Before my summer internship ended in September 2020, I jumped at the opportunity to lead the preproduction of a project that centres on the traditional Iban woven craft, Pua Kumbu. It was interesting, exciting even, to learn about the legacy of the craft and more fascinating to learn about the weavers themselves. The cloths are often design to tell pictorial stories of folklore and myths. It is believed that the Pua Kumbu cloths are spiritual and can act as protection to ward off harm and bad spirits. Hence, the process of making the sacred cloths is also treated divinely. However, the approach is becoming less religious and sincere with the surge of industrialisation where machines can weave cheaper cloths and more precise patterns than the ageing weavers. Not many longhouses still make Pua Kumbu the way their ancestors did. However, the weaving community in Rumah Gare upstream of Sungei Kain still tie dye their threads in natural dyes after mordanting them with the gifts of nature and prayers. At the top of the weaving hierarchy in the longhouse, was Bangie anak Embol.
PRE
For a month, I researched the craft and the particular village online. It wasn't easy to research a topic scarcely understood by scholars, much less the general public. Yet, I was able to find some useful resources about Pua Kumbu and Bangie Embol. At times, it was frustrating to find the various unverifiable or incongruous facts on Pua Kumbu. Other times, it was frustrating to find various interviews of Bangie Embol with repetitive questions and answers. The weaver is highly regarded in the craft world and is some sort of a celebrity who had been around the world to several big cities to exhibit her skills. As a result, she had been the topic of many news articles and featured in many journalistic videos. However, all the journalists constantly asked the same questions to which she will have a pre-rehearsed answer to. The questions were robotic so her answers weren't romantic either.
I was supposed to be involved creatively and plan the logistics in pre-production stage only but I decided to stay on for the production and post-production too. That meant that I would have to continue my work as a freelancer after my internship contract ends. That ALSO meant that I would have to skip the first 2 weeks of my second year in university to go on production. Well, education doesn't matter as much as experience in my field, right? :')
To get to know the location and character better, we travelled to Rumah Gare for a location scout. The scouting trio consisted of: Jacqie (client-exec producer/ da big boss), Sam (bossman & director), and I. We were a funny group with a representative each from the age groups of the 40s, 30s & 20s. We travelled by air, land and water to get to our destination. It took at least 8 hours to get there and another 8 hours to return to Kuching. Tiring? Yes, but at least I had good company to keep me entertained.
While I was there, I met the generational talent herself and was surprised by how calm and cool she is despite her star status. Bangie greeted us by the door of her longhouse unit with the customary tuak (rice wine) served by her fellow weavers. As the excited weavers buzzed around us, happy that Jacqie had returned to buy their cloths, Bangie was composed and quiet. The women ushered us inside and brought us refreshments and their recently woven Pua Kumbu pieces to show Jacqie. We sat in a huge circle around Bangie's living room as the weavers presented their new pieces one-by-one. Jacqie is an entrepreneur with a textile business selling traditional crafts and Tanoti is one out of many Borneon textile companies that buy their Pua Kumbu from the weavers of Rumah Gare. The villagers' sole income is generated by their cloth sales.
Sam & I didn't have much to do until after dinner. That was when our team had a meeting with Bangie and her family on the matted floor to coordinate the production that was approaching in a few weeks. Bangie's daughter, Rose, was particularly helpful in our discussion. She knew the in-and-outs of everything and could tell us precisely how much time was needed for each process or how best to shorten our production days. Bangie's stepsister, Helen, speaks English so she translated Bangie's opinions and explained many things to us but she often got distracted and doesn't always finish her sentences. Helen was the polar opposite of Bangie. One is boisterous and enjoys being the life of the party while the other is collected and humbly respected. From our conversations, we got to know the 'Dream Weavers' better and understand their design process. Have I never mentioned dream weaving? Okay quick one :
Helen and Bangie are known as dream weavers because they get occasional vivid dreams from deities to make certain Pua Kumbu storytelling patterns. They received many dreams since young and it used to happen more frequently until they got older. It is rare for weavers to achieve the titles of Master Weaver or Master Dyer but it is even rarer for weavers to be bestowed with dreams of motifs. Their family belonged to the lineage of dream weavers, they believe that one of their ancestors was visited by deities in a dream that blest her to have 7 generations of Master Dyers. Bangie has been the third or fourth generation Master Dyer for 40-50 years.
I didn't get to swim in the river during the tech recce but I remember thinking in the cold, heater-less shower :"I'll have to be living here for 2 weeks. No internet, no phone signal, no water heater, no luxury of 24/7 electricity..."I didn't feel discouraged by the environment though, it was quite the opposite. I felt exhilarated to be able to experience a different lifestyle without modern troubles. What I wasn't looking forward to however... was being mosquito & sandfly food for a fortnight 😰
Upon returning to Kuching, the remaining 2 and a half weeks of preproduction planning was a little easier with my recently acquired knowledge about the people and places. That doesn't mean that it was a complete breeze though, I had to update and work on many spreadsheets and lists. Production schedule, crew, equipments, interview questions, Audio-Visual board etc. We took visual and tonal inspirations from "The Last Honey Hunter" but initially planned to have Karen to do voiceovers for the whole content. After discussions, we realised that Karen can do a lot more than just voiceovers. Her journalistic background helped us shape the story outline and detect interesting points to emphasise on. Jacqie really struck gold when she brought Karen onboard.
We were all excited to pay the popular master weaver a fortnight's visit at Rumah Gare to shoot the documentaries. I say 'documentaries' instead of 'documentary' because our client's aim was to document both the process of Pua Kumbu making and the story behind the craft/tradition/weavers. We had a rough idea about how the story would be presented as a short documentary film of about 8 minutes and willing to build the final story along the way. The documentation of the cloth-making process on the other hand would be methodical and less glamorous as it is devoid of story to opt for an educational approach.
The evening before we embarked on our fortnight long trip, I had a terrible head-splitting migraine. It never happened to me before but I assume that the pressure to get everything right did something to me physically too. And conveniently when I had important dinner plans with my friends. It was extremely hard for me to put on a smile and enjoy the dry mala hotpot that they cooked when my brain felt like it was continuously squeezed by God Almighty's invisible hands. Maybe this is what the mythical Monkey King feels when his master chants the constricting spell that shrinks his magical headband. I guess I did wreck their merry plan a little but it was unintentional and I apologise for being such a party pooper. Earlier that day, I was nervously going through final checks in the office and Sam could tell that I was anxious. He reassured me that all will be good and that I did a great job. That took the edge off my stress but it apparently was still potent enough to give me such a headache. I feared that I wouldn't be able to get well in time to meet the 4am call time. Fortunately, I was able to sleep it off but I had to rush my packing just to squeeze in 3 hours of sleep.
PRODUCTION
Rendezvous at 4am at the office was dark and eerily quiet. This time, we planned to drive instead of taking the plane to get to the ferry waft in Sibu. However, our ride arrived later than scheduled and we had to speed through the terrible road conditions to get to our 12pm ferry ride in time. Most of us tried to sleep on the road but it was a rough ride as we needed to go fast on the roads still peppered with construction work and potholes. We couldn’t afford to miss the scheduled boat rides to the inlands!
At 9am, we stopped for breakfast at a hawker centre while passing through the town of Saratok. Some coffee, roti canai and chats later, we hit the road again. We managed to arrive at the wharf in Sibu in time at 2pm to board the last express boat of the day to Kapit. All the lighting equipments had to be stowed at the storage compartment of the boat which is…… on top of the boat. Can’t say that I’m not worried about water damage or loose knots but we had to trust the process.
2 hours later, we arrived at the Kapit wharf. Our baggages and kits thankfully didn’t suffer any damage or loss during transportation but Ben’s baseball hat had unfortunately gone with the wind when he poked his head outside for some fresh air as the boat sped through the river. We were greeted by Helen, who was appointed as our Rumah Gare coordinator and translator. She was joined by several men from the longhouse and from our sponsors who would eventually drive us in their 4x4 vehicles to our ultimate destination. After a quick tea break in a retro coffee shop in town, we buckled up for another car ride out of town and through the logging roads that will take us to Rumah Gare.
Thinking that we could finally rest after more than 12 hours of tiresome travelling by road and boat (it rhymes!), we finally arrived at our destination and were greeted by a sight that took us (me, especially) by surprise. Our entourage : Sam, Jacqie, Karen, Lam (cam op & editor), Anthony (grip, sound & onsite translator), Ben (photographer) & I just wanted to shower and collapse on the rattan mats but the villagers had other plans. As soon as we stepped foot into the longhouse right after our welcoming tuak (rice wine) shot, the villagers were ready to start their first procedure of Ngar. The women geared with headlamps lined up with their buckets of ginger and galangal in one hand and plastic brushes in another, ready to wash their ginger in the river as the sun starts to set. An odd pungent smell wafted through the air and it seemed to be originating from the tins of boiling concoctions outside the longhouse. Confused and panicked, we left our bags and luggages on the ruai floor as we hurry to prepare our cameras for the scene that was originally scheduled to be shot the day after. We had to be professional and get on with it as the weavers were all in high spirits. It would be rude and anti-climactic if we dampen their moods by asking them to wait till the next morning. I had to stop the women from going to the river before the cameras were ready and to go on my cue. The language barrier made it tricky but it worked. Even though we were caught off-guard, it was truly an amazing sight watching the huge community of women, young and old, filling up the river as they carried out their first task in the twilight. They then went back to the longhouse and brought their cotton threads to the river to be washed too.
The rest of the evening went by quickly as the weavers went on to do more tasks and eventually stopped after they had performed the ritual of stepping on their cotton threads submerged in the steaming troughs with the pungent concoction they had been boiling for hours. The ritual must have been quite an ordeal but they seemed to have gotten used to the heat beneath their feet after so many years of performing it. It was the start of the mordanting process that would take place for 2-3 days. Afterwards, we all showered and ate, appreciative of the rest that we finally had. After dinner, a Miring ceremony was performed to welcome our (spiritual) presence in the longhouse. We continued filming at 11PM when the weavers had to perform their repeated process of stepping on, hanging up and brushing the cotton threads every 3 hours. Learning from the day’s surprise attack, we set up a system to have nightly concluding meetings where we would discuss the day’s progress and the plan for the next day with the crew and weavers.
At 4AM the next day, the women got up to do the rounds again. Alerted by their stirring movements, I rushed into the living room to wake the boys.
Fun fact : the women had to sleep in the ruai throughout the whole 2 weeks duration of Ngar to “protect” the threads (not sure from what exactly) and that meant that Jackie, Karen and I had to sleep on thin mattresses on the ruai floor with the weavers. The guys slept on thin mattresses too but in the living room which was just a door away from us.
“GO TIME, BOYS!”
That was my cue for the crew throughout the production. We fogged up the area with what available resources we had - burning cardboard egg cartons - so that the light would look well dispersed and mysterious. The women were probably uncomfortable with the eerie set up because as they started their snaking path on the throughs, they were so quiet that all you could hear was the rustling of their clothing and the light squishing of the threads at their feet. It was an unsettling atmosphere that resembled nothing like the cheery way they did it the night before. Normally, they would chit chat and chuckle as they tread, however they were tensed this time. Not daring to speak a word or even breathe. Suddenly, Jackie broke the silence asking why they’re solemn and the women giggled nervously and exhaled with relief. We went back to sleep after that but the weavers woke up shortly after to go about their day.
Rumah Gare buzzes to life every morning just before sunrise. At 6AM, the weavers start to fold their mattress and gather their threads into yarn balls with little torches. Sometimes the men went out alone in the dark with their rifles to hunt. We were usually the latest to rise at 7AM. The second day was a busy day for the weavers and for us. They had to manually process the ingredients that will be used in the significant Ngar ritual of the following day. The women spent the day pounding ginger and other natural ingredients in huge wooden pestles and mortars, the musical rhythm of work started early in the morning as they all sat congregated in the ruai, pounding everything to fine salt and pulp. Some women sat around the troughs, squeezing the ginger pulps for its juice, their hands and eyes stinging from the spiciness of unending buckets of ginger. Us, on the other hand, had to document their preparation work and bring Bangie aside to tell us stories about their traditional craft and of herself. We set up the interviews and Sam kicked off with the pre-written list of questions but Karen took charge with her thoughtful unscripted questions. Halfway through the exciting interviews, I was sent outside to make sure that the residents and children outside the room were quiet so as to not compromise the recording quality. We were only able to understand the gist of what was said by Bangie because Anthony, who doubles as our translator, translates the essence of her Iban answers to avoid holding us up from longer precise translations. After we wrapped up the interview session and headed off to lunch, we started discussing the topics that popped up in the interview which developed into a discussion that changed the core of our story outline and lead us to set up yet another interview with Bangie. With that, we drastically changed the initial story outline and held our microscope to the untold stories that weren’t touched on by other recorded interviews with Bangie.
The interviews were very interesting. Everyone sat on the rattan mats listening intently to the wisened weaver’s answers. Karen’s excellent questions got into every nooks and crannies of Bangie’s riveting replies. We discovered that her relationship for Pua Kumbu is not as obligational as we thought, she loves her work and she has passion for creating her storytelling cloths. The conversations were so utterly fascinating that after we wrapped up our second interview, we quickly went straight back into another recording that extended from our dinner conversations later that evening. Our interview recordings in total ran for about 4 hours long. There were so many captivating things that Bangie said which had to be cut out from the final product but nonetheless earned our love and respect for the Master Weaver. That evening, the longhouse residents lined the ruai walls with endless strips of beautiful Pua Kumbu. Everything from family heirlooms to their newly woven cloths were hung on the wall to protect evil spirits from invading the Ngar event that will commence for 2 weeks starting from the next day. We rested early that night to prepare ourselves for the next hectic day to come.
The most memorable day was definitely the day they held the Ngar ceremony. 5.30AM and I was awaken by the joyous stirring around me. The outdoor makeshift wood fire stoves had already been fired up to boil the Air Gar (Ngar water). The weavers looked excited for the day, already holding up tumblers of homemade tuak and sharing it among their neighbours. Jackie was served two shots from the get-go while I tried to look asleep but ultimately exposed myself because I couldn’t hold back my laughter. I’ve never had a drink in the morning, which made it pretty interesting to be served a sweet shot of tuak in bed. It was a pleasant start to a pleasant day, not the sort of conventional breakfast-in-bed that you would expect but definitely a good experience to try out someday. Pua Kumbu weaving is one of the limited occupations that didn't mind people drinking on the job.
Day drinking aside, it was a hectic day for the weavers and us, production crew, alike. “Go Time” started early that morning. At 6.30AM, we were already running around filming the women carrying out their final preparations for the Ngar ceremony to be had at 10AM. The crew were all given a piece of Pua Kumbu each to wear as spiritual protection during the ceremony. Ngar ceremony went by in a blur as we scrambled to film the hour-long ritual starting from the Miring. The weavers dressed in their best clothes and Pua Kumbu to carry out the ceremony conducted by the Indu Ngar, Indu Takar or 'Master Dyer,' Bangie. All the weavers’ efforts of processing natural ingredients paid off during the ceremony as all salt, juices and oil were poured into a huge wooden trough and mixed into the mordanting solution. According to Bangie, the trough belonged to her grandmother who was also an Indu Ngar. To check whether the proportion and density of the mixture was right, she used a peculiar tool made out of turmeric chunks attached at two ends of a porcupine spike to measure it. It floated, and that was the good sign that they needed to proceed with the mordanting ceremony. The weavers stirred it up with wooden batons each and distributed it to the other soaking troughs.
As the weavers took their dripping hands out of the mixture, they started to lick it or smear it all over their bodies. That shocked us a little but I've seen it in a not-so-well-done documentary before so I thought I was prepared. I thought. Some weavers started to grab for Bangie's hands and suckled her fingers loudly or dip them back in the mixture to smear on themselves. The whole crew was stunned but managed to catch a few of the sights on camera. Bangie seemed entirely unfazed although slightly uncomfortable. She must have been used to the weavers getting her blessing that way after so many years as the reigning 'Master Dyer.' They later did a little prayer and song around the threads and troughs before soaking their threads into the natural mordanting solution cheerfully. The prayers were Christian as majority of the villagers had been converted to Evangelical Christians decades ago including Bangie herself. She is a proud believer in Christ who also believe that the gods and spirits of her ancestors' animistic faith coexists. When she changed the ritual prayers to Christian prayers, she was nervous that it wouldn't work but it worked to her relief. It was a challenge in her career years ago but it evidently worked both ways and allowed her to continue her traditions without religious self-conflict until today.
The weavers seemed unbothered to dip their threads into the steaming concoction and carried out their 'warpath' of treading on their hot, soaking threads with their bare feet. After that, they threw open the doors of the longhouse and rushed to the river to 'wash away bad/lazy spirits before it got to them.' Apparently, the faster you got into the water, the more laziness will be washed away from you. And it is also best to choose a spot upstream and away from the others so that you don’t get tainted with the laziness of other weavers that were washed downstream in your direction. The women, young and old, rushed to the river gleefully. It was a bizarre seeing elderly women running and squealing like children, leaving their protective cloths on the river bank to bathe in the cool water. While trying to catch up with the rushing flock, Sam wore an ill-fitted pair of slippers so which didn’t have much gripped and poor guy slipped and fell hard on the mossy steps leading to the river. It must’ve hurt a lot but he just stood up and continued his way down with his stabilised camera in one hand to film the women. What a hero. Lam was already down by the river with his camera rolling but he chose a dangerous position to be in : standing with one leg each in two long boats. When the women rushed into the river, the water was channeled to his direction which made both boats wobble badly as he tried his best to stay balanced to keep filming. Refreshing swims later, the weavers return to the ruai to celebrate with more day drinking!
My crew passed out by 2pm and it was all sorts of funny to be the only sober one standing. Well, not the only one because Lam didn't drink due to his alcohol allergy but that didn't stop him from taking a nap after a busy day at work capturing all the action. Anthony had a few loud snoozes in the bathroom and was eventually discovered by Helen when she took a bathroom break from performing sanggai muji (singing praise/poems). We were pre-warned by Helen a day in advance to not to take a nap that afternoon or the lazy ghosts will possess us for a year. It was too late when we realised that they’ll be drinking so much that it would be extremely hard to stay awake for the rest of the day. I'm not superstitious but I stayed awake just in case lazy ghosts are real. You know, I can't have lazy ghosts nipping away at my work efficiency while going into second year of uni. I tried to keep everyone awake too but Karen's cheery last words before her doomed nap on the couch were "they (lazy ghosts) have already gotten to me!" She didn't recall saying it after her nap but it's permanently imprinted in my mind. By 4pm, everyone was up and functional again. We took a dip in the cool river to wash off all the sluggishness from the delicious home-brewed wine. A tiny puffer fish took the task of properly waking Sam up into its own fin(?) by nipping him on the nipple. You just had to be there to witness the bewilderment on Sam's face when that happened. Even he had a hard time believing it.
On the fifth day of production, half the of crew headed back to Kuching. That left Jacqie, Lam and I to continue the rest of the 8 days of production. As usual, I was the slate or assistant director that made sure all the required shots are taken to be stitched together as the educational documentary. Jacqie stayed around to make sure she can get whatever she envisioned the documentary to be. She would ask us to add in more shots as we go and Lam would still be quietly filming away. Sometimes, I would join in on Jacqie's spontaneous
excursions to a nearby longhouse or an hour's walk to a spot with decent phone connection if we have a few hours to spare. It was a hilltop clearing where you have the view of a cell tower atop a distant hill. There, I called my parents to assure them that my hosts have been gracious at feeding us amazing home cooked food and that I was having a great time being internet-free. Once, I caught sight of a lone hornbill flying across the valley while I was on the phone with my father. It was my first time seeing the majesty of a wild hornbill in flight and I reacted by screaming into my phone about it. It’s pretty impressive how phone calls were just about as rare as catching sight of a protected species there.
Through the weeks, I have grown to love bathing in the river every evening. It became an essential part of my daily routine, one that I look forward to from the moment I opened my eyes in the morning, greeted by the goddess on the cloth hung on the wall. By late afternoon, I would gather my towel and soap to head to my beloved Sungei Kain to mandi sungai. I enjoyed sitting in the water cooling off while chatting with my fellow crew members as the children splashed around us, carefree. I also began to observe the sky, the trees, the water, even the stones beneath my feet. Feeling the water drifting by me every second, hearing the leaves rustling in the breeze and appreciating the fresh smell of the rainforest. This almost meditative habit cultivated my new-found love for nature and led me to truly appreciate the connection to nature and the contentedness it brings.
The river, Sungei Kain, is truly one of the most magical places I've seen. It is so pure and untouched by human pollution. Usually, the other places where we visit for hikes have contaminated water, rotten felled trees and the insidious feeling of corruption by people. In Sungei Kain however, you will feel a different energy. Powerful but affectionate is the river's current that carries you slowly downstream and washes away your worries. The trees shields you from the intense heat and glare from the sun, the sun's warmth like a hug from an old friend and the faint light illuminates the glowing pools of blues and greens. The vast forest teeming with life leaves you the fresh scent of the rainforest. Birds and insects sing at their hearts' delight as they join in the symphony orchestrated by Mother Nature. There, I realised that the rainforest is an entity, its power and nonchalance rendered my presence so tiny and unimportant compared to itself. However, it doesn't judge me for what I am, it invites me to be one with it. I've never felt a connection so strong to nature before. It had changed my perception entirely. Up till then, the natural environment had only been important to me because the textbooks and news headlines said so. But two weeks of living in the embrace of Sungei Kain gave nature a spiritual importance to me. I was so fascinated by its unexplainable might that I looked forward to bathing in it every evening. Every bath were like baptisms and were the closest experiences I had ever felt to divine encounter.
After most of the crew left Rumah Gare and headed back to Kuching, the production grew quieter and time seemed stretch on as the shooting schedule slowed down to the more time consuming dyeing-weaving processes. With nothing much left on the schedule, I spent my time getting to know the weavers and the children in the longhouses better. While Lam rolled his camera from time to time to capture every intricate processes, I would sit next Bangie as she wove at her loom. Her skilled fingers worked through the waft and the weft deftly. However, her body is worn down by age and arthritis which made weaving a lot more tiresome than it used to. By the end of each day, Bangie’s body would be sore from hurrying to complete her weaving as fast as possible so that we could film the processes and the end product. Right before bed, she would always turn to me for massages which I happily gave.
As days go by, Bangie became the grandmother I never had despite the fact that we barely share the same language. She would tell me things in Iban mixed with Malay and chuckled if I didn’t understand what she said. Similarly, I would speak to her in Malay and what limited Iban vocabularies I gained across my stay there. Bangie referred to me as ‘ucu’ (grandchild) affectionately and I would call her ‘inik’ (grandma) in the same singing tune she used which amused her.
When it came time to leave, I was sad to leave paradise and the people I had grown to love. It was weird to leave after being so used to living in Rumah Gare but I enjoyed the production closing party thrown by the villagers to celebrate the weavers' hardwork and our sponsors' generosity. The fresh tuak brewed by Inik was so sweet and pleasant, almost like Champagne with its light and bubbly texture.The weavers seemed glad that the work was over with huge success despite mordanting being such an intricate process. I even got to try weaving Pua Kumbu out by myself but I didn't do a very good job even after 2 weeks of observing. Here, I would like to extend my apologies to Patricia who graciously let me try weaving on her work-in-progress that took months to create. I'm sorry you had to fix the mess I made haha. I wasn't very sober then with all the celebrations going on.
POST
I had a case of the post-production blues for weeks after returning home. Main reasons include:
1. having to catch up with 2 weeks of class on top of each week's classes, 2. no more Sungei Kain bathes and sarong-wearing, and
3. EDITING.
While Sam, Lam and Karen worked on building the story from the interview transcripts and B-rolls, I had to keyword/organise the shots into the whole weaving sequence and edit rough cuts for the educational documentary. Sure enough, I was crushed by my workload and they were too. After months of working on the edits, they were finally satisfied with the final cuts of both documentaries to be presented to our clients. The back and forth to agree on every little details for the final products took forever. They had many adjustments that they wanted to make for the credits. At one point, the sponsor company decided to cut all our names from the credits. Their reason for it was that our crew "had no Iban members." They completely overlooked the fact that our tiny 7-person production crew comprised of Chinese, Kayan and mixed ...... all Sarawakians! And what about all the Iban men and women who were involved in the making of our cultural-preservation documentaries behind-the-scenes? Our post-production translator was Iban, they just wanted his name out of the picture much earlier on because they have a beef with who he is and what he advocated. It was an infuriating and hard lesson for us to learn about corporate culture in Malaysia leaving out credits to creatives for a way too late "inclusivity" concern. Who thought that they would use the racial differences as a reason to discredit our hardwork and creativity? They offered to give us participation certificates to acknowledge our work instead. What a terrible environment to cultivate the creative industry. Up till now, I still haven't received my "certificate of participation." Imagine the irony for us to work on an uplifting project that raises the theme of supporting local artists to be exploited ourselves.
Despite the hard pills swallowed in the production, I'm still immensely proud of the work that my team and I have done. My final task was done June, which was writing a case study of the project for Film Co. That one is more succinct and professional than this personal piece. This is more of a personal memorandum for the work I've done, the people I've met, and the places I've been. I also recorded two mandarin podcast episodes with my friends about my experience earlier on in November. Do give it a listen if you're interested:
Through the experience, I believe that I have achieved much personal growth. Learning how to slow down in the midst of all the hustle and bustle, pacing myself to work efficiently. Understanding that human connection isn't strictly limited by having the same language and background; and knowing that every art, no matter old or new, tells stories that should not be taken for granted. The more I learn about Bangie and her passion for weaving, the more I see the uncanny likeness in our team's love for filmmaking. The bottom line is...
We all share the love for storytelling. Our art and creativity are often taken for granted in various methods. However, we persevere tirelessly in our purveyance of telling brilliant stories with our artworks made with lots of effort and careful observations.
Enough words from me, here's the link to Film Co's page with the finished documentary short film and Karen's well-written copywriting introducing the project : http://www.thefilmmakers.co/case-studies/dreams-of-cloth-and-colour
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