#50 OLPenang!
My OLP team! (as if you can tell who's in it) -
Just came back from Penang yesterday night, but received some really sad news today. 15 minutes after our plane departed from Penang, a freak thunderstorm hit Penang and 2 people died in Georgetown - our filming location. I really don't know who they are but I really hope the super friendly people we met there are alright. And I'm super grateful that the whole DTVM cohort is alright. My father said he did feel that something bad would happen, that's why he prayed really hard for me. I'm so thankful. I'm also thankful for Ms Mary and the Christians for praying for the trip beforehand too. It was pretty close.
On a brighter note, On-location production had been awweessssooommmmmme! I have so much to blog about because so much happened. If you don't really want to know, then maybe just at least read the next paragraph? :(
So I made friends with many people from class 01 and some jetty people, ate quite a lot of good food, had fun filming (I've always loved filming), and bought quite a lot of coffee packets home! :D
Departure + Settling In
So, we met up in the airport and headed to the plane. After a long while, we were ascending and flying in the air. Sat next to Joey Liew and Geradine. Slept in the plane, and then finally reached our destination, Penang, after about an hour. Went to our hostel, Ryokan, by bus. The head of the hostel is called Mr Luffy! He's a nice guy.
So, I'm the room I/C for room 202 and my roommates were Wai Meng, Joey Liew, and Alex. We're the quiet room. Really. Managed to know Joey Liew a little better, but I didn't get to talk much to Alex.
For the first night, Stella + the lecturers brought us out for a walk in the vicinity. It was pretty cool seeing shophouses here and there. There was also this cute parking pole which I have no idea how it works. And telephone booths which do not exist in Singapore. Yeah, it was pretty cool.
And since it was the first night, I headed to CX, Elijah, Pascal, and Zi Wei's room to play Binding of Isaac. It's some pretty screwed up game based on the Bible and it consists of floating stomachs that can shoot blood, a main character that uses tears or pee to fight, random poops everywhere, and so on. It can be quite cute at times.
Anyway, went to sleep after that and got all energised for day 2.
Location Recce
Headed to Georgetown to scout for our story. To me, the worst part of documentary making is pre-production - the stage where we have to search for an interesting person/place/topic. The rest of the parts are pretty fun actually. Learned about the Clan Jetties (a place in Georgetown). It's made up of 6 or 7 jetties (can't remember), each with a different surname. There's Chew Jetty, Tan Jetty, Lim Jetty, and so on. Then there's a 'mixed surname jetty' where all the miscellaneous go. Learned a lot about its history while interviewing people.
Which I shall not elaborate because it's highly likely to bore you.
Didn't manage to get a profile before lunchtime because we were:
1) Slacking off, sitting at narrow bridges and taking photos like the one you see above.
2) Shooting mockumentaries about kingfishers with Elijah's narration: "This is a Kingfisher. It is found in Penang. Thus, it is called, the Penang Kingfisher."
3) Satisfied with the idea of shooting a poetic documentary about the rubbish in the jetties. It was my idea, so Elijah calls me the poetic garbage.
Lunch was alright. Some coffee place called 'My Arte'. The server was pretty and super friendly, and as a result Elijah had a crush on her.
Continued our recce after lunch, but it was raining really heavily. Squeezed in umbrellas and protected the camera like a baby. And tried to interview fishermen and traders who were obviously put off by the rain. Got rejected coldly as a result. Eventually, we decided to just do a documentary about the Chew Jetty.
The warm thing was, we did talk to this guy before lunch, so he invited us into his house when he saw us caught in the rain. And he also let us to an interview with him. He's called Mr Chew because he live in the Chew Jetty. Serious. The jetties are splitted according to surnames.
Production - Day 1
The first day of production was really slack. The interview with Mr Chew lasted for 45 minutes, which is super long. Actually spent the rest of the time slacking even more :P Got ourselves popsicles which Hira demanded for the whole morning. And attempted to make an epic mealtime of it.
We were sitting beside of the water when this friendly woman invited us into her house. Chatted with them and learned that she was the niece of Mr Chew whom we interviewed. Small jetty. Actually, according to her, 60% of Chew Jetty people are family-related. Uncles, aunties, father, mother, cousins, etc. The culture there is really cool.
And this woman (Ms Chew) has a nice balcony thing facing the water. It has a rocking chair and is super relaxing and comfortable. So, we went there and did some vlog, which I guess I shall edit soon.
Ms Chew
Got ourselves chendol. Hira was a brave, reckless road-crosser. Penang style - cross the road whether a car is coming or not. The chendol stall was full of bees, and everyone there is acting like there's nothing :O
So that's production day 1! Not much of a production day, but we needed to recharge our energy :D
Not really, actually.
And then at night, we had to rush out our script. It was a tiring day, so I went to sleep early.
Production - Day 2
The final day of production already. Elijah got himself a horrible injury on the head by knocking it on his locker. So, for the first hour or so, he was seeing the doctor and our group had to film without him. Fortunately, he joined us after that. Day 2 was a lot of filming, and also a lot of lepaking at Mr Chew's house + the nice narrow bridge where we took the photo above. Dipped our feet into the dirty water which consists of urine and pollution and stuffs. It was super relaxing.
Also got ourselves popsicles and chendol again (Hira, CX, and I are the pigs who keep eating). This time, also bought goreng pisang.
We were pretty manipulative people. Firstly, we knew that some people in other jetties were unfriendly, so we purposely approached them with the camera rolling and asked for an interview. What we wanted was a shot of us getting rejected to show that they are unfriendly, and it went according to plan! :/ Secondly, we placed a camera in a house facing outwards. People who walked pass all looked into the camera in the house. This shot was supposed to be about people looking into the house.
And then there was this funny moment when we stood outside this unfriendly woman's house to record the ambience sound emitting from her house (some traditional chinese music). She shooed us away from standing on her house's "boundaries", so we stood directly outside and pointed the mic at her. The camera was facing away, and her whole face was like "da fuck?"
The night was pretty emotional because it was our last night in Penang, plus Stella was going on about the fact that this would be our last 2-3 months together. So, the lecturers, being the sweet people that they are, made us do a confession video where we just talk about our DTVM experience to the camera.
Some of the things everyone said was funny. Natasya actually told a hilarious story about how Wai Meng and Yvette fell off a cliff while trying to take good shots. And Yvette added on by saying that her groupmate asked "Is the boom-mic okay?" instead of "Are you okay?"
What I wanted to say
I wanted to say a lot of things, but my whole mind just went blank with 40+ pairs of eyes staring at me. So, I just said the first 3 things that came to my mind. Here's what I really wanted to say:
My OLP group is awesome. There is Heidi, the cool producer with the sunglasses and an aura. There is Rebecca, the cool camerawoman who looks like a professional National Geography photographer. There is Hira, the one who is fun to make fun of. Then there are CX, Avelin, and Elijah - people I feel comfortable with from my class. They do work, and they know how to have fun. It was great.
As for the whole DTVM, there were a lot of painful times, honest. But there were a lot of great memories. Filming, discussing stuffs, watching one another panic before a major pitch, creating a haunted house together, torturing our main characters together, preparing for skits, celebrating, eating, playing catching on Marina Barrage, Christmas celebration, going for LEAP camp, and so on. I built memories with most of my classmates.
Then there were class dramas which were fun to watch (I'm glad I didn't say this).
I've learned a lot about doing work. First thing is that I cannot do everything on my own. In secondary school, Ms Aljunied told me that I need to trust my friends. That was in sec 2. I only learned how to do that in year 3. Last year, I would be that control freak who manipulate and demand stuffs from the director and editor of my group (I was the cameraman). Now, I've learned to chill and mind my own business. To an extent.
Second thing is that working is not just doing work, but it is also having fun in the process. Which probably is the wrong thing to learn, but I don't want to unlearn it. It's all about liking what I do, I hope.
And even though it had not been a super smooth ride in DTVM, I'll miss many people. Kind of. But it's not like graduation means goodbye. Graduation =/= goodbye actually. Unless you want it to be.
And that's that.
The Night
Wanted to stay up the whole night, but due to misunderstandings (as usual), I thought that people would be busy doing other stuffs (which I shall elaborate on soon), thus I went to sleep instead.
So after the emotional talking-to-the-camera moments, we were told to write little notes of memories to one another. The lecturers would tie them in an envelope and hand them to us before our internship. This is the "other stuffs" that I thought the others was doing. I finished relatively quickly and was pretty surprised to see them still writing, because I thought I would be the most luo shuo (talkative) one.
The night was freaking cold and somehow the controller didn't work, so I slept outside the room for awhile, and then decided to grit my teeth and bear with it back in the room.
Last Day
The morning was fine. Had a walking tour around Georgetown area. Went to museums and stuffs. Then, had a food trail. Went to eat super nice guo tiao, laksa (which I didn't eat), chendol, and indian food! Everyone was so excited about teh tarik. And my group was making fun of how neat Avelin was.
Also tried out some coffee samples and spent 50 ringgit on them. Plus a dou sa bing.
Caught our plane and headed home. The descend was really nice. Sunset, sea of clouds, plunging into the clouds, and the whole view of Singapore lights.
And now, I kind of miss Penang and the people, and my groupmates, and stuffs. Once again, I really hope the people I know are safe.
And I feel blessed.
Labels: dtvm, overseas, production, reflection, reliving those days, things that happened