EXIT - 7

Director's note - 7

Since this was a student’s project, all that were involved in the film were students except for the actors and the steadicam operator(To which I owe a great debt to my Director of Photography, Gudmundur Sverisson). Gos, my DP did such a great job at achieving the mood that was needed for EXIT. Luther "Crocodile" Yee was instrumental in keeping a tight reign into the logistics side of the production.  Timothy Bui was my camera operator.  Yumiko Oda was my dedicated assistant camera.  I was fortunate enough to get a great crew that was dedicated to the production except for the art director who turned out to be the bad apple of the production.

The support for the film in US is both encouraging and frustrating. The process of putting up advertisements in the industry dailies for actors is free of charge. There are quite a lot of incentives given to film students to proceed with their projects. The steadicam operator, who gets about US2,000 daily on a film project, came into my production for a mere US50 to help me create my most favourite sequence in EXIT, which is the opening. The cameras in the college could not support the steadicam, so we had to rent a camera from the outside. The frustrating part is working around the unions. I had three actors registered with Screen Actors Guild and the hassle that we had to go through to get them in the film. We had to have insurance on them and we had to submit a contract stating that the film will be used non-commercially. All these procedures drove the budget up slightly. Was it worth it? Yes. Yes. When I talk about support, the professional actors worked for free for the project. All they ask for is videotape for their portfolio. That is what we lack in Malaysia, a strong support from all parties involved in the industry. We should be able to lend a hand to students or low budget production to get their project off the ground.

to be continued...