Against All Odds

Quoting from an article that I was came across few years ago regarding Ray Pang, singapore local director. Will be slipping in some personal comments in between in brackets. haha

How do Singaporeans define success?
Many define it as having a nice house and a lot of money, but 27-year-old filmmaker Ray Pang has never set that as a standard for himself.

“I think being able to do what you are passionate about and having friends and family to support your dreams is success,” Pang, a finalist for Singapore 9 and whose growing body of films has started to draw attention in Singapore and overseas, told Yahoo! Singapore in an interview on Friday.
(I think being able to do what you are passionate about and living your dream is already a success. To me it doesn't matter if you have the support of friends and family, really)

 Despite financial challenges, Pang has persisted in pursuing his vision in filmmaking.

After he earned his bachelor’s degree in film and television in Australia and returned to Singapore last year, he was unemployed for almost a year. He did not think the jobs available would suit him given what he wanted to do.

“The direction towards my goal as a director would be diverted if I were to pick those jobs offered,” he explained. (Precisely how I feel. The dilemma that I faced... Its not about just applying for a job in the film industry if you know what I mean)

Pang even moved to Taiwan to see if there were directorial opportunities there. Small production houses abounded and Pang received many offers, but due to manpower laws there he had to pack up and head back to Singapore two months later.

Seeing their son struggling to get a job in the film industry, his car mechanic father and homemaker mother gently nudged him to consider working in his dad’s workshop, but he has resisted. (I will seriously reconsider it if I will him.. come on family business yoz)

It is not as if he hasn’t been doing good work as a filmmaker. He has produced eight films, five of which have been official selections for international film festivals and two of which have received Best Film accolades. His short film “The Team”, which he wrote, produced, edited and directed, won in the editing and best film categories in ciNE65, a Singapore film competition.

Love of pictures
His dad inculcated in him a love for art and drawing early on. As a kid, Pang used to draw comic books and tried to sell them for $4.50 a booklet. He later first enrolled in Temasek Polytechnic’s Interactive Media Design course wanting to do animation, but he later switched to filmmaking as he found it to be a better platform for storytelling.

As a student, he drew inspiration from Singaporean filmmaker Royston Tan. “Seeing that a fellow Singaporean made the cut and wowed the world with his films made me think that I can do it too. And it’s not like it’s Steven Spielberg. It’s Royston, someone whose success is very relatable,” Pang said.

He aspires to make films that makes his audience think. His films are all centered around human stories and real events that he has experienced.

His other short film “Closer To Me” was inspired by a friend who was diagnosed with last stage cancer. The film was shortlisted for the People’s Choice Award and Jury's Award at the Louis Vuitton Journeys Award and is the only Singaporean filmmaker who has made it to the list of ten.

“Filmmaking is a catharsis for me. I think of death a lot and it makes me appreciate life,” he added.
 Pang can throw himself so wholeheartedly into a project that this raises concern among his family.

When working on “ONE”, a short film about a triad’s skirmishes over power and money, he suffered from insomnia and depression from thinking too much about the story. Likening it to a disease that took over him, he thought about the story constantly to the point that he was dreaming about it even during breaks.

“It gets into you, in your life. Everything you think about is how to solve problems and make the film better,” Pang pointed out. (high five bro, I know exactly the feelings!)

“My wife has asked me to take care of myself and rest more because she wants to grow old with me. But I enjoy doing this, or else I wouldn’t stay up that late to think about my stories. I’m enjoying every bit of it,” said the filmmaker, who only gets two to three hours of sleep a day because of the way he works.

It’s a tough industry here

Setbacks, though, have sometimes discouraged him. He has asked himself such questions as: Why are you still doing this when you works are not appreciated or recognised? Why can’t I make this my career? (The market is just too small for now)

“I’m still struggling with these questions and it’s hard to find an answer,” he said. (I asked myself the same thing)

When working on “The Team”, which is about kids in Singapore who love football regardless of race or background, he almost scrapped the project due to a lack of sponsors.

One week before the shoot, his team still could not get any backers so he decided to deplete his savings account to finance the project. He has not regretted doing that because the film turned out to be the most enjoyable filmmaking experience he’s had.

He also enjoyed the support of friends and family, who invested their time and effort to help him out. Some friends from the industry chipped in to provide services for free while some got their kids to act in the film, lowering the cost.

In the end, he spent about $2,000 on the film when it could have easily come up to about $20,000.(as the saying goes we make money to make movies not make movies to make money)

“Many people ask me how much does making the film cost, but it’s a very sensitive question. I can’t answer your question but I can tell you that if I were to commit to it wholly in terms of two months of pre-production and production, and paying every crew, it can cost up to 20k,” he said.

“For something like this to take place, it really is about the team work. Passion is something that is very contagious. It can spread to people and affect them,” he added. (That is exactly right)

The lack of investors and sponsors frustrates Pang, just like it does other artists out there. But he shrugs his shoulders and says, ‘”What can I do about this?”

Pang has been offered opportunities out of Singapore to grow his talents and work on foreign productions. A well-known creative director in China asked Pang if he was interested in moving out to do more.

However, Pang has chosen to stay. Aside from the fact that his family and friends are here, he hopes to make it in Singapore first. He believes that it will be much more difficult to make it big locally, so finding success in the city-state would mark a greater achievement than success overseas.

“People always say if you want to make it big, leave Singapore. Come back to Singapore after you’ve made it in other countries,” he said. “But if you make it in Singapore, you will be the one of who has made it in Singapore despite of the challenges. (This is something that I disagree,  the opportunity to go out to experience something different is invaluable . Bring back what's useful and explore collaboration. Only then you can tell better stories and use your influence to help many others... my thoughts)
On being nominated in S9
When Singapore 9 judge Adrian Pang chose Ray Pang as the finalist for the Entertainment category, he said, “It is very important that we champion these solo filmmakers who are trying to put Singapore filmmaking on the global map”.

Ray thanks the judges for picking him and said this sends a message to other aspiring young filmmakers out there to have the courage to develop their passion.

“When they experience setbacks, like when they make a bad film, they will think they’re not talented and not worthy,” he said.

“[They have to] stay true to their dreams, persevere, go for it and don’t look back if you want to be a filmmaker,” he added.
(Thanks for the advice. Sounds like we are in the same frequency. Hope to work with you someday bro, Peace!)

Sheep year or Shit year?

This marks my 41 postings on my blog, an amazing achievement since i started this blog 8 years ago and stop for about 3.5 years in between. I developed a writing habit and began to enjoy it even though frankly i'm not good at languages. Last year has been really a year of lots of ups and downs mentally, emotionally... pretty tough, lots of learning and humbling process, I have grown, I have realized.


Memory of those burnout days still haunt me. I could sense the unpleasantness, I felt depressed, overworked, not restful. Now I could look back and laugh. Very soon I will make a decision. Hopefully I will get used to working life again when the time comes and hopefully my sense of urgency will be there.

These 4 days of cny break haven't been really exciting for me. More disappointing than anything else but I need to learn to move on and move ahead. Peace!

Sleep

Finally I'm embarking on my project  after CNY which it could be my last short film; purely written, directed, produced and perhaps acted by me. I could never imagained accomplishing so much after I left my job. There were occasional fear, bills, shopping and etc.. that will crept in suddently and caught me worrying in the past 1 year. Yet all this while, I lack nothing. Occasional voices of self-condemnation will arise, telling myself "you are going broke, you are not progressing anywhere as an actor, you want to have a family? Never". It will cause you to feel irresponsible and sometimes I do not know how to answer people when they asked so what do you do everyday as a freelance videographer? I thanked God at least I really enjoyed this period of time. I thanked Him because not many people can do what they loved and still be paid for it. I also tried to feel the peace, joy and love when I'm on set. I know its His favor that I'm selected. Although I have nothing to boast as most of all the roles are nothing worth mentioning, although some of the vids i shot are not broadcast publicly, I finally have more clarity of my priorities in life.

I have been sleeping much. I remember Stephen chow was asked, "When you were still doing small roles on tv and movies, not everyday you get to act, so what do you do most of time?" He answered "Sleep". "So that when the opportunites comes I'm engerised". What he actually said was quite true. Now that I had ample rest, I do realised that it is more easy to wake at 3am for wedding shoot and 5am for call time as opposed to when I had full time job.

Of course sleep was not the only take away from the interview. Stephen Chow mentioned that he spent a great amount of time reading and watching foreign films which means he did a great amount of research. The time came and he seize the opportunity and the rest is history. What seems like his "down" period was actually the period that solid foundation was build upon. Laying the foundation takes the longest time but when it is ready, Boy it will be a time of acceleration.

Not sure what to write now, coz having quite a mixed feeling now, wanted to rest yet on the other hand, I do feel a little excited to start my project, and at a slower pace. In my following post I hope to blog about the topic Acting based on my own research and observation over the years which i also want to document for future reference. Happy CNY:) Cheers!

Haircut

So I had nothing to do and I went for a haircut. I went to the usual salon that I visited over the years. To be exact 13 years. 13 years is a long time, and some of the hairstylists had come and go. It was a cozy evening and I had one of the longest serving hairsylists serving me. She is my favorite hairstylist, probably 10-15 years older than me, I dont know her name. She has been there ever since my first visit when I was 15 or 16 years old. There is this uncanny relationship that we have. Not that I have a crush on her but somehow she knew what kind of hairstyle I want and what style suited me. We never exchanged more than 2 lines of words. Our conversation are limited to what occupation i'm in and if i'm busy with my life.

I dont visit the salon all the time and not every time that I visited the salon I will get her to serve me. She might not be around or could be serving her off days. What prompted me to write was today's experience made me realised that this hairsylists that I had, always took longer time than usual to cut my hair. Not that she is slow but she always made more effort and I started to observe her attention to details. I was never bother by it because in today's context, everyone especially guys, want our haircut to be fast which is nothing wrong. But we never really enjoyed the process. After the haircut I felt fresh and good but not only that I felt she is different from many hairsylists. I could feel she really 用心 cut my hair which is different. She dont have to because after all the effort, my hair will grew just the same in the end and I still pay the same money but she did it anyway. Other hairstylists made me felt i'm just another customer, its just another haircut, its just a job, its just a service. I can't explained fully. I wanted to document it down because I hope when the opportunity arises I will like to make an artistic haircut scene much like wong kar wai style set in 60s/70s.

I once watched a food variety show on TV. Its about a unique hawker stalls that sells seafood bak ku teh. The chef shared that before he came out with this unique receipe, he was just selling bak ku teh. It was just like any other average stall. Not doing exceptional well nor bad. One day an Caucasian visited the stall besides his. It was a steamboat hawker, however on that very day the Caucasian visited, it was closed. He was a frequent visiter. He was disappointed because everytime he visits, he would bring along the fishes and seafood he caught to cooked on the steamboat. So he visited the chef stall and order ba ku teh. Then he put all his freshly caught seafood into the ba ku teh. The chef saw what he did and then invented the seafood bak kut teh. What favor! So after sharing his daily routine, recipe and story the host of the show asked, "Uncle so after you shared everything on the show, would you be afraid that people start to copy your recipe?". He answered "No no no I'm not afraid because I 用心 煮". When I heard it I was like wow what confident but at the same time what does he mean by 用心 煮? This puzzled me till now. Is it the attitude? But I know even if someone will to cook the same standard as him, over the years he had build good relationship with his customers, his food has also invoked a certain experience among the people. Thus I know his customers will not drop. Its amazing how sometimes our outlook and attitude in the small things we do can bring about such special experience to the people around us.

This article was written sometime ago but posted today