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"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Archives for category: Production Diary
1:11pm, PANCAKE DAYs (パンケーキディズ) in Harajuku (原宿). Found this restaurant while lost in the back lanes of Harajuku looking for a particular cafe.
Pancakes for boys and girls big and little. Who can resist pancakes with smiley faces?
Everything here is meant to put a smile on your face.
Just look at that coat of cheese. How did it taste? Awesome.
With pancakes swimming in our stomachs, we stepped out of PANCAKE DAYs only to find the damn cafe we had spent an hour looking for next door…
12:28pm, lunch at WIRED CAFE, Shinjuku Mitsukoshi ALCOTT (新宿三越アルコット). Took two hours out of the day’s schedule to prepare a director’s treatment for a potential project. Tetanus’s vacationus interruptus.
This shot was taken with my iPhone 4.
Setting up for a shot. That’s my Billabong fisherman’s hat doubling as a hood for the monitor.
My Canon EOS 5D Mark II on a setup rigged by my dependable crew. Nothing a couple of C-Stands won’t handle.
This photograph courtesy of Budak. I cannot for my life remember now why I was smirking.
Saturday, May 17, 2008. Today, Debs and Terry are hosting their wedding banquet.
1 am: I should already be doing the final audio mixdown, but I am still tweaking the edit. I am in the final stages of finishing their video, most of which we shot in China in February. I am still marveling at how I’ve managed to cut a story together from the seven hours of footage we had shot. We did not know what the story was before we went to China, and we still did not know what it was after we returned. I am reminded of the adage, “the film is made in the editing room.”
2 am: Mixdown. Personally the most excruciating stage of postproduction, where I have to ride the volume level of all the audio clips in the edit and ensure that the overall volume stays constant. With some 80 cuts in the five-minute video, that is a lot of leveling to ride.
4 am: The render is almost done. I prat about the apartment gathering my photography equipment. As part of the groom’s entourage, I had to report at his place at the ungodly time of 5 am. Not that it mattered, since I haven’t slept all night.
4:45 am: It feels so odd to be walking beneath slumbering blocks of HDB flats while dressed in a suit at this hour.
5:20 am: After a detour to the office to pick up the lenses I’d so cleverly left behind the day before, I finally reach the groom’s. He’s up and about already. I begin clicking away. Today, I am not the official photographer; I’m only standing in to cover the events on the groom’s side while the official photographer is over at the bride’s. There is a plate of breakfast waiting on the table but I politely decline.
“My stomach’s still in bed,” I quipped to Terry’s mom.In the next half hour, the rest of Terry’s entourage stream in, some groggy, some already wide-eyed and bushy-tailed.
6:30 am: The sky is beginning to break, and is a shade of rich, deep blue. I have not seen a sky this blue in a while. Ahead of the clock, the brothers—all of whom are in their Reservoir Dogs best—mill about the carpark.
Apparently, the bride’s entourage is running late. Eddie shows up here and, upon seeing how I already have two heavy cameras slung on me, promptly relieves me of my tote bag.
7:30 am: We’ve broken in! That was earlier [and easier] than expected!
9 am: The morning is winding down. Customary tea ceremony now…
9:30 am: The bridal party is about to depart for the church. Eddie and I part from the group; we both have stuff to prepare for the banquet later the same evening. He has yet to work on the speech he needs to give, while I have to prepare the deliverables for the video.
6 pm: Technical check in the ballroom. Everything okay. The theme for the banquet is Oriental, and I am dressed in a pair of black slacks, a black shirt and a black suit topped off with a cream-colored Georgette silk scarf matched to Violet’s cheongsam. Oh, and a black hat to complete the Shanghai gangster look. I would get many compliments later into the evening for looking dapper.
7:40 pm: I have, by default, become the audio/visual coordinator. I am wearing an earpiece connected to a walkie-talkie, and darting about the guests who are just beginning to stream in, feeling very much like I’m in the Secret Service or something…
8:20 pm: We are running very late. The emcee has just finished his opening preamble for the evening, and as I hover a finger over the spacebar of my laptop in anticipation to play the video, the music for the first walk-in suddenly blares over the air. Eddie, Sam and I trade confused looks: what the hell is going on?! We’re supposed to play the video before the walk-in! Later we would learn that the hotel AV staff fucked up and got the running order wrong. Fortunately, the guests were none the wiser and the swap went undetected.
8:35 pm: The video is playing. The first bouts of laughter. And at the right moment, too. Looking good…
8:40 pm: Applause and wolf whistles. My heart swells. It feels like a movie premiere gone very well.
1:40 am: A year on, Terry, Eddie and I are once again milling at a corner for a cigarette break after a day of busying around. The last time we did this was half a year ago, on the day of his wedding solemnization. We take a well-deserved and healthy chug of red wine.
I have been awake for 36 hours. But it has been worth every minute, every second.
One of the perks of the job is that I get my exclusive “eskie” [industry-speak for the cooler box] armed with iced coffee at all times…
Trying to figure out the shoot order so we can maximize setup efficiency…
9:12am. The day begins.
Day One of a three-day shoot for a condominium marketing video. All the crew members had already arrived and are going about their respective ways playing their unique roles; the gaffer is pointing out the areas to set the lights in; the camera assistant has the camera cradled in his secure embrace; the PA is setting up the catering table. Most of them are familiar faces, people with whom I’d done a dozen shoots with. A lot of ‘Good mornings’ all around.
10:23am. The first setup.
We were supposed to have rolled the first shot at 10. The slight delay is expected; every shoot takes time to get up to speed. Especially if it starts on a Monday. Plus, we have our aims set way above average. High fashion and couture are the words we had tossed around when describing the direction of the video.
And what we are setting out to achieve easily crosses into the realms of the television commercial, with the sort of high production values and polished aesthetics one expects of a commercial. Considering that the average marketing video for a property is nothing more than a montage of nicely-framed shots of a showflat, we clearly have our work cut out for us.
11:10am. Moving on…
Finally, we have the first setup in the can. A quick playback, and I’m happy with the takes. Agency nods appreciatively.
“Next setup!” my first assistant director yells. “Art department, get ready!”
Each camera position, along with its accompanying lighting plan, is considered as one setup. Any time the shot calls for the lights to be dismantled, moved and re-rigged is considered a new setup. Within a setup, there can be any number of shots. Some setups call for only two shots; some may have five—wide-angle, medium shot, close-up, extreme close-up, cutaway, etc. Factor in time for the blocking of actors—industry parlance for arranging actors to hit their marks—and the time needed to measure the right focus length for each mark, and it becomes apparent that 14 hours for a shoot does not translate into much time. An average of fourteen setups per day. The average number of setups for our three-day shoot is 12, which is way above the average for the typical condominium marketing video.
4:31pm. Shiiiiiiiiiit!!!
The sound of a 2.5Kg MacBook Pro hitting the floor from a height of 1.5 meters is not a sound one would want to hear at any point in his or her lifetime.
The damage? All four corners of the aluminum top lid of my MacBook Pro pockmarked by hard granite floor tiles, and the left hinge of the top lid permanently dented. I can barely close the lid now…
5:43pm. “Once more…”
The scene isn’t working. We try two more takes. So-so. Nailing perfection in one take, in which acting, lighting, focusing and camera moves have to unfold together in grand orchestration, is akin to juggling while tap dancing.
Then there is me. If it’s not working, it’s no good for me. The working philosophy for any director is simple; to deliver each and every shot as designed in the storyboard, and as presented to both the agency and the client. At the end of the day, under the scrutinizing eyes of agency creatives and client, whether the $60,000 put into a production pays off in the final cut is a weight that rests solely on the shoulders of the director. He or she is expected to approve, with certainty, the best framing, the best prop arrangement, the smoothest flow of action by the actors. The buck stops here. Hence, it is not without good reason that the director is the one person on set who is frowning the most.
8:22pm. Waiting for makeup.
The camera is set. Everyone is waiting for the lead female; she’s getting her hair done and it is taking way longer than expected. I glance up from the monitor and catch a look from the 1st AD.
We are so gonna overrun, says his look.
2:04am. The cockroach incident…
The scream caught everyone by surprised. The conversation suddenly hushed, we turn our heads to the door in time to see the lead female running in, with a look on her face that can be best described as a mix of horror, disgust and anger.
“Where is the fucking toilet?!” she shrieks. In a hissy fit, she quickly disappears around a corner with a PA in tow.
Apparently a cockroach had landed on her face and had stayed there. O-kay…
The creative director turns to me. We trade the kind of blank look that comes naturally at two in the morning after a whole day of filming.
“Man, and it has to happen in our last shot of the day,” I muttered. As we waited in silent fear at what is to come when the lead female returns, I console myself with the reassurance that nothing worse can possibly happen between now and the moment I yell ‘Wrap!’, and that all this is just another day at work…
14-hour shoot. 12 talents. Two cameras rolling at the same time. Countless takes, countless questions flung from all sides, from the postproduction folks to my P.A., for me to answer.
I should be so beat—which I am—but sheer adrenaline is wedging itself between me and my sleep, like a house guest who has overstayed one’s welcome.
And I still have eight hours of footage to review and digitize by the morning.
Whoever thinks a director’s job is to just yell ‘Action!’ and ‘Cut!’ is sorely, sorely mistaken…
Even when they were apart, they relived each day through a journal he kept for two years…
This is a short film nine months in the making, about a true story between a man and a woman that took four years to write.
January 14, 2007, Sunday – The SMS
4:23pm, at home
An old polytechnic mate of mine called me today. His younger brother is getting married, he says, and he’d like to have a look at the videos I had done for other friends.
“We’ve never had a chance to work together,” he says. “I hope this will be it.”
My first thought is: Man… not another wedding video…
“Do it your way,’ he reassures me. ‘It’s not going to be just any wedding video.”
We shall see how this one goes.
August 4, 2007, Saturday – Shoot Day #1
9am, Johor Bahru
The location is an abandoned mansion that sits in the premises of the Istana Garden in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Wanting to find a place for a bite before we shot, we promptly got lost the moment we cleared the Causeway. What should have been a five-minute drive became an hour-long road trip.
I was first introduced to this location while being involved in Tasha and Tommy’s wedding in Johor Bahru. This looks to be a really popular photography spot for weddings; in the ten hours we were there, we saw no less than two couples with photographers in tow.
August 5, 2007, Sunday – Shoot Day #2
8am, in Irving’s car
This time, we make it to the abandoned mansion in record time. No more detouring for food.
September 19, 2007, Wednesday – Shoot Day #3
11am, Changi Beach
Pick-up shots today. Six locations in all.
It has taken a while for us to find time in our hectic schedules to mount our last shoot day—well, mostly me, any way. We begin the day at the beach in Changi. It has been my intention since day one that the opening shot of the film is to be the one of Jae standing alone by the waters. Little do I know that I will learn for the first time, a whole month later, that it was at a beach that he’d proposed to her. A happy coincidence.
September 26, 2007, Wednesday – The VO session
5pm, Req’s studio
Today, we record voiceovers that I intend to put into the film. The talents showed up an hour late. Just as I had a nagging suspicion of, their delivery clashes with the song. Then again, it is unfair for me to expect professional polish from the layman.
We try another take.
Not good.
Later, after the VO recording session is done, we will have to shoot a couple of scenes that were never planned for in the script. It will be another month later, when I am cutting the film, that I will be so glad we shot those extra scenes.
October 12, 2007, Friday – Audio mixdown session
8:30pm, Req’s studio
This is the final crunch. I am sitting here next to the sound engineer as he is working on a new mix that will play over the bridge of the soundtrack. I hear snatches of the same lines of voiceover again and again as he finesses the sound edit.
Soon, he announces that he is done and hits on the spacebar for playback. The mix sounds good and I am relieved; two weeks ago, I had brought the talents in for a voiceover recording session and their delivery had left me dissatisfied. In the following week, in which I was making an offline cut of the film, I had my mind made up to throw the VO recording out the window. But a suggestion by the sound engineer—seconded by Violet—saved the voiceovers from death. The fact that we cannot alter the delivery and tone of the voiceovers notwithstanding, they actually sound pretty damn good mixed like this. It is times like this that I am reminded what a collaborative effort filmmaking is, that one cannot go at it alone simply because one can only know so much. Each and every player in the postproduction process brings his or her unique insight, experience and honed craft to the film.
Later, when the audio mixdown is bounced out, I will return home and start the next—and final—phase of postproduction, which is the online edit. This is when each and every shot is color-graded, transitions are added, and visual effects composited and rendered. There actually aren’t that many visual effects shots, but knowing myself, I will ilk every shot for its worth till it is perfect. That, naturally, translates into another all-nighter for me.
October 13, 2007, Saturday – The screening
8pm, the ballroom of the hotel
This is it. In a few moments, the video will be screened to an audience of approximately 400. I am getting the same knot in the stomach as I always do, regardless of whether it is for the screening of a small, intimate short film or a $200,000 television commercial. Every director goes through this moment and know it all too well. At the end of the birth of a film, all a director can do is to sit back and let his heart dance to the vibes from the audience.
A silence is falling upon the ballroom.
This is it…
October 14, 2007, Saturday – The morning after
7:30am, at home
The show may be over, the circus may have moved on, but this love story is forever preserved on celluloid. Thank you, Jae & Irving, for indulging me as a finicky, obsessive and demanding filmmaker, and congratulations again.
Thank you, Euge—Mr. Executive Producer and old friend—for this rare and most unusual collaboration. Funny how it has taken us this long.
Lastly, but certainly not least importantly, thank you Violet; I would be nothing without you. You are the wind that fans my creative flames.
“And it’s a wrap,” I said without fanfare, without emotion.
The energy is gone. Sapped. Suddenly I was overcome by fatigue, of which I could hardly explain since we had spent the whole day at just one location. My mood, for some reason, grew inexplicably dark.
I donned my sunnies and stepped out onto the balcony. Sixty-five floors up, the view was stunning; the entire City Hall area shimmered lightly in a lazy afternoon sun peeking through a dense blanket of clouds. I smoked a cigarette and wished the crew would hurry up with the packing as I regarded them through the sliding doors.
Behind the sunnies, I was protected, even as I could see everything and everyone.
“Your eyes give you away,” someone once said to me. “Old eyes, waiting to speak, full of stories.”
For the rest of the day, I chose to disconnect, to remain shielded. No one dared speak much with me.
If I had to pick one favorite shot out of the 2,100 shots I had taken on Tasha and Tommy’s wedding day, it would be this one.
We were already 20 minutes into the hour-long booking the couple had made for a photo shoot at an artists’ village. I had thought the brick wall of one of the houses interestingly textured and had asked them to stand before it.
A few poses later, it became clear that the scene was not developing. As I hunkered down into position, backing up against a low wall behind me, searching for the next framing, I looked up from the viewfinder and saw Tasha lightly throwing her veil in an attempt to smoothen it out.
Then I felt a small breeze on my skin.
I fired four shots in a burst. Smiling, I announced: “I got it.”
Tasha and Tommy looked at me in half-bewilderment; they had not even arranged themselves into a pose. They probably had not even noticed the shutter clacking away furiously. I strode off in search of the next spot to shoot, confident that the shot I had just captured was probably the best—and the most—I was going to get out of that wall. It was not until I got back to the apartment that evening and viewed the shot on my laptop proper that I realized just how lucky I had been in that split second.
* * * * * *
A little technical information about the shot:
The image was captured full wide with an EF 24-85mm f/3.5-5.6 USM zoom lens on my Canon EOS 30D body. I chose to stop down the aperture to f/8.0 for a sharper image; with this lens, the image tends to become noticeably softer from f/5.6 and up. Shutter speed was 1/6000, and ISO sensitivity set to 1600.
I fired a Speedlite 580EX external flash at 1/8 -0.7 front on towards the scene. In hindsight, I would have fired the flash at 1/4 for a better stop ratio between the sunlight breaking through and the models’ faces. And if I had been really well-equipped, I would have fired the flash through a snoot directed at only Tasha’s face, to fill it in relation to the exposure on Tommy’s face while directing the flash beam away from Tasha’s gown which really did not need any more light.
For image postprocessing, the shot was balanced in Adobe Lightroom and sent out to Adobe Photoshop as a 240dpi, 16-bit TIFF file. There, I mixed a layer of day-for-night filter set to a ‘warm moonlight’ tone and overlaid it on the original image. Some highlight recovery was performed to restore detail to Tasha’s gown. Lastly, Tasha’s face was dodged to to achieve the exposure I would have much preferred.
Besides my intention to convey a certain mood, the other reason why the shot has been kept deliberately dark is so that a fair amount of detail in the highlight of her gown and veil is preserved, and that they stand out more in the scene.
About
34, male and very Cancerian. Often irascible, even if he is prescient to his emotions. Lives for the resonance of beautiful passages, cinematic magic and aural bliss. Dabbles in fiction writing, photography, sketching and daydreaming in his free time, even though he is paid to do just those in a professional capacity.
He is, in other words, quite a geek.
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