BALI ARTS FESTIVAL

Today is my fourth day in Bali. Arrived late Friday afternoon with my wife and settled in at the rather quiet but beautiful Segara Vilage Resort in Sanur. My friends wanted to know why I'm staying in Sanur when the action is in Kuta, and I said "Exactly!".
I've been to Bali many times, and after my first few tastes of Kuta, I try and avoid it if possible. I'd rather be in relaxing Sanur or in the cool airs of Ubud. Just one night in Kuta is more than enough.
Anyway, this trip, I wanted to catch once again the colorful Bali Arts Fest in Denpasar and Sanur is much nearer.
The Festival, now in its 30th year, is one of the most spectacular events in our region - if anyone loves culture, performing arts and anything Bali, they should make it to the festival which runs for one month.
It opened with a spectacular 5 kilometer parade of Balinese dancers (albeit with one colorful Korean dance troupe). I have never seen so many beautiful dancers in one event ever before - yeah, I know the Mardi Gras has more skin. I think there was at least 1,000 dancers that walked the parade in their beautiful outfits - and they weren't just walking, they were performing the Lenggong, the Barongan and other beautiful dances. The musicians too were marching down the Renon street right in front of the massive monument dedicated to the sacrifices of the Balinese people.
The Indonesian President Bapak Susilo Bambang Yudhiono was present to witness the parade.
I was lucky to get a vantage view of the parade as I went early (five hours early to be exact) and sat in a small restaurant secluded right behind the main podium. When the parade started all I had to do was walk 2 meters and I was right in the middle of the parade.
(I will post some pictures soon and also maybe a video of the parade)
That night, the festival began in earnest with the grand opening at the Artha Hall at the Denpasar Festival Grounds. Thousands came as did the parade.
The festival will run everyday until July 12th. There are at least 12 performances everyday on the grounds from 10 am in the morning. In between the performances, the grounds are filled with various stalls selling jewelry, batik, souvenirs, traditional items, DVDs, toys, food and drinks and everything else Bali. My wife, Puteh, had a grand time on Sunday at the site - buying herbal stuff and natural oils.
She did that alone because I was playing golf with some friends at Handara Kosaido Golf Course up in the hills of Bedugul.
She returned to KL on Monday and left me all alone. Heheheheh. Well, I did say I wanted to stay on to see more of the festival and I did. And it is excellent - the music, the color, the dance, the smells, the beautiful clear skies of Bali and the bright singular full moon shining down on the island of Gods.
I love this place. Maybe I should write a story and produce a TV series about this little wonderful island.
I will write more when I get the chance to. This time around, I'm writing in a Gloria Jeans cafe in Kuta (like I said - if I have to come to Kuta, I have to).

FRIDAY THE 13TH

As luck would have it, tomorrow is our last day of shoot. Due to technical problems we stopped our shoot in Mini Malaysia, Ayer Keroh last Sunday. After much discussion with my production team and my post production outfit, we decide that we only needed to shoot minimal scenes tomorrow and in KL area.
So, having said that, I did not know it would be Friday the 13th. Guess, in these terms, we will be shooting Episode 13 of Bilik No. 13 on Friday the 13th - damn lucky! Cool or what!!!
Anyway, I won't be helming these last scenes tomorrow. I will be going to the land of Gamelans and Ktjak - Bali tomorrow morning for 8 days.
On Saturday - the opening ceremony of the Bali Arts Festival begins in Denpasar I do not want to miss out on the spectacle.
My wife, who celebrated her birthday yesterday, will be coming along.
Luckily for you guys, Bali is very wifi friendly and I can update my blogs from there.
Oh ya, for Bilik No 13 fans, and also those who follow my other series, Dapur Bujang, I've started blogs for both of them - bilikno13.blogspot.com and dapurbujang.blogspot.com. I will not write much more about the series in my blog as that will be taken up by their respective blogs. I have other stuff to write about in my own blog, ya...especially things like last Tuesday's meeting with the new Information Minister Y.B. Dat0' Ahmad Shabery Cheek at IPTAR, Angkasapuri.
To everyone, Happy Friday The 13th.
Ciao!!!!

GADO GADO GOING BALLISTIC!

The re-screening of my comedy series Gado Gado (early 90s) on Astro has surprisingly caused some sort of sensation. Gado Gado fans have been texting on the show, and to friends, and to the original casts of Gado Gado on how good the series were. Heheh angkat bakul sendiri dah.
Unfortunately, the series on Astro has been running during my current production shoot of Bilik NO. 13 and therefore I missed the telecast.
However, to my delight, someone has actually recorded it and downloaded it on Youtube including the series pilot episode!
So for all you fans out there - below are some of the sketches we did that made Gado Gado a household name in the early 90s. (Apologies to Double Vision, Astro and RTM)

GADO GADO - PILOT EPISODE - TELECASTED ON DEEPAVALI DAY 1992

COITUS INTERRUPTUS

For those who knows what the above term mean - I apologise but its actually how I felt when my camera went on the blink at 2 am in the morning of Sunday with three hours of night left to compete episode 11 (Kelab Malam/Kelab Ronggeng).
Day One of the shoot was already scrapped because I didn't like the location. So I had two days to complete the episode which stars Eman Manan and Harun Salim Bachik.
We went to Mini Malaysia and the location we selected was ideal. We began smoothly and was onto our second day of shoot, when things went awry.
The make-up department informed me that the latex for the special make-up had finished, and they could only make up the artistes once, and that's it. So I had to reschedule all my scenes.
That however was the least of my problems. Apart from the casting of Eman, Harun and Kamal Bakar, I wasn't impressed nor pleased with the casting of the three vampires.

Eman and Harun in action in ep. 11

My requirements were they had to be beautiful, sexy and can joget. They weren't in any of these categories. Maybe, in my time the word sexy meant voluptuous and full. Today's meaning is skinny but shapely. Arghhhhh!

And they can't joget to save their lives!!!
Anyway, that too wasn't the biggest problem. It was the camera jamming up with just a few hours to go - to final wrap!!
We had to cancel the shoot and return to KL and the equipment problem will cost me at least RM10,000 in losses!! And to get everything and everyone back to Melaka isn't gonna be easy too.
Dammit dammit dammit!!!!
They only good thing was working with Eman and Harun. They were great - total professionals.

From L to R: Harun, Blogger, Thorpe (my AD) and Eman

Wish our new generation of artistes were half as talented and dedicated as these two guys.

THANK YOU MOTHER NATURE....

The rains came in the afternoon for the final day of shoot for Ep 11 but in the evening, the stars came out and gave us a perfect 10 hour dry windown to complete 14 scenes!
It wasn't what I would call a perfect night - who in their right mind would try to shoot 14 scenes - all difficult scenes - in ten hours!
As such, and due to the time constraints, I cannot use tracks as it would take away precious minutes from our schedule. So it was simple pan shots, zooms and sometimes, jib arm shots. nothing elaborate.
However, by 3 am, I was already cranky shouting at artistes who suddenly seem to lose the ability to act (these were mainly the extras whose body language were completely off).
Nevertheless, by 6am, we shot our last and final scene - and young Farah (the Sofia Jane look-alike) had to endure a 6am swim in the cold cold waters of the Langat stream. She took it like a real trooper (pic above shows her just after he early morning dip) and we wrapped at 6.30am just before the morning sun greeted us.
It was a new day too and not a happy one as we were also greeted by increased fuel prices. Today, it will be RM2.70 per litre. I can remember just a few years ago when it was less than RM1.50.
I don't know what the impact is in the next few weeks, but I assume it would be quite massive. Prices of other items will increase and living expenditure will become heavy.
For producers, the increase in prices will become a burden - our profits (if any) will dwindle if RTM does not increase their offer prices. As it is, artistes fees and outstation shooting have become too expensive. Nevertheless, RTM will not increase their prices because both Astro and TV3 offer much less. Therefore the assumption is that RTM is paying more as a social service to producers because the producers are already making a hefty profit from RTM.
Unfortunately, this vicious circle will never end unless all three stations sit down and standardise their purchase prices.
Soon, I will post an entry that simplifies the economics of producing for these stations so that the public will know why they are getting sub-par productions for their viewing pleasure, and why the low quality of productions is not always the fault of the producers.
This evening we cancelled our shoot in Putrajaya for Ep.12 because of logistics and locations problems and I decided that it would really be much better to shoot the episode in Melaka. So tomorrow morning at 10am, we would all convoy to Mini-Malaysia in Ayer Keroh, Melaka, to begin shooting the episode. In this episode, Eman Manan, Harun Salim Bachik and Marissa Yasmin will be participating.

RAIN RAIN GO AWAY.......

Mother Nature hasn't been very accommodating this past two days. Rain is causing us to lose many hours of shoot. Last night was bad. The rain in Hulu Langat opened up twice - once in the afternoon and the second time in the evening - from 6 right up to 11 at night. It wasn't a drizzle but a downpour. We had to pray and wait for the rain to stop and it did. We could only start our shoot close to midnight. By four we were too tired to continue and I wrapped.
Hopefully today will be a better day, weather wise.
Anyway, my people casted this new TVC model cum newbie actress named Farah. When I first saw her it was like a shock. She is the spitting image of young Sofia Jane. Well, their noses differ a little but if I put young Sofia Jane beside Farah - they can pass of as identical twins.
Right now, if I cast Sofia Jane and I need to find someone to play her daughter, Farah is the most likely choice.
In fact, their mannerisms are also much the same accept that Sofia's left handed. Sofia's voice too is a little more melodious, but these differences are minor.

Take a look at the pics below and you tell me - don't they look alike?The original Sofia Jane or as I usually call her "Peah"

The clone - Farah of Cadbury TVC fame

BACK TO THE DIRECTOR'S SEAT

Pelawat Malam and Topeng have just wrapped. Abadi directed Pelawat and Thorpe directed Topeng. Tomorrow I start on Episode 11 and 12. Previously we were to do a story called Bejalai about a head hunting Iban spirit, but because of logistics and complexity of the teleplay, I decided to drop it and use another story called Harakiri - about a wandering Japanese spirit who also chops off people's heads. The story tells the story of how a Japanese officer during the Second World War who was not able to commit seppukku or harakiri dan therefore not able to die honorably. The kampung mob who caught him, carried out their own brand of justice - killed him and buried him in an unmarked spot. Many years later, his spirit roams the land looking for heads to chop off.
Hopefully we can finish this episode within three nights.
After that we will do Ronggeng, which was also rewritten due to logistics. It will now be called Lampu Merah. Luckily, Eman Manan will still be part of the shoot.
I'm currently at my wits end and hope that the shoots will be smooth. I also hope the rain will not hamper it. I cannot afford any more delays.
The only incentive I have is that on 13th of June I will fly to Bali for the annual International Bali Arts and Cultural Festival in Denpasar. This is a month long festival celebrating the best of performing arts from all around Indonesia and also other parts of the world. It's a must attend to all those who love culture and traditional performing arts.
I will be there for about ten days. Time for me to relax and reflect. But I will have my trusty Macbook with me so I will blogging from Bali too.