mara’s playground

Here’s the video

- Sheylara 37 Comments

I deliberated for a few weeks whether to post this up.

I finally decided to do it because I’m so busy these days that I need to employ more lazy blogger tricks.

Today’s lazy post is a YouTube video. Haha.

I didn’t want to post it up at first because there are some physically-intimate shots in it involving me and it’s weird posting something like that knowing that family and relatives read my blog.

But, what the heck. I’m sure they can handle it. It’s nothing sleazy, anyway.

A quick background first.

This is one of the films I did for NYU Tisch Asia graduate film students last year. It was their very first project and shot on Super 16 mm film.

(If you were reading my blog three months ago, you’d have seen my posts about it: Flat 7-Up doesn’t taste very good and Last day is for camwhoring.)

The requirements of the project: 4 minutes, black-and-white, no dialogue, no music.

The video you’re about to watch is the director’s cut. It’s in colour and has some musicky stuff in it, but it’s otherwise the same film that was submitted.

It’s called Mara’s Playground and I play the role of Mara.

So, here it is! Hope you like understand it.

Last day is for camwhoring

- Sheylara 16 Comments

You would think a morning shoot at the beach would be a pleasant way to spend time. I suppose it is, except that there’s nowhere to sit if you’re wearing a dress.

So I kinda just stood around while the others sat all over the place.

On a tree root:

On the ground:

On the camera case:

It wasn’t too bad, really. I had a tree to lean on. My scene at the beach involved leaning on a tree with Fish.

The guys went to check out the tree and the scenary before the shoot started:

It drizzled a bit in the middle of the shoot, so the umbrellas came out.

Thankfully, the drizzle petered out after a while. I was worried about having to lean against a wet, slimy tree trunk.

Fate was in our favour. The tree didn’t get wet and our scene went smoothly. We were able to troop back to the food centre by noon to avoid being sand-baked on the beach.

Somewhere to sit down properly!

Of course, being perverse, I didn’t really sit down during the times I was able to rest between scenes. I went off to the side with Fish to camwhore while they were shooting Jan.

This is Jan, with Alexa:

This is Fish and me:

Next, me in my full costume, which I think is a little large for me, but which I quite like because it’s different and I think it makes me look more innocent than I actually am. Haha.

Fish in close-up:

Fish and me again:

There was so much camwhoring because it was the last day of shoot.

Fish even got a picture of me photographing myself. Duh.

He said he was very impressed by my camwhoring skills. Double duh. I don’t know if I should feel flattered or embarrased.

But camwhoring is tiring, to be honest, so I didn’t do it for too long. I turned my camera towards the set and got a picture of Shivani holding out the slate and grey card in front of Jan’s face.

Heheh. She looks a little harried.

I think it was because, at that time, a huge mass of dark clouds was seen heading our way and the crew went into a mad rush to finish up before the looming storm broke.

It was a sad time for me. The end of last days of shoots always is. I’ve gone on about post-production blues enough times, so you know what I’m talking about.

It was fun while it lasted, but that’s the whole problem.

The more fun it is, the harder to say goodbye.

Flat 7-Up doesn’t taste very good

- Sheylara 15 Comments

But never mind flat. I had to drink flat and diluted 7-Up.

Awesome, huh?

Not.

This was my main prop in yesterday’s shoot:

The cup was at first filled with 7-Up. Throughout the day, we had to keep changing the water level in the cup for continuity purposes because scenes aren’t usually shot in chronological order. Plain distilled water was used for refilling the cup. By the end of the day, the 7-Up had become very diluted, plus all the gas had escaped.

I had to drink some of that.

Not that it was gross or anything but, just so you know, diluted flat 7-Up isn’t exactly a great choice of beverage.

We did our filming at East Coast Lagoon. There was sunny rain early in the morning.

It doesn’t look like it in the picture but I was freezing because it was also very windy.

The rest of the day was great, though. The rain stopped and it was nice and cool all day. I didn’t break a single bead of sweat. It was so comfortable filming there with the abundance of food and drink, shelter and seats, and great company.

The weather was also great for tracking shots because laying out tracks for the camera is pretty hard work and something you wouldn’t want to do under a sweltering sun.

Remember I said I was doing two short films for NYU Tisch Asia graduate film students? This is the second one with the same crew, except that they all swap duties in every film they make so that they get to experience all the different jobs in a production.

Nicolas (above, left) was my director in the previous film but now he’s the DOP. Eric (right) is DOP-turned-grip.

That’s really cool for me because I get to relate to everyone differently, so it’s interesting.

You know like how you form different levels of relationships with different colleagues depending on the type of interaction you get with each person?

For example, say, there’s this guy who’s your boss for a week. You take orders from him. Then, the next week, he’s the department secretary. He helps you make appointments or whatever. Suddenly you’re relating in a different way! So it’s kinda like that.

Basil (above, right) is the director of my second film. He was the grip in my first.

The only person whose role never changes is Fish.

Fish always plays my boyfriend. Haha.

Fish was a sad boy during the shoot.

I only had to drink diluted flat 7-Up. He had to face a mug of beer all day without getting to drink it because he didn’t have any scenes requiring him to actually drink his prop. (Beer was poured down the drain when the mug needed to be emptier.)

Poor Fish.

What must it have been like!