WEDDING DAY IN SINGAPORE (Blog #3 by David Schmoeller)

It’s a quiet Sunday afternoon and I am sitting in the parlor of my hotel, under the soothing fan, just in view of the Aunty Tong’s painting in the restaurant next door. I’ve grown fond of the Aunty Tong’s painting, and the Royal Peacock hotel, and the clock is starting to tick down to the end of my Objectifs residency. I’m going to miss Aunty Tong – and all my new friends in Singapore.

Last week was my shoot and the start of the editing process of the Singapore segment of Wedding Day.


WEDDING DAY Production Report:

One of the handouts I give my students at UNLV – and which I also gave to my Staging for the Camera students at Objectifs, is a copy of a production report for a feature film I shot in Bucharest, Romania. It’s the Day One production report for THE SECRET KINGDOM.

The purpose of the Hollywood production report is to carefully gage and evaluate the state of production of any given project. It covers every single detail of any given day: when did the first shot of the day happen; at what minute did the first shot after lunch happen; how much film stock was shot, how much was printed, how much was wasted; how many scenes were covered; who was late; when did each cast member wrap, and so forth. It is a single sheet of paper that tells the studio or the network or the investor exactly how things are going. The Production Report is used to fix problems as they arise: is the director shooting too much film? Is the DP (or the director) taking too much time to get the first shot off for the day? Are there any equipment problems? And so on.

The production report for the Wedding Day Singapore segment, if there were one, would make the studio chiefs very happy. We filmed for two days, Tuesday and Thursday. We had no rain delays; we filmed every scene in the script with time left over; we didn’t get kicked out of any of our locations (which has happened to me more than once so I am always leery of it happening again); we were incredibly lucky on many counts.

I had an exceptionally professional crew, lead by Director of Photography Joel San Juan. I had been particularly impressed by Joel on the location scout the week before because of the way he conducted homself: taking pictures of each location, making diagram notes and taking compass readings to determine the direction of the sun.

The director-DP relationship, next to the director-actor relationship, is usually the critical bond (both might also be on par with the director-producer relationship, depending upon the project).

At any rate, Joel and I worked extremely well together and I’m so pleased with the results. Assisting Joel was Chia Jenn Hui as the sound mixer (who rescued us with some of his own personal equipment after we had problems with the sound rentals) and with Geraldine Koh Sheng Qi as script supervisor; Wong Zi “Husky” Heng, Edmund Low, Vicnan P as Lighting crew; Melvin Lee Wei Seng as still photographer and Arnold San Juan as all-around production assistant.

Since Wedding Day, like most student films in the US, is a no-budget shoot (we call them meal-and-a-reel deals – you get fed and you get a copy of the finished product – which hopefully will lead to the meaningful: “meal-and-a-reel…for-a-deal”), we had to shoot guerilla style: you show up at a public location and start shooting – and hope you finish your coverage before you are booted. Miraculously, at each location, we were able to shoot everything I had on my shot list – and were never chased away.

We even shot in the area around my lovely hotel, the Royal Peacock – and at some point, Lina approached and said someone from the hotel (she THINKS they were from the hotel), had come out and asked if we had permission to be shooting. I don’t know if she answered or not, but we just kept shooting – and quickly finished that location and moved on to the next.

I think one of the reasons we were mostly left alone is that one of the two or three actors in every scene was wearing a wedding dress. Most people assumed we were making some kind of Wedding video. My wonderful actors: Chan Huimin and Sara Yang, playing the bride and the bride’s best friend (and Fish Chaar as the groom), stayed in character at all times – so, it looked like we were, indeed, shooting a wedding video – and who wants to spoil a pretty brides’ wedding video?

Since it rained everyday of the first week of my residency – and sometimes it rained ALL day, I was expecting rain. I even built the rain into one or two of my scenes – so that we could, in fact, shoot in the rain - if it rained. The brides’ best friend carries an umbrella – and if it were to rain, I had planned on two scenes that could be shot in the rain. In fact, I was hoping that at least one scene WOULD be shot in the rain. As it happened, we wrapped the first day with no interruption due to rain. And just as we were wrapping the equipment into Joel’s van, it began to pour.

The second day was also rain free – and we finished all our scenes and all my shots. We even took our actors down to the Singapore River-Merllon Park area and rented a water-boat and filmed the bride & her best friend on the entire route through the amazing cityscape locations in that area – in case I can find a spot to add it to the story.

On Wednesday and Friday, I sat down with my editor Olivia Kang and captured the footage and began assembling the scenes. On Friday, Olivia was already cutting the scenes together. Local Singaporean director Tania Sng, whom I met at her shoot my second day in Singapore, dropped by and proved to be immensely helpful in helping me pick which performances worked better than others (since I don’t speak Mandarin). She showed Olivia how to mark the sections of each take that were the best with a single click of the keyboard and we quickly went through every scene and every take. Tania is going to take one last look at our final cut next Thursday after she returns from a shoot – the day before I leave. I’m so happy to have both Olivia and Tania helping me cut this section of Wedding Day. I can’t see how I could have possibly have done it without them.

As with the end of most long trips like this, I am starting to make the transition to my next leg of the journey. In this case, it’s pre-production on the final segment of Wedding Day, the story we shoot in Las Vegas in April. I have a major casting session on Sunday, a week from today – and have been on the internet making those arrangements.

I made my first short film 38 years ago – while I was a film student at the University of Texas at Austin. I was 21 years old.

I loved the process then and I love it now. It’s just the best!

March 11, 2007 – David Schmoeller

WEDDING DAY IN SINGAPORE (by David Schmoeller)

After a grueling 20 hours in the air, I was so happy to finally arrive in Singapore and to find Emmeline and Yuni waiting for me, even at such a late hour (past midnight). They checked me into the charming Royal Peacock Hotel and my residency had officially begun. I have spent half of my filmmaking career making movies overseas (Italy, Romania, Malta, etc.) where you arrive to work as a director and have to hit the ground running, despite your severe jetlag, It usually takes me about a week to get back on schedule. – though it gets harder as I get older.

But, the excitement (and ensuing adrenaline) of a new city helps you get through the transition. On Sunday, February 25, Yuni invited me to go to a local shoot with her and I was excited to see fellow filmmakers at work (Tania Sng, Ric Aw, Sun Koh and the ever-dynamic actor Sonny Pang). Even though they were just wrapping as we arrived, I did enjoy meeting the cast and crew and seeing their excitement as they talked about their feature film.

On Monday, February 26, I spent the day at Objectifs, familiarizing myself with logistics: the metro; pre-paid card for cell phone; and getting ready for the auditions that were set up for the following day. That late afternoon, I began location scouting in Chinatown – in the areas around my hotel. I really began to get excited. I finally met Yeo Lee Nah (Lina), my Assistant Director, with whom I had been working long-distance for the previous weeks from my home base in Las Vegas. She had done an AMAZING job of organizing EVERYTHING. I was much impressed and more than pleased at her professionalism and thoroughness. Lina had recruited Geraldine Koh Sheng Qi to handle the difficult task of translating the English script into Chinese. And fortunately, Geraldine was able to sit in on the auditions so that we could revise and finesse the translation. I had exactly the same issues with the French translation for the section of WEDDING DAY that I shot in Paris last month. So, I was familiar with the various issues that arise. On Tuesday, February 27, we had auditions all day long. Lina had done such an excellent job in gathering actors for the audition. And since I don’t speak Chinese, we had to work out a system whereby Lina would actually take on the role of director to give the actors “notes” to adjust their readings. Again, I had the same issues in Paris. I relied on my French Assistant Director, Andre, to help me gage and weigh the performances. I could tell if an actor was being too melodramatic – but there were subtleties in the readings I just couldn’t discern because I don’t speak French. After each take, Andre would evaluate the reading – for example, he would tell me: “she was more bitter than sad in that take. Do you want bitter or sad?” By the end of the day, Lina and I had our cast – and now we just had to work out rehearsal times, shooting days that worked for the actors, and other sundry details.

On Wednesday, February 28, since I had now mastered the metro (despite a shaky start where I got completely lost), I spent most of the day location scouting. Since my scenes can take place at just about any location (the bride in her wedding dress is hurrying to her wedding with her best friend), the process is about finding locations with strong visuals and good production value. My method to find suitable locations proved to be fairly simple, actually. I would go through my Singapore guide book – and more specifically, I would look through the various postcards at stores, and select a location that was particular exciting, visual or dramatic. I’ve really been struck by how hard everyone at Objectifs work: Emmeline and Dawn, Yuni, Yuemin and Caterina. It is a veritable beehive of activity – and the wide array of activities Objectifs is involved in – and contributes to - are quite remarkable. I’m very eager to see some of their up-and-coming screenings and sponsored events.

Today, March 1, Lina and I are going to scout the locations I have selected, figure out the shooting problems of each location, and lock them down where possible. We are also going to the equipment house to check out some rentals. And tonight, I have my first screening – THE SPIDER WILL KILL YOU, which was my student Thesis film - and a student Academy Award finalist (which I made 34 years ago, my god!) and TOURIST TRAP, 1978, my first feature which was inspired by SPIDER. TOURIST TRAP just screened at the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris to a large audience and I was so pleased with their appreciative reactions – for my first feature and for a feature that was made SO many years ago. It does not escape me that some times these older films, particular a horror film from the heydays of the horror films of the 70’s, might just take on a bit more notoriety and recognition than it deserves, but at my age, I’ll take any kind of praise I can get. Here’s hoping tonight’s audience appreciates the movies for what they are.

- David Schmoeller