OK – some of you may already know this. But what the hey – this is for those who don’t.
I didn’t make it to the finals of BMW Shorties.
For those of you who are interested in the movies that did – you can visit www.bmwshorties.com.my – the shorts that made it are all decent and watchable – and in my opinion pretty good in fact. But for the people who just think anything M’sian cannot be any good – then there’s not much else I can say to convince you to go check it out.
I went to the ceremony where they announced the winner of BMW Shorties. It was held at Central Market Annex – on the top floor. It’s a nice little place which the Kakiseni fella, Phang Khee Teik bought over and turned into a art gallery of sorts. However, on the night I went there, there was a nice set up of cocktail party type tables and low chairs plus plasma TVs all over the place.
I arrived there at 7 pm on the dot. Not many people were around of course. Everybody else was late. Champagne, juice, wine and soft drinks were served to the early comers and they played BMW sponsored shorts from famous Hollywood Directors like John Woo and Tony Scott on the plasma TVs to entertain those who were early of course.
The John Woo one was typically John Woo with Clive Owen playing a very ‘James Bond’ type character. And from that short, I think good ole Clive would have made a fine James Bond.
The Tony Scott one really caught my eye though – it was called ‘Beat The Devil’ and had the likes of Clive Owen (he was in all the shorts that were shown), James Brown and Gary Oldman as THE DEVIL. Damn good lah – I haven’t tried sourcing it online – but I’m sure you can find it somewhere. If anybody reading this ever finds it – drop me a line, let me know.
I digress – anyway – I waited around and sparked a conversation with this guy named Helmi. I remembered him from the BMW Shorties Workshop I attended. It appears his movie made it to the final 10. And I found that he was exactly like me – almost at least. He studied a course that he didn’t like and dropped out twice. Now he’s in ASK studying Arts and Theatre. He has his own crew of friends who churn out their own theatre productions when they manage to save enough money. I heard that he’s also in Shuhaimi Baba’s upcoming flick – ‘1957’ about Malaysia and our MERDEKA.
This was his first time directing a film. No technical film knowledge as well – just like me. His short is entitled ‘Anak Jemi Pok’ – check it out at the above said website if you want.
He didn’t end up winning either.
But I watched most of the movies and I feel that my movie could have made it just as easily as the ones that did. Visually, story wise and other technical elements wise – my movie is as good if not better than some of the ones that made it – in my opinion lah. However, only one stark difference was this – at the end of all the shorts that made it – you know exactly what they were about without having to think about it too much.
With mine – it’s open to interpretation. And I guess – too much interpretation. In that sense, it turned out artier that I think it should have been.
I’ve learnt my lesson. Next one, everybody will understand. And on top of that, it’ll be cool too! Lol
Anyway, the highlights from the entire event that I will always remember:
1. How the 2 honourable mentions from the top 10 won 2 round trip tickets to the Cannes Film Festival as BMW’s special guests.
That made me feel really shit about not maki ng it to the top 10. But then again, I watched their shorts – and I think they deserve it lah.
2. They pieced together a montage piece of all the shorts that were entered (74 entries).
Every few seconds, there was some footage of my short from the start of the montage right to the end. That was nice.
3. How the BMW representative who was basically in charge of organizing the competition – came up to me and said, “Michael, I liked your short. I tried to fight for it to be in the top 10 but what can I say, I was just one voice.”
He even quoted a line which made the entire short memorable for him, a line which I thought up and was really happy with – a line that not many people noticed:
“She liked LRT rides. She used to say that everyone on the LRT had their own places to go, their own things to do, their own people to see and their own things on their mind.
It was like going to a public place (beat) to be alone.”
And on that note; I will end this blog entry.
