30 July, 2010
My god. What an amazingly exhausting but exciting day!
After a whole day of work, we started shooting at 7:30 pm. It lasted until 4:30 am. It was a very interesting shoot to say the least. I had 15 different angles for a single indoor scene at my place and we shot and shot and shot that one for about 5 hours by the end of which, the actors were already tired but they didn't realize that wasn't the worst of it. Because immediately after that, we proceeded to a night-time outdoor shoot which was not the easiest thing to do for independent film makers who have no money and therefore, no lights. Most spots in Singapore housing neighbourhoods, I realized, are ill-lit for night-time filming. We had to hop from one spot on the road to another, looking for bright patches where we could shoot without the actors ending up looking ghosts. At the end of it, we ended up shooting a single shot in about 6 different locations before we could make it bearable.
On top of everything we also attracted the attention of the Singapore Police who were patrolling around. They interrogated me about why I was walking around at 2 am with a camera and three other people. Upon being informed that we are just penniless film makers, they did let us proceed in peace.
So there. It was definitely an exciting nine hours in the night.
746 more to go.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Day 253: Locations and Websites
29 July, 2010
Yet another interesting day. The first half of the day was useless. Absolutely useless. I attended a few meetings and answered a few emails but did not get any serious work done. It was hopeless. I couldn't concentrate and was feeling rather bored with this entire thing called life.
By evening, it was clear that this had to change and that I need to get some solid work done. Otherwise I would lament about this wasted day, for several days to come, which would result in them being wasted as well.
So firstly I hit yoga. To be very honest, I don't think I gave my best in yoga because I had issues concentrating there as well. But I did manage to get through it, so that started turning the tide on the mind-numbingly unproductive day.
Then I made my way to Boat Quay. The mission was to find a location for my shoot this Sunday. Even when am not shooting, am pretty consistently working on the film in my capacity as the producer and production manager and assistant director etc. and this had to be done before the weekend. My ever-supportive hubby joined me in the mission as well.
I chose a random restaurant where they had some decent lighting and where the people looked friendly enough. I asked one of the waitresses whether I could talk to their manager and she pointed me straight towards the owner of the restaurant who was enjoying smoke by the river. We went up to him and explained our situation and he readily, I mean very very readily, agreed to our request. I was SO happy and grateful! It also turned out that he himself is looking at starting up a production house on top of running this restaurant which is only his part time job (he is a full time IT consultant), so his heart was at the right place when it came to supporting struggling independent film makers, especially the part timers! That really did swing my day from being a sad one to an Awesome one!
Then we sat back in the restaurant to continue with dinner and was soon joined by my generous friend who has volunteered to work on the website for the film. The good news is that he is as organized as I am when it comes to work, and he came prepared with several templates for me to choose from and I was quite happy with one of those! So there is solid foundation for him to work on! Sitting there, we also got www.mausams.com registered. Yay!
So in a nutshell, it was a really productive day in spite of the slow start.
747 more to go.
Yet another interesting day. The first half of the day was useless. Absolutely useless. I attended a few meetings and answered a few emails but did not get any serious work done. It was hopeless. I couldn't concentrate and was feeling rather bored with this entire thing called life.
By evening, it was clear that this had to change and that I need to get some solid work done. Otherwise I would lament about this wasted day, for several days to come, which would result in them being wasted as well.
So firstly I hit yoga. To be very honest, I don't think I gave my best in yoga because I had issues concentrating there as well. But I did manage to get through it, so that started turning the tide on the mind-numbingly unproductive day.
Then I made my way to Boat Quay. The mission was to find a location for my shoot this Sunday. Even when am not shooting, am pretty consistently working on the film in my capacity as the producer and production manager and assistant director etc. and this had to be done before the weekend. My ever-supportive hubby joined me in the mission as well.
I chose a random restaurant where they had some decent lighting and where the people looked friendly enough. I asked one of the waitresses whether I could talk to their manager and she pointed me straight towards the owner of the restaurant who was enjoying smoke by the river. We went up to him and explained our situation and he readily, I mean very very readily, agreed to our request. I was SO happy and grateful! It also turned out that he himself is looking at starting up a production house on top of running this restaurant which is only his part time job (he is a full time IT consultant), so his heart was at the right place when it came to supporting struggling independent film makers, especially the part timers! That really did swing my day from being a sad one to an Awesome one!
Then we sat back in the restaurant to continue with dinner and was soon joined by my generous friend who has volunteered to work on the website for the film. The good news is that he is as organized as I am when it comes to work, and he came prepared with several templates for me to choose from and I was quite happy with one of those! So there is solid foundation for him to work on! Sitting there, we also got www.mausams.com registered. Yay!
So in a nutshell, it was a really productive day in spite of the slow start.
747 more to go.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Day 252: Calibrations
I was promoted to be the Brand Manager (from being the asst. brand manager) about 10-11 months ago. And today I got to sit in my first ABM (asst. brand manager) calibration meeting. That is, the meeting where we decide how the whole lot of them would be rated for their performance for the year. And the same process will be done among our managers for us and their managers for them, so on and so forth. Due to confidentiality issues, I can't write anything detailed about it here but it was definitely a very interesting experience. I learned a lot more than I had expected for sure and in fact hearing the stories about some their performances was nothing short of inspiring! So yes, I quite enjoyed this experience!
748 more to go.
748 more to go.
Day 251: Can't Help But Smile
27 July, 2010
Today was a wonderful day. Like really really. A lot of things, very small but significant things happened throughout the day that really made my heart burst with happiness.
Firstly I got a few more responses for my cry for help. People have been very sweet about it. They have helped to spread the word to their friends and a couple of them, whom I had missed out on my email, got back to me saying that they heard about this from someone else and would love to help out! I mean, seriously! Such sweet gestures! I feel really, really thankful for that!
One friend, whom I had worked with on a dance project a couple of years ago but have not really seen since, wrote to me saying "If the situation were reversed, I'm sure you would do the same for me." I was truly touched! I mean, how extremely sweet is that!
Then later on I had shared bits of edited clips with some of the core team members and there was a lot of excitement and encouragement from there as well! I had not done much of editing for last few weeks because of lack of time and my dry eyes issue, but could not wait to work on something. So yesterday night I edited a tiny scene and sent it out for comments to a few core team members. And that led to long discussions on the film! Anything to do with the film makes me feel all hunky-dory anyway and this was no exception!
And last but not the least.... I got appreciation for THREE of my yoga postures today in class - "good one" for Tortoise, "very nice" for Rabbit and "good" for a stretching posture. Needless to say, the day ended on an extreme high! Muhahahaha!
749 more to go.
Today was a wonderful day. Like really really. A lot of things, very small but significant things happened throughout the day that really made my heart burst with happiness.
Firstly I got a few more responses for my cry for help. People have been very sweet about it. They have helped to spread the word to their friends and a couple of them, whom I had missed out on my email, got back to me saying that they heard about this from someone else and would love to help out! I mean, seriously! Such sweet gestures! I feel really, really thankful for that!
One friend, whom I had worked with on a dance project a couple of years ago but have not really seen since, wrote to me saying "If the situation were reversed, I'm sure you would do the same for me." I was truly touched! I mean, how extremely sweet is that!
Then later on I had shared bits of edited clips with some of the core team members and there was a lot of excitement and encouragement from there as well! I had not done much of editing for last few weeks because of lack of time and my dry eyes issue, but could not wait to work on something. So yesterday night I edited a tiny scene and sent it out for comments to a few core team members. And that led to long discussions on the film! Anything to do with the film makes me feel all hunky-dory anyway and this was no exception!
And last but not the least.... I got appreciation for THREE of my yoga postures today in class - "good one" for Tortoise, "very nice" for Rabbit and "good" for a stretching posture. Needless to say, the day ended on an extreme high! Muhahahaha!
749 more to go.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Day 250: Cry for Help
I have this big shoot coming up on August 8th for which I need as many as 60 extras to make it happen. This is no mean feat really because it is the long national day weekend in Singapore and that would mean that many people would be travelling.
I had been trying to spread the word a bit here and there with decent success but had started panicking because 60 seems rather high a number. So today, I took some time to write a note asking for help, and sent it to everyone and anyone who has supported me in one way or the other in Singapore over the years. It was more or less a distress call, asking two hours of their time on August 8th, just so that I can complete this film.
It added quite a few numbers to my count, which is however still far from 60. But the good thing is that it got me to interact again with a lot of people whom I havent been in touch with for a while. Some of them can make it while the others are travelling and cannot. But the most heartening thing was that everyone was very supportive. Just the way they respond, is so encouraging in itself! They are all kind enough to say that they will make it a point to watch the film when it is made, even if they can't join the shoot!
So yes, today was beautiful because I cried for help and it was heard.
Plus also the fact that I complete 25% of the blog today... yay!! :)
750 more to go.
I had been trying to spread the word a bit here and there with decent success but had started panicking because 60 seems rather high a number. So today, I took some time to write a note asking for help, and sent it to everyone and anyone who has supported me in one way or the other in Singapore over the years. It was more or less a distress call, asking two hours of their time on August 8th, just so that I can complete this film.
It added quite a few numbers to my count, which is however still far from 60. But the good thing is that it got me to interact again with a lot of people whom I havent been in touch with for a while. Some of them can make it while the others are travelling and cannot. But the most heartening thing was that everyone was very supportive. Just the way they respond, is so encouraging in itself! They are all kind enough to say that they will make it a point to watch the film when it is made, even if they can't join the shoot!
So yes, today was beautiful because I cried for help and it was heard.
Plus also the fact that I complete 25% of the blog today... yay!! :)
750 more to go.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Day 249: What a Weekend!
This weekend has been most interesting to say the least. Even though I wrote a short post for Saturday, I think with both Saturday and Sunday combined, this has been one of the most interesting weekends Ever. I think the number of significant events is so big that it definitely deserves a combined listing here. So here we go... the significant events from the significant weekend of Jul 24-25 in my life.
a) Completing the planned 150 shots in less than the planned 12 hours.
b) Having cast members turning up 2 -3 hours late with one of them following me around the shoot location begging for forgiveness (even though I was nothing but sweet to him and indicated no resentment whatsoever about his ridiculous sense of timing).
c) The same cast member ending up with a muscle sprain during the shoot, leading to one useless arm for him and temporary panic for me.
d) 12 hours of unbelievable support from the hubby who stayed on for the long shoot without me asking him to do so and without him complaining about boredom even once. Respect.
e) Having an unexpected Saturday night outing with awesome dinner and dessert session at Holland Village with hubby, cinematographer and couple of cast members.
f) Having the biggest scene shot till date with 9 people in a single scene.
g) Getting lunch served by the heroine of the film who brought over rice, dal and veggie dishes which was definitely a pleasant surprise and welcome change from the otherwise expected pizza delivery.
h) Being thrown out of shoot from own condominium's premise because of the complaint from some godforsaken "resident" (am still baffled what my fellow neighbour found disturbing considering we were shooting in nobody's way and had only trees as the backdrop).
i) Having our official photographer come over for behind the scene shoot and ending up with a ton of pictures of the cast mostly yawning, scratching their heads or looking doped and me looking messy as ever.
j) Having an incredible dinner of Idiyappam, Aappam, Mutton Ularthiyathu, Vegetable Ishtu and Masala Chai at the wonderful Mango Tree restaurant with the hubby (the weather was awesome too... very breezy and just perfect for outdoor dining).
k) Having 80% of the film canned.
l) Feeling really good about the whole thing.
751 more to go.
a) Completing the planned 150 shots in less than the planned 12 hours.
b) Having cast members turning up 2 -3 hours late with one of them following me around the shoot location begging for forgiveness (even though I was nothing but sweet to him and indicated no resentment whatsoever about his ridiculous sense of timing).
c) The same cast member ending up with a muscle sprain during the shoot, leading to one useless arm for him and temporary panic for me.
d) 12 hours of unbelievable support from the hubby who stayed on for the long shoot without me asking him to do so and without him complaining about boredom even once. Respect.
e) Having an unexpected Saturday night outing with awesome dinner and dessert session at Holland Village with hubby, cinematographer and couple of cast members.
f) Having the biggest scene shot till date with 9 people in a single scene.
g) Getting lunch served by the heroine of the film who brought over rice, dal and veggie dishes which was definitely a pleasant surprise and welcome change from the otherwise expected pizza delivery.
h) Being thrown out of shoot from own condominium's premise because of the complaint from some godforsaken "resident" (am still baffled what my fellow neighbour found disturbing considering we were shooting in nobody's way and had only trees as the backdrop).
i) Having our official photographer come over for behind the scene shoot and ending up with a ton of pictures of the cast mostly yawning, scratching their heads or looking doped and me looking messy as ever.
j) Having an incredible dinner of Idiyappam, Aappam, Mutton Ularthiyathu, Vegetable Ishtu and Masala Chai at the wonderful Mango Tree restaurant with the hubby (the weather was awesome too... very breezy and just perfect for outdoor dining).
k) Having 80% of the film canned.
l) Feeling really good about the whole thing.
751 more to go.
Day 248: Miracle
24 July, 2010
Yesterday the status on my Facebook and Twitter read "I have a total of 150 shots to can tomorrow. It would be nothing short of a miracle if this can be pulled off. Gulp.".
Today a miracle indeed took place.
Need I say more?
752 more to go.
Yesterday the status on my Facebook and Twitter read "I have a total of 150 shots to can tomorrow. It would be nothing short of a miracle if this can be pulled off. Gulp.".
Today a miracle indeed took place.
Need I say more?
752 more to go.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)