Wednesday, September 14, 2011

[Behind the Scenes] Playing my part in movie titled, Echoing Love

This is a production project, named Mission Easy.

Mission Easy is a mission which is NOT easy at all. Professionals was skeptical & doubted the success of this project. Organised by ECTV.SG, Edmund Chen's  (陈之财) tireless effort was significant. Mission Easy is like his new-born child. Nurturing new & inexperienced people who are interested in media production like me, the seeds, with his love & guidance. Under the care of him & his team of sincere professionals, I truly experienced the power of Love.

Despite the busy schedules, these professionals volunteered to set aside a day with us so that they could share & impart their life-time skills. They are here to help us realize our dream of being an actor, a script-writer or a director.

This project was divided into a few phrases: A 2-day filming workshop, story contest, Production, Post-production.

Both Yong wei and I attended the press conference & the filming workshop. From fashion & make-up consultation, script-writing, acting tips, directing skills, story ideas, we were completely inspired by the heart-warming professionals, sincere advice, genuine guidance. From there, we made up our minds to join the contest.

To participate in the contest, we have find & get-together a team of 5, contestants who too, attended the workshop. Yongwei and I was spilt into two different teams.

Our teams were then given less than a week to write a story(short film) which is to last about 10-15minutes based on the theme, Love, and a given sponsor. A total of 10 groups participated out of which, only 6 of these stories will be selected to be filmed & combined into a movie.

Much to our delight, my team's script was chosen!

Our story was actually one of my dreams which I had dreamt of during my teenage years. We filmed it into a mandarin romance comedy titled Ge Kong Jie(隔空界). The kind of puppy-love teenage story with a heart-breaking ending.

The 6 chosen teams were then given only ONE week of pre-production time to edit the script, prepare the props, auditio for roles, and not to forget decide upon the costumes & make-up.

One day before the shoot, I did a super short post about it due to time constraint(I only had 1 week, remember?) It has a picture of all my team members & our chosen sponsor. Read it here. In the post, I actually mentioned that I was going to keep the identity of my male lead a secret for the time being; I'm going to expose him today!

Let's go BEHIND THE SCENES!

Day 1 of Shoot:

The team got to the location, Iluma, 2 hours earlier to rehearse and get the props ready. Everyone was extremely hardworking, including both my leads, who came forward to help with the preparation of the props too.

Pardon my horrible chinese handwriting:

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Ta-dah, here's the long-awaited-for identity, my male lead, Edwin Goh, playing the role of Yu Kai(宇凯). He's most recent featured drama was Channel 8's On The Fringe(边缘父子), starring as Yao Zhi Yong in the drama:

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The hardworking fella trying his best to write chinese characters under the sun.

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Patrick, my assistant director, trying in vain to find a solution so that we can hooked the summer doll up later:

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Tomato Lee, my female lead, playing the role of Ye Qing Tian(叶晴天) preparing items for her 'house':

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And me of course, the junior director for this film:

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The setting of the female lead's house, white couch, cute things, colourful memo pads etc:

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Edmund Da Ge taking a photo of the leads with his ipad before the shoot commences:

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The pretty Feng Shui Pendant from HUI MASTER INTERNATIONAL GEOMANCY:

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Her little things:

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The lighting man, already giving me a zoolander look in the morning when I try to take a candid shot at him:

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Oh yes, I was in the story too, a photo displayed on the table. I played the role of Qing Tian's Elder sister. *grins*

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The male lead's house is much simpler. It is supposed to be his grandmother's house. So we decorated it with as many vintage household items as we can find:


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Master Hui & the auntie, who is a freelance actress for TV commercials & dramas, are in the film too. Patrick, an avid acting-lover, played the role of the auntie's rich son.

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Master Hui's trademark smile:
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My mentor, Director Glenn Ooi (Directed Fighting Spiders), helping & guiding me throughout the shoot.

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Jack, our Director Of Photography:

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The scene where Tomato has to cry. Music helped, ALOT:

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Edmund Da Ge's drawing, a protrait of Tomato:

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Day 2 of shoot 

The million-dollar dolphin pose striked by Jack for the close-up shots. This scene was the toughest of all. We have to put in special effects for this scene, hence the position of the hands, the angles, the lighting and the timing have to be totally accurate. No joke:

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The hands of both leads were so tired, we need crates to support their aching hand muscles:

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Even our DOP chipped in with ideas:

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More music to create the mood:

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Peace-out from Siok Ping, the overall coordinator for the Mission Easy Project:

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Going through the script with Director Glenn and DOP Jack, just to make sure we've gotten all the shots:

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Us, doing our voice-overs. The room has to be in complete silence. Because of that, we kept breaking into laughter with the slightest sound we deemed weird. Like the sound man saying in his deep vocal, "Voice 1". Come to think of it, I don't know why it sounded funny now. Still, check out our agonized faces when we couldn't laugh:

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Our last scene, a romantic scene of the leads gazing the stars together:

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We did a few time shots, if it's what that's call. Time shots are like some random shots that will be put into something like a college, to show the viewers that many days has passed.

Who's this Dwarf:

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Our sweetest and my favourite scene:

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It's a wrap! YAY!

Time for my cam-whoring session:

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Thank you Edwin. Always so jovial.

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Thank you, Tomato darling! Your bubbly & kind-heartedness melts my heart. :)


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Thank you Bai Tu Jie. For the arranging, seeing to the schedule, timing, coordinating of the venues & locations.

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Thanks Jack!

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Thank you, Zhi Cai Da Ge. Everything that I want to say to you is more than the words 'thank you'. I truly am grateful for this opportunity which you have created for me.

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Thank you, Felicia! For listening to my rants while keeping track of the film timings and all. *bleah*

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Thank you, crew!

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And thank you too, for your patience! I know I needed to shift the lights so many times, you had to carry so many sandbags here and there, but never once did you complain. I'm so sorry!

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Thank you, Glenn. Kopi soon please!

Love is in the air everyone!

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I'm attending the Movie premiere this coming weekend. Even though I can't wait, I'm getting sweaty palms and butterflies in my stomach, not knowing how the film has turned out to be until now.

SO EXCITED!

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Echoing Love will be shown in certain shopping malls, movie theatres and other public areas(FOC). You will be able to find it on ECTV.SG(online). The movie will also be entered to take part in selected international films festivals.

Here's the trailer, just in case you've missed it the last time I posted it:



Friends, please support!

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