Apr
Aidil Rusli, writing about his thoughts on cinema in Malaysia so far in 2012.
Check out the full article from Malaysian Insider by clicking here.
(via relationshipstatusmovie)
Apr
Relationship Status at HELP University - It All Comes Full Circle
Click the pic or click here for the Facebook event page.
There are quite a few things that lead me on the road of filmmaking which recently culminated with my second feature film ‘Relationship Status’. The first was Tony Pietra, the dude that cast me in a short film he was shooting and re-implanted the filmmaking bug I thought was long gone as I grew up to a young adult.
The second is the Kelab Seni Filem Malaysia (KSFM) screenings of Malaysian Shorts, where I showed my first short film ‘Nicotine’.
In fact, I wouldn’t have shot the short film if it wasn’t for the fact that I heard KSFM was accepting submissions for Malaysian Shorts. And when I shot ‘Ciplak’, the scene in which the movie turns into a pirated movie bootlegged from a cinema screening was shot at HELP.
Screening Relationship Status at HELP really does mean a lot to me. I will never forget attending that packed house where my debut short flick, shot for nothing, was going to debut alongside more well known indie filmmakers. And as I sat in the audience, nervous as hell, I heard the audience laugh at one of the jokes and I smiled, glad that they were reacting.
Apr
On ‘YouTubers’, ‘Keyboard Warriors’, the Wonders of the Interwebs and the Death of Traditional Cinema Paradigms
So the other day I got a call from Ian at The Star who asked me about the My Generasi video that’s been making the rounds and, at the time of writing, has over 1.2 million hits and is directed by Reuben Kang who I first met when he was an intern at Niche Films, the production company where I did my first TV series. Even back then when I saw some of his first shorts I knew the dude had an eye and the short film backs it up completely.
However, at the time that I got the call I hadn’t seen the video yet and instead Ian interviewed me on my thoughts on Youtubers in general and that’s when I gave the quote above - “The traditional film industry is dying a slow death”.
Of course, since it’s a newspaper article that features quotes and interviews from a number of filmmakers there’s no way he could’ve included everything I said but I thought I’d expand on my comments in the article a little bit more here, where in between pictures of Gimme and Tina I ramble at length in reams of text that 90% of the current generation of socially connected hipsters wouldn’t dream of sitting down and reading because if you can’t summarize your thoughts and feelings in 140 characters then what’s the point.
Mar
Click the poster for more details, ladies and sirs.
Jan
‘Relationship Status’ on Home Video & the Intricacies of Distribution as a Malaysian Indie Filmmaker
Before everyone starts asking “where can I get this?!”, here’s the bad news - this is just a test print I did to see how the covers might be. The good news is, I’m actually awaiting the basic quotes for the printing of the DVD’s which I am hoping (fingers crossed) to release in March, as well as on other formats as well.
Why March? A number of reasons. Firstly, as far as the DVD is concerned, I don’t believe in just releasing a DVD with the movie on it and want to get all the extras done. I also need to finalize some of the possible video-on-demand deals and even then that may not come out in March but later on down the line, depending on how quickly the respective parties can get back to me. And then there’s a bunch that needs to be researched and sorted out with regards to on-line streaming, downloads, etc.
So if you missed the flick or simply want to watch it again or if you’re a budding indie filmmaker who’d like to find out the details on how I’ve been going about trying to get the movie released on home video, do read on.
(As always, this is gonna be one of them lengthy posts, so if you’d rather read a blog featuring three short paragraphs and pics of the blogger smiling with the two finger peace sign, please feel free to add to their growing number of followers.)
Jan
It All Started With A Thing Called ‘Platform’
In 2010 I was in a production called ‘Lost & Found’, the culmination of the Platform project at KLPac. By that point I’d settled into doing corporate video gigs to pay the bills and had been dipping my toes back into theatre as a creative outlet. I hadn’t acted in quite a while, especially on stage, and getting back into theatre was a nice release where I could lose myself in a different character.
I also enjoyed it because I wanted to be someone different for a while. I wanted to lose myself in a different world, even for just a few moments, because my world at the time wasn’t exactly one I was happy with (and if you guessed it, you guessed right - I was being an emo whiney bitch). So when I got the call that I was in for the production I went over, looking forward to losing myself in another character and hopefully a fun one.
Then on the first day, Joe Hasham and Gavin Yap laid down what the play would be about and I started getting worried.
Jan
And so, finally, Relationship Status is released.
The past few weeks leading up to the movie’s release have been pretty insane. There were many a sleepless night, mad rushes through traffic and unruly weather, a myriad of madness as everything was prepared for the release, the press screenings, the premiere, all of it.
And now, finally, it’s released.
I’m still not quite sure how to take it all in because I haven’t had a chance to breath yet. My brain is still working insanely methodically when it comes to the movie, thinking only of tasks at hand, things that must be done, covering everything that needs to be covered and making sure everything is in it’s place. I constantly log in to Facebook and go through #RelationshipStatus on Twitter (a hashtag I didn’t even start), posting, retweeting and updating anything and everything about the flick.
But at the premiere, my brain had a moment to rest and take it all in, just for a moment.
The entire cast and crew have never been at the same place at the same time before that night and from what I can tell the overall response was incredibly positive. At the after party we all caught up with each other and congratulated each other and rejoiced about this small independent film shot once again on a shoestring budget.
But the differences between my experiences on this and Ciplak couldn’t be further apart. Ciplak was me as a young wannabe filmmaker who simply wanted to make a movie. That was the goal and the goal was achieved and everything that came afterwards - the release in the cinemas, the awards, the recognition - it was all gravy to an already yummy slice of roast beef.
With Relationship Status, not only is the story and the storytelling different, but the whole way I’ve been going about it has been completely different. As a filmmaker, it’s now no longer enough to just make the film and hone your craft on the filmmaking side, the business side needs to be sorted out to and it’s something I’ve always consciously stayed away from up until now.
From the get-go we knew we wanted to figure everything all the way till the release and it’s been a huge challenge for me as it’s something I’ve never done before and I couldn’t have done it without all the help I got on this flick from my production team, my producer, my cast, TGV cinemas and everyone who helped out in getting this film on the big screen.
I still can’t get into the mindset of being able to watch the movie as just a movie, my brain is still incredibly task-oriented at the moment. Right after I post this blog I’m heading off to digital mall to give one of the shopkeepers a piece of my mind and demand a new motherboard for my month old i7 PC which should’ve been the machine that would make the tech aspect easier on this last stretch but instead caused me so many problems that a lot of things I wanted to do couldn’t get done on time (like a trailer with some actual dialogue, for one). After that I’ll be checking in with TGV to see how things are going and sort out a few things and then I’ll be trying to figure out how to sort out some more promo. The movie’s out, but the work still needs to be done.
But as much as my body is aching all over, as much as my stomach is cursing me for my erratic eating schedule and my brain is demanding I get some proper sleep, I’m happy. Deep down, I truly am to the point that I don’t believe it because I never expected this kind of response to the flick and I’m truly proud of this movie and grateful to every single person who helped make this movie what it is.
Tonight, I shall take a break. Just for tonight. We’ll see.
Jan
Episode 16 part 1: Gavin Yap, Susan Lankester & Khairil M Bahar
This was soooo weird. I usually host WAMMcast with Amelia but since I was going to be on the show with Gavin Yap and Susan Lankester Justin suggested Michael guest host. So weird being on the other side, but a hella fun podcast.
The episode ran almost two hours, then I discovered you can’t render an audio file in Logic if the full resolution file ends up to be more than 2GB, so we split it in two. Here’s part one.
Dec
How Kevin Smith Inspired Me To Go Indie 2.0
At the beginning of this month, as I was on the way to the TGV Cinema offices to discuss the release of my upcoming flick Relationship Status, I tweeted about how I was listening to one of the Red State of the Union Q&A podcast episodes by Kevin Smith for inspiration whilst stuck at a red light in traffic.
Needless to say, the meeting was a great one. A lot of the details for the release were finalized and I was quite the happy bunny. Then I discovered this:
And as happy as I was on that day, reading that made me a butt-load happier.
It’s insanely fanboy-ish of me to go all giddy-as-a-schoolgirl over Kevin Smith favorite-ing a tweet of mine but it really did mean something to me because in all honesty I wouldn’t have gone about shooting and releasing Relationship Status the way I’ve been going about it if it weren’t for Mr. Smith and the way he went about making and marketing Red State.
Dec
Finally posted up the trailer for Relationship Status on YouTube. Have a looksee, fellow humans - it’ll be out on January 5th at selected TGV cinemas and I’ll be uploading at the very least one video a day on our YouTube channel of making-of’s and clips from the flick.
I’ll also be doing up a few on-line contests soon for tickets to the flick so keep your eyes on the feeds if a ticket’s what you need.
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