"Becoming Royston"

Becoming Royston was a short feature i shot in July last year. It began as a short film, but as the script became more and more complex, the duration lengthened. It was an intense 14 day shoot all over Singapore telling the story of a simple village boy trying to find his place in the world.

We shot with the Panasonic HVX200 P2 camera, which i guess would have been considered new (almost un-trialed in singapore) technology back then. Because of this, Panasonic sponsored the camera to us. So it was a win-win situation. We get to use cameras for free, and Panasonic gets to see the cameras potential before marketing the HVX200 for sale. We used 4 x 8GB P2 cards to record our footage. P2 at that time was new to me so i was weary about not recording on tape or film. We were very very very very careful with the footage transfers, to the point that we delegated the most responsible man we knew, Alfred, to dedicate himself to been the P2 transfer guy. It ended up being a full time job for him on Becoming Royston.

We started in an island off Singapore called Pulau Ubin. This I think was one of our most beautiful locations. We shot at a rustic prawn farm, and a rundown house. Most of the photos you see are from Pulau Ubin.

14 days, several locations, many coffees and laughs later, we completed the shooting process of Becoming Royston. Then i passed the baton to my editor to begin her long journey of editing a feature.

We achieved a nomination in the Asia Festival of First Films for best script, Best Cinematography.
You can watch Becoming Royston at www.becomingroyston.com