"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

Millennium Copthorne

Today i post up some behind the scenes photos of a TV commercial i was shooting in August 2006 for a hotel chain, "Millennium Copthorne". This was the first time i was shooting in a completely green studio. The only 'real' thing i was shooting were the actors, and the chairs they occupied.

Sony Digibeta DVW709

The premise of the commercial is set in a heated board room session. The board room members seem like they can not come to a compromise after a long night of debate. However the leader of the session (boss) starts to lose interest and allows his mind to drift to a more serene and happy place. As he allows his mind wander further in to his dream state, the surronding board room transforms to that happy place where he can finally relax.

Cam assist Andrew Mok and animator Yongy Fongy and I.

This production was quite basic for me as a DOP, but very heavy for my animator. We shot the entire scene against green. The rest was up to my team of animators. Rather a team of one, my friend and and hero Yongy Fongy. He had 2 weeks to model, texture, and animate the board room, the boardroom table, the items on the table, the hotel room (including the bed, paintings on the wall, lamps, vase and flowers, and all the other things you would find in a hotel room).

The hardest thing for him was to animate the transformation from the board room to the Hotel room.


This project was shot on the SONY Digibeta DVW709 with a set of digi primes. f stop base at 2.8.