I know, I know... another quote... but I really like this one:
“I do make movies… but I was wondering on how to get them in the hands of someone like you?” asks a young, aspiring indie filmmaker to writer/director, Kevin Smith. His query is quickly met by a barrage of collective sighs and beleaguered “boos” stemming from a mob of 6,500 displeased fans, who are more eager to hear Smith make with the funny, rather than cater to answer one’s own self-serving desperate plea at getting his foot in the door.
But rather than chastise the young man, Smith instead decides to take what appears to be the high road and quickly jumps to his defense, addressing the crowd. “Don’t ‘boo’ him. This dude’s got a dream.”
As the chorus of “boos” quickly subsides, Smith focuses his attention back onto the filmmaker and asks, “Are you willing to suck cock for your dream, sir?”
The room quickly erupts into laughter as the filmmaker is left standing at the microphone, face now slightly red with embarrassment and left looking somewhat disheartened, not quite sure of what to make from his hero’s response.
“We all got to start somewhere. You can start on your knees.” continues Smith.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Thursday, July 28, 2005
I Know I've Been Complaining a Lot
I've been losing my temper at the tiniest things and bitching and ranting and generally not being a happy bunny. My body aches, my head feels like a cock ring in a gangbang video and my tummy's decided to learn how to limbo.
As the Merovingian once said, 'cause and effect'. We know the effects, but what is the cause...?
Writers block.
Straight. Up. Writers. Block.
And I hate it.
I haven't been able to come up with a single decent idea in two weeks. Not one. Nothing is ticking in my head, I can hear the echo in my cranium, nothing fucking works.
And it's not just work - my guitar playing's taking a dip, my blog entries aren't the most inspired, I sit in front of my laptop and can't muster up the energy to write 'INT. BEDROOM - DAY', I can't write anything.
Any-fucking-thing.
Even this post is shiite. You'll probably skip it. In fact, I'd recommend it. There are links to trailers. They're much more fun.
Now, why would something like writers block piss me off so much? Why would the inability to use my creativity burden my brain and body and heart and soul so much?
Because it's all I have.
I'm not the fittest of people nor the most attractive. I'm not the most intelligent. I don't have many skills. Practically none whatsoever.
Except for ideas. Ideas and thoughts and creative manifestations of said ideas. I play in a band. I write screenplays and articles. I work in the creative department of an advertising agency.
Take all that away and I am a useless member of society.
And I can see the look of dissapointment in peoples faces. When I can't write an ad I can see my colleagues wondering whether I'm just wasting my time being a lazy jackass. When I come home late I can sense my parents' dismay at their sons choice of vocation, wondering whether it's all worth the late nights and tired eyes.
Is it worth it?
Last night I broke down on the way home. Just flat out broke down couldn't take another fucking millimeter of movement just wanna stop the engine and beat my brain senseless with a disposable lighter broke down in pieces fuckery. I haven't got any ideas. I haven't got a clue.
And it's bringing me deeper and deeper into the realm of Emo-boy in the process, being all introspective, filled with self doubt.
For the past two years I've been trying to pick myself up. I was sick of being the guy that teachers and employers said, "had potential". I was sick of just having potential. I wanted to turn that potential into something.
(Preferably cold hard cash and big booty women.)
And the inability to turn that potential into anything right now brings me to an all time low. It fucking kills. And I know that the best thing for me to do right now is take a day off and relax and empty my head so that it's fresh but I can't because I know that if I did take the day off I'd spend that whole day thinking about all the shit I should've been able to do.
I know my group heads gonna pop in later and ask if I have any ideas yet for the pitch that we're presenting tomorrow, and I know I haven't got a fucking clue. I know I've got a gig this Saturday and I know that I'm not on top form. I know I made myself a promise to shoot a fucking movie before the end of the year and I know that my mind is completely blank.
I know that if I don't make it through this I'm gonna hate myself for the rest of my life for giving up and breaking down when push comes to shove.
I also know that this post has gone far, far, far into the realms of whinny emoness and I don't care. My cat bit me this morning and my mom attacked me with religious books. Today, I have the right to be a little whinny bitch.
An hour later, after a meeting where everyone else discovers my complete lack of creative ideas...
Talk about fucked.
That was... bad. That was terrible. I haven't been in a situation like that since my last job when I finally snapped and dissapeared for 24 hours off the face of the earth. That was fucking abysmal.
I'm fucked. I'm well and truly fucked.
It's one thing to complain and bitch and worry and whine about not being able to do something, it's quite another to see the effect this causes on others who are dependant on said 'ability' to create.
Cause and effect. The Merovingian strikes again. Why can't Monica Bellucci strike again instead?
This is exactly how I imagined my blog would be like if it was written 2 years ago. A long flow of text in verdana font (I think) showing 2,499,129.24963 ways to write how much you feel sorry for yourself. It's fucking pathetic.
Interruption - told that to check my e-mail. After checking it...
This is brilliant! This is exactly what I need right now! An e-mail telling me I've done not one, but two mistakes on the copy of something I'm working on! Two! Two tremendous fuck-ups! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA...!
And dig this: I don't know how to fix them! Brilliant!! It's fucking brilliant! All I need now is a Myspace comment on the Y2k site telling me the recordings sound like the squeal of pigs in heat through a megaphone and a letter from the bank informing me that they're shutting down my account because I'm a cunt! Yeah! In fact, what about a call from the doctors while we're at it? A friendly call from the doctors telling me they did some checks and it looks like I'm gonna grow an extra dick. On my forehead. Fun for all the fucking family. Hey, you know what? Why not just round up every single person who thinks I'm a meandering fuck up and pay them to take turns to slice my flesh and fuck the wounds! If you're gonna do something, go all the fucking way!
Now this, THIS is a fucking rant! This is true bile, hatred, anger and all that other bollocks a la the dark side of the Force (but without the cool lightsaber and electro-zappy powers that make it all worthwhile).
I should've fucking seen this coming. Everything was going too well, too smoothly. Here's the drama, boys and girls!!! Boiling emotions and pent up frustrations!!! No amount of porn is going to cure this, I'm in for the fucking ride!
As the Merovingian once said, 'cause and effect'. We know the effects, but what is the cause...?
Writers block.
Straight. Up. Writers. Block.
And I hate it.
I haven't been able to come up with a single decent idea in two weeks. Not one. Nothing is ticking in my head, I can hear the echo in my cranium, nothing fucking works.
And it's not just work - my guitar playing's taking a dip, my blog entries aren't the most inspired, I sit in front of my laptop and can't muster up the energy to write 'INT. BEDROOM - DAY', I can't write anything.
Any-fucking-thing.
Even this post is shiite. You'll probably skip it. In fact, I'd recommend it. There are links to trailers. They're much more fun.
Now, why would something like writers block piss me off so much? Why would the inability to use my creativity burden my brain and body and heart and soul so much?
Because it's all I have.
I'm not the fittest of people nor the most attractive. I'm not the most intelligent. I don't have many skills. Practically none whatsoever.
Except for ideas. Ideas and thoughts and creative manifestations of said ideas. I play in a band. I write screenplays and articles. I work in the creative department of an advertising agency.
Take all that away and I am a useless member of society.
And I can see the look of dissapointment in peoples faces. When I can't write an ad I can see my colleagues wondering whether I'm just wasting my time being a lazy jackass. When I come home late I can sense my parents' dismay at their sons choice of vocation, wondering whether it's all worth the late nights and tired eyes.
Is it worth it?
Last night I broke down on the way home. Just flat out broke down couldn't take another fucking millimeter of movement just wanna stop the engine and beat my brain senseless with a disposable lighter broke down in pieces fuckery. I haven't got any ideas. I haven't got a clue.
And it's bringing me deeper and deeper into the realm of Emo-boy in the process, being all introspective, filled with self doubt.
For the past two years I've been trying to pick myself up. I was sick of being the guy that teachers and employers said, "had potential". I was sick of just having potential. I wanted to turn that potential into something.
(Preferably cold hard cash and big booty women.)
And the inability to turn that potential into anything right now brings me to an all time low. It fucking kills. And I know that the best thing for me to do right now is take a day off and relax and empty my head so that it's fresh but I can't because I know that if I did take the day off I'd spend that whole day thinking about all the shit I should've been able to do.
I know my group heads gonna pop in later and ask if I have any ideas yet for the pitch that we're presenting tomorrow, and I know I haven't got a fucking clue. I know I've got a gig this Saturday and I know that I'm not on top form. I know I made myself a promise to shoot a fucking movie before the end of the year and I know that my mind is completely blank.
I know that if I don't make it through this I'm gonna hate myself for the rest of my life for giving up and breaking down when push comes to shove.
I also know that this post has gone far, far, far into the realms of whinny emoness and I don't care. My cat bit me this morning and my mom attacked me with religious books. Today, I have the right to be a little whinny bitch.
An hour later, after a meeting where everyone else discovers my complete lack of creative ideas...
Talk about fucked.
That was... bad. That was terrible. I haven't been in a situation like that since my last job when I finally snapped and dissapeared for 24 hours off the face of the earth. That was fucking abysmal.
I'm fucked. I'm well and truly fucked.
It's one thing to complain and bitch and worry and whine about not being able to do something, it's quite another to see the effect this causes on others who are dependant on said 'ability' to create.
Cause and effect. The Merovingian strikes again. Why can't Monica Bellucci strike again instead?
This is exactly how I imagined my blog would be like if it was written 2 years ago. A long flow of text in verdana font (I think) showing 2,499,129.24963 ways to write how much you feel sorry for yourself. It's fucking pathetic.
Interruption - told that to check my e-mail. After checking it...
This is brilliant! This is exactly what I need right now! An e-mail telling me I've done not one, but two mistakes on the copy of something I'm working on! Two! Two tremendous fuck-ups! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA...!
And dig this: I don't know how to fix them! Brilliant!! It's fucking brilliant! All I need now is a Myspace comment on the Y2k site telling me the recordings sound like the squeal of pigs in heat through a megaphone and a letter from the bank informing me that they're shutting down my account because I'm a cunt! Yeah! In fact, what about a call from the doctors while we're at it? A friendly call from the doctors telling me they did some checks and it looks like I'm gonna grow an extra dick. On my forehead. Fun for all the fucking family. Hey, you know what? Why not just round up every single person who thinks I'm a meandering fuck up and pay them to take turns to slice my flesh and fuck the wounds! If you're gonna do something, go all the fucking way!
Now this, THIS is a fucking rant! This is true bile, hatred, anger and all that other bollocks a la the dark side of the Force (but without the cool lightsaber and electro-zappy powers that make it all worthwhile).
I should've fucking seen this coming. Everything was going too well, too smoothly. Here's the drama, boys and girls!!! Boiling emotions and pent up frustrations!!! No amount of porn is going to cure this, I'm in for the fucking ride!
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Short Short Man
After having an unnerving and anger-filling presentation with the most evil, twisted, demented, fucked-in-the-brain, illogical, female of the species client in existence in Malaysia (I kid you not. This woman should be shot before it breeds) I zoomed through traffic for the KSFM Shorts.
The last time I was here I was a nervous wreck. It was my first short film that I'd ever tried to show to people I didn't know, and to top it all off I was acting in it. Somehow the fact that I'm not acting in this one lifted the anxiety quite a bit. Plus the bonus of having my girlfriend and friends around for moral and mental support.
Here's a list of the movies that were shown:
1. KERIS BERMATA KAYU (Abd. Samad Hassan / 2005 /10m40s)
I'm really sorry, Samad, but I only caught the ending, but the cinematography looked good and the story looked interesting. Since I only caught the last minute or so, though, can anyone tell me whether there was any kick-ass silat fight sequences I missed?
2. GAMBIR SARAWAK ASLI (Oliver F. During / 2005 /40secs)
I would've found this funny if I hadn't seen an award winning ad for condoms which was exactly the same.
3. A DAY IN THE CITY (Darien Nicholas Sekhon / 2005 / 9mins)
Was I the only one who didn't read the programme and know that this was directed by a 9 year old? A 9 year old! You should've seen him during the Q&A, cute as a button. And the film was ok. When I was watching it (not knowing a 9 year old directed it) I just thought it was kinda quirky. Quirky, but better than a lot of the entrants in the last KSFM I attended. Sure, I may be biasing my opinion now that I know it's a 9 year old, but I'm not exactly going to wax lyrical about how he didn't have the grace of Goddard or whatever film-appreciatists ramble on about.
Speaking of which, a film critic from Singapore was there and praised the kid, saying his talent was far superior to that of Hishamuddin Rais, the director of 'Dari Jemapoh Ke Manchester', which the critic thought was crap.
I dunno. I enjoyed '...Manchester'. I thought it was dope. But the kid does look like he's going to be flippin' mad skills soon.
4. MINI STARDUST (Joseph Liu / 2005 /20mins)
Continuing the theme of children, this was a film about two sisters, one eight and one six (I think) and I swear, these two girls were absolutely charming. It's like the Malaysian Dakota Fanning (Olsen twins may be more appropriate, but I don't think they were ever that talented). Huge reaction all 'round.
But there was also something interesting about it. Some people were uneasy about it. A lot of the girls in the audience could relate to the girls and smiled and laughed but a lot of the guys laughed very uneasily and shifted in their seat when subjected to two minutes of a six year old in a bikini dancing. Bernard mentioned voyeurism and exhibitionism and that whole reaction and uneasines during the Q&A. Then I turned to the director. He looked like he hadn't a clue what Bernard was saying with an innocent face that said, "I just made a movie about my nephews, what's all this voyeurism babble?"
I dunno. That's what I thought. I'm surprised this only placed third.
5. LETTER TO THE MOON (Shanjey Kumar / 2004 / 7mins)
Apart from a slight giggle from the audience at one point (and an uneasy one too), the third child-based film centered on incestual rape as a girl wrote a letter to the moon about what happened to her. Pretty good and disturbed the shit out of me.
However, one thing spoilt it for me. The supers at the end talking about the rape statistics. I didn't need that. The story said it all, there was no need for anything more than that. But perhaps the director really wanted to hammer the point home. Ah, well. The moral lesson at the end of the movie didn't grate me as much as the next one.
6. PULL THE WOOL OVER YOUR EYES (Nicholas Andrew John / 2004 /11mins)
By this point I was already thinking to myself, "hey. No weird experimental stuff that I don't get." This one was a straight up film about lies and cover-ups which was good, and the ending was a nice slice of disutrbedness, but I really didn't need the supers about how wrong it is to lie. Supers about rape statistics I can stand, but this wasn't necesarry at all.
By the way, this movie had little kids too (it's 'little kids' week! Buy one now!)
7. BANDIT'S DREAM (Mohd. Md. Noor / 2005 /9mins)
And more straightness! In film, no less. Even though the sound was pretty poor due to a NTSC-PAL transfer I just kept watching this film thinking to myself, "we've had a film about silat, a film by a 9 year old, a film about 2 charming little girls, a film about rape and a film about murder n' lies. Now there's a film by someone who went to the New York Film Academy. And he shot it on film. My movie's gonna come out like shit."
It's too bad about the sound, though. Another film featuring little kids.
8. SELF (MTV) (Oliver Lee / 2005 /5m25s)
Disturbing n' well edited. Too bad about the supers though (I have a thing about supers). Typo's everywhere. One of the few experimenty films (and when there's plenty of straight stories, the experimental films don't feel so... nggngnrh. Yeah. That's the word).
9. SOME LIKE IT WHITE (Khairil M. Bahar / 2005 / 10m30s)
Needless to say, I was worried as fuck. But they laughed. Thank fuck, they laughed.
10. DEAR STELLA (Fairuz Sulaiman / 2005 / 4m20s)
A love letter in visuals. I liked some of the visuals on it but (as the guy said his lecturer pointed out), it was very... still. No peaks. No troughs.
During the Q&A, the director talked in length about who the film was about (some chick he fell in love with on myspace/friendster) and my question of "where are all the emo directors?" was finally answered.
This one started the turn to the experimenty side in the films showcased.
11. 3 MONTHS LATER (Jeffrey Loh / 2005 / 7mins)
To quote one of the questions during the Q&A, "are all Chinese people this lonely?" One guy smokes and plays games, a girl eats noodles, a guy shaves... and stuff. Every 3 months. Or something. I'm sure there's a meaning. I haven't a clue what it is, though. I have a feeling if Eddy was still in the auditorium he'd be cursing up a storm by now.
12. CATCHING THE SEA (Woo Ming Jin / 2005 /10m15s)
Pete Teo's in this one. And Pete, sorry if you're reading this, but I really don't get this film.
And there's another kid! They're everywhere!
13. I WAS HERE (Kit Ong / 2005 / 10mins)
More kids! This one was freaky. Some Japanese woman who hears voices sticks a needle through her ear. Then 'ear' is free, for 'ear' is a cute little Japanese girl about 6 or 7 years old and they play and all is happy but 'ear' is not happy. She wants to play with 'eye'. So the woman pops out 'eye'. 'Eye' and 'ear' play with the woman and they're all happy. Then 'eye' and 'ear' stop playing with woman and woman is alone and other stuff.
Freaky. Freaky. Kids in experimental freaky films? Even freakier. Something about a little Japanese girl shouting "have you done it yet!?" to a woman as she tries to muster the courage to pop out her eye is just downright disturbing. This one won the Audience Choice Awards, too.
I still don't get it, though. But it freaked me out. And any reaction is a good reaction, as I discovered when I bumped into the Feminist.
I'm not too sure what the Feminist's name was. Pietra introduced us.
"Hey, Khai, this is (I can't remember)! She liked your film!"
"No, I didn't," she replied.
"Hahaha!" Said Pietra, "She's just kidding! ...You're kidding, right?"
"No," I said, "she's not."
Tony turned to her, "You didn't like it?"
"I hated it. I'm a Feminist," she said as she shook my hand, smiling, "but I look forward to your next one, let's hope it's better."
"I sincerely doubt it," I replied with a shit-eating grin.
Koay pulled me over after that strange encounter and said, "Any reaction is a good reaction." And he's right. I was waiting for that reaction. I was wondering why I hadn't met anyone I'd pissed off yet. And I finally did. She hated it.
Loverleeeee...
I also found it funny that a Feminist would hate my movie considering the guy in the movie is obviously a dick and the girl had a fair point (albeit taking it to intense extremes) about local men. I also noticed a woman in the audience during the Q&A grimace when I said, "where's the chick with the tits?" Some went "oooh". Another went "bleep!"
Are tits controversial? I think I know what to do for my next short film, then... hehehe...
Met some new and interesting people there too like Lydia, Moon and (sorry but I can't remember your name still!) another dude, to name (or not name) a few.
"Didn't you do a film about smoking last year?" asked Lydia.
Wow. Someone remembered that film. Cool.
The last time I was here I was a nervous wreck. It was my first short film that I'd ever tried to show to people I didn't know, and to top it all off I was acting in it. Somehow the fact that I'm not acting in this one lifted the anxiety quite a bit. Plus the bonus of having my girlfriend and friends around for moral and mental support.
Here's a list of the movies that were shown:
1. KERIS BERMATA KAYU (Abd. Samad Hassan / 2005 /10m40s)
I'm really sorry, Samad, but I only caught the ending, but the cinematography looked good and the story looked interesting. Since I only caught the last minute or so, though, can anyone tell me whether there was any kick-ass silat fight sequences I missed?
2. GAMBIR SARAWAK ASLI (Oliver F. During / 2005 /40secs)
I would've found this funny if I hadn't seen an award winning ad for condoms which was exactly the same.
3. A DAY IN THE CITY (Darien Nicholas Sekhon / 2005 / 9mins)
Was I the only one who didn't read the programme and know that this was directed by a 9 year old? A 9 year old! You should've seen him during the Q&A, cute as a button. And the film was ok. When I was watching it (not knowing a 9 year old directed it) I just thought it was kinda quirky. Quirky, but better than a lot of the entrants in the last KSFM I attended. Sure, I may be biasing my opinion now that I know it's a 9 year old, but I'm not exactly going to wax lyrical about how he didn't have the grace of Goddard or whatever film-appreciatists ramble on about.
Speaking of which, a film critic from Singapore was there and praised the kid, saying his talent was far superior to that of Hishamuddin Rais, the director of 'Dari Jemapoh Ke Manchester', which the critic thought was crap.
I dunno. I enjoyed '...Manchester'. I thought it was dope. But the kid does look like he's going to be flippin' mad skills soon.
4. MINI STARDUST (Joseph Liu / 2005 /20mins)
Continuing the theme of children, this was a film about two sisters, one eight and one six (I think) and I swear, these two girls were absolutely charming. It's like the Malaysian Dakota Fanning (Olsen twins may be more appropriate, but I don't think they were ever that talented). Huge reaction all 'round.
But there was also something interesting about it. Some people were uneasy about it. A lot of the girls in the audience could relate to the girls and smiled and laughed but a lot of the guys laughed very uneasily and shifted in their seat when subjected to two minutes of a six year old in a bikini dancing. Bernard mentioned voyeurism and exhibitionism and that whole reaction and uneasines during the Q&A. Then I turned to the director. He looked like he hadn't a clue what Bernard was saying with an innocent face that said, "I just made a movie about my nephews, what's all this voyeurism babble?"
I dunno. That's what I thought. I'm surprised this only placed third.
5. LETTER TO THE MOON (Shanjey Kumar / 2004 / 7mins)
Apart from a slight giggle from the audience at one point (and an uneasy one too), the third child-based film centered on incestual rape as a girl wrote a letter to the moon about what happened to her. Pretty good and disturbed the shit out of me.
However, one thing spoilt it for me. The supers at the end talking about the rape statistics. I didn't need that. The story said it all, there was no need for anything more than that. But perhaps the director really wanted to hammer the point home. Ah, well. The moral lesson at the end of the movie didn't grate me as much as the next one.
6. PULL THE WOOL OVER YOUR EYES (Nicholas Andrew John / 2004 /11mins)
By this point I was already thinking to myself, "hey. No weird experimental stuff that I don't get." This one was a straight up film about lies and cover-ups which was good, and the ending was a nice slice of disutrbedness, but I really didn't need the supers about how wrong it is to lie. Supers about rape statistics I can stand, but this wasn't necesarry at all.
By the way, this movie had little kids too (it's 'little kids' week! Buy one now!)
7. BANDIT'S DREAM (Mohd. Md. Noor / 2005 /9mins)
And more straightness! In film, no less. Even though the sound was pretty poor due to a NTSC-PAL transfer I just kept watching this film thinking to myself, "we've had a film about silat, a film by a 9 year old, a film about 2 charming little girls, a film about rape and a film about murder n' lies. Now there's a film by someone who went to the New York Film Academy. And he shot it on film. My movie's gonna come out like shit."
It's too bad about the sound, though. Another film featuring little kids.
8. SELF (MTV) (Oliver Lee / 2005 /5m25s)
Disturbing n' well edited. Too bad about the supers though (I have a thing about supers). Typo's everywhere. One of the few experimenty films (and when there's plenty of straight stories, the experimental films don't feel so... nggngnrh. Yeah. That's the word).
9. SOME LIKE IT WHITE (Khairil M. Bahar / 2005 / 10m30s)
Needless to say, I was worried as fuck. But they laughed. Thank fuck, they laughed.
10. DEAR STELLA (Fairuz Sulaiman / 2005 / 4m20s)
A love letter in visuals. I liked some of the visuals on it but (as the guy said his lecturer pointed out), it was very... still. No peaks. No troughs.
During the Q&A, the director talked in length about who the film was about (some chick he fell in love with on myspace/friendster) and my question of "where are all the emo directors?" was finally answered.
This one started the turn to the experimenty side in the films showcased.
11. 3 MONTHS LATER (Jeffrey Loh / 2005 / 7mins)
To quote one of the questions during the Q&A, "are all Chinese people this lonely?" One guy smokes and plays games, a girl eats noodles, a guy shaves... and stuff. Every 3 months. Or something. I'm sure there's a meaning. I haven't a clue what it is, though. I have a feeling if Eddy was still in the auditorium he'd be cursing up a storm by now.
12. CATCHING THE SEA (Woo Ming Jin / 2005 /10m15s)
Pete Teo's in this one. And Pete, sorry if you're reading this, but I really don't get this film.
And there's another kid! They're everywhere!
13. I WAS HERE (Kit Ong / 2005 / 10mins)
More kids! This one was freaky. Some Japanese woman who hears voices sticks a needle through her ear. Then 'ear' is free, for 'ear' is a cute little Japanese girl about 6 or 7 years old and they play and all is happy but 'ear' is not happy. She wants to play with 'eye'. So the woman pops out 'eye'. 'Eye' and 'ear' play with the woman and they're all happy. Then 'eye' and 'ear' stop playing with woman and woman is alone and other stuff.
Freaky. Freaky. Kids in experimental freaky films? Even freakier. Something about a little Japanese girl shouting "have you done it yet!?" to a woman as she tries to muster the courage to pop out her eye is just downright disturbing. This one won the Audience Choice Awards, too.
I still don't get it, though. But it freaked me out. And any reaction is a good reaction, as I discovered when I bumped into the Feminist.
I'm not too sure what the Feminist's name was. Pietra introduced us.
"Hey, Khai, this is (I can't remember)! She liked your film!"
"No, I didn't," she replied.
"Hahaha!" Said Pietra, "She's just kidding! ...You're kidding, right?"
"No," I said, "she's not."
Tony turned to her, "You didn't like it?"
"I hated it. I'm a Feminist," she said as she shook my hand, smiling, "but I look forward to your next one, let's hope it's better."
"I sincerely doubt it," I replied with a shit-eating grin.
Koay pulled me over after that strange encounter and said, "Any reaction is a good reaction." And he's right. I was waiting for that reaction. I was wondering why I hadn't met anyone I'd pissed off yet. And I finally did. She hated it.
Loverleeeee...
I also found it funny that a Feminist would hate my movie considering the guy in the movie is obviously a dick and the girl had a fair point (albeit taking it to intense extremes) about local men. I also noticed a woman in the audience during the Q&A grimace when I said, "where's the chick with the tits?" Some went "oooh". Another went "bleep!"
Are tits controversial? I think I know what to do for my next short film, then... hehehe...
Met some new and interesting people there too like Lydia, Moon and (sorry but I can't remember your name still!) another dude, to name (or not name) a few.
"Didn't you do a film about smoking last year?" asked Lydia.
Wow. Someone remembered that film. Cool.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Karma Works
So earlier, as you can tell, I was feeling pretty goddamn useless.
Add to that the fact that I was meant to be seeing my girlfriend for dinner (just like Tuesday) and I had to cancel (just like Tuesday) because of work (just like Tuesday) where I felt my existence in the office was meaningless (just like Tuesday).
She was upset (and quite possibly ready to start surfing the crimson wave) and I was pissed. Supremely pissed. I was ready to rain sulphur. I actually wrote a lengthy post of rants and raves and spew and bile until the computer crashed on me.
So I sent a ranty, raving, spewy, bile-filled e-mail to the IT people asking for a computer that doesn't run on arcane technology from the days before the microchip (I actually checked the RAM on the computer. It said '0kb'. That freaked me out).
Annoyed and game for anything, a weird thought popped into my head, and I searched my inbox (with my fingers crossed hoping it wouldn't crash) and found it: an e-mail from Man Method.
In the e-mail was a powerpoint document of 'good karma'. As always with these e-mails, if you send it out to 5 or more people all your dreams will come true and naked women will fall on your lap from the heavens.
Naked, soapy women.
So, in desperation and madness, I sent it out together with this e-mail:
"Apologies for the interuption. This'll all be over shortly.
Ordinarily, I do not believe in this 'forward to five people and get laid instantly' crap, but things aren't exactly moving swimmingly at the moment in the life of Khai, so I've decided to test this out, once and for all.
I've sent this thing out to all of you. Now, if things suddenly get better, I shall be a true believer and give out my credit card details to the nearest scientologist.
If not, I shall accept that life is poo, go down to the LDP and throw live chickens at moving cars.
Cluck-Vroom-Splat.
Because life is too short to not try it out once."
I sent it out to a good 20 people and carried on being pissed. Then it happened.
First, I was called into a meeting. For a good half of the meeting I zoned out, pissed and stewing in my juices.
Not those juices. That would be sticky.
After a while, though, my ears perked up and started listening. I started contributing. I knew what page we were on and I blasted my way through it with mucho gusto, free Dominos Pizza (courtesy of the suits) in one hand and a ballpoint pen in the other. I was contributing. I was helping.
I was useful.
Glad that life at work had a purpose again, I went down after the meeting feeling a lot better and called my girlfriend. I calmed her down, consoled her, chit-chatted and was the sweetest, most caring guy I could be for her.
Glad that she's happy again, I walked over to the computer and chit-chatted with my colleagues. I no longer felt like the fucker with nothing to do. I shared their burden. I was going to be working late with them. I was part of the team again, and we laughed and talked about music, White Zombie blarring out of the speakers Eddy gave me before he went on to greener pastures.
Working away, sketching Vietnamese women and smoking mass amounts of Dunhill's, I checked my e-mail and (as you can see from my last post) my short film will be screened next Monday at the KSFM Malaysian Shorts July Edition screening.
It could all be coincidence, but it looks like, for a while at least, all my friends will be subjected to chain mail madness from me.
Weird. Karma works.
...
...still no sign of the soapy women, though.
Add to that the fact that I was meant to be seeing my girlfriend for dinner (just like Tuesday) and I had to cancel (just like Tuesday) because of work (just like Tuesday) where I felt my existence in the office was meaningless (just like Tuesday).
She was upset (and quite possibly ready to start surfing the crimson wave) and I was pissed. Supremely pissed. I was ready to rain sulphur. I actually wrote a lengthy post of rants and raves and spew and bile until the computer crashed on me.
So I sent a ranty, raving, spewy, bile-filled e-mail to the IT people asking for a computer that doesn't run on arcane technology from the days before the microchip (I actually checked the RAM on the computer. It said '0kb'. That freaked me out).
Annoyed and game for anything, a weird thought popped into my head, and I searched my inbox (with my fingers crossed hoping it wouldn't crash) and found it: an e-mail from Man Method.
In the e-mail was a powerpoint document of 'good karma'. As always with these e-mails, if you send it out to 5 or more people all your dreams will come true and naked women will fall on your lap from the heavens.
Naked, soapy women.
So, in desperation and madness, I sent it out together with this e-mail:
"Apologies for the interuption. This'll all be over shortly.
Ordinarily, I do not believe in this 'forward to five people and get laid instantly' crap, but things aren't exactly moving swimmingly at the moment in the life of Khai, so I've decided to test this out, once and for all.
I've sent this thing out to all of you. Now, if things suddenly get better, I shall be a true believer and give out my credit card details to the nearest scientologist.
If not, I shall accept that life is poo, go down to the LDP and throw live chickens at moving cars.
Cluck-Vroom-Splat.
Because life is too short to not try it out once."
I sent it out to a good 20 people and carried on being pissed. Then it happened.
First, I was called into a meeting. For a good half of the meeting I zoned out, pissed and stewing in my juices.
Not those juices. That would be sticky.
After a while, though, my ears perked up and started listening. I started contributing. I knew what page we were on and I blasted my way through it with mucho gusto, free Dominos Pizza (courtesy of the suits) in one hand and a ballpoint pen in the other. I was contributing. I was helping.
I was useful.
Glad that life at work had a purpose again, I went down after the meeting feeling a lot better and called my girlfriend. I calmed her down, consoled her, chit-chatted and was the sweetest, most caring guy I could be for her.
Glad that she's happy again, I walked over to the computer and chit-chatted with my colleagues. I no longer felt like the fucker with nothing to do. I shared their burden. I was going to be working late with them. I was part of the team again, and we laughed and talked about music, White Zombie blarring out of the speakers Eddy gave me before he went on to greener pastures.
Working away, sketching Vietnamese women and smoking mass amounts of Dunhill's, I checked my e-mail and (as you can see from my last post) my short film will be screened next Monday at the KSFM Malaysian Shorts July Edition screening.
It could all be coincidence, but it looks like, for a while at least, all my friends will be subjected to chain mail madness from me.
Weird. Karma works.
...
...still no sign of the soapy women, though.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Two Days
2 days of thinking. Storming. Rationalizing. Sketching.
Ideas, ideas, ideas.
2 days. And still nothing.
And what's it for, pray tell? What am I antagonizing over? What have I spent 2 fucking days trying to come up with an ad for?
A shitty little blinky free gift that you'll get when you buy the clients product. A shitty little blinking thing.
And I can't think of an ad for it. Every single idea is unconvincing.
Because I'm not convinced. I've been using the damn thing for 2 days and it's utterly useless.
And I can see the rest of the team working on the mega-important-crazy-timeline accounts, and they're on the ball and tired and stressed as fuck. I volunteered to tidy up all the other tiny jobs we had 'cos I thought it'd be a stroll in the park.
2 days. Perhaps I'm experiencing writers block.
After day 2 (yesterday) I was fucked beyond compare. Fucked, and slightly wracked with the guilt that all I've got to figure out is this shitty little ad whilst everyone else is working on this intensely crazy fucker of a job, and they probably think I'm slacking because I can't come up with one-good-idea. I feel like I've wasted 2 days. I do not like unproductivitiness.
That's not a word, is it?
At least, after all the crap that was yesterday (spending my time in the office eating shitty instant noodles instead of a three course dinner courtesy of my girlfriend) I got to spend some time with my band, Triple 6 Poser, at Eddy's place. The second Ed saw me at the door he asked,
"Bad day?"
"Fuck, yeah," was my reply, "I could do with a shot of whiskey."
"Black label or McGregors?" was Eddy's response.
A couple of shots later I was much more relaxed, playing my guitar amongst the dudes and dudettes, going through the songs and having a laugh. Izuwan brought some Pepsi Ice, a strange blue thing with that extra feature that's become so popular in soft drinks these days: the ice factor.
Pepsi's doing it. 7 Up's doing it. Nestea's doing it. Even fucking Nescafe. It's this added 'thing' they put into the drinks whereby, after you take a gulp, your chest feels like it's gargling mouthwash. Some people like this icy sensation. Some don't.
And some like to experiment. And, as one of the experimentors (ooh, possible band name) I can safely say that Black Label and Pepsi Ice is wrong. It's disturbing to the tongue, your taste buds turn back to you and shout, "what in the name of unholy fuck are you trying to do?!"
We have a name for this cocktail. Henceforth it shall be dubbed, "Ye Blue Shit".
But even with the relaxing times with the band and friends I still had trouble sleeping. And a worse time trying to wake up. And my pants have ripped. At the crotch.
Fuck, I forgot my guitar for rehearsals too, didn't I?
Something extremely nice happening to me today would be a Godsend. I implore everybody out there to clap your hands and shout out 'I believe' so that maybe, just maybe, my very own tinkerbell will wake up from her poisoned slumber and give me a rim-job.
Unless someone else out there would be just as willing.
Ideas, ideas, ideas.
2 days. And still nothing.
And what's it for, pray tell? What am I antagonizing over? What have I spent 2 fucking days trying to come up with an ad for?
A shitty little blinky free gift that you'll get when you buy the clients product. A shitty little blinking thing.
And I can't think of an ad for it. Every single idea is unconvincing.
Because I'm not convinced. I've been using the damn thing for 2 days and it's utterly useless.
And I can see the rest of the team working on the mega-important-crazy-timeline accounts, and they're on the ball and tired and stressed as fuck. I volunteered to tidy up all the other tiny jobs we had 'cos I thought it'd be a stroll in the park.
2 days. Perhaps I'm experiencing writers block.
After day 2 (yesterday) I was fucked beyond compare. Fucked, and slightly wracked with the guilt that all I've got to figure out is this shitty little ad whilst everyone else is working on this intensely crazy fucker of a job, and they probably think I'm slacking because I can't come up with one-good-idea. I feel like I've wasted 2 days. I do not like unproductivitiness.
That's not a word, is it?
At least, after all the crap that was yesterday (spending my time in the office eating shitty instant noodles instead of a three course dinner courtesy of my girlfriend) I got to spend some time with my band, Triple 6 Poser, at Eddy's place. The second Ed saw me at the door he asked,
"Bad day?"
"Fuck, yeah," was my reply, "I could do with a shot of whiskey."
"Black label or McGregors?" was Eddy's response.
A couple of shots later I was much more relaxed, playing my guitar amongst the dudes and dudettes, going through the songs and having a laugh. Izuwan brought some Pepsi Ice, a strange blue thing with that extra feature that's become so popular in soft drinks these days: the ice factor.
Pepsi's doing it. 7 Up's doing it. Nestea's doing it. Even fucking Nescafe. It's this added 'thing' they put into the drinks whereby, after you take a gulp, your chest feels like it's gargling mouthwash. Some people like this icy sensation. Some don't.
And some like to experiment. And, as one of the experimentors (ooh, possible band name) I can safely say that Black Label and Pepsi Ice is wrong. It's disturbing to the tongue, your taste buds turn back to you and shout, "what in the name of unholy fuck are you trying to do?!"
We have a name for this cocktail. Henceforth it shall be dubbed, "Ye Blue Shit".
But even with the relaxing times with the band and friends I still had trouble sleeping. And a worse time trying to wake up. And my pants have ripped. At the crotch.
Fuck, I forgot my guitar for rehearsals too, didn't I?
Something extremely nice happening to me today would be a Godsend. I implore everybody out there to clap your hands and shout out 'I believe' so that maybe, just maybe, my very own tinkerbell will wake up from her poisoned slumber and give me a rim-job.
Unless someone else out there would be just as willing.
Nightmares & Kittens
For those that have been reading my blog since the very beginning (you sad weasel), you'd know about Timothy and his tragic death. If not, click the link. In cliff-notes form, I had a white kitten called Timothy (all my cats were named Timothy at the time) and one day I came home from school (7 or 8 years old probably) to find Timothy dead in the dining room, slit from his neck to his gut.
There was a lot of blood. And ants.
The reason I bring it up is because of the dream I had last night. Dream? It was a fucking nightmare. And as with all dreams the longer you wait after the dream the less you remember, but I do remember this:
It was one of my cats. Being skinned alive. With a very large knife.
That kind of shit can really disturb you and ruin your mood for the rest of the day.
I think that's why I was in such a bad mood this morning. I don't like cat killers.
There was a lot of blood. And ants.
The reason I bring it up is because of the dream I had last night. Dream? It was a fucking nightmare. And as with all dreams the longer you wait after the dream the less you remember, but I do remember this:
It was one of my cats. Being skinned alive. With a very large knife.
That kind of shit can really disturb you and ruin your mood for the rest of the day.
I think that's why I was in such a bad mood this morning. I don't like cat killers.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Feeling Shirty
So I got an e-mail over the weekend confirming my interview forShortcuts, the TV show that'll be showing my short film "Some Like It White".
No, it's not a porno.
A lot more preparation than I thought would be necessary seem to pop up for this whole thing. When Amir called he mentioned it'd be best that I censor the 'naughty bits' of my short film myself. This still leaves me puzzled because I'm not sure exactly what to censor. It's on Astro Prima at night, and I'm not sure what the guidelines are exactly. Sure, I know I need to bleep out the naughty 'F' word, that's a given, but what about the rest?
What part of 'big, pink dick with foreskin' do I censor? Just 'dick', or 'foreskin' too?
Do I need to blur out the cleavage shots?
Do I need to bleep out the word 'cum'?
And will the line still be funny if I censored the word 'tits' in the line 'tits that would make you get down on your knees and beg for buttermilk?'
But that's not all. Like I said, Raymond from Red Communications e-mailed me with details. He gave me the questions they were going to ask so I could 'prep', which was nice.
I was also given guidelines as to what to wear:
"The shirt that you wear on that day should not be white, black, brown, have stripes, polka dots, checks or any fine flowery designs. Other that that you are ok."
That practically describes my entire wardrobe. I think I'm buggered.
No, it's not a porno.
A lot more preparation than I thought would be necessary seem to pop up for this whole thing. When Amir called he mentioned it'd be best that I censor the 'naughty bits' of my short film myself. This still leaves me puzzled because I'm not sure exactly what to censor. It's on Astro Prima at night, and I'm not sure what the guidelines are exactly. Sure, I know I need to bleep out the naughty 'F' word, that's a given, but what about the rest?
What part of 'big, pink dick with foreskin' do I censor? Just 'dick', or 'foreskin' too?
Do I need to blur out the cleavage shots?
Do I need to bleep out the word 'cum'?
And will the line still be funny if I censored the word 'tits' in the line 'tits that would make you get down on your knees and beg for buttermilk?'
But that's not all. Like I said, Raymond from Red Communications e-mailed me with details. He gave me the questions they were going to ask so I could 'prep', which was nice.
I was also given guidelines as to what to wear:
"The shirt that you wear on that day should not be white, black, brown, have stripes, polka dots, checks or any fine flowery designs. Other that that you are ok."
That practically describes my entire wardrobe. I think I'm buggered.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
S.H.H.H.I.T.
As part of my research for my future filmmaking endeavours, one of my recent initiatives has been to buy (at original prices, no less) local films and study them. Sometimes I don't make it past the ten minute mark and start pressing the forward button. This is one of those movies...
Have any of you guys seen a local movie called S.H.3.?
If you haven't, I don't blame you.
The title stands for Skateboard Hip-Hop Handphone. According to FilemKita.com, "The movie focuses on college student Khairul, who is a skateboarding freak who tries to gain the attention of Nelly. Khairul’s efforts to woo Sally is unfruitful and to top it all, he injures himself just before a major skateboarding tournament."
After trying to watch the movie, though, I can honestly say Skateboard Hip-Hop Handphone Is Terrible.
Some may say that my assesment of this movie is unfair due to the fact I haven't watched the movie as a whole. Don't worry, I will, and if it does turn out good after a second viewing I'll take my words back, but when the first ten minutes bore the shit out of you in ways no movie has ever achieved, then you know there's something wrong.
Sure, as per all local movies these days, the dubbing is horrendous (somebody shoot the sound engineer who's probably still splicing tape with a razor), the film transfer is attrocious, the title cards are like something out of the 70's (and not ina kitsch kind of way) and the movie's slower than a senior citizen trying to masturbate herself to orgasm with a Tesco's cucumber in the spring time.
The (lack of) speed in the movie is not a pacing issue. It's more than that. It's a syndrome I keep seeing time and time again in Malay movies: A scene that should only warrant about 1 minute of screen time (or less) is instead stretched to about 5 minutes. In a wide shot.
The scene I'm talking about is when the main girl arrives at college in her parents car. The camera is permanently on a wide shot as the car pulls up, she takes out all her luggage, one by one, and says goodbye to her parents. No time lapse. No cuts. Just a shot of an expensive car and some people taking out their luggage whilst the actress playing her friend has a tough time of trying to make her 'ooh's and 'aah's sound remotely interesting throughout this entire scene. It grates me. It pisses me off. It annoys unholy fuck out of me. It makes me want to vomit green bile onto the faces of innocent choir boys.
And they do this again. And again. And again. Time to hit the forward button.
My other gripe over this film is that it's supposedly a skate movie. And every skating shot looks like the director's never seen a skate video in his entire fucking existence.
One thing I will say is that I do admire the fact that the kids' skate abilities are presented as more realistic (although I have no idea whether this was intentional). Instead of being able to pull off every single trick in the book (courtesy of either Tony Hawk or Rodney Mullen doubling them) they hired kids with some level of skating abilities (much better than mine, I'll admit), but not of the supreme pro level. During the contest (where the good guy that nobody understands faces off to the skate bully... as if we didn't see that one coming) the hottest trick in the skaters' repertoir is a crooked grind. Not much, but that's usually what these skate comps are like.
But Jesus, they could have shot it a lot cooler.
Every skate shot during the comp is a wide shot with absolutely no feeling of action in it. No cool music, no funky editing, no moving shots, just static wide shots of the Kg. Batu skatepark empty as fuck with one kid doing a 50-50 about 50 meters away. Wow. Ain't skating cool.
And don't even get me started on the 'hip-hop' scenes. Please, if you're going to shoot a dance sequence, wouldn't you want the visuals to be in sync with the music?
Then there's your usual love story bullshit, your funny side character (watch him do funny facial gestures and fall off his board! Whoopee!) and your 'kepoh' girl. It's your typical over-stretched Malay love triangle jumping on the 'extreme' bandwagon but still lacking any redeeming audio-visual features whatsoever.
And it cost RM$1.5 million. The majority of it probably went to the editor for his 'cool' camera-click-click-cut-between-two-scenes-click-click-a-lot technique. Fuck off.
Maybe I should give it a chance. Maybe I should force myself to watch the movie in its entirety. I survived a half hour long session of dentists yanking out my wisdom tooth, I could survive this, right?
Or maybe I should shove it up a leper's ass, attach grenades on him and shoot him through a cannon into the fucking studio that made this insulting piece of shit.
Have any of you guys seen a local movie called S.H.3.?
The title stands for Skateboard Hip-Hop Handphone. According to FilemKita.com, "The movie focuses on college student Khairul, who is a skateboarding freak who tries to gain the attention of Nelly. Khairul’s efforts to woo Sally is unfruitful and to top it all, he injures himself just before a major skateboarding tournament."
After trying to watch the movie, though, I can honestly say Skateboard Hip-Hop Handphone Is Terrible.
Some may say that my assesment of this movie is unfair due to the fact I haven't watched the movie as a whole. Don't worry, I will, and if it does turn out good after a second viewing I'll take my words back, but when the first ten minutes bore the shit out of you in ways no movie has ever achieved, then you know there's something wrong.
Sure, as per all local movies these days, the dubbing is horrendous (somebody shoot the sound engineer who's probably still splicing tape with a razor), the film transfer is attrocious, the title cards are like something out of the 70's (and not ina kitsch kind of way) and the movie's slower than a senior citizen trying to masturbate herself to orgasm with a Tesco's cucumber in the spring time.
The (lack of) speed in the movie is not a pacing issue. It's more than that. It's a syndrome I keep seeing time and time again in Malay movies: A scene that should only warrant about 1 minute of screen time (or less) is instead stretched to about 5 minutes. In a wide shot.
The scene I'm talking about is when the main girl arrives at college in her parents car. The camera is permanently on a wide shot as the car pulls up, she takes out all her luggage, one by one, and says goodbye to her parents. No time lapse. No cuts. Just a shot of an expensive car and some people taking out their luggage whilst the actress playing her friend has a tough time of trying to make her 'ooh's and 'aah's sound remotely interesting throughout this entire scene. It grates me. It pisses me off. It annoys unholy fuck out of me. It makes me want to vomit green bile onto the faces of innocent choir boys.
And they do this again. And again. And again. Time to hit the forward button.
My other gripe over this film is that it's supposedly a skate movie. And every skating shot looks like the director's never seen a skate video in his entire fucking existence.
One thing I will say is that I do admire the fact that the kids' skate abilities are presented as more realistic (although I have no idea whether this was intentional). Instead of being able to pull off every single trick in the book (courtesy of either Tony Hawk or Rodney Mullen doubling them) they hired kids with some level of skating abilities (much better than mine, I'll admit), but not of the supreme pro level. During the contest (where the good guy that nobody understands faces off to the skate bully... as if we didn't see that one coming) the hottest trick in the skaters' repertoir is a crooked grind. Not much, but that's usually what these skate comps are like.
But Jesus, they could have shot it a lot cooler.
Every skate shot during the comp is a wide shot with absolutely no feeling of action in it. No cool music, no funky editing, no moving shots, just static wide shots of the Kg. Batu skatepark empty as fuck with one kid doing a 50-50 about 50 meters away. Wow. Ain't skating cool.
And don't even get me started on the 'hip-hop' scenes. Please, if you're going to shoot a dance sequence, wouldn't you want the visuals to be in sync with the music?
Then there's your usual love story bullshit, your funny side character (watch him do funny facial gestures and fall off his board! Whoopee!) and your 'kepoh' girl. It's your typical over-stretched Malay love triangle jumping on the 'extreme' bandwagon but still lacking any redeeming audio-visual features whatsoever.
And it cost RM$1.5 million. The majority of it probably went to the editor for his 'cool' camera-click-click-cut-between-two-scenes-click-click-a-lot technique. Fuck off.
Maybe I should give it a chance. Maybe I should force myself to watch the movie in its entirety. I survived a half hour long session of dentists yanking out my wisdom tooth, I could survive this, right?
Or maybe I should shove it up a leper's ass, attach grenades on him and shoot him through a cannon into the fucking studio that made this insulting piece of shit.
Monday, July 11, 2005
Happy Mondays
For the purposes of a 10am presentation to a client I awoke surprisingly early today, at 7am. This, for those who know me, is a record. I rarely roll out of bed till ten on weekdays, and even later on weekends.
After spending an insane amount of time hoping that hot water would wake me up, I attempted to get dressed whilst Mama Cat harrassed me constantly. She wanted love and affection of the strokey-stroke variety, purring and meowing away at my legs and sitting on my jeans. As I stroked her whilst picking out what shade of black to wear, the phone rang.
"Hello," said the voice, "is this Khairil?"
The cat tried to tell the person on the phone I was busy. I cut her off.
"Yes, speaking."
"Hi, this is Amir Muhammad. I saw your short film and was wondering whether we could show it on Shortcuts on Astro."
Well, bugger me senseless with an undone Rubik's cube.
All I was going for was the KSFM Malaysian Shorts. This is something else. This is cash and a TV interview.
And all it took was ten minutes of a movie about a girl who only dates white guys and a guy who's defense to the local race is "I got skills! I got skillz to pay my billz, girl!"
It's a Happy Monday indeed. Work better not fuck with me.
After spending an insane amount of time hoping that hot water would wake me up, I attempted to get dressed whilst Mama Cat harrassed me constantly. She wanted love and affection of the strokey-stroke variety, purring and meowing away at my legs and sitting on my jeans. As I stroked her whilst picking out what shade of black to wear, the phone rang.
"Hello," said the voice, "is this Khairil?"
The cat tried to tell the person on the phone I was busy. I cut her off.
"Yes, speaking."
"Hi, this is Amir Muhammad. I saw your short film and was wondering whether we could show it on Shortcuts on Astro."
Well, bugger me senseless with an undone Rubik's cube.
All I was going for was the KSFM Malaysian Shorts. This is something else. This is cash and a TV interview.
And all it took was ten minutes of a movie about a girl who only dates white guys and a guy who's defense to the local race is "I got skills! I got skillz to pay my billz, girl!"
It's a Happy Monday indeed. Work better not fuck with me.
Grande Latte Enema
A friend of mine recently told me over lunch that she once had a coffee enema during a detoxifying week.
I never knew coffee was involved.
I wonder how they came up with it. Did a proctologist-cum-health-guru having a particularly bad Starbucks experience suddenly arrive at an epiphany when he exclaimed, "this coffee's so shit I might as well shove it up my ass!"?
Possibly.
She didn't touch coffee for 3 months after that. Understandable, really.
I never knew coffee was involved.
I wonder how they came up with it. Did a proctologist-cum-health-guru having a particularly bad Starbucks experience suddenly arrive at an epiphany when he exclaimed, "this coffee's so shit I might as well shove it up my ass!"?
Possibly.
She didn't touch coffee for 3 months after that. Understandable, really.
Friday, July 8, 2005
Caucasian Conundrum
In response to my post about my short film, my old buddy Naren (currently making his way to Gordon Gecko-ness somewhere in Leeds, if I'm not mistaken) sent me this e-mail. Quite interesting, although perhaps he's gone into much more depth than my 10 minute dick-n-fart joke movie.
Naren, I tried to reply to you but my Yahoo mail doesn't go down well with my server here. Will try again soon...
Hi Khai,
[blah blah blah... stuff you don't need to know...] I just read the blog on your latest endevour with regards to the short film entitled 'Why some like it white(?)'. I do understand that you have finished filming but I sincerely hope that I can squeeze in some comments.
1. After hard thought I do think that it is a matter of preference. Some may have certain preference in terms of external biological looks and physique. It is known for preference for hair colour (blonde). Environment and socialization process would have played a role in the building the psychological profile of an individual choosing the partner.
2.Thinking along supply/demand and the basics of trade negotiations that David Riccardo coined a century ago, the market has increased the demand for white male and the flow of ex-pats does not realistically match it. Any rational economic actor in a trade market knows that he can dictate terms with regards to delivery and freight arrangements.
This appears to be the current status in any public social event in the leisurely hours of a birck and mortar institution (eg. nightclubs, pubs,) The market forces have tipped the price equilibirum in favour of the ex-pat. Such unfair economic practises are usually the concern of regulators, fair trade and anti-competition authority to uphold the integrity of the free market. (Something I regard as a paradox as external intervention is used to preserve the free market) Not straying away from the topic, the chance to shift the equilibrium to more friendly terms to our local gentry would through be regulation.
Shrinking the input of ex-pat would may not help in the short term (it would increase demand) but the excess surplus of asian women with no realistic means to satisfy their demand for expat in the long term means they would chose a substitute (local men). Social conventions appears to be a handy form of regulation in this economic scenario.
3.It would be extremelly naive of me to leave the above points without further investigation to the motives of the said individuals in question. Sadly, there are bias traces of a negative (from a third party perspective) and at times an arguabbly positive nature (from the daters) on the decision making process of the asian female/white male in choosing their partner.
To say we are all free from the whole act of passing judgements when choosing life-partners or even sexual partners on a short-term time scale (pulling on a Friday night) is totally untrue. As discussed on para(1), individual taste needs to be factored in. However, it is quite hard to swallow that some would read that a certain particular race are synonymous with having monetory advantages, phallic endowment, etc. Unfortunately collecting size stats maybe seen as a taboo in Malaysia, so we have a long way to do correlation analysis with expats size.
4. Conclusion: This however issue however is something that social scientist should study as we do not know if the answer lies in social conditioning, peer pressure, foreign cultural contributions, etc. I am more than happy to look into it if I have access to research grant.
Best wishes,
Narendran
Cheers for the comments n' thoughts, Naren. Once I upload the vid you'll see my POV... so to speak.
Naren, I tried to reply to you but my Yahoo mail doesn't go down well with my server here. Will try again soon...
Hi Khai,
[blah blah blah... stuff you don't need to know...] I just read the blog on your latest endevour with regards to the short film entitled 'Why some like it white(?)'. I do understand that you have finished filming but I sincerely hope that I can squeeze in some comments.
1. After hard thought I do think that it is a matter of preference. Some may have certain preference in terms of external biological looks and physique. It is known for preference for hair colour (blonde). Environment and socialization process would have played a role in the building the psychological profile of an individual choosing the partner.
2.Thinking along supply/demand and the basics of trade negotiations that David Riccardo coined a century ago, the market has increased the demand for white male and the flow of ex-pats does not realistically match it. Any rational economic actor in a trade market knows that he can dictate terms with regards to delivery and freight arrangements.
This appears to be the current status in any public social event in the leisurely hours of a birck and mortar institution (eg. nightclubs, pubs,) The market forces have tipped the price equilibirum in favour of the ex-pat. Such unfair economic practises are usually the concern of regulators, fair trade and anti-competition authority to uphold the integrity of the free market. (Something I regard as a paradox as external intervention is used to preserve the free market) Not straying away from the topic, the chance to shift the equilibrium to more friendly terms to our local gentry would through be regulation.
Shrinking the input of ex-pat would may not help in the short term (it would increase demand) but the excess surplus of asian women with no realistic means to satisfy their demand for expat in the long term means they would chose a substitute (local men). Social conventions appears to be a handy form of regulation in this economic scenario.
3.It would be extremelly naive of me to leave the above points without further investigation to the motives of the said individuals in question. Sadly, there are bias traces of a negative (from a third party perspective) and at times an arguabbly positive nature (from the daters) on the decision making process of the asian female/white male in choosing their partner.
To say we are all free from the whole act of passing judgements when choosing life-partners or even sexual partners on a short-term time scale (pulling on a Friday night) is totally untrue. As discussed on para(1), individual taste needs to be factored in. However, it is quite hard to swallow that some would read that a certain particular race are synonymous with having monetory advantages, phallic endowment, etc. Unfortunately collecting size stats maybe seen as a taboo in Malaysia, so we have a long way to do correlation analysis with expats size.
4. Conclusion: This however issue however is something that social scientist should study as we do not know if the answer lies in social conditioning, peer pressure, foreign cultural contributions, etc. I am more than happy to look into it if I have access to research grant.
Best wishes,
Narendran
Cheers for the comments n' thoughts, Naren. Once I upload the vid you'll see my POV... so to speak.
Wednesday, July 6, 2005
Some Like It White
Hah. I finally have some time to myself. F-ing work's taking it's toll. One day I shall rid the world of people with the inability to come up with manageable deadlines. I shall stick them on spikes and they shall wail.
But enough ranting. Let's talk about the movie shall we...
The Idea
So, as some of you may or may not know, the feature length has been put on hold as I try a few things out with my newly bought camera. Last week I jumped out of bed at around 1.30am and started writing a 15 page script entitled "Some Like It White".
No, it's not a porno.
It was one of those ideas that just pops up. An idea where, if you did't write it right there and then you may get a wonderful night's sleep but the idea wouldn't come out exactly as you envisioned it. Get caught in the moment and write like the wind.
The idea came from a restless hour in bed pondering the following:
What I want to do:
- A short film for me to test the camera out.
- Something more dialogue based, fast and snappy.
Limitations:
- Cast, crew & location need to be kept to an absolute minimum.
- There's no time for rehearsals & no guarantee of first class performances.
- I have one day to shoot and at the very most one day to edit.
So the mind back tracks to a whole bunch of different thoughts of mine. Most of my short film scripts are based on questions. The last film, 'Nicotine', was based on the question, "why can't I quit fucking smoking?"
Then I remembered a question that once plagued my mind: "Why do a lot of local girls prefer ex-pats?"
Sure, the angry local male that used to not be able to get any was determined the answer was in big dicks and foreign currency, but I wanted to probe it a bit more. Searched around a few sites (the Sarong Party Girl blog was quite helpful) and some statistics n' articles, and tightened up my original idea.
The whole film is written as phone conversations between a guy, Ash, and a girl, Layla, both talking to their respective friends about what happened earlier (when Ash & Layla met) and intercuts with their actual meeting, where they both get along but Layla's policy of only dating white guys starts up a huge argument.
I kinda came up with a logical reason why a girl would think that but regardless the argument, preferring one race to another, whatever the reason, is just not right. People are people, end of story. I didn't want the girl to come across as a money-grubbing skank. Just another person back from overseas who notices the problems in her native country and this is her way of dealing with said problem.
I also wanted a kind of gradual change in character between the two. At the start I wanted the guy to seem misogynistic and the girl tarty, but towards the end there's character and emotion.
Or just a bunch of people spouting out the inane lines I've written.
(Incidentally, in case some of you guys across the pond are wondering, no caucasians were depicted in a derogatory manner throughout the film).
The Shoot
We started shooting an hour behind schedule, setting up and all that bollocks taking a bit too long. We started shooting all of the guy's conversations first, because Farah, my female lead, had only just seen the script on that day.
Since it was the start and there was no sense of urgency yet, I agonized over the line delivery with Ikram, the guy playing Ash, and tried to get into every single detail and tone and projection. The dude was pretty nervous, but once we got into the other scenes he was more confident and said the lines with the right amount of bile and urgency.
Pietra, the guy who directed the short film I acted in ('Seeing Things') was helping me on advice and camera duty, and was a tremendous aid. I swear, if the guy wasn't around there's a good chance it would've all gone balls-up. We were moving from set-up to set-up double time like energizer bunnies on crack.
Of course, no one was keeping time. When I realized we only 'technically' had two more hours to shoot two more scenes, I panicked.
Also along for the ride were Farah's friends Lily and Sheena, who I put in the background to make the office seem like an actual office, and Paul was the official Papaya Supplier, if you will, bringing the ladies. Technically, he was the grip, but that's not what I put in the credits. Papaya Supplier sounds so much nicer. In case you didn't know, Paul was the guy that starred in my last short, 'Nicotine'. A crazy semi-Aussie with a nasal voice and weird mannerisms. He cool.
At one point I wanted to do a tracking shot using one of the chairs, with Paul on tracking duty, but they don't exactly roll correctly. The blooper reel's quite funny. You hear the words 'action' followed by the camera moving like a drunk sailor on a skateboard.
Why the fuck didn't I use the skateboard?
And I still hadn't edited the fucker.
Add to that my computer deciding to switch off by itself for no apparent reason and my increasing tiredness and it was becoming increasingly obvious I wouldn't be able to get this in by Monday for the KSFM Shorts. Perhaps Monday night, if I got back early (which I did, incidentally, and sent it at 1 in the morning). In the end, I edited till 4.30am. And I only had 3 minutes of footage cut together. Fuckery. At one point I was editing all the way and realized I'd missed out seven scenes. Lack of sleep can fuck you up.
The next day I realized, however, that those 3 minutes were the toughest bits to edit. Everything else came together after that and it didn't take me long to finish the cut, fix up the sound a bit and render it to DVD. Voila! My second short film! There were a couple of scenes I forgot to shoot, and some of the angles and white balance were wrong, but it all came out alright on the edit.
Learnings
After the directing that, I'm glad I hadn't started shooting my feature length magnum octopus just yet. The shoot alone tired me out like crazy. Even though it was a short film, there 54 scenes and almost a 100 set ups. All done in 7 hours. And even though I like what came out, I still need to hone my craft a bit more before doing the feature length. Things still look too sloppy and the sound pisses me off. I need a frickin' boom mic. These short films are great practice, though, and a great way to find new talent for the feature when it's finally shot.
The whole shoot was a lot of fun, too. Just a bunch of friends hanging out and making something. No stress apart from the schedule.
And what now?
I had e-mailed Bernard Chauly, the curator for the KSFM Shorts, asking whether I could send it in a bit late. He said usually he'd allow it but due to some time constraints or what have you he wants to finalize the list a lot sooner. I sent it in, technically, on the day of deadline. But then again, by the time I sent it everyone was asleep, so we'll see. If it does get picked, it'll premiere on the 25th of July. If not, it'll premiere anytime I'm free in the comfort of my bedroom.
Noonch.
But enough ranting. Let's talk about the movie shall we...
The Idea
So, as some of you may or may not know, the feature length has been put on hold as I try a few things out with my newly bought camera. Last week I jumped out of bed at around 1.30am and started writing a 15 page script entitled "Some Like It White".
No, it's not a porno.
It was one of those ideas that just pops up. An idea where, if you did't write it right there and then you may get a wonderful night's sleep but the idea wouldn't come out exactly as you envisioned it. Get caught in the moment and write like the wind.
The idea came from a restless hour in bed pondering the following:
What I want to do:
- A short film for me to test the camera out.
- Something more dialogue based, fast and snappy.
Limitations:
- Cast, crew & location need to be kept to an absolute minimum.
- There's no time for rehearsals & no guarantee of first class performances.
- I have one day to shoot and at the very most one day to edit.
So the mind back tracks to a whole bunch of different thoughts of mine. Most of my short film scripts are based on questions. The last film, 'Nicotine', was based on the question, "why can't I quit fucking smoking?"
Then I remembered a question that once plagued my mind: "Why do a lot of local girls prefer ex-pats?"
Sure, the angry local male that used to not be able to get any was determined the answer was in big dicks and foreign currency, but I wanted to probe it a bit more. Searched around a few sites (the Sarong Party Girl blog was quite helpful) and some statistics n' articles, and tightened up my original idea.
The whole film is written as phone conversations between a guy, Ash, and a girl, Layla, both talking to their respective friends about what happened earlier (when Ash & Layla met) and intercuts with their actual meeting, where they both get along but Layla's policy of only dating white guys starts up a huge argument.
I kinda came up with a logical reason why a girl would think that but regardless the argument, preferring one race to another, whatever the reason, is just not right. People are people, end of story. I didn't want the girl to come across as a money-grubbing skank. Just another person back from overseas who notices the problems in her native country and this is her way of dealing with said problem.
I also wanted a kind of gradual change in character between the two. At the start I wanted the guy to seem misogynistic and the girl tarty, but towards the end there's character and emotion.
Or just a bunch of people spouting out the inane lines I've written.
(Incidentally, in case some of you guys across the pond are wondering, no caucasians were depicted in a derogatory manner throughout the film).
The Shoot
We started shooting an hour behind schedule, setting up and all that bollocks taking a bit too long. We started shooting all of the guy's conversations first, because Farah, my female lead, had only just seen the script on that day.
Since it was the start and there was no sense of urgency yet, I agonized over the line delivery with Ikram, the guy playing Ash, and tried to get into every single detail and tone and projection. The dude was pretty nervous, but once we got into the other scenes he was more confident and said the lines with the right amount of bile and urgency.
Pietra, the guy who directed the short film I acted in ('Seeing Things') was helping me on advice and camera duty, and was a tremendous aid. I swear, if the guy wasn't around there's a good chance it would've all gone balls-up. We were moving from set-up to set-up double time like energizer bunnies on crack.
Of course, no one was keeping time. When I realized we only 'technically' had two more hours to shoot two more scenes, I panicked.
Also along for the ride were Farah's friends Lily and Sheena, who I put in the background to make the office seem like an actual office, and Paul was the official Papaya Supplier, if you will, bringing the ladies. Technically, he was the grip, but that's not what I put in the credits. Papaya Supplier sounds so much nicer. In case you didn't know, Paul was the guy that starred in my last short, 'Nicotine'. A crazy semi-Aussie with a nasal voice and weird mannerisms. He cool.
At one point I wanted to do a tracking shot using one of the chairs, with Paul on tracking duty, but they don't exactly roll correctly. The blooper reel's quite funny. You hear the words 'action' followed by the camera moving like a drunk sailor on a skateboard.
Why the fuck didn't I use the skateboard?
And I still hadn't edited the fucker.
Add to that my computer deciding to switch off by itself for no apparent reason and my increasing tiredness and it was becoming increasingly obvious I wouldn't be able to get this in by Monday for the KSFM Shorts. Perhaps Monday night, if I got back early (which I did, incidentally, and sent it at 1 in the morning). In the end, I edited till 4.30am. And I only had 3 minutes of footage cut together. Fuckery. At one point I was editing all the way and realized I'd missed out seven scenes. Lack of sleep can fuck you up.
The next day I realized, however, that those 3 minutes were the toughest bits to edit. Everything else came together after that and it didn't take me long to finish the cut, fix up the sound a bit and render it to DVD. Voila! My second short film! There were a couple of scenes I forgot to shoot, and some of the angles and white balance were wrong, but it all came out alright on the edit.
Learnings
After the directing that, I'm glad I hadn't started shooting my feature length magnum octopus just yet. The shoot alone tired me out like crazy. Even though it was a short film, there 54 scenes and almost a 100 set ups. All done in 7 hours. And even though I like what came out, I still need to hone my craft a bit more before doing the feature length. Things still look too sloppy and the sound pisses me off. I need a frickin' boom mic. These short films are great practice, though, and a great way to find new talent for the feature when it's finally shot.
The whole shoot was a lot of fun, too. Just a bunch of friends hanging out and making something. No stress apart from the schedule.
And what now?
I had e-mailed Bernard Chauly, the curator for the KSFM Shorts, asking whether I could send it in a bit late. He said usually he'd allow it but due to some time constraints or what have you he wants to finalize the list a lot sooner. I sent it in, technically, on the day of deadline. But then again, by the time I sent it everyone was asleep, so we'll see. If it does get picked, it'll premiere on the 25th of July. If not, it'll premiere anytime I'm free in the comfort of my bedroom.
Noonch.
Friday, July 1, 2005
Trials & Tribulations
So I met up with the actor and actress for my upcoming short film last night. The actor, Ikram, was a friend of mine I met through my girlfriend and te guys pretty enthusiastic, albeit a little intimidated by the fact that he's the lead male in the movie.
Then again, since there's only one guy and one girl in the movie technically he's the lead by default.
The actress, Vasha, was highly recommended by Eddy, who gave her my number. For a first time meeting, she was fun, pleasant, interesting and had quite a degree of experience in this performing arts lark. Very down to earth and attractive.
Even though I'd been running around like a headless chicken to meet these two, I was genuinely glad. I've got the cast, now all I have to do is confirm the location.
I had e-mailed The Ones In Power at my office about the movie because that's where I set the movie. Today I got the reply and a phone call.
1. I can't shoot in the pantry. No biggie.
2. There will be no air-conditioning over the weekend. That will cost RM$80. Per hour. But fuck it, let us sweat for the sake of art.
3. A cleaning lady will be hired to keep an eye on things. She will cost RM$100 for her time. Wow. My short film now has a budget.
Apart from that, all systems go... except fate decides to fart in my face once more. Vasha calls up and she can't make it due to a family function she absolutely positively can't squeeze her way out of.
Shiite.
I understand, though. Asian parentals aren't like you crazy Western types with your a-go-go music and hula hoops and counselling. Ah, well. Was looking forward to working with her.
But that does raise a serious problem. I have no woman. No woman for the woman part.
Nazneen, my actress for the feature length I'd blabbed on so much about, would appear too young, too sweet and unfortunately too short when compared to Ikram. I needed someone with a bit of height and a sexy demeanour.
It was then that I realized I have very few chicks in my phonebook. Either I have very high taste or chicks avoid me like the plague.
So now it's the mad rush to find a chick. I called Shelley, she's in Singapore. I called Vee, her phone's gone weird. I called Mizz Biggs, she ain't picking up. And I'm quickly running out of options. I've got Paul on the lookout and Vasha's making the calls, but so far, no go.
So far.
I swear, is it too much to ask for things to just go smoothly?
Then again, since there's only one guy and one girl in the movie technically he's the lead by default.
The actress, Vasha, was highly recommended by Eddy, who gave her my number. For a first time meeting, she was fun, pleasant, interesting and had quite a degree of experience in this performing arts lark. Very down to earth and attractive.
Even though I'd been running around like a headless chicken to meet these two, I was genuinely glad. I've got the cast, now all I have to do is confirm the location.
I had e-mailed The Ones In Power at my office about the movie because that's where I set the movie. Today I got the reply and a phone call.
1. I can't shoot in the pantry. No biggie.
2. There will be no air-conditioning over the weekend. That will cost RM$80. Per hour. But fuck it, let us sweat for the sake of art.
3. A cleaning lady will be hired to keep an eye on things. She will cost RM$100 for her time. Wow. My short film now has a budget.
Apart from that, all systems go... except fate decides to fart in my face once more. Vasha calls up and she can't make it due to a family function she absolutely positively can't squeeze her way out of.
Shiite.
I understand, though. Asian parentals aren't like you crazy Western types with your a-go-go music and hula hoops and counselling. Ah, well. Was looking forward to working with her.
But that does raise a serious problem. I have no woman. No woman for the woman part.
Nazneen, my actress for the feature length I'd blabbed on so much about, would appear too young, too sweet and unfortunately too short when compared to Ikram. I needed someone with a bit of height and a sexy demeanour.
It was then that I realized I have very few chicks in my phonebook. Either I have very high taste or chicks avoid me like the plague.
So now it's the mad rush to find a chick. I called Shelley, she's in Singapore. I called Vee, her phone's gone weird. I called Mizz Biggs, she ain't picking up. And I'm quickly running out of options. I've got Paul on the lookout and Vasha's making the calls, but so far, no go.
So far.
I swear, is it too much to ask for things to just go smoothly?
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