location shoot

God is a Woman — Day 4

- Sheylara 21 Comments

Filming in KL — Day 4
Oct 9, 2008

KL (Malaysia) has so many beautiful grungy places. Although quite scary, they serve as exquisite backdrops for films and photoshoots.

I would love to go back to this place to do a fashion photoshoot.

Or maybe not.

It’s a big abandoned building with all kinds of crazy junk heaped around the compound. It’s like a rubbish warehouse.

And the mozzies had a field day when tourists came to visit.

The native mosquitoes rolled out the red carpet to welcome us.

Welcome! they cried, Please make yourselves at home while we drink your blood!

They huge, they’re enthusiastic and they’re hungry.

They’re also ninjas.

I swear.

Big as they are, you don’t feel them land on your skin. You don’t feel them feeding.

You’re minding your own business, looking around casually. And then you chance to glance at your arm, and there’s a teenage mutant ninja mozzie shaking salt and pepper on your hair follicles.

In alarm, you swing your arm violently to shake off the TMNM. But, with all the years of gruelling ninja training under its arthropodal belt, it is prepared for the assault.

It clings onto you with its hooks for feet, all the while laughing maniacally at the folly of homo sapiens. You consider thwapping it flat but you don’t want mozzie guts all over your arm.

So you scream at it.

“My blood is toxic and will kill you dead, you dumb shit!”

Miraculously, the mozzie flies off at that.

And then you realise that that’s only because it’s already had its fill. A pink welt develops instantly on your arm where the TMNM had last roosted.

And it’s itchy.

Beware of teenage mutant ninja mozzies.

We should have heeded the warning.

Luckily, I didn’t die of dengue fever after this encounter.

I wonder how the resident artists survived the TMNM attacks. They must have some kind of permit to stick around unmolested while they complete their artistic masterpieces.

We didn’t stay around for too long. Perhaps 40 minutes or so. I could feel my cells screaming in agony just being in this waste.

You might think that this building is in some remote no man’s land, 3,000 kilometres away from the nearest civillisation.

It’s not.

It’s just minutes away from civillisation. I don’t suppose the residents in neighbouring buildings take a leisurely walk to this dumpster every evening after dinner to dispose of their trash?

After doing our scenes in this building, we strolled over to another compound with even more abandoned buildings.

It was better this time. We didn’t have to enter any of the buildings. We shot everything outdoors.

And that’s the end of my shoot in KL!

We drove up to Penang on the same day. It was a nice journey that took us from daylight to nightfall. I can’t remember how many hours it was.

Along the way, Dean, who was at that time the driver, suddenly turned around and said to me, “You must take a photo of these buildings!!”

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Nuts!

He’s always saying things for no reason. So, Kan took over the wheel and made him be the cameraman.

It kept him occupied for a good while.

Every time we went through a toll booth, he had to hold up the sensor unit for access because someone couldn’t be bothered to stick it to the windscreen.

And then we were in Penang!

My first impression of Penang:

*lol*

I didn’t know Penang is a resort city. It took us more than an hour to find our hotel because Kan was looking for a specific hotel and we were led on a wild goose chase by well-meaning locals. Finally, one savvy local told us that the hotel we wanted had already closed down.

DOH.

We settled for this small resort hotel called The Lone Pine Hotel which is, frankly, a bit creepy because of the name and the way the sign looks.

It brings to mind B-grade horror flicks where unsuspecting backpackers get eaten by giant mutant bugs while being raped by bored psychopaths.

Okay, it’s not that bad.

It’s a cosy resort with friendly service. It also has a nice pool, which is a redundant fact because I don’t swim.

I don’t like wearing swimsuits. =>

Alright, then. That’s all for today. More adventures in Penang next time!

God is a Woman — Day 3

- Sheylara 15 Comments

Filming in KL — Day 3
Oct 8, 2008

Today was like the climax of our trip, with all the heavy-duty scenes scheduled. Most of them I can’t talk about (or show pictures of) because they’re spoilers.

But I’ll talk about our bitch fight scene.

Maria and I had a fight scene in this dirty alley.

It was quite awesome. We did it so realistically that one Indian auntie actually ran up to us to try to break up our fight in the middle of a take.

Kan was really proud of us afterwards. He said, “That auntie paid you the highest compliment actors can receive.”

Here’s a before-fight photo of me:

Here’s an after-fight photo of me (my hair should be messier but then my hair could never get messed up naturally):

Close-up:

This is a real scratch I acquired during the fight. Not makeup.

But it wasn’t really bad. It has healed since.

The more jialat one is my middle finger.

Two weeks later, now, it still hurts when I touch it or flex my finger.

I heal slow. That’s why my favourite X-Men character is Wolverine. I really envy him. Plus Hugh Jackman is…

One word: Swoon.

I cannot resist men with long floppy hair!

I also collected about 15 or more scars and bruises, as well as lost a substantial bunch of hair, but I’d better not scare you with a montage of gory photos like one of those Chinese medicine roadshow posters.

Here’s just a mild example (photo of my right forearm, taken three days after the fight scene):

Anyway, that was quite fun. The fight scene, that is.

We went back to the rubbish dump later in the day. The rubbish pile had increased considerably after just one day.

For comparison, this was taken on Oct 7:

Oct 8 (from roughly the same angle):

It wasn’t drizzling today, so the smell was stronger than the day before and there were more flies and rats around (yech).

Nevertheless, cast and crew (which consisted of only five people) doggedly pressed on.

At the end of the day, we rewarded ourselves with bananas for dinner.

You know how eateries in Malaysia have plates of bananas sitting around for the taking?

Okay we didn’t really have bananas for dinner. We just ate some while waiting for our real food to arrive.

DEAN ATE FIVE BANANAS. DON’T ASK ME HOW.

He said, “I love bananas.”

He’s such a weird person!

I will do a separate post on food in KL another day!

God is a Woman — Day 2

- Sheylara 10 Comments

For the record, I’m now back in Singapore, so don’t get confused when I talk about my Malaysia filming trip.

Filming in KL — Day 2
Oct 7, 2008

I was able to sleep an extra hour today, waking up at 6 am. The best sleep you could ever have is when you’re so exhausted that nothing short of a banshee wail could wake you.

The first scene of the day was shot in my room. It was a scene between me and Dean.

Dean is quite an awesome fellow, really. Not only is he our male lead actor, he also doubles up as camera assistant, tour guide, chauffeur, gofer and court jester. (I’m serious about the last one.)

He took this photo for me:

Not bad, huh?

Dean is the kind of person you can’t help making funny faces at.

We were travelling in the car at one point when he said to me, “You must talk about me in your blog today.”

“Okay,” I said. “What do you want me to say about you?”

“That I’m super handsome, charming, irresistable, talented, charismastic, funny, intelligent…”

Kan (our director) cut in at this point: “You really want her to say all that?”

“Yes! Why not!” said Dean with a serious face. “We must be very transparent.”

And then Maria hit him on the head with a cushion.

Dean cried out, “OHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOO!! You just ruined my feng shui for the day!”

“What?” we said in unison.

Gesticulating wildly, at times with his hands dangerously off the wheel, he cried, “I have already set my hair today for good feng shui and you just ruined it!!! Now I have to go back to the feng shui master again to reset my hair!”

Kan then threatened to kill his character off in the film if he continued being a nutcase, so we managed to arrive at our intended destination without any further incident.

This photo was taken in an actual casting house in KL, where models go to get in line to be slaughtered.

Well, at least, that’s what I feel like each time I go for a casting.

Fortunately, today’s casting session wasn’t real.

Here’s Kan setting up a shot in the props room while I wait outside:

Nash posing with a bicycle:

Actually, he wasn’t posing. That was part of the scene.

After the casting house, we went to a Chinese temple.

It’s such a big temple that there’s even a food court in the basement.

There are also stalls selling I dunno souvenirs or religious artefacts.

There’s even a marriage registration counter.

While Kan set up for the next shot, the rest of us enjoyed the silly antics of Dean and Nash.

I told you he doubled as our court jester.

I tried to blog but it was very hard to, with crazy people beside me doing crazy things.

See what I mean?

After our temple scenes, we went back to Dean’s apartment in the heart of KL, where he has a rooftop garden.

Okay, it’s not exactly a garden. It’s just a rooftop area with a little bit of greenery around the edges. But the view is nice.

I thought it was a nice place to camwhore, so I did that while the rest were shooting stuff that didn’t require me.

Now comes the interesting location.

This place can be found about two minute’s walk from our hotel (Hotel Istana), and maybe just a litte more from KLCC.

It was fortunately drizzling at the time we went there, so there weren’t too many flies and rats and it wasn’t too smelly.

Dean says this dumping ground has been like this like, forever. The level of rubbish goes up and down over time but it never disappears. Apparently, the authorities do come to clear it once in a long while, but for some reason they don’t clear everything at once, so it piles up again.

And yes, there are people living in the buildings surrounding the rubbish pile.

On the first day of our shoot, Kan told me and Maria that we would have to wade into the rubbish pile for one of our scenes.

We believed him.

Since it was drizzling, I took out my umbrella to protect the camera. (I was the only one who remembered to bring an umbrella. Although, actually, it wasn’t so much of remembering as the fact that I always have an umbrella in my bag, anyway.)

Guess who had to hold my cute little pink umbrella? Hehe.

Last stop for the day.

Kan found this hawker who sells, among other things, char kway teow and bak kut teh. He set up his camera at the stall without a word and started filming this uncle cooking.

The uncle didn’t even flinch. Cool.

When he was done (I mean Kan), he thanked the uncle, shook his hand and gave him RM20 as a token of appreciation.

I thought that went pretty well!

Stay tuned for Day 3!

Where’s Sheylara?

- Sheylara 10 Comments

I’m now in Penang, in this cosy little resort, located at one remote end of Penang, called Lonely Pine Hotel. The beach is almost literally standing right outside our balcony. (It’s separated by a small swimming pool.)

The wireless network access provided by the resort didn’t work so I’m now using the wired access computers in the computer room at RM10 an hour. No photos today because it’ll be too much of a hassle to transfer them from my laptop and upload them.

I should be back in Singapore on Sunday.

After almost a week of struggling to get connected (and failing), I am feeling a little frustrated and a little out of touch with the rest of the world.

Of course, the other part of me is enjoying this little holiday. It has been such an incredible journey and I took so many photos (and some videos) I think I will probably go nuts choosing which ones to post.

Gotta go. Internet access is expensive (and dodgy) in hotels (even in tiny little backwater resorts) and I have more scenes to do, anyway.

Be back soon! :)

God is a Woman — Day 1

- Sheylara 19 Comments

I wrote this post over two days on Notepad while travelling (and in between filming). It’s my third day in KL now but I feel like I’ve been here forever!

Because I have a lot of trouble getting an Internet connection in most of our filming locations and even at the hotel, even when I’m willing to pay for it, I can’t do on-the-spot live blogging in little bits as I originally planned.

So, here’s a delayed but extended blogcast.

Filming in KL — Day 1
Oct 6, 2008

9:20 am

I’m waiting at a bus-stop for my director to pick me up. I’m a little embarrassed about carrying so much stuff. I’m expecting him to gasp in shock when he arrives.

9:30 pm

He’s here and he’s not gasping at my baggage. Phew. We drive on to Maria’s place.

Maria is my co-actress and this is her on the right. She’s so pretty I could stare at her all day. ;)

9:50 am

After getting her, we shoot a short sequence.

And then I take over the wheel and drive us to the Tuas Checkpoint because our director wants to film me driving.

This is Kan Lume, our director, and an award-winning one at that. He’s framing a shot on his compact camera.

He’s a one-man-crew for this film because he enjoys DIY filmmaking. And we’re working on an experimental film with the working title of “God is a Woman”, about two women travelling to KL to seek their fortunes as models.

In the drivers’ seat, I manage to delay our trip by making two wrong turns, which is typical of me. (I had warned Kan beforehand and he was very aware of the risk of giving me the wheel.)

11:30 am

We get through both Singapore and JB checkpoints without much incident and stop at a nearby petrol station to shoot.

There’s a pink bus at the station. Cute!

I have a solo scene in a smelly male toilet while Maria has one in the car.

It’s really quite cool. I’ve never had an acting gig like that before, where we shoot while we’re travelling. Like a road trip movie.

It even feels like we’re really on a holiday.

12:20 pm

I’m now in the back seat of the car, trying not to get nauseous as I blog on my tiny MSI wind as we speed along the North-South Highway.

3 pm

We stop at a rest stop and Kan turns me and Maria into stuntwomen.

We climb up and down this treacherous hill (decorated with sneaky loose pebbles and mimosa) about three times. Kan sacrificed two of his t-shirts to protect our hands as we scrabble up and down the hill.

And then I get intimately acquainted with some tall prickly grass up on the hill.

What fun!

6 pm

We meet up with our Malaysian co-actors, Dean and Nash.

Dinner at a semi-posh Italian restaraunt which boasts strange toilet signage.

It takes me the second visit before I vaguely understand how either duck represents each gender.

8 pm

More filming at Dean’s apartment, which is just one minute walk away from Hotel Istana. Dean has wireless access so I snatch minutes in between shots to upload a short blog while the guys set up.

10 pm

Maria and I are released to check into our hotel rooms. OH MY WHAT A ROOM.

Maria and I have separate rooms.

Apparently, this hotel is a favourite among many dignitaries.

I have a view of the Petrnoas Twin Towers.

The broadband charges, though, are RM15 an hour. Might as well kill me now. Plus it is super problematic, with faulty network cables and dodgy connection.

2:15 am

I am ready to drop dead now but I have a restless sleep because I’m freezing. Turning the thermostat up by 10 degrees C doesn’t seem to do much.

5 am

RISE AND SHINE FOR DAY 2!