Comments From Another Filmmaker

I met up with Tony two nights ago to discuss 'Ciplak'. On the one hand, I wanted to run by his scenes and character for the movie, but I also wanted his opinion on the rough cut I did of the first 10 minutes. The past week I'd been stressing over whether or not this whole endeavour was a waste of time. I thought I might have something cool but I wasn't entirely sure and the doubt had been keeping me awake most nights. So I met up with him at the Lotus near Nikko hotel and pulled out my laptop.

Thankfully, he too thought it was cool. And funny.

There is a scene, the final shot of the ten minute cut, which I have decided is the crunch time for the movie. If you don't laugh out loud at that scene, you won't enjoy the movie and that's that. Tony laughed out loud. He laughed out loud throughout and laughed even louder when that scene came. Thank God. I had also shown the roughcut to some of the boys at Voxel, namely Rauf and Amir, and they both laughed at the right places too, but not as much as this.

Calming down from the laughter, I asked for his comments, as truthfully as he could, most of which were suprising. He didn't notice the continuity inconsistencies that I thought were glaring, he thought it was shot really well, and most surprisingly, he didn't think it dragged in the five minute scene after the credits which always felt to me like too much exposition and not enough funnies.

"The movie's got a similar feel to the indie movies in the mid-90's," said Tony, "and usually the first fifteen - twenty minutes in, the laugh's aren't all there. The movie's still getting you into the story, the characters. Then the humour comes in, so I reckon you're on the right track."

We then went through the character he'll be playing, running through the dialogue and the delivery, right in the middle of a crowded mamak stall. Some people gave us odd looks.

I like odd looks.