I wore my pregnant suit out to breakfast.

It was Monday morning and The Goonfather was going to drive me to my shoot. Because there won’t be a dressing room at the back alley, I put on my costume at home.

During the drive there, the sky started to darken and I was informed the shoot would be delayed for a bit. I decided to go for breakfast with the Goonfather to wait it out.

We went to a hawker centre, where I had fried beehoon. But I only ate half of it because I didn’t want to overeat. (Toilets at the location are dirty.)

After breakfast, we walked out of the hawker centre. As usual, the Goonfather stopped just outside the building and took out his cigarettes.

“Hey, you can’t smoke here,” I said. (I’m always giving him grief over his smoking habit, so my protest wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.)

“Why not?” he asked perfunctorily.

“Because I’m pregnant.”

He froze midway as he was putting a cigarette in his mouth and stared at me, mouth open, speechless.

“You don’t want people to think you’re a bastard husband smoking in front of his pregnant wife.”

“Damn,” he said, momentarily stunned. Scratching his head unconsciously, he put his cigarette back into the pack.

One point for QY!

We started walking to the car.

“Can you don’t wear your costume out next time??” he complained.

“Hahaha,” I retorted.

Soon after, we reached the car. As we settled into our seats, he turned to me and said, “I may be a bastard husband, but you’re a lousy mother.”

“What?” I said.

“You didn’t finish your breakfast. People will think you’re starving your baby.”

“…”

One point for the Goonfather.

Oh, well, we can’t always win.

I don’t think I’d like being pregnant for real.

And, now, some random photos of the day’s shoot.

[Alexa and Nicolas]

[Eric frames a shot while Alexa takes a light reading off Louis]

[Shivani looks at the opposite wall pensively]

[Nicolas, Basil and Eric discussing a shot]

[Shivani and Basil take a breather while Louis takes a nap]

[Nicolas frames a shot with Basil sheltering Louis and the camera from the sun]

[Group photo!]

That was the last day of shoot, so there will be no more back alley pictures.

But there will be beach pictures next because I’m shooting the next short film with this same group of filmmakers. (Sorry, guys, no bikinis. It’s not that kinda film.)

Fish will be my co-actor. Yeah! Fish again!

Like Louis, Fish is my many-times co-actor. The three of us seem to cross paths a lot.

We had a rehearsal at East Coast Park today and we’ll be there for the next three days.

Filming takes place at the Lagoon Food Village. Wheeeeee, yummy food!

On the second day of my Tisch Asia shoot, we hailed a cab to take us to our shoot location.

The location was 300m away.

I think the cab uncle wasn’t too amused, especially since it took us five minutes to load the vehilcle with film equipment and props. He stood by the side all the while, giving us dark looks.

Maybe he didn’t like us bringing dead plants into his cab.

After dropping us off at our location, he didn’t drive away. He got out of the car and spent five minutes going around it with a cloth, wiping down the passenger seats and the boot.

I swear we didn’t puke or yell or do anything radical or, in fact, do anything at all other than be model taxi passengers.

Well, there was the fact that I was pregnant. About four or five months along, maybe.

But I’m sure pregnant ladies get into cabs all the time and don’t give anyone a hard time, unless you’re talking about women who jump into taxis because their water has broken and their husbands are in Timbuktu or something and they need to get to the hospital pronto but on the way they make a mess in the taxi or, worse, deliver their babies right there and then.

That could be traumatising and, I suppose, understandable if a taxi driver develops a phobia of pregnant women after something like that happens to him.

But I’m sure I didn’t look like I was gonna pop a load anytime soon.

It’s fake, anyway. My foetus is a Mickey Mouse pouch stuffed with cotton wool and secured to my belly with bandages.

The red umbrella is our only insurance against skin cancer during the three-day shoot under the loving caress of the sun’s flaming fingers. I’ve never known Singapore to be this hot.

But I had to put the umbrella down many times, during actual takes and when having light readings taken off me.

Louis (my many-times co-actor), had many scenes lying on the ground. He especially needed the umbrella to avoid having his face barbequed.

The crew also carried umbrellas whenever possible.

It was so hot that an umbrella was needed even in the shade.

And even the camera needed one.

Anyway, since Louis was on the set, I had a little more time to take photos (like when they’re setting him up and don’t need me).

But I took advantage of a brief lull to take a quick self-timered picture of us. I love the timer function.

Then, I moved on to catching people unawares.

It’s weird. Everyone’s wearing some shade of blue. It makes the set so… blue.

Of course, the mood was anything but.

I like the pace set by this team. Not too slow but not breakneck fast, and something’s always happening (unless we were waiting out the rain).

At about 4pm, a thunderstorm suddenly broke so we were forced to wrap for the day.

But we still had one more day to finish up, so I guess it wasn’t too bad.

It’s always nice to dance in the rain right after being barbequed alive.

Perfect way to fall sick, if you’re not already totally cooked.

I am now working on two short films by a group of future hotshot filmmakers who are so good-looking they could be actors or models themselves.

The first time I stepped into the Tisch Asia campus (Tisch being that famous arts school from which hotshot directors like Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone and Ang Lee graduated), I thought I had blundered into a casting call for fashion models.

But the charismatic and attractive people I saw there were just film students.

Of course, they aren’t just any normal film students. I was told the criteria for selection into the Tisch program is extremely stringent and only the most talented individuals are admitted.

Anyway, I had my first shoot today. It was awesome, but I am now tired out of my skull, having woken up at 5:30 am.

So, this is going to be a quick pictorial blog because I have to wake up at 5:30 am again in less than five hours.

It rained nonstop this morning, so we lost four hours of shooting time.

When the rain stopped, the wind machine was employed to dry an area of ground we had to shoot on:

Notice a big dry patch at the bottom half of the picture?

An umbrella was employed to protect the power plug of the wind machine from remnants of a drizzle:

I took a photo of myself while waiting for the ground to dry… and while my makeup was still fresh and as yet unmolested by the scorching sun that was to present itself later.

There was a mirror pasted on the wall of this dingy back alley we were filming at:

Haha.

We were all bored waiting for the rain to stop and the ground to dry up.

The sun finally decided to come out and we were ready to roll:

These are the six Tisch students I’m working with:

Today’s director (they all take turns directing their own films) testing out some blood effects:

Random picture:

In colour:

I took a lot of photos between scenes because I really liked the place we were filming at. The backgrounds are all so funky.

And it’s fun to photograph beautiful people.

We’ll be filming there for two more days. So… more funky photos coming up!

Now it’s time to sleep.

Day 14

Name of outfit: Punk School

Self-Rating:

Destination: Meeting with director and co-actor

Notes: My previous outfit wasn’t too well-received, so I dug out something a bit less radical today for a change. I don’t wear this top very often because I don’t usually like green or checks. I think I bought it only because it looks kinda nice with that black tie.

I wish I had a pair of black sneakers to go with it, but I don’t. It’s so hard to mix and match outfits when you don’t have enough things to match everything!

You probably realise that I have many tops but I keep reusing my bottoms. I hate buying bottoms because they’re a pain to try on and because it’s so hard to find ones that flatter my flat butt. Shopping can be a very traumatic experience for flat people.

I thought an evening run would shake me out of lethargy, clear my mind and give me some ideas for any one of my zillion projects.

It didn’t.

On the bright side, today’s run was relatively painless. I completed my course before I knew it because my mind had been so busy working, thinking up and discarding ideas, that I hardly realised I was running at all.

Cool, ain’t it?

Speaking of bright, the moon is big and round and beautiful tonight. Is it full moon? I love the full moon. I could gaze at it forever.

Well, okay, not forever. People shouldn’t take figures of speech literally, you know.

Like when I say I want to pinch your baby’s cheeks, I don’t really mean I want to pinch them. I just mean to say your baby’s so cute I could eat it.

Oh, look, there’s another figure of speech.

I don’t really want to eat your baby, of course.

Jeez, people.

I’m eating chocolates for dinner while typing this. That isn’t a figure of speech. It’s the literal truth.

I love the freedom of being able to eat what I like, when I like.

That’s one huge reason I shouldn’t have children.

Because if my child were to ask, “Mummy, can I have chocolates for dinner?” I would start thinking how I hate to have my meals dictated and how I would hate it if someone stopped me from eating chocolates for dinner, and I would answer, “Yes, of course, sweetie.”

Can you imagine what a terrible a parent I would make??

“Mummy, can I not do homework tonight and play computer games until morning?”

“Yes, of course, sweetie.”

“Mummy, can I eat dinner in bed?”

“Yes, of course, sweetie.”

“Mummy, can I go to my boyfriend’s house and watch porn while we smoke illegal substances?”

“Yes, of course, sweetie.”

What kind of a screwed up kid would I create?! I shudder to imagine. The world would be a better place if I never had children.

Darn, I’m out of chocolate.

Of course, I have effectively busted whatever good that evening run just did me.

But that was some really nice chocolate!