This blog is the continuation of The Laksa Craze but more about my involvements in Kent Malaysian Society (Kent MSoc) & Malaysian Student Film Festival (MSFF) as well as the efforts my team & I made to develop Sarawak Laksa into a festival entry.
Recap
So while dealing with classes, finalising Dreams of Cloth and Colour, and working on Sarawak Laksa, I also had to deal with expanding Sarawak Laksa beyond my assignment submission. If you didn't read The Laksa Craze blog about the possible festival entry bit, here's a quick recap for you:
I was approached by my friend to ask if I'll be willing to head a production of my choice to participate in a film festival for Malaysian students studying in UK & Ireland universities. Considering that I was going into production for Sarawak Laksa, I agreed that I'll take up the responsibility of being the Kent MFilm Director. The catch was, I had to meet up with the committee of Kent Malaysian Society (who were all my friends) to pitch my production idea to them. If they give the green light, I'll be making Sarawak Laksa a film entry representative of the club into the festival. They weren't very enthusiastic during the video call pitch for reasons unknown to me. And like RuPaul's Drag Race, asked me to leave the stage while they deliberated.
Picking up from where I left off of the 'sub-plot' in the previous case study, my friend who was the President of Kent MSoc texted me after their discussion to tell me that I've gotten the MFilm Director role. It was a bitter-sweet moment for me because that meant that although I'll get to put my film out for more people to watch, I'll need to put the work in. The extra workload is quite hefty considering the minimum film duration for the festival is 20 minutes but my assignment's maximum time limit is 12 minutes. Aside from that, making an MFilm is the replacement activity to organising an MNight which has been the club's annual flagship event where club members come together to make a theatrical production. It was the glue that brought participating members closer together, a platform to create a home away from home when everyone was in Canterbury. While I was in Kent for a short 6 months in my first year, I joined the 2020 MNight production too and was able to meet many people as a fresher. I had a really great time putting up a great show with everyone and was grateful that it helped us, freshers, find our community in a foreign place. Naturally, it was also expected and required of me to be inclusive of all members as the director during a time when everyone was spread out across Malaysia & Kent. However, it was nearly impossible for me to organise a collaborative production when:
1. I was the only member in my city and state,
2. Most people were at home in their comfort zone and not desperately finding their community in a foreign environment,
3. Everyone was very passive about joining anything during the pandemic and endless lockdowns. And I don't blame them.
Big Brain Time!
Despite all that, I was certain that we were going to pull it off one way or another. (Bottom line is, I'll do everything by myself.) While I was in production and early post-production of Sarawak Laksa, I thought of all kinds of strategies that will allow me to recruit members everywhere and figured out a production plan that will somehow include everyone. Then I was off to talk to the MSoc committees to get their help for MFilm to happen. I set up weekly meetings on Saturdays so everyone in Kent and Malaysia can join in their afternoons or evenings without cutting class. Through the meetings, I was hoping that everyone can give their inputs on what we can do collectively and come to conclusions on how to work around the lockdown restrictions. For example, I planned to recruit members to join production through online game nights and socials open to all members where I can promote MFilm. I also came up with an elaborate remote production plan to either film in Kuala Lumpur or Canterbury where most members are. It was going to be a blind tasting session where blind-folded members would get a few mouthfuls of Sarawak Laksa and have to guess what they were eating. Then, they would get a reveal of what they ate and proceed to have an interview where they discuss how much they know about all kinds of laksa and which regional laksa is their favourite.
Virtual Social Attempts
So we planned online socials that were supposed to happen in November and December. Due to exams however, we had to push everything back to our winter break in December. We had one social. One. We played 'Scribblio' and there were very little people. It was ideal to recruit freshers as they would have more time to join the production and it usually helps them socialise with all members. But even after the promotional speech was done and recruitment emails were sent out, only 2 person signed up for the production and none had anything to do with being the camera crew. It was devastating and nobody within the MSoc committee could help with it either.
Workshops
Aside from the weekly meetings, my Saturday evenings were also packed full with the online filmmaking workshops that the festival provided to its participants. Many things that were covered were basics that I've learnt in film school. But I went anyways and picked up some tips from different speakers. I took notes, not for myself but for my future crew if I were able to recruit more for the additional blind tasting production. The film was already shot and edited into my assignment cut by December so it wasn't relevant notes that I needed.
The First Treatment
I spent the last 4 days of 2020 going through the proposal slides I made for my coursework and transformed it into the required first treatment documents. I sent in the PDF to the festival organisers on the last day of 2020 and proceeded to take a few day's break before going back into recruitment. I wanted to have more online socials planned to get more attention and people onboard so we planned an 'Among Us' social to be had in the new year.
New Year, New Plans.
Much to nobody's surprise, all the plans to film outside of Kuching fell through when cases spiked in both cities and lockdowns were implemented everywhere during the winter break. At the same time, the MSoc committee started giving up on attending the meetings and I can't blame them for that. They weren't keen on figuring out solutions for getting our overseas production done within Covid restrictions but I don't suppose I can expect them to share the same optimism as I do. If I were in Kuala Lumpur or Canterbury, I might have been able to physically do something about it (assuming that I would know more people if I hadn't spent my second year up till that point at home). I definitely can't set up a remote production without any crew. In the meetings, nobody had any helpful suggestions/actions to give or everyone was seriously questioning the possibility of making the film. It was also awkward to look at my own face in the calls and have no responses to my questions. All I could do at that point was to clench my jaw and force myself to push through the disastrous situations with a smile.
So I fell back to Plan Z: DIY it.
(A note from my production scribe. )
I had a chat with Ysabel from the festival and found out that the festival might be postponed until May. The decision was made because many MSocs were falling behind on their filming schedule with the stricter lockdown rules imposed by the UK government. I was relieved to hear that. There was no way I could recruit AND get everything done by March as they had initially wanted. Knowing that I had extra time, I went and focused on my essays due soon. Contrary to popular belief (within my family), I wasn't going to ignore my studies just so I can work on this project.
On the weekly meeting of 10th January 2021, we cancelled the 'Among Us' social because only 2 members signed up for our second games night. We had nothing else to discuss so the meeting ended swiftly after 10 minutes(?). Nobody, including myself, knew that it was going to be the last meeting. After that evening, I didn't even bother to host the weekly meetings that does nothing aside from demotivating me. Words that my family said to me was starting to come back and haunt me. Before I took on the role, I asked for their opinions on the matter. They told me that I would be wasting time and effort on unnecessary work. I waved the bad thoughts away, I didn't need to be kicked by my own memory when I'm already down.
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The Hiatus
For 3 months and 10 days, I stopped working on Sarawak Laksa. I needed a break away from the frustration of heading a crew-less production so I put all my brain power into classes as every normal student is required to. And on 20th March 2021, I finally gathered enough courage to face it again. To be honest, it was only because the May deadline was cutting close.
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Back-to-Work Season!
Diving back into the edits again wasn't fun. I assure you that you wouldn't want to be my friend during that time. I was stressed out over not having any crew (except for Cheyenne & Alee), had given up on the notion of the blind tasting shoot, and busy over classes. However, I knew what had to be done and steadied myself to power through it.
Producing again?!
Producing is fine. Directing is also fine. Editing, not so fine but manageable. However altogether, I was utterly destroyed by the workload. I love people and interacting with them but having to recruit & coordinate everyone and everything while working on the edits was frustrating. I spent too much time sitting at my desk with Whatsapp and Outlook on all day but it felt like I didn't do any work at the end of the day. Sadly, I had no choice but to carry on with my multiple roles as I still lacked the manpower to be able to focus solely on editing.
The Muzik Band
The first thing I did plunging back into MFilm 2021 was emailing the music right owners. I emailed artists and their recording companies asking for their original music usage permission to in my documentary. I even had a formal email translated into traditional mandarin by my OG friends Jacq & Tracy to send to Teresa Teng's recording company. Weeks later, none of the receivers replied and I take it as a sign to forget about getting their blessings for it. So, I put the back up plan into motion... getting original covers! I got a team of friends from Kent MSoc who did the music performances in MNight 2020 together and planned a cover for Sarawak and Story of a Small Town each. I didn't bother covering the two other songs because they didn't flag up any copyrights issue (I'm eternally grateful for Puan Sri Saloma, Dato Sri P.Ramlee and Andrewson Ngalai). However, I was adamant on the cover of Story of a Small Town to be oriental orchestral music so I had hired someone else to do it aside from our MSoc Music team. Zach, Aishah and Lee Yi did a superb job of covering the songs. The covers didn't have the same exact tempo as the original songs (as it should be, naturally) so I had to spend much necessary time syncing cuts to their music covers.
The next thing I did was recruiting a Media and Marketing group to handle all the MFilm Promotion that I can't handle on top of the work I already had. The immediate person that came to my brain was:
CHEYENNE, a Legend
I have had, I would say, a long working relationship with Cheyenne at this point. She made up my actors for free in the Chemical Burn assignment and we were both in the production of MNight 2020 (I was a cast and she was one of the dance choreographers). She also saved my ass once in first year when she took a look at my presentation slides design, sighed, and went off to work redesigning it... at midnight. It was so good but unfortunately, I wasn't a good presenter and my points weren't great so I didn't initially get the votes to be MNight Director 2021. It was a freak accident for MFilm 2021 to fall into my lap when I had no intention of taking it up. But Chey, ever gallantly and far-sightedly, recognised the catastrophic responsibility required and tried to protecc me from it when she opposed asking me to direct MFilm 2021. However, I wasn't smart enough to see all the red flags and back off. Cheyenne, if you're reading this; I apologise for dragging you down with me when I took up the offer but through it all, I really appreciate you and your efforts, my sayang. 🥺❤️
Throughout MFilm 2021, Cheyenne had been generously assisting me in many ways even though she advised strongly against carrying it out at first. She was manning MSoc's social media pages and helped me design amazing posters to put out for the socials as well as providing inputs during the meetings for the virtual social programmes. While nobody wanted anything to do with MFilm, she was a great source of mental support when I felt down about the production. I imagine that I must've been a whiny screaming Mary Jane from the original Spiderman trilogy and Chey as the suave Peter Parker saving my ass every time. When I asked if she could be my Media & Marketing Officer, she took it without hesitation even though she had her plate full with work and classes. And for that, I dub her the official MVP Superstar and Ultimate Ride-or-Die of MFilm 2021.
As the Head of Media and Marketing, Cheyenne planned the templates and marketing schedule for social media promotional posts. Subsequently, she also did the coolest thing of getting everyone's photos and editing it onto the Ho Joo coffee shop background photos that I took and sent to her. We were only informed on the exact date and time of our film screening slot a month plus before the festival and Cheyenne had to scramble to replan it which she handled really well. I trust her with my whole life and was really confident in everything that brilliant mind of hers churned out so I refrained from micromanaging her work. There was honestly nothing more that I can ask of Chey. She did everything without complains throughout her exam season!
Our youngest addition to the team was:
CASSIDY, a Gem
As I've always wanted to, I managed to get one fresher onboard! Unlike her peers, Cassidy has never been to Canterbury throughout her first year due to the pandemic but the ballsy girl signed up as a candidate for the social media officer of Kent MSoc (in other words, Chey's successor). 5 days after I resumed my work on MFilm, the club had its annual AGM to elect the next batch of committees. As a "committee," my presence was required so I attended it with my comfy-but-I-mean-business knit sweater and cozy sweatpants. And there she was presenting her case on why everyone should elect her as the next Cheyenne. It was the only position that had two candidates whereas the other positions only had one candidate each so the only intense competition existed here. Cassidy started her pitch nervously after her competitor explaining that she's never seen anyone in the call before and that she has a tattoo of her dog, Mittens, which she flashed quickly. I couldn't stop smiling because her nervousness can be felt through the screen and it reminded me of my disastrous presentation with Cheyenne's amazing slides a year ago.
Soon after, she took us through her expansive portfolio. She had done everything from street art to an online clothing customisation business to social media handling internships. Her talent and potential caught my attention. Truth be told, as a Kent MSoc "committee," I hadn't gotten my membership and had no rights to vote in the election. I only found out about that after the AGM but my mind was already set on getting Cassidy onboard MFilm. A few days later, I texted Cassidy to see if she would be interested to join us and she was quick to respond with a yes. And that, was how Cheyenne and I adopted the very talented Cassidy.
Cass has a great eye and tastes for designs. As the Graphic Designer, she worked well with Chey & I to generate the poster designs and aesthetics. More precisely, I tell her what I might be looking for, she pitches to us whatever concept she has in mind, and Chey gives the thumbs up. Similarly, her designs were top notch and I could only nitpick on what verbal details should be added. We were so incredibly lucky to have stumbled upon our little gem, Cass, who willingly lent her time and talents to MFilm. Once even working into 1AM with me trying to get every worded detail spaced pleasantly within a promo poster.
The Powerpuff Girls and Professor ALEE
I couldn't have gotten word out about Sarawak Laksa without Chey & Cass. They knew when best to post the promo media and we would always brainstorm the captions together. Usually, I'll draft up a food punny line and they'll rephrase it to make it sound better whilst adding a dash of the right emojis. And of course, Alee was appointed my supervisor because she knows all about filmmaking AND promoting MNight/MFilm as one of the MNight 2019 Directors. She gave me great advise on what would be interesting to put out as marketing campaigns and I do as she says if I have the time to spare. So there you go, less than 6 weeks until the deadline and I managed to form a 4-person girl group across Microsoft Teams and Whatsapp! (Although I only consulted with Alee in private and she never worked with Chey & Cass directly. Here's the poster that pays homage to our girl group.)
Edit
Over the hiatus, the festival had announced that the festival entry minimum duration would be lessened from 20 to 15 minutes to accommodate the MSocs struggling to shoot and produce enough footage. I had suggested the change during a participants and organiser's general meeting before the hiatus. It was met with much support from other MSocs and later granted to our relief. That meant that instead of extending my 11minutes 15seconds film with 9 minutes of footage (meant to be filled by the blind tasting production that had been abandoned), I could just add 4 minutes into the assignment cut by spacing out the content and adding transitions. It was a good sign for me because in my opinion, the assignment cut was a relentless feeding of information that needed more intervals for the audience to breathe and digest the film (all food puns intended).
And so it began once more, the editing phase. Endless hours of looking through the same footage just to find the right problem to fix with the best-feeling solution. I say that because editing depends too much on gut feelings, the type of instincts that I lack severely to get things smoothen effectively with as little time as possible. Everyday I sat at my desk, hunched over my tiny laptop with terrible posture and squinting obsessively at every millisecond's cut difference or every decibel's sound balance difference. I even went and dug out more footage previously unused to fill in the blanks or make better audio-visual associations.
Skimming through my previously edited film, lots of the cuts felt amateurishly choppy to me. Maybe I was magnifying all the flaws from an editor's perspective or that I wasn't really good at it yet. So I watched several food documentaries and dissected their editing to sharpen my instincts, namely, the wonderful Netflix documentary series Street Food: Asia. Going into it, I didn't think that I would get so emotionally invested in it. But watching the stories about the food, the street vendors, and their families, I was more often than not sobbing at every episode. I learnt more than what I had bargained for, which is the storytelling technique of strong characterisation even though the subject is an inanimate object. It was helpful to learn about how the filmmakers brought out the emotions of the people surrounding the street dishes to give the viewers something to relate to. As much as the documentaries were factual and informative, they were also sentimental and heartwarming; giving it more weight and impact than if it were purely 'infomercials'. Thinking back now, I can't remember much of the dishes and their facts but I can recall vividly the challenges that the street vendors and their family had to go through to make a successful career out of their humble occupations.
Editing PTSD?
For reasons unbeknownst to me, I started to develop a kind of cyber-sickness. Two hours into editing and I'll feel extremely nauseous; gagging and retching as if I needed to turn my stomach inside-out. It was so terrible it hindered the time that I was able to spend recutting the film. I had less than 2 months until the final film deadline and many essays to write for my classes. Somehow, all the deadlines decided to stack upon each other across the same weekend. I desperately needed my body fixed but I didn't know how because I had no clue what caused my 'laptop-allergy.' My best guesses were and still are:
the blue light emanating from the screen and absorbed by my eyeballs made me sick;
the stress, duh?
I obviously couldn't fix my stress. The pressure wasn't something that I could control even though I tried meditating. Meditation helped clear my mind but it couldn't stop my gag reflex from repelling editing. So I turned my attention to the blue light theory. I had a pair of glasses with anti-blue-light lenses made which arrived almost before the end of the whole editing phase so I couldn't test whether my theory was right. Although, I did stop retching from looking at the screen after I got the glasses AND stopped editing. I will never know why exactly I was cyber-sick but I hoped the glasses were the ultimate solution. I don't want to spend so much money on not fixing a problem that will reoccur when I work on future projects.
Not So Content Producing Contents
The editing phase this time around wasn't simply re-editing the film. The festival organisers required each participating MFilm Team to produce an official trailer and a director's interview. With no additional editing crew to deal with all that, I had no choice but to do it. It did give me the opportunity to learn about how cumbersome editing trailers are. I had to do a comb through of the film that I got so numb editing to find the best lines and best visuals to stitch together a cohesive short clip. And hopefully, it would be appetising enough for people to want to spend money on the festival tickets to watch it. No matter how I tried editing it, I kept thinking that the trailer looked and felt wrong. It... didn't feel like a trailer. So frustrating!!!
Trailer is an art form of itself and has its separate set of storytelling techniques that is highly effective. I've been editing documentary films for quite a while so I didn't possess the skills to edit anything else apart from documentary-like films. As always, I turned to look for all the reference I can find on how to make good trailers. The similar patterns that I found were the constant use of SFX droning noises and fading in & out of black. So I tried it on my own edits. What bs I learnt from observing other trailers! The fades just looked pretentious and droning noises are out of the picture because I do not intend to market it as an action film. Even though I've had all the visual and sonic ingredients ready for making a trailer, I was grasping at straws figuring out how to make it trailer-like while staying true to its film style.
While editing, I thought it would be funny if I took all the times the words "Sarawak Laksa" or "Laksa" are uttered in the film and stitched it together in a montage. It'll perfectly sum up the film and make the trailer pretty self-explanatory. So I set out and spent a few afternoons picking out the words from the dialogues and listened to my compilation of "laksas." As I listened to all of it played one after another, I found a strange humour in the musicality of it. That was also around the time I've been learning about Schaeffer's Musique Concrete so I decided to build the opening around that fun idea.
I ended up with 2 trailers, one as the official trailer that can only be posted by the festival organisers and another shorter version or "bite-size trailer" for our own social media account. I did the bite-size trailer under Alee's advise to have a shorter one that doesn't give away too much of the film while able to capture its essence that can pique audiences' attention. I did try to make it as concise as I could but Alee claimed that I might have been able to clip it even more. The end products do still pay homage to the signature trailer form with some sort of fades and a little part where I snuck in the SFX droning sound that I just realised can only be heard if you blare it loud enough or plug in headphones. The editing is still choppy but I think we can all agree that the bite-size trailer is better than the official.
Go ahead and compare them if you like:
VS
I pressed on to make the Director's Interview after the official trailer was done and dusted. I had been sent a few questions for the interview that I wasn't keen on doing. It meant more time and effort needed to spend on MFilm and less on my essays. Nevertheless, I still did what had to be done. Having to do it all alone again, I typed my script out to prevent myself from going off into an unending improvised ramble and set my camera up in a corner of my room with the best natural lighting from my window. As we all know by now (or not), I have a certain cynicism in my thoughts and expressions. That, combined with all my pent up frustrations of making MFilm certainly equals my long ass speech about how difficult it was for me to work on the project. Hopefully all my niceness got a redemption arc with all the nice things I had to say about people who have helped me throughout the journey. I couldn't have pulled through without the mental and professional support of certain individuals. I forgot to thank the festival people but I hope they know that I appreciate their efforts to build a film festival from the ground up. I also forgot to introduce myself because they didn't list it in their questions but ah well. If you know, you know.
I was able to get a week's extension to tinker with the final film a little longer. As soon as I submitted both my essays to my lecturers on May 10th, I hit the ground running re-colour grading Sarawak Laksa and adding more scenes to it. Subsequently, I met my extended deadline and proceeded to cut together more promotional teasers as suggested by Alee. Before I even started on my official trailers, I already had a few teasers cut out as my "pre-reveal" teasers. That is, teasers that can be posted before our MFilm was officially announced on our social media. Nobody else knew about Sarawak Laksa before we announced it on Kent MSoc's Instagram account so it was a nice way to introduce the project without having to go into it directly. I'm not sure if it did the work of enticing the curiosity of audiences and garnering more attention but I certainly enjoyed editing them.
Well yes, editing the film and trailers weren't my favourite activities. But somehow, there's a charm in putting teasers together. They're like little windows into the film and it didn't even have to be footage from the film itself. Many footage that I didn't end up using in the film got their spotlight in the teasers. Not having the teasers be directly referential to the film provided me an escape away my frustrations. After the film deadline, I worked on even more teasers. One each for every cast member and musical performers. The teasers to me, were fun little playgrounds for experimentation that doubles as marketing media. Instead of doing the bare minimum of posting photos of them plus introductory captions, I could make fun expository videos of them, presenting themselves as their "authentic" selves (assuming that they're not deliberately acting for the camera). It's a shame that I wasn't able to make crew member teasers but we were all in different parts of the world and I had no footage of them.
If you're confused about the sequence of our editing workflow after the hiatus, it's:
Final Film
Pre-Reveal Teasers
Official Trailer
Final Treatment (Documents)
Posters, Photos & other marketing media (Chey & Cass' departments)
Director's Interview
FINAL Final Film
Bite-size Trailer
Cast & Performers' Teasers
Award Ceremony Recap Montage (Last minute requirement from the festival organisers.)
Original Music Cover Lyric Videos (Edited after festival ended.)
Wow. I just realised that for a person who resents editing......
That's a lot of editing.
Buy a Ticket Por Favor?
Marketing was also a hell lot of producing. We've been given a minimum quota for the ticket sales so I put on my producer pants and went to work. Once again, Outlook became the app with the most recorded screen time of the few weeks leading up to Sarawak Laksa's screening as I tried to email every lecturer and university clubs that I know to help with promotion. Many of my lecturers were kind enough to get tickets even though they won't be available to watch the screening or help circulate my promotional posters around. I also texted many friend groups to see if anyone would be interested to watch. Most of my friends were excited to support me even though they've watched it many times during my editing trial and errors. Some family friends responded swiftly to get tickets to the festival which they don't know how to log on to watch. It warmed my heart to receive so much support from people who didn't even know what they were rooting. They were just willing to support me whichever way they can.
I will never forget my first ticket buyer. I was visiting ex-boss Sam at his new office to talk about the Dreams of Cloth & Colour case study. Sam's colleagues and long time collaborator Ray was hanging out there too. They asked me what I've been up to so I told them about the screening and asked if they would want to watch the online festival. Ray took a look at the website and proceeded to purchase his ticket without hesitation. It was an unforgettable moment for me. I even took a picture of him in that moment. My very first viewer-supporter:
Weeks of email threads didn't get me enough publicity as I had hoped for from bigger institutions to optimally boost the ticket sales. It might have worked better if I had emailed them much earlier or had someone else better to do it. Nevertheless, I appreciate whatever help I've received despite my screening week having one of the weakest ticket sales out of four. Thinking big, I also steeled my guts and went to DM a few local artists & filmmakers to test the water. Sharifah Amani and Amanda Nell Eu didn't respond to my messages; Noh Salleh said:
Out of many I approached, one person was generous enough to respond with support! That person was: Edmund Yeo!
Honestly, I don't know why he bothered to reply to a nuisance like me but he did and even got himself a ticket to watch Sarawak Laksa. I was surprised to have Edmund as my audience after having watched all his films except for the latest one (banned locally because his films have political views that make the gov feel insecure). It was mind-blowing and embarrassing at the same time to have an established filmmaker look at my student film. I respect his efforts to support my work and share his experiences of working in the industry later on in our chats.
Pa, Ma, I'm on TV!
On the evening of the screening, we had a family dinner and watched the films together over tea and cakes. I was anxious for everyone to tune it from all around to watch Sarawak Laksa. I didn't want to let them down especially after they've spent money on it. My slot was the short one stuck between UCL and Cambridge's MFilms. Up until Sarawak Laksa played, I was feeling nervous about it's debut to a larger audience. But as soon as it started playing, I felt numb.
I don't know. I can't really describe how I felt in the moment. Looking at the fruits of my labour airing on my living room TV to an international online crowd felt like just another familiar replay of my edits while I was working on it. Nothing surprised me. I could remember every dialogue uttered, every frame of the film flashing by, every piece of music I handpicked, every cutting choice I made...... I thought I would feel really proud to have it finally out there. But there I was sitting on the living room couch feeling nothing. It was odd to expect emotions and reactions to arise but is met with a wave of nothingness. It almost felt awkward to me when my proud family members started talking to each other over my interview that played right after the film.
While I was still grappling with my unexpected reaction throughout that half an hour, my phone exploded with streams of messages. As I read through the kind words of friends and family friends, the anxiety and emptiness receded. It was the best feeling to hear people tell me about how they resonated with the films and is reminded of the warmth of home. That was all that I needed to feel at peace with my work and effort. People that I didn't know prior to the screening also approached me with their kind words. I was able to network with them like a real film festival even though we've never met each other face-to-face.
My family's response to the screening was subtle. My dad was low-key beaming, he patted me on my head and headed off to sleep early. My brothers and my mom were chatty that evening and had much wine but they didn't talk about the screening much. At that point, they've also seen Sarawak Laksa enough times to not feel a thing. Lest we forget, my mom and dad were my designated chauffeurs when I was in production so they were present offscreen throughout half of the shots I took. Dad even had two cameos in the film and my eldest brother shrieked in excitement when he spotted Dad.
Tapao
| tapaʊ |
Noun, verb
(informal, Malaysian slang) Takeaway, usually for food.
The festival's closing was a week after Sarawak Laksa's screening. My family was having our simple Sunday dinner in our pyjamas fashion as I connected my laptop to the TV again to stream the ceremony. My friends were logged in all over Malaysia, Canterbury, Taipei and Melbourne to watch it together. The hosts and judges had arrived at the first award category in no time. I was anxious yet again, my appetite for the simple dinner I cooked gone as I abandoned the dinner table to listen more carefully to the awards that they were announcing. My family has a habit of talking at the top of our voices all the time so I had to leave the table or else I wouldn't be able to catch the soft words spoken by Vincent, the film scoring judge. I wasn't expecting much from the awards ceremony so I was startled when he announced Kent MSoc (Sarawak Laksa) as the Best Overall Soundtrack winner. I was delighted to hear it! I did a little dance to celebrate my musical choice adamance. When I turned around to look at my family, they seem to be beaming slightly even though they weren't sure what we've just won.
Moving on from the film score category, I went back to sit at the dinner table because Sarawak Laksa wasn't considered for the screenplay and acting awards that were announced subsequently. I tried to enjoy my food but I was still anxious about the awards ceremony. With so many friends tuning in, I didn't want to disappoint but this was just outside of my control zone. In retrospect, I don't think that Sarawak Laksa deserved to be disqualified from the screenplay awards. I, too, put a lot of time and effort into writing the documentary throughout the whole filmmaking process of ideation, pre-production through to post-production. I don't think they understood how much work I put into "writing" it and shaping the story especially in the edits. However, Sarawak Laksa was the only non-fiction short film out of all 12 festival entries and I couldn't be judged on par with the others.
In the production category, Sarawak Laksa proceeded to receive several awards that I wasn't sure how I should feel about. Out of the 3 production awards awarded to us, 2 of it were "Second Place" and the 1 that was "First Place" was a "Joint First Place." From my perspective,
1. it's weird to have 3 hierarchal places for film awards, consolation prizes shouldn't exist in festivals?
2. tie awards rarely happen in film awards?
3. I've only won half a production award if I discount the "Second Place" wins and being one-half of a "Joint First Place."
My mind and emotions were confused for quite some time while my brain did the complex math. The short film, Love, Lisa, that dominated the First Place production awards had well-deserved wins. Their film stood out as my personal favourite out of the rest. I am thankful for the awards, but are they something I should be proud of deep down?
Sarawak Laksa was called again near the end of the ceremony and I was snapped out of my whirlwind state of mind. It was the special award of Best Malaysian Culture Film. Can't say that I didn't see it coming. Considering all the other fictional films, it didn't come by as a surprise to anyone that a documentary about local dishes and local culture bagged this special award.
I claimed that I haven't much expectations. However, the one award that I was looking forward to was the Best Overall Production. When Ysabel announced the award categories in a meeting 2 weeks before the festival, she referred to it as "the heavyweight award that everyone should look out for." Well, we didn't get it. Love, Lisa wasn't either one of the 3 places that took it home either even though their team had the most professional production in my opinion. I could only pout in disappointment but I do applaud the winners too because they did do an amazing job coordinating a huge ensemble cast to film in their own rooms with a high quality end result. Something, I obviously didn't manage to do.
The closing ceremony ended with the voting session for the audiences' favourite award. I looked at the voting form and dismissed the thought that I'm being biased when I tapped on Sarawak Laksa and submitted my vote.
As the streaming platform had a live chat function, many of my friends were really active and vocal in showing their support. I felt guilty that I wasn't able to read the comments during the stream and thank them personally because my laptop was hooked to my TV and I was far away from it at my dining table. However, I did take the time to read it post-stream. I don't know how they do it but they managed to make it entertaining AND heart-warming at the same time. It got me to realise that the awards don't mean a thing compared to the love I get from my friends. Jacq even kept count of Sarawak Laksa's wins while I had difficulty recalling the awards.
Mom & Dad beamed more and more with every time Sarawak Laksa was called. Even more than their post-screening beam. My brother looked at me with his exaggeratedly huge eyes and said, "Oh no! You're in charge of taking care of my expenses in the future! I don't want to work anymore!"
What a drama queen.
It's funny how my family only takes notice of the things that I do when other people notices first. But that's okay, at least they did recognise my efforts at the end of the day. I owe them my thanks for the opportunities that I get because of their ability to help me pave the way for a better future. They may not always be enthused with the choices that I make but they always come around to support me no matter their initial oppositional stance. They are the reason that I have so many silver-linings to count.
So my whole tapao (takeaway) from this festival experience is surprisingly holistic. On the surface, I have a few awards to mark my efforts; but underneath the layer, there are newly acquired practical work skills and soft skills. There is also the realisation that work can be so frustrating sometimes that I need the right people around me to pick me up and dust me off to continue my work. And the realisation that I am blessed with many people that were able to tolerate my whiny ass, no matter friends or family. People that would do anything they can to help me. And the new awareness that I should learn how to be kinder to these people who were there to embrace my lows and share my highs without wanting to take credit for their support.
By the way, Sarawak Laksa also ended up with most votes for Best Audience Award. It really took me by surprise and I would like to thank all my friends and voters for being so supportive!
Here's the whole Sarawak Laksa playlist on YouTube. Everything from the final final film to the promotional materials are all in it.
Final final film also available to watch here if you don't want to go through the whole playlist:
(I wrote a post-project report so that the next batches of Kent MSoc members can take advises from the ex-MFilm and MNight creators and navigate through their own MNights better but I won't leave it here because it's for their eyes only. )
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