My Second Movie

Previously on DeeCoded:

I attended “Writing for the Screen: Behind the Writer’s Desk,” a talk given by Singapore’s award-winning directer Wee Li Lin in October. At the end of the session, the director asked the participants if they wanted to volunteer as unpaid extras for her upcoming low-budget feature film so that they could have a first-hand experience of filming. I eagerly jotted down my name and phone number.

Almost a month later, I got a call from Li Lin’s assistant asking if I could be an extra. I agreed, and my role was as a teacher. My fellow extra, Wee Kiong, also acting as a co-teacher, turned out to be a writer-director as well. A few days later, he asked me if I would like to be an extra in his latest short film.

And that was how I got to where I was yesterday. It was my first time in the Chinese Garden, which is around 12 train stations away from the city. When I got to the location, I had lunch with the cast and crew then watched as the director and actress run through her lines. She was also an extra, but a speaking one. Her role was to walk through the statues with me and another nonspeaking extra, who later turned out to be yet another director as well, and explain about the different statues that we passed. The focal point of interest would be the statue of Qu Yuan, a historical figure who apparently committed suicide by jumping into a river. The people tried to save him by throwing rice and dumplings into the river so that the fishes wouldn’t save his body. To commemorate the day of his suicide, we celebrate the dumpling festival. While she is explaining this, the lead actor is sitting on a bench and overhears her story, which is relevant to his experience of seeing a girl throwing rice and dumplings in the river, something that apparently only he could see.

The title of the short film is Bak Chang, which means rice dumpling. It would be put together with nine other films from different countries (including the Philippines) and released during a Korean festival. I put together some segments of the video shots I was able to take of this experience:

 

  

 

Wee Kiong told me that I should jump from this film shoot to another one – Forever needed extras again. This would be my third appearance in this film. Aside from my first stint as a teacher, I had come back again last Friday as a dress-wearing girl walking in the background of the lead actor and actress driving around in a car. It was interesting to see a car scene shoot, which is entirely different from the other shots I had seen. The cameras were clamped on the car and as they rolled, so did the entire crew. After each take, they would then push and roll the car back to where it started while the extras walked back to their original positions, ready for a new take.

Anyway, back to yesterday, I went to Ulu Pandan Community Club for an auditorium scene. The wardrobe girls made me wear a floral blouse which did nothing to shield me from the freezing cold of the auditorium (the exact opposite of my earlier shoot). This was a pleasant experience too, though. I just had to sit as an audience watching the musical performance of some kids who are being conducted by the lead actor. Love those violins. I was so tired, though, that I felt like sinking into slumber right then and there.

Here are some videos I took with my cellphone camera (so pardon the quality) during the three times I was an extra in this film.

After the shoot, I returned the blouse I was wearing then had some free dinner. When the director saw me, she gave me a tight hug (I still can’t get used to the idea of an affectionate Singaporean, they’re usually so formal and limited to handshakes) and said that she owed me big time for having helped out so many times. That’s probably the last time I’ll be an extra for now, though. I realized I’d really much rather be the writer-director. XD