Day 4 (pics not uploaded yet!) was the scene with Leslie and Ganesh at the office. It was really strange how things panned out. There we were with our productions schedule with the shots and timing all carefully planned out. Our first shot for the night was a simple two-shot of Leslie and Ganesh at their cubicles. What we didn't account for was the things that went wrong! Take after take, it was either the technical side that had some problems (battery running out, sound had problem, etc) or the talents tripped over their lines, or some completely unexpected thing (like how the metal sidebar of the cubicle just fell off on its own as our talents were speaking their lines). There were soon murmurings on set on whether it was due to some "supernatural intervention". That simple two-shot eventually ate into the time of 4 shots. When it was completed we were all extremely relieved. Thankfully we shot very quickly after that completing the rest of the shots without any further interruptions in double quick time. We wrapped about 20 minutes past the projected wrap time, which was pretty decent methinks, considering the early delay. =)
Day 5 (pics not uploaded yet) was our comfort shoot night because location was conveniently at CFA conference room and we had only two shots to clear. We had Uncle Bill and Prakasam on set today with some of our crew playing extras again as office staff (thanks guys and Kate!) and we continued to break tradition with our second conti boy (thanks Hanyang! and Alvin! conti boy from Day 4).
Day 6 (pics below) was our first outdoor location shoot at night (we were cooped up indoors for most of our previous shoot days). It was going to be an emotional scene for Leslie and a moment of genuine communication between him and Ganesh. The crew reached location early and blocked the place up (no worries, we chose a dead-end car park to minimize the obstruction to traffic and had a PA on hand to help direct cars). Our two freelance PAs for the day who answered our call for extra hands were Melvin and Lionel! Thanks guys! =)
By the time we were ready to go and the ambulance came (HOPE ambulance, no less!), we already had quite a crowd gawking. It was quite an experience to be in that moment, to sit on the road watching the monitor and the emotional performance as Leslie and Ganesh spoke their lines, even as the crowd around us watched on. As Kate and I were discussing later, that moment was probably where theatre and film converged.
Day 7 (pics below) was the day our crew size was halved! Most of our regular crew could not make it due to other commitments so it was an experience and a challenge having to do the same work with half the number of people. Haha everyone became multi-taskers. At one point in time, I was doing art, wardrobe, directing, conti, logging, and buying food. And the technical side as well were juggling all the roles between 4 people including the director and dp (Derek, Jian, Dhanni and Hanyang) ! As we were setting up our first shot for Prakasam, we were all ready to go when we realized that we were still lacking someone to throw a prop at a wall! There was like a 3 second silence before we had to shout for Kate who was doing makeup for Danny in the makeup room. Danny however enthusiastically volunteered to do it so yes, even our talent had to get into action to help us with our shot! (Thanks Danny and yes, I'll have you in the credits as "box-thrower"! =p) Thankfully we had reinforcements by mid-day in the form of Yi Eng and BK! Saturday was also Prakasam's last day of shoot with us! Here's wishing him all the best in his future journey too! =)
We also had Kitty coming in at the end to tie up some shots and by the time we wrapped it was about 9pm (10 minutes before our projected end time so yay! =p) By the time we packed up and cleaned up the place, it was about 10pm. And the rest of us who were left walked to Geylang to have our super! Super tired but happy that this week turned out well (with a lot of help along the way from so many people!).
So that concluded our week of shoot! And I was just discussing this with Derek and Jian the other day, although the frequent crew changes are due to practical reasons, from another perspective, it's also kind of nice to have new faces on set so our crew can mingle and make friends with new people too (esp since the people we rope in are usually someone's friend(s) anyway!). This is precisely what it's always been about at nuSTUDIOS anyway. Make friends, make films! =)
Will update more soon!
Melinda
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