Monday, November 24, 2008

SHOOTING SOME NEAT SCENES IN THE NEXT TWO TO THREE DAYS

Tomorrow, my team and I will be going to Janda Baik to start shooting a very interesting project. I will be shooting videos for screening at Muzium Negara this December for their coming exhibition entitled Senjata Melayu: Antara Mistik dan Kesaktian (Malay Weaponry: From Mysticism to the Magical).
I will be shooting the massacre scene of wedding guests at Dayang's wedding in the famous Johor tragedy called Lembing Awang Pulang Ke Dayang. If you have heard of this 'fable', a famous spear master named Awang went amok when he found that his true love Dayang has been betrothed to his arch enemy Bachok. He took his famous 'lembing' and surprised everyone at the reception. This was because everyone thought he had died during his travels away from the kampung (Bachok had in fact lied to everyone about Awang's death so as to marry the beautiful Dayang).
At the wedding, and without as much as a hello, Awang vented his fury and speared 99 victims including Bachok (the first to die) and Dayang's father (the 99th victim). The spear stopped looking for victims after Dayang pulled out the spear from her dying father.
Another story t be shot will be that of famous communist fighter Kiai Salleh or Panglima Salleh, whose exploits, in Johore just after the war, has become stuff of legends. According to 'reports' Panglima Salleh (who sports a red scarf) can send his parang flying very far distances to seek his victims.
Another story to be shot is the story of how a Minangkabau Lord, in a fit of anger after quarreling with his half-brother, took out his keris and stabbed a rock piercing it. The famous rock, called Batu Bertikam, is now displayed in Padang, Sumatra, with life-sized replicas found in Seri Minanti and Museum Adat in Jelebu, Negeri Sembilan.
I am going to have a lot of fun visualising these scenes and will be employing some CGI to enhance some of the so-called magic in these stories.
Hopefully, these videos will be ready by the time the exhibition opens in mid-December.
I will of course post the scenes on YouTube and this blog.

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