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.


Thankfully, Farah was spot on brilliant, especially considering she had only just seen the script, and went through her lines at super speed and taking our direction well. She also, thankfully, had a brilliant set of breasts. I wrote a brilliant set of breasts into the script, you see, and couldn't remember whether her tits would fit the bill. They did. God be praised. Definitely want to work with her again. Lot's of fun, very professional. Even with my complete lack of tact, screaming out "get an extreme close up of the breasts! We need ass shots!" she never shied away.

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?


In the end, we shot till 8.30pm. All the ladies had to rush off and my other plans with Pietra had to be rescheduled. I went off to Bangsar with Paul and Ikram, had some dinner, got back and transferred the footage to my computer to edit. I started at 11pm. I finished at 1am.

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.