Behind the Lens Series: 1965 (2015)

1965 (2015)
by Derrick Loo

The 60s was a tumultuous time for Singapore, as it struggled to grasp the social and political paradigm shifts following the withdrawal of the British from the region. A seething undercurrent of racial tension perpetuated the lives of people in Singapore, which eventually culminated in a series of racial riots in 1964 and 1969, claiming numerous lives and many more casualties. Much have been written about this period in Singapore's history; most of which focused on the socioeconomic factors or the political motivations that had played a part in these events. The film '1965' could have gone down this same route, but instead,  chose a different, perhaps more personal, perspective to examine this period.

To capture the period look they had in mind, filmmakers Randy Ang (re:solve (2014)) and Daniel Yun (who is also the co-director and executive producer for '1965') decided to enlist the help of Amandi Wong to craft the visuals. And for this project, Amandi picked to shoot on RED DRAGON, paired it with a set of Leica Summilux-C primes lenses, as well as a Cooke zoom for a specific reenactment scene. Footage was recorded in its native R3D and transcoded by DIT Leslie Tan into 1080p ProRes 422 for editorial. Principal photography lasted 33 days, from November 2014 to January 2015.

Below is a interview with Amandi on his work in '1965':

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Derrick Loo (DL): Who first approached you for this film, 1965? And what was your initial thoughts of the idea and the script?

Amandi Wong (AW) : Director Randy Ang was the first to approached me for the project.
Despite the film being set during a sensitive political period in the history of Singapore, the focus is more on the relationships between people who were inadvertently affected by the unrest. Narratively, it is interesting to me.

DL: How long was the prep?

AW: A total of 23 days. 10 of which were in Batam (Indonesia) for location scouting, set discussions and blocking rehearsals on set.

DL: What was the scope of coverage you guys did during prep?
AW: Location scouting. Shot list discussion. Working with the art team on some specific camera and lighting set-ups as well as doing blocking with cast on the actual set.

DL: What camera did you choose to use and why?

AW: RED Dragon was chosen mainly because of its weight. We also needed a second camera to serve as a back-up as well as a quick change to Ronin Gimbal. The other reason being we couldn’t afford having two units of ARRI Alexa daily although we did a test with it and it won us over with the look it captures (the skin tones especially) and the way it handles low light. 

DL: What lenses (primes/zooms) did you use for the show and why?

AW: Having decided on RED Dragon (primarily on hand-held mode), I knew immediately that I needed to go for a better set of lightweight lenses which can give me that softer edge and faster T-stops. Based on the available resources we had, I managed to secure a set of Leica Summilux-C primes. We didn’t use much of a zoom. The only time when it was required was to mimic the original footage of the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew speaking to the press in a TV studio. And if I remembered correctly, it was an old Cooke 28-200.

DL: Were there any technical tests that you did in prep and what did you hope to find out with these tests?

AW: It was mainly a visual comparison between Dragon & Alexa. We all know Alexa is the better camera in terms of handling skin tones, lowlights and highlights. Thus, the test was to find out the limitations of the Dragon before the shoot and to figure out various ways to work around them.

DL: How closely did you work with the other departments like Art/Wardrobe/Makeup etc?

AW: I didn’t manage to do any hair, make-up or wardrobe tests actually. I was not totally involved since Randy knew quite well how they would look on camera. With regards to the art department, I worked very closely with the production designer, Tommy Chan and his team. We would discuss about the camera angles and set-ups before they designed and built the sets accordingly. His team really did an amazing job in facilitating our filming.

DL: Were there any creative challenges that were memorable? (ie. director wants a certain look or certain shot)

AW: Randy wanted a transition between shots (tilting down from the sky to reveal a bustling Chinatown and to end specifically on a spinning wheel in a bicycle shop). To create a more interesting visual, we did a Steadicam step off from the Giraffe crane following the crowd and ending it with a close-up shot of the wheel. Weather was really unpredictable that day and it was constantly drizzling on and off. We were all in a mad rush trying to work fast. The assistant directors, Sufyan Sam’an (1st) and Julia Lim (2nd) did an amazing job choreographing and coordinating 80 - 100 extras. The Steadicam operator that day was the talented James Hia. Our key grip, Malik Basar designed the step off platform.

Another challenge was the lack of streets to shoot in. We constantly had to cheat creatively to make it look like a different stretch especially during the riot scenes. 

DL: Who were the department heads in your grip/ lighting department?

AW: The key grip was Malik Basar. We have been working together for many projects. The gaffer was Wan Arif from Indonesia. It was my first time collaborating with him and his team from Jakarta.

DL: Describe your working relationship with the grip/lighting department

AW: I trust Malik and his creative input a lot because of our frequent collaboration on many of my projects. With Wan, my initial worry was with the language barrier and the fact that we only managed to get him on board 10 days before the shoot. Everything turned out to be fine even though we didn’t exactly communicate verbally much. One thing I like about him -  he always listened and hardly jumped to conclusion even though he is a very experienced gaffer. He was full of patience, creative and keen to adapt to different styles of lighting.

DL: Was transcoding needed for offline editorial?

AW: Yes. Our DIT, Leslie Tan provided the 1080 ProRes 422 for offline editing. We also had Leslie do the on-set LUT using Resolve and baking them into the offline dailies. There were however no on-set editorial happening during principal photography.

DL: Who were in your camera department? And how do you think they performed?

Due to some scheduling issues, my main camera team came in much later. My camera team for the first 12 days consisted of Aizat Hisham (1st AC), Daryl Nah (2nd AC) and Endra Jamil (Cam grip). The main team thereafter included Dean Sam (1st AC), Feng Kexin (2nd AC) and Dickson Chua (Cam grip). Leslie Tan (DIT) was with us throughout the project. Basically, we can fight a war together.

DL: Was there a particular creative direction you try to keep to, pertaining to the cinematography of the film?

AW: Both Randy and I wanted a hand-held feel and perspective almost throughout the film. The camera movement became more stable only after the narrative settled down towards the end of the film. For most of the riot shots, Randy wanted them in the form of a POV of either the rioters or the police. It was as if cameras were thrown into the chaotic surrounding and ignored by the crowd while taking in the physical energy of the mess and madness everywhere.

My main approach to lighting is seeing it as a way of creating shadows so that the audience will be able to see clearer with their imagination. And for indoor scenes, the light should feel like it leaked in through cracks. 

Another direction was how I wanted the exterior night scenes to be lit. I am a great fan of Bela Tarr’s B&W films and Roger Deakins’ Prisoners. I knew that I wanted to light it like a B&W film. Hence, the contrast instead of the typical blueish moonlight. My key light motivation is always from surrounding practicals. 

DL: Did you prefer a certain range of T-stops?

AW: If possible, I would always prefer T2.8 & 4 and 5.6 & 8 for wider shots requiring a deeper focus. For big-screen presentation, I feel it is really not necessary to shoot wide open for a so-called ‘shallow depth of field (DOF) cinematic 5D (full frame) look’(which is more for TV in my opinion). Filming is all about collaboration between various disciplines. As a team, we should also think about the actors. What is the point of a very nice shallow DOF bokeh when the focus on the actors is soft? I believe in the actor’s performance and to achieve that, he/she should have one less technical thing to worry about. There were situations when I had to opt for wide open though because of low light conditions. 

DL: Did you use any filtration on lens?

AW: Only Polariser and Black Pro-Mist.  
 
DL: Where were the locations that the film is primarily shot at?
 
AW: All locations were in Batam, Indonesia except for the modern day setting which is shot in Singapore.

DL: What is the difference in shooting on stage vs location? And which do you personally prefer?

AW: The main difference is the amount of control we have and how much we can manipulate the look that we want. On stage set we built, almost everything was cater for the camera setups so we can move faster and complete more setups, not having to be disrupted by factors such the weather, time of the day and environmental sound etc. That said, when sounding on stage, we had to recreate all those natural elements such as the ambient lights & sound quality. So it is equally challenging. 

Personally I prefer real locations if we can  have more control. As I always feel that no matter how closely you can recreate the set, it somehow feels different in terms of the light, air quality and the surrounding energies. This, I think, is an important consideration, especially for the actors whose performance is affected by the environment they are put in. Another reason for this preference is that somehow in this part of the world, we are used to shooting mostly on location, mainly due to budget constraints. So when given the freedom that shooting on stage allowed for, most of us will somehow feel a little lost.

I remember many years ago when I attended the Budapest Cinematography Masterclass with participants from all over the world and we were tasked to light and set up a shot in a well equipped and spacious studio. My team mates were from Hong Kong.  At the end of the shoot, we realized how different we Asians approached the lighting vs those from the Wests. They were fully utilizing the stage- from one end to the other. In contrast, our setup was mostly cramped into a corner! 

DL: What are some of the challenges you faces while shooting in Batam?
 
AW: We have one main location that required a total of 4 hours traveling to and back. So waking up at 4am and trying to sleep on a bumpy ride was a challenge. Also that particular location are not very ‘clean’….

Since in Batam there are no filming rental facilities there. We had to plan everything in detail during preproduction so that the right equipment can be packed and shipped in a single trip. The production team also had problems finding proper generators, scaffolds, cherry picker and trucks for equipment. And because of that we had to push back the shoot dates slightly.

DL: Let's talk about lights and lighting...

AW: My main lighting package consists of a 18K HMI, 3 x 6K Par, 2 x 4K Par and a couple of smaller daylight lamps. For tungsten we have 2 x 5K, some 2K, 2 x 2K 30” Jem ball and many units of smaller lamps. Kino Flos are the usual 4 feet and 2 feet 4 and 2 banks.

The final list was decided after my final location tech scout with Wan and his team. I always prefer to light from outside of the set as much as possible mainly for two reasons. First, the quality of light feels more natural, secondly I can free up more space for the actors to move around without restricting their performance. I am a big-believer of giving as much freedom to the director and actors as possible. In narrative films, between good performance and fancy set ups, I'd choose the former. That also explains why my lamp heads are often of a bigger intensity for the further throw factor, since I have to put it further away from the set.

DL: There were a good mixture of handheld/ Steadicam shots, as well as on sticks and dolly. Were there a general rule as to which you sort of operation you choose?

AW: We have a rule that the camera should be hand held as much as possible before the scene of Mr Lee Kuan Yew making his TV broadcast in the studio. The exception to this is when the camera is on a crane. I always prefer the camera to be more stable when its meant to be a dolly or crane moves.  The only Steadicam shot was that Giraffe crane step off shot  that I had mentioned earlier. The rest of the sequences the looked similar to Steadicam moves were either achieved by using a mixed of dolly, Ronin gimbal, electrical golf cart and a passenger van.

DL: As a period film, what's your lighting philosophy?

AW: Right from the beginning, we knew we did not want it to be too stylized and pretty. Our lighting approach was to re-create and enhance the look naturally. ‘Poetic Realism’- quoting Vilmos Zsigmond.  

DL: Was there any particular actor/actress that required specific lighting?

AW: Yes and no. Those specific lighting were mostly tweaks after the final blocking. I would craft the light or shadow further as an additional layer to their performances. We didn’t want to go for an overly glamorous sort of lighting for them. The idea was to feel and look as natural and real as possible.


DL: How was the fire scenes (in the warehouse) shot?

AW: We had a really talented SFX director, Adam Howarth to design and build those sequences. The indoor set was built with an open roof for smoke and heat to escape safely. The whole sequence was shot at night for day to match the exterior shots of the burning warehouse. 

DL: Describe your working relationship with the directors.

AW: There are two directors on set. Daniel Yun, being the co director as well as the EP, oversaw the performances while Randy focused more on the overall direction. I work mostly with Randy and it was my first collaboration with him. We had known each other for a while but just didn’t have a chance to work together till the project. We had numerous meetings talking about shots and setups, as well as going through some of his references. Usually after reading through the script a few times, I will listen to hear the director's interpretation and the initial direction of what he/she hopes to achieve. After which I will do my own research and proposed what I think it will be good for the film, keeping the director's vision in mind. After the tone and camera vocabulary are set, we will go deeper into each shot and scene to work on the details. Randy is more of a visual director and he is very particular about the texture and detail of everything. When we are on set after the rehearsal blocking, he will tell me how he feels the scene should be but also gives me the freedom to suggest the coverage, shooting sequences and framing etc. The only challenge was sometimes we will have to pause for a while the directors conferred on creative details. 

DL: And what about the art department...?

AW: We are very fortunate to have such a strong art team on '1965'. The Production designer, Tommy Chan, and Art director, Keng Boon, are such a talented duo that they can never fail to impress us. As there were many sets in '1965' and with a tight deadline, we had to meet regularly and update each other on our progress and changes. Other than the overall look and feel of each set, we also discuss in detail about the types of practical light, removal walls, specific set dressing as well as some special props.

DL: Regarding the reenactment of the historical scene where Mr Lee Kuan Yew announces our separation from Malaysia, what was the creative approach adopted by the filmmakers?

AW: The key direction was to be as real as possible. As the original footage were in B&W, the art team did extensive research to find the exact color of all the props, including the walls at that time. They even built the studio camera from scratch, which is able to be wheeled around and appeared in the foreground! There were camera moves, including the zooming and focusing, that I had to mimic to stay true to the original recording. 

*All stills are courtesy of Stardust Pictures Pte Ltd and Amandi Wong.

Behind the Lens Series: Bring Back The Dead (2015)

Bring Back The Dead 《招魂》 (2015)
By Derrick Loo

Asian horror films have always been a staple for local movie goers who relish surrendering themselves to eerie moods and hair raising soundtracks which so frequently come coupled with the ever effective jump scares. Not that 'Bring Back The Dead' 《招魂》 lacks any of these, in fact the film has its fair share of well crafted moods and jump scares to satisfy any horror fans, the strength of the film is that it seeks to deliver a lot more than just a plain horror piece. The emotional crux that anchors the film brings to it a layer of poignancy and human drama - a quality that will continue to grip the audience even when we all know the ordeal is over. 

Helmed by veteran director, Lee Thean-Jeen (TJ), this film is the culmination of 7 years of efforts, and is based on a short story, Bringing Back the Dead, by Wong Swee Hoon. The film is about a loving couple who lost their son, Xiao Le (Shawn Tan), in an unexpected accident. Unable to bear the loss, the distraught mother, Jia En (Jesseca Liu), employs the help of her nanny (Liu Ling Ling) to seek a medium to bring back the boy's spirit - all behind her husband's (Jacko Chiang) back. After a successful attempt to reclaim the spirit, Jia En is tasked to strictly follow a set of instructions from the medium. Unintentional lapses on her part, however, prove disastrous and incur the wrath of the spirit which is bent on harming Jia En and the people (and animal) around her. This drives Jia En to investigate if the spirit that was reclaimed is indeed her son's and that very endeavor unexpectedly reveals a harrowing truth.

To help him with the visuals, TJ recruited Joel San Juan, who had worked extensively with the director on various projects ranging from TV dramas to the former's earlier feature films. The actual prep of the film begins 6 weeks before principal photography which started in June 2014 but even before that, Joel and TJ had begun their work together since Joel received the script back in February. The film was shot over a span of 19 days, using ARRI Alexa Plus with Cooke S4 T2 lenses (18mm, 32mm, 75mm, 100mm), recording ProRes 4:4:4:4 directly into SxS cards.

Joel has graciously agreed to do an email interview with Cinemacraft.sg and share his experience and approach in the making of this film.

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Derrick Loo (DL): Who was the first person to approach you with the project? And what were your reactions/ personal thoughts when it's revealed that it's going to be a horror film?

Joel San Juan (JSJ): TJ (Lee Thean-jeen) mentioned this project quite a number of times to me in the past few years that we have been working together. If you have read the press kit, he mentioned that the project has been more or less 7 years in the making and was inspired from a short story that he had read then. What hooked me to the script was mainly the approach TJ wanted to take with it. From the very beginning of the it, he wanted to work the script more from a perspective of a family drama that has supernatural elements rather than a horror film. I think those who watch the movie will agree that it lingers more on the emotional journey of our protagonist Jia En rather than an all out horror scare fest.

DL: This is the third time you are working with TJ on feature films and there's apparently a strong synergy between the both of you. Care to comment how those past collaborations helped in this aspect?

JSJ: This is officially our second feature film together that he wrote. The one other was more of an existing script that he was hired to direct. That aside, our working relationship has had a longer span than that. We first met working on a French television series in 2008 and have since done a good body of work together including local episodic television series such as 'The Pupil'. We joke about it constantly but it's scary how much we think alike! I think there is a certain synergy working with TJ because he trusts the people around him alot and he lets them excel in what they do. And one most important element is our working mantra: always try out something new on every project that we do.

In the 7 years that I've known him, I don't think I have ever seen him shout and scream at any actor or crew just to get something done. His approach is very unassuming and subtle and many will just end up with sheer admiration of how he runs a set quietly and with extreme efficiently (we shot this movie in 19 days!). We do plan quite a number of specific shots together but we also keep a lot of things open (needless to say, we are not any assistant director’s best friends). It is always weird to me that the media always states TJ as a comedy director because to me, he has directed more narrative dramas than comedies. 
 
DL: Share with us how you were involved in the pre-production planning stage.

JSJ: Every job I have worked on with TJ has been an education journey in itself. The people that make the main difference in my opinion are your production design and art department gang. They are the ones who make your movie look credible. Kenneth Kee, the film's Art Director, and I talked so much in detail about the look and feel of the story and most importantly, the color palette. He was very respectful of TJ and my ideas but at the same time also added on things that we never thought about that benefited the movie on a deeper level. We also worked with the make-up and wardrobe team to make sure they got the palette close to where we wanted it due to the desaturation that we’ll be doing in post color grade later on. So we took photos of what they proposed and did some desaturation  in Adobe Photoshop at different levels to ensure that the colors were right.

DL: How did you arrive at the choice of using the Alexa Plus coupled with Cookes lenses?

JSJ: We used an ARRI Alexa Plus 4:3 cropped for 2.35:1 with Cooke S4 spherical lenses. I went into this project knowing that we will definitely be using an ARRI Alexa as the color science of it is unmatched by any other camera in its league. I care more about the color nuances and separation rather then resolution. (plus cropping for 2.35:1 in the full 4:3 sensor gives you a little more resolution than in 16:9 mode) Having shot in Europe and in Asia, I’ve come to quickly realize how much more difficult it is to get the Asian skin tone right and especially more with the harsh tropical light conditions in Singapore. After a round of tests, the Cooke S4 and Alexa combination brought out what I wanted in Jesseca’s look for the movie.
 
DL: I understand you shot most, if not all, of the film with white balance set to 3200K. Why is that?

JSJ: I attended a workshop by Paul Cameron, ASC during the Camerimage festival in Poland a couple of years back where I had a short film that I shot in the competition. He was teaching the Alexa workshop and he talked about how he noticed that the Alexa picked up more skin detail when it was white balance 3200K. He did a few demonstrations to further reiterate his point and I was sold. I talked to him more in depth after the class and he shared more about how to achieve a great skin tone at 3200K even in full daylight. I myself have since tried that technique on other digital cinema cameras but the Alexa still shows better results in that aspect. In 'Bring Back The Dead', Jesseca is in almost more than 80% of the film and we spend a lot of time seeing her up close. So skin tone and details were of utmost priority in this film.

DL: Was there any optical filters that you used during principal photography?

JSJ: I got Bert Tan (Bert Lighting House), who was one of our producers as well as our production equipment rental house, to get a set of Tiffen’s new Black Satin filters and a T1 filter as well. I have seen tests for the Black Satins and they definitely played a huge difference in getting the skin texture right for this movie. They are so different from the Pro Mist and Soft Contrast filters in giving a soft glow in the highlights while giving a warmer grainier feel. I took into consideration that most of the scenes will be in low key lighting with hard contrast so I ordered the Black Satins to help soften out the skin tones in the highlights and give a creamy silkier look. After the first test shot, TJ was sold on the Black Satins already.
As for the T1, it was the very much-needed filter to assist the Alexa in getting more subtle hues in the reds while blocking out Far Red contamination (especially on dark materials). While the Alexa already has its own IR (infrared) cut filter, it still does not sufficiently cut out the Far Red. Having an additional IR filter will more or less defeat the purpose. So the T1 was the best choice for the movie.

DL: Who were the crew and key collaborators that worked with you on the film?
 
JSJ: My key technical crew included gaffer Ben Ong and key grip Abdul Malik. I always hire my own key technical crew and let them hire their own team. I don’t get involved in the process of who they select because I trust my key to make their own decisions.

It was my first time working with Ben and from the very get-go, there was already a very good energy to our working relationship. He and his team (especially his best boy Eric Tan) were so well organized that it put me at complete ease on set and that helped me concentrate so much better on the frame. I appreciate a very silent and efficient crew and his is definitely top notch in that aspect. Many of the production crew commented that they almost never see us talking but yet equipment moves on set as if a silent hand was constantly at work controlling the traffic.

Abdul Malik and I have done lots of work together since the time I was a camera grip many years back. He enjoys my wacky ideas for camera movement and I enjoy the fact that he can get any idea of mine done without much hassle. If you watch the movie, there were a good handful of shots that were subtle but extremely difficult to achieve. He made it all happen and again when you have crew you can trust, you can give so much more to the story and the frame. 

Another key collaborator is, of course, the art director Kenneth Kee. When you have a wonderful art director who sees your vision and share the same enthusiasm for your project, a good 80% of the look is already settled. Kenneth and his amazing team were attentive to the details and that made the shots worked. We had a lot of tricky angles with the unusual layout of the house and it was only with their help that I managed to sneak in difficult camera and lighting angles with much ease.

 
DL: On-set grading has over the years gain popularity. Did you have such a workflow?

JSJ: I still go old school in the sense and I know somewhere down the road, I would have to change that mindset. From the first day I learn about exposure during the film days it was always with a light and spot meter. I trust what I see on set with my eyes and I refer to my contrast glass whenever I am in doubt about the contrast ratio. Working with the ARRI Alexa also gives you that added ease because you know what you see through the viewfinder is what you are going to get. I haven’t got around to using a waveform or a monitor to judge exposure yet. We (TJ and I) collectively decided that we will be recording ProRes 4:4:4:4 directly to the SxS cards. This was for the ease of workflow and also we were going to do a very character driven narrative with very minimal special effects. On set, we just viewed everything on REC709.
The beautiful color depth that the Alexa gave us was ample for what we needed. We had a few bad experiences in the past dealing with the RAW format workflow with the available local post-production facilities and I guess although things might have improved recently, it's more of a "once-bitten-twice-shy" syndrome. After off-loading the ProRes 4:4:4:4, the footage was transcoded to ProRes 4:2:2 (Proxy) at Infinite Frameworks for the ease of the offline and we later relinked the ProRes 4:4:4:4 files for the colorgrade at Finish Postproduction in Boston.
 
DL: In the film, the house is perpetually bathed in nuanced shadows. And even with the other high-key scenes, there's always this sense of dread pervading the entire picture. Share with us your methods and your choice of color palette.

JSJ: TJ wanted the entire movie to have a slight desaturated look and somewhat high contrast at the same time. We discussed a variety of color palettes and eventually settled on one with earthy tones and a separate one for the theme of Red (we were inspired from M.Night Shyamalan’s use of color and fog from breaths to depict the presence of a supernatural entity). A lot of the credit also goes to the production design, make up and wardrobe team. They understood the importance of getting the tones just right to achieve the sense of dread. There’s only so much lighting and camera work you can do. I think the local film industry heavily under utilizes the capabilities of the production design, make up and wardrobe teams to help tell the story. We forget that they are artists as well. I can honestly tell you that we did very little with the lighting compared with most other movies out there. Ben and I would just decide the direction of the key light and maintain a 3:1 contrast ratio throughout the entire film except for the day exterior where we will go 2:1. The rest is the work of the art, make up and wardrobe department. Generally I just feel we lack the proper appreciation for their importance in the local film industry.

DL: What was your lighting package like?

JSJ: For budgetary reasons, I had to split my lighting package to 3 parts. The house, day exteriors (cemetery) and night exteriors (cemetery). The house package consisted of a 4K HMI Par, three 2.5K HMI Fresnels, six 2K Tungsten Fresnels, two 1K Tungsten Lanterns and about five 650w Tungstens. We had 20x20 and 12x12 Ultra Bounce and a 20x20 Silk. We had a 6K HMI Par for the day exteriors with reflectors, bounce and silks. The night exterior we had two Maxi Brutes and two 5K Tungsten Fresnels.
All camera, lighting and grip equipment was from Bert Lighting House. The Cooke lenses were from Asia Film Equipment Sdn Bhd.

DL: Was there any special lighting set up that was memorable for you? And why so?

JSJ: The day interior scene where Mdm Seetoh finds Jia En at the corner of the piano room after the funeral of Xiao Le. TJ and I are big fans of Bernardo Bertolucci and we have been talking about doing a Bertolucci tribute shot in one of our movies together. So we finally found the chance to do it in this scene. Jia En is completely trapped in the darkness of the room and she is cornered by her own depression, refusing to come out into the light. We referred to the famous ‘Plato’s Cave’ office scene in 'Il Conformista' (Bertolucci, Mars Film 1970) where the intensity of the scene is further emphasized by a hot shaft of daylight, directing the audience around the mindset of the characters. So we set a 4k Par with a spot glass a distance away to create a very long sharp throw. Art department came in to help reinforce the translucent curtains with a black backing to cut all light coming in. We hazed up the entire room and set little slot in the curtains to emphasize some furniture edges and a white porcelain mug on the floor to make the room feel much darker than it is (small white dot on a black background theory - simultaneous contrast). In the end, the shot worked because it fulfilled the Plato’s Cave ideology and it also emphasized the character’s suffering in terms of the light direction and the frame.

DL: Could you share with us how you shot your favorite scenes?

JSJ: I feel that the ‘one shot’ breakfast scene where Jia En discovers the wall full of crayon drawings after her husband De Wei points it out to her easily stands out as one of my favorite scenes. For the shot, we initially wanted to try out doing it without any cuts. However, flying in the art department to quickly repaint the wall in the middle of the take proved too difficult for the lighting (moving shadows) and especially for the sound department. So we decided to do a cut in between since using a body wipe toward the end of the shot will be a predictable and obviously giveaway. I can’t tell you where we did the cut anyway! Also, since it was a handheld ‘one shot’ that went around the dining room with HMIs throwing in from the windows, avoiding shadows was also one of the really big challenges. I think that’s where my experience from years as a Steadicam operator came in really handy in terms of knowing where to set a lighting angle for a complete 360 degree movement and knowing how to avoid shadows.

DL: Was there any particularly challenging scenes? 
 
JSJ: The stunt scenes were the most challenging especially the one that require the maid, Anna, to fall down a flight of stairs in the house. We had a very tight and dark area to work in and we had wires everywhere. It was also suppose to be the end part of a 360 degree camera 'roundy-round'. So trying to get the timing right to make everything work took much longer than expected, not to mention the danger elements for the actor and stunt coordinator involved. The short evening turned into a very very long night.

DL: Share with us how you worked with TJ on set.

JSJ: We would start by giving the heads of departments a run down of the scene and ideally how many shots we were going to do per set up. A makeshift shot list is only invented as we go. Unless there’s a specific shot that had to be in there, we usually keep it open until we have seen the end of the blocking of the actors. After the block, we will re-discuss with the actors’ input as well what works best for the shot. Then we break up into our own departments and start building up the shot. I find that a lot more gets done per hour on set when everything is discussed systematically during the blocking. Sometimes during the take itself, we discover something else that works! Then we throw in that extra shot in there. But most times we keep it simple. His approach was to try to make it feel like there’s an uninterrupted feel to the shots.

Not many people can understand this workflow of not using a shotlist or a storyboard. This has definitely pissed off a lot of assistant directors and productions but somehow this has worked for both TJ and I for so many years.

DL: Where was the grading done? How was the process like and working with the colorist? 

JSJ: I approached Rob Bessette at Finish Post in Boston to help me out with the color grade. I’ve seen his work before and was very impressed with his eye for detail and most importantly his working philosophy of grading for the story rather than showing off techniques. His passion to get this story told right was the key to this successful collaboration. He would first work generally on the global look of the movie based on my guidelines of how much cyan I wanted in the blacks and how much red I wanted in the highlights etc. Then we would meet to view the primary grade, critique it and then work more on a scene level. After all that is done, we will then nitpick on the smaller more crucial details and work on it until it is right. I have to applaud Rob and his team at Finish Post for their amazing work ethics and their dedication to getting it right. I have never been happier with a color grade like his. Its just beautiful!

 
DL: What system was it graded on? How it was monitored?

JSJ: 'Bring Back The Dead' was graded on a DaVinci Resolve system and monitored on P3 enabled monitors corrected for REC709 as a base. This workflow worked very well after a few test workflows between Finish Post, MochaChai Lab (who handled the DCP) and Infinite Frameworks. It was a virtual collaboration that I have to say impressed me quite a bit. I felt that we discovered a great cross continent workflow that will definitely benefit many others who decide to go that route later on.

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 *All stills are courtesy of Weiyu Films & MM2 Entertainment Pte Ltd.

Behind the Lens Series: BANTING (2014)

BANTING (2014)
By Derrick Loo

In the film Banting, Yasmin Muhammad (Izyan Mellyna Ishak), an amateur wrestler, battles not just her opponents in the ring, but also society expectations of her. Raised in a strict Malay family, her endeavor inevitably raises a lot of eyebrows, including those of her best buddy Zaidy Salihin (Fauzie Laily). In spite of that, Yasmin perseveres through the rigorous training drills and with her natural athletic talent, impresses everyone, including her jaded coach Harry Kosugi (Jimmy Taenaka), in her debut fight victory.

Zaidy and the wrestling buddies convince Yasmin to give one more shot at wrestling.

Feeling encouraged, Yasmin began committing more time to wrestling while at the same time, having to find ways and excuses to hide involvement with the club from her mother, Halimah (Mastura Ahmad), often times to hilarious effect. However, luck ran out eventually and that culminated in a confrontation between Yasmin and Halimah, threatening to derail her from her dream. Just as she's poised to give up her wrestling dream, her wrestling buddies and Zaidy conspires to wist her away to fight in a match that could change the course of her life - and her relationship with her mother.

Banting's story is something that is very close to heart for writer/director Raihan Halim. It's essentially a story about courage and perseverance in overcoming the challenges in one's pursuit of his/ her dreams; a topic that transcends race and religion - and one that perhaps parallel that of Raihan's in his film making journey thus far. And this message comes across robustly, in spite of the lighthearted approach that the director adopts. "My story about being true to yourself, breaking free from the expectations that comes from either ourselves, our family or society at large," Raihan explains.

Director Raihan Halim (L) and DP Jason Tai lines up a shot.

Despite having extensive directing experience, mostly in TV productions, Banting is Raihan's first outing as a feature director. He ropes in some of his usual collaborators to work on the film, such as art director, Junior Foong and editor, Huda Azzis. Cinematography duties were handed to Jason Tai, who had also worked with Raihan on several of the latter's projects, and shares similar sensibilities and tastes as the director himself. "It helps that we watched the same type of films. So when I said, ' I want a Hot Fuzz (2007) shot', or 'Give me a Nacho Libre (2006) shot', Jason knows what I was talking about," adds Raihan.

As a long time wrestling fan, Jason was inevitably thrilled when approached with the project. He recalls how he enjoyed watching wrestling on TV but noted that the scope and scale of the wrestling scenes in Banting would be much smaller. "Typically people would know about the big one - World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), where the production value is off the charts but at the same time, there are in fact a lot of independent wrestling associations out there. And most of the time, the venues that they performed in were much less glamorous. It could be some high school gymnasiums or any indoor space that can accommodate the ring and a few rows of chairs!", Jason says.

In pre-production, the camera choices were narrowed down to between ARRI Alexa or the RED EPIC. Eventually, the cinematographer chose the RED EPIC. He reasons, "We had some high speed shots we wanted to do but couldn't fit in a dedicated high speed camera into the budget, so we chose the EPIC because it could achieve slightly higher frame rate." Accompanying the RED EPIC on this outing was a set of ARRI Ultra Prime lens (T1.9) that ranged from 16mm to 135m. Initial tests were done to check the noise characteristics of the camera at various ISO, before establishing a working ISO 800 as a baseline.

The 16ft by 16ft lighting grid fabricated to light the wrestling ring.

Principal photography began in late 2013 to early 2014, over a span of 2 months, shot mostly on locations, including the wrestling arena set which was built inside a disused warehouse at Kallang Way. Jason notes, "This particular warehouse is perfect, both aesthetically and in practical terms. We had visited many other warehouses but most of them were lacking in one way or another. Either the space is too small or the layout is unsuitable." Raihan agrees that finding the right place to build the arena is crucial since that set would feature extensively throughout the film. So when the team eventually scouted that warehouse, they knew they had found the right place. The ceilings were high and the space is right. It also had a loading area where vehicles such as cherry pickers could be driving right into the space.

The 6k space light helps with controlling spills.

The warehouse, however, had no existing lighting fixtures, which means the production had to somehow find a way to light it. Working closely with Junior, Jason designed a "16ft by 16ft grid lined with fluorescent tubes to be suspended above the wrestling ring.." The art department was tasked to fabricate the grid, which was then rigged, via ropes suspended from existing ceiling trusses, by key grip Abdul Malik Basar. An external contractor was then brought in to wire up the fixtures. Jason explains that the lighting grid served not just as a source of light but also as a practical that was frequently seen, especially in the wider shots. "It adds to the overall feel of the set because it looks like this ragtag team of indie wrestlers moved into this space and this is what they've whipped up to light up their wrestling ring." He continues, "This rig is greatly inspired by what I've seen when the production team attended a wrestling show put up by Singapore Professional Wrestling (the same folks who trained our cast for the stunts performed in the film). They had a suspended square rig made of pipes and garden floodlights." To further supplement the exposure, he had Malik rigged a 6k space light from the center of the ring. A couple of 1kW tungsten Fresnel units on floor stands, providing kicker lights, completed the main lighting set up for the sequences in the ring.

Another lighting setup was used for scenes within the arena but outside the ring - "the goal post". It consisted of a 12 feet pipe slung across two high rollers, usually with one or two 4 feet 4 banks Kino Flos on it. This was mainly used for wrestling spectators shots. Jason explains, "We chose to do this because it was fast to move around and not as restrictive if it's pre-rigged. I'm a big believer in less is more, in that the visuals are not just painted by lights, but also by shadows. So this retains the ability to dictate where the pockets of light fall and where they don't."

Gaffer Shahril takes a reading before a shot.

Leading the lighting team is gaffer Mohammad Shahril Bin Dzuikeply. On Shahril, Jason says, "We first met working together on the set of Fighting Spiders back in 2008, and have since worked together on numerous occasions, including a few of Papahan Film's (which is headed by Raihan and Banting's Executive Producer Edmund D. Lim) other productions." He continues, "On Banting, we would plan out the general look on lighting setup of each scene, perhaps stating a preferred fixture or so to be used. And Shahril will then lead the lighting crew in the setup and take care of the details. Because we're largely in sync in the way we approach lighting a set, this process is very fast and there's minimal miscommunications."

Shooting the actual wrestling scenes in the ring was tough for both the actors as well as Jason (who operates the camera) and his first camera assistant/ focus puller, Weiming Choo. As Raihan prefers a more visceral approach to the scenes in the ring - which ruled out all the flashy angles and huge camera moves - Jason had to go hand held and stay close to the actors. Each fight sequence was shot from the start till the end, which takes about 5 minutes at a time. Raihan realized early that when the actors are in the ring, it's as if they were performing in a theatre show and it's difficult to break the sequences up because that would affect their energy on stage. Jason remarks, "Sometimes I feel like Weiming and myself are the third and fourth competitor in the ring! We had to memorize the choreography and when to get out of the way (of the actors)." With the camera and actors constantly moving in the ring, Jason shot the scenes mostly a T4 to T4 1/2, giving Weiming a good chance in hitting the focus.

Yasmin floors Queen Kong in the dramatic finale.

Jason also paid close attention to placement of camera for shots from outside the ring. Years of watching wrestling on TV gave him a good idea of how wrestling matches were traditionally covered, as well as the sort of coverages that were needed. "Hopefully that would bring some familiarity to people watching it," he continues. And also because of this, the filmmakers decide to shoot flat (1.85:1), which is very similar to that of HDTV (1.78:1) - an aspect ratio that Raihan and Jason were both intimately familiar with coming from a TV production background. Raihan jokes, "To sell me his preferred aspect ratio, all Jason said was, ' Well, Avengers (2012) was shot 1.85...' and I'm liked 'That's it, I'm sold!'"

The production recorded 5k full frame for the most part (4k and 2k resolutions were used for high speed shots) at 23.976fps directly to REDMAGs which were then offloaded at the Wrangling station, supervised by data wrangler, Leslie Tan. Backing up the data were done via R3D Data Manager, with check sum done with each transfer. Leslie elaborates, "For production back ups, we were using 4TB G-Technology drives. For my own uses, they were Hitachi Enterprise hard drives enclosed in Raid 5 configuration, totaling 12 TB." He also had to transcode the R3Ds into 1920x1080 PRORES 422 LT for editorial. Other times when he's not busy offloading the mags, Leslie was always on hand to assist and advise the DP whenever the latter had concerns regarding the images. As this way Jason's first outing with the RED EPIC, there were times when he needed to make sure his lighting strategy did not result in lost of any details.

Another location that was interesting was the HDB flat that the production chose for the family scenes. They had managed to find one unit in Marsiling where it was two individual units combined into one - one corridor unit and a corner unit. This allows the filmmakers ample space to stage their shots with greater depth. And having access to the corridor space right outside the flat also meant that they could easily black out the windows to shoot night scenes. Jason says, "I prefer to black out the room from a distance away instead of being right at the window because that would be too obvious." Also notable is that the set design in the house was warmer in tone, with an abundance of wood furniture and decorations, as well as wall colors in shade and hues of yellow/ orange. This stands in stark contrast against the gritty looking world of wrestling, where the filmmakers deliberately painted the wall grey and "keeping most colors out of it" - clearly representing the two different worlds that Yasmin is straddling. 

Offline was done at Flashforward Films and edited by Huda Azzis, who is a regular in many of Raihan's Suria channel projects. Raihan says, "It's important to work with people whom you have develop a short hand with because that allows ideas and communications to be exchanged efficiently."

Experimenting with different looks.

Color grading was done is another facility, MochaChai Lab, with colorist Isnor Dzulkarnain Jaafar. After the R3Ds were ingested and checked for proper conform in DaVinci Resolve v10, he began grading with instructions from Raihan and Jason. The first couple of days were spent understanding the style of the film and what the filmmakers were going for. They also spent time experimenting on the different looks for the film. "For me, I do have some references in mind for different parts of the film. But sometimes those ideas clash and we need to think about how that may or may not help the film as a whole." Raihan explains. Thus it took some time of careful considerations before the DP, director and colorist could agree on the direction.

Once the color direction was decided, Isnor went ahead to work on the primaries and secondaries to match the scenes as best as he could, finishing 6 reels in 5 days. The grade was monitored via a Barco projector in DCI XYZ color space. Film grains were added at the end of the grading process via Film Convert. "Once everything is finalized on the last day, I exported the final grades to 4k DPX RGB 10 bit 3996x2160 in flat. It took roughly two hours for each reel to be exported," said Isnor. As of print, Banting is in fact the first Singapore Malay feature film to have a DCP done in 4k*.

Looking back, Jason feels it's just a matter of getting accustomed to the way feature film projects were done. Citing his background in TV, he feels strongly about "getting things right in camera, as far as possible" and accepts that he would have the luxury of extensive post production to finesse his images. He recalls a funny moment on set, "When we were doing our first wide shot of the wrestling arena, I was so concerned with how much details the camera was seeing that I thought I was lighting it wrong. I had to take a picture with my phone and slap on an Instagram filter to convince myself that indeed the image can be manipulated to get close to what I had imagined!"
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A huge THANK YOU to all who contributed generously to this article.
All still images courtesy of Papahan Films Pte Ltd.

*(Correction: It was incorrectly stated that Banting was the first feature film in Singapore to be output in 4k DCP. Instead it should be 'the first Singapore Malay feature film to be done in 4k DCP'. Article has been amended as such.)