatly, but I can't help but ask for the kindness of strangers on this movie project. I've never tried to call in so much help before, usually because (a) I'm not very trusting when it comes to creative endeavours that I hold close to my heart and (b) I don't want to be dependent on favours.

But this is a movie, a feature length movie and movies are, as I've been told a collaborative effort and more often than not require the kindness of strangers (or the investment of idiots too blind to notice it's a sinking ship).

Recently, I've been 'subtlely' introducing the movie in conversation with colleagues or at least try to steer them in the direction of movie talk or something specific I require for my movie. I may now have (a) a possible contact to get the movie screened at GSC, censors willing and (b) a hook-up to Sony. This will all be reliant on the gift-of-gab, of course, if these contacts will ever be more than just contacts.

And of course, the constant worry of having no father for the cast and no cafe. Tonight, after my recording session, I'll meet up with Mr. Producer-Man (who I have now renamed 'Fucker bin Fucker' for the purposes of teleconversations), find out what the status is on Rafique Rashid as the daddy and get him to check out the cafe I've got my eyes on.

Aha. Didn't tell you about that, did I?

I was at that Kiwi place in Hartamas last Sunday, the same place I was forced to tell my current girlfriend back when we were just friends I had a thing for her after the song I painstakingly composed and recorded to tell her I had a thing for her wouldn't play on her CD player.

I sat there eating beans and toast and sausages and scrambled eggs when my girlfriend asked,

"Why not this place for the cafe?"

Not a bad idea. You can smoke indoors and most people sit outside. There was even a bar that could double for the bar scene. Her remark suddenly made me remember another place in Hartamas, Gecko-something-or-other. Later in the day we went searching for it.

The cafe was located on the 1st floor of one of the buildings, and if memory serves correct it had a smoking area indoors and was near the Finnegans pub. We found it, but it wasn't Gecko-wotsit anymore. It's now called 'Cravings', a health food cafe, opened between the hours of 8am to 6pm and closed on Sundays.

That's even better. If it's closed on Sundays we could try and convince the manager to let us shoot there on Sundays and we won't be disturbing their regular business. Of course, this little recce was on a Sunday so we couldn't ask anyone.

So, if all goes according to plan, the two protagonists will frequent a health food cafe. I think I can post-rationalize that in the script. Or not. Fuck it, it works.

Saiful, ever resourceful, has also been trying to help by getting his 50 year old cousin to play the dad, but alas to no avail. He did, however, ask Boy, the drummer from Doze, whose about 29 but does look a bit older han Kamal. Possibly, possibly. I'm not too keen on getting people who aren't the right age for fear that it'll be too obvious. We won't have a dedicated professional make-up person. In fact, we won't have a dedicated professional anything. The entire cast & crew is made up of friends and acquaintances.

Jersey Girl

Why did everyone hate this movie so much?

I've finally seen Jersey Girl, and I sincerely don't see why it was shot down so hard. It was beautifully shot (thanks in no part to Academy Award winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, he of Close Encounters of the Third Kind fame), finely acted, touching, warm and a nice change from Kevin Smith's usual poopy jokes. Ben Affleck was believable, Liv Tyler was cute and George Carlyn was surprisingly restrained.

I mean, come on, seriously. Kevin Smith does write some wonderfully depraved dialogue and many know this as his trademark, but what's wrong with the guy spreading his wings a bit and trying out something different? Sure, I prefer the movies he's previously put out with the immortal lines "Snoogans!", "Bung!" and "...then, Black Beauty decided to do some of her own mounting...", but Jersey Girl was alright. It's not in the same calibre as his previous films, but it was nice.

And not in a 'nice size' kind of way, either.

But is the lack of Jason Mewes, sexual references and Walt Flanagan's dog jokes the main reason why it flopped so bad and critically mauled? I don't think so.

I reckon it's all a question of timing and expectations.

People expect a certain thing from a Kevin Smith movie. They expect to laugh out loud at his crass-ness. They expect a certain type of humor, regardless of what story Kevin tells. So far, that's been the unifying theme in Kevin's movies: the humor.

But the lack of humor doesn't hamper the movie. It would probably look out of place and besides, there's enough touches of Kevin-ism's here and there to make one chortle (the 'I'll show you mine, you show me yours' scene a particular laugh out loud favourite). No, the movie didn't sell because it came out at the wrong time.

Before Jersey Girl was released the world was watching the exploits of Ben & JLo with extreme scrutiny. Then the disaster that was Gigli came out, followed by their break-up. Worst of all, Kevin had to publicly declare his biggest secret: that it's not a Bennifer movie.

And the nice thing about the movie is it's little surprises. If the movie had come out at the height of Benniferwatch everyone and their ex-mother-in-law would be making their way to the cinema, purely for the purpose of proving

(a) a Bennifer movie is going to suck ass and

(b) Kevin Smith going 'mature' is going to suck even bigger ass.

A lot of ass-sucking was expected.

They would have gone in and in the first 15 minutes POW! Jennifer Lopez is out of the picture. An entire audience goes "what the fuck?!" and watch on. Suddenly all the other surprises pop out, one after the other:

"Hey, Jason Lee looks kinda old!"

"Matt Damon's in a cameo!"

"How the fuck did Kevin afford Big Willie Style?"

They would have then come out of the cinema with warm feelings and gone home to hug their children. Or someone elses children. Regardless, the children hugging would be completely non-Jackson and full of paternal love (ok, maybe I'm giving the movie more credit than it's due, but it's my post, fuckwhip).

Instead, Gigli comes out and everyone flat out despises the movie with enough hatred to start a terrorist organization and they break up. By the time Jersey Girl rolls around, nobody cares. And the few that do go watch it come out feeling it was a two-out-of-five star movie and below.

Yes, there are other, better Kevin Smith movies which are a whole lot funnier. Yes, I'm a big fan of Kevin Smith. But I'm not gonna lie if I think a movie of his is shit. I just haven't seen a shit Kevin Smith film. There are ones that dissapointed me in some aspects, he's no Scorsese. For example, Dogma didn't live up to my expectations and I'm one of the few that thought the long speeches in Chasing Amy were unnecessary, but these didn't stop me from enjoying the movies. And to further my argument of unbiassed-ness (that can't be right), I'm one of the Kevin Smith fans that liked Mallrats more than Chasing Amy (I've always believed that there are only two types of Kevin Smith fans in the world: those that like Mallrats more and those that like Chasing Amy more. Clerks doesn't count 'cos everybody loves that one). I prefer the funny-as-fuck-flat-out-comedy Kevin Smith movie, but that doesn't mean I couldn't enjoy Jersey Girl.

It's sappy, it's Hollywood-y, but it's sweet and pulls the right strings. I could be the only one out there who liked it, but fuck it. I was expecting shit as everyone else had been claiming it was a steaming pile and instead found a charming little movie enjoyable enough to watch. Bear in mind, everybody tore Mallrats a new asshole when it first came out, and now it's a cult fave. Sure, Jersey Girl probably won't end up being a cult fave, but it's nice. Sure, given a choice I'd rather watch Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back as a repeat viewing movie, but Jersey Girl was a nice film and it made me laugh and smile and kept me interested enough to want to finish the movie till 3am.

And there ain't nothing wrong with that.

Draft Four?!

There has to be some kind of mechanism that can help switch off my ever-thinking brain. After going through the supposed final-end-all-be-all third draft, a thought occured: I don't know shit about writing a novel.

Allow me to explain.

The male protagonist, Jo, was always meant to be a writer dabbling in journalism. But when I wrote it and had him as a novelist, something didn't feel right. For one, when Jo goes to the publisher's office and praises him on his writing, it comes across... wrong. Reason being, I wouldn't know how a publisher would praise someone for a good book.

But I would know how someone would praise someone else for writing a good comic book. Or in this case, a graphic novel (although I don't like making a distinction between the two; I like the word 'comics' and find the term 'sequential art' intensely pretentious).

So I'm re-writing Jo's character as a comic book writer/artist. This does, however, add a bit of production problematism.

I'm sure that's not a word.

With him writing a novel, all I need is about 300 pages of A4 paper with words on them for him to carry around as his prop for the novel and just shoot the guy typing on a keyboard. If he's a comic book writer and artist (because to add an artist in the mix would entail him having a friend, which I don't want) he's not only typing, he's drawing, and those 300 pages are going to have to be illustrated and coloured and...

Aargh.

On the plus side, I've got some pretty cool (in my opinion) camera ideas on how to shoot him drawing and making his comic book come to life.

Also, by having him as a comic book writer/artist he's even more of a non-conformist rebel trying to achieve an impossible dream. How many parents would take their son seriously if he said he wanted to write comics for the rest of his life?

And the fact that I actually know a bit about comics as opposed to novels makes writing the character a it more real. I can't have a writer who's sole inspiration is Chuck Pahlaniuk and Hunter S. Thompson. He'd need more depth than that if he were to write 'great works of literature'. But I can imagine exactly how someone would aspire to be a comic book writer. He wouldn't just be inspired by Neil Gaiman (that would be fucking too obvious) but by Ellis, Ennis, Dillon, Romita (Snr and Jnr), Eisner, Stan Lee & Steve Ditko et al.

I just hope no one says it's a Chasing Amy rip-off. I'm already being given the "it's a bit like Sepet, isn't it?" line repeatedly.

...

... and I still can't believe I'm writing a fourth draft, though.

On the pre-production side, I met up with Ariff Akhir, my producer for this little endeavour, together with his girlfriend, Aida, who refuses to be the "transport coordinator" (translation: person who drives shit around). And by producer, I'm using "person who handles all the shit to get the production going" as his job description, as opposed to Ariff's definition of "do fuck all and collect the royalties".

The main thing we talked about was the possibility (or impossibility) of getting Sony to sponsor us a camera, as I was quite impressed with their salesperson's expertise (see how much a difference good service makes, you bitter clerks!?)

"I just want a discount on equipment and tapes," I told him, "shit, I'll take the camera they have on display! I'll stick their logo anywhere they fucking want!"

I've officially fallen into the 'I want to sell out' zone.

Or not. Production's need money. When I met up with a Ariff Arris (a completely different Ariff, who will be cameraman) and his friends, one of them asked what my budget was.

"RM$30,000?" he asked.

"Fuck that, I can do it for RM$10,000," I replied.

"Sure or not?"

Sure... or maybe not.

Considering I use Vegas to edit (which was acquired by Sony) and I know Sony make very good video cameras I don't mind some form of corporate whoring. I'd gladly feather their balls for a DVX2100.

Ariff Akhir (confused yet?) then made a comment on 'Nicotine', which he watched last night.

"It's good," he said, "but it's missing something."

"What's that?"

"It's very... straight."

Please explain further, good sir.

"It's lacking the... the Khai. There's an inherent wackiness in your writing which isn't in Nicotine and that's what separates you from the others. It's almost as if you were scared of going all out with Nicotine, it's reserved."

Hehe. I'm wacky.

"People like Amir Muhammad, he's very political, that's his thing. You're thing is wacky. Wackiness. It's missing in Nicotine."

I then tell him 'Celup' isn't exactly a 90 minute movie of dick and fart jokes. He then reminds me he still hasn't received the script. Does the producer read the script? Can producers read? Sure signs of how I never went to film school.

So now I have to do up a little document/resume/credentials/bio/whoring material for us to start hitting up sponsorship whilst Ariff will try and contact Rafique Rashid for the purposes of playing the father figure which would mean casting Kamal for the part of suhaimi the early-30's businessman who tries to convince Diane to call him 'abang'.

Yeah.

I Am Your Father

So I did some snooping around and discovered that Kamal has acting experience and has worked with several directors in film and theater. I could be wrong, but that's the 411. Opinions in the office of the question, "you reckon Kamal could look like he had a 19 year old daughter" were varied, with the positive answers always followed by, "of course, he'll need some make-up..."

The Swede hasn't replied yet. Reply, Lars, reply!

Also got some info from a production manager from TV3 who just so happens to be one of my girlfriends' girlfriend. She gave us a list of the make-up stuff used on tv productions to make someone look older, as well as some tips on making fake blood and bruises.

Apparently, at TV3 they use a combination of peanut butter, Nescafe and rose syrup. Peanut butter for the thickness, rose syrup for the color and Nescafe for... um... the caffeine.

The make-up tips on bruises didn't sound too hot, though. The advice was to just use dark make-up. but at the hands of someone who's never done this shit before I fear it may end up looking like the person had been attacked by a big paintbrush dipped in dark blue ink.

But the production manager said she'd pop over on the make-up days to help out. So that's cool.

Have also been doing some research on what type of clothes the girl should wear. What I like to do when I'm doing productions is to sketch how I think the character looks, then use those sketches as a reference. I did this for my university set Alice in Wonderland production and they ended up being the teaser poster. However, sometimes I go a bit wild on the sketches and need to be brought back to reality.

For example, in said production my first sketches of Alice actually had her with a Robert Smith hairstyle, large Mighty Ducks jersey and panties hidden under the jersey, showing of nubile long legs. I showed it to my production team.

"Err... I thought we were gonna have Alice as a conservative kinda girl?" said one.

"Who the fuck cares!?" I replied, "Imagine how hot she'll look!"

This wasn't enough of an argument. Democracy sucks. The character ended up in a tight white t-shirt and pajama-pants.

Last night with my girlfriend (who will be the production manager) I ran by the idea of having Diane, the lead female in my movie, dressed in the same way.

"But I thought she was supposed to be a conservative kinda girl who deep down likes seventies rock?" she said.

"Who the fuck cares!?" I replied, "Imagine how hot... I mean, she'd look really cool!"

"I don't think it'll work. That look would only work for a character who was more open minded, independent... Diane's not like that."

"Fuck it, then. Next script I do is going to have a chick looking like that. Just one scene. One fucking scene of a hot chick in a Mighty Ducks jersey."

"Well, you could always film it and not use the footage."

"No. The Mighty Ducks chick must be seen by the world in all her Mighty Ducky glory."

This obsession with a chick dressed in just a sports jersey may or may not have been inspired by this girl on the same floor as me at my student residence in the 1st year. I think her name was Kate, and sometimes she'd walk around in just an Orlando Magics jersey and fluffy bunny slippers. Sometimes she'd walk to the showers in a what looked like a hand towel. Further proof that God exists, and he is indeed benevolent.

Side story about Kate: she used to complain to the guards that my friends and I made too much noise. So my friend Kul asked her why she's a bitch to her face. He then attempted to write an apology note for his rude behaviour but I think he got drunk instead.

...

Wow. We've really meandered from the father topic, haven't we?

I May Have Found My Father

Not my biological father, of course, but the father character for my movie. It's been tough as balls trying to cast this fucking character, thanks in no part to the fact that I do not know anybody above the age of 45.

So it was, in desperation, that I sent out a distress call on friendster and got a reply from a colleague at the office, a bloke by the name of Kamal.

Now, Kamal's in his thirties (I assume), a married man and could possibly pass as a father. Or not. Maybe with make-up. I recently sent an e-mail to a Dutchman asking for his advice on how to make-up someone to look ten years older.

And before you ask, no, I did not just e-mail a random Dutchman. This Dutchman deals in make-up and effects. His name is Lars, and his website's in my 'Random Research' section.

Now I've just got a few more key locations to scout. One of them is the cafe. The other is Silverfish bookstores. I'm hoping they'll be accomodating considering their support to the local creative arts and all that, so fingers crossed. As for the cafe, I have NO idea. Fingers doubly crossed. I'll pop down there today and see what's what.

Once all that's done with I'll post up pictures of the cast for all you luvvies to see. Till then, it's random movie talk, smut and ramblings.