Further visualisations

Filem ni merupakan satu medium yang tidaklah asing-sangat tetapi tidaklah familiar bagi saya. Walaupun kita ni memang peminat filem dan selalu analyse filems yang kita pernah tonton, cara nak menyampaikan cerita melalui medium ini lain daripada medium penulisan dan kewartawanan. Duhhhh..

Film is not-that alien of a medium for me but its also not that-familiar. Even though I am a film buff and I love to analyse them, the way that the medium tells a story is different from that of writing or journalism. (I am genius, i know)


Memanglah saya pernah katakan dalam post yang lalu that a “story is a story” dan beza antara filem dan artikel adalah cara story itu disampaikan. Tetapi sebenarnya, cara story itu disampaikan boleh effect penhayatan penonton dan pemahaman stori itu.

Of course I’ve said in previous posts that a “story is a story”. That the difference between film and an article is how that story is told. But in reality, the way that a story is told will affect how the audience understands and appreciates it.

Becoz kita ni lebih-kurang-first time filmmakers, me and Siti decided to layout structure film kita secara visually. Kita buat ni dengan storyboard di mana setiap scene filem kita ni di-bayangkan dan dilakar berpandukan skrip. Setiap lakaran tu kita atur side-by-side supaya kita “nampak” jalan-cerita our filem.

Since we’re both sort-of-first-time filmmakers, me and Siti decided to layout the film’s structure visually via storyboard. Each scene is sketched out just as how it is described in the script. Once we arrange the scenes, we got an idea of how the film would be “seen”.

Setiap panel di dalam storyboard ni akan lebih kurang sama dengan apa visual yang kita akan shoot dan pakai. Paling penting, ia seolah boleh “preview” filem itu pada crew. So that bila turun shooting, kita dah tahu scene A umpamanya, kena ada elemen-elemen ni dalam frame dan sebagainya.

Each panel resembles what visuals we’ll shoot and use. Most importantly, it will preview the film to the crew. So when we go down on location, we’ll know that scene A, for example, has to contain so-and-so elements in its frame.

Dari A ke B ker? B ke A?

Mungkin you ada rasa pasal aper saya ni terlalu obsessed dengan proses penulisan cerita filem. Atau you sudah bosan dengan repetition saya tentang struktur narrative dan jalan cerita. 

“Mana dia cerita part-part shooting dan adegan2 giler di location”, you may ask. Atau you tak sabar nak tahu pasal selok-belok single camera production amateur seban you jugak amateur filem maker dan you tak nak la ulang mistake saya. Well you see, itulah dia.

Kalau you tak ambil masa secukup2-cukupnya untuk visualize, draft, re-draft dan mendalami jalan cerita filem you then you akan buat banyak mistake time shooting dan angkat gambar. Trust me. Saya bukanlah professional, tetapi ini yang aper professional sendiri pernah kata pada saya dan inilah mantra semua pembikin filem tersohor.

“Filem yang bagus ada tiga benda – script yang bagus, script yang bagus dan script yang bagus.”
Alfred Hitchcock (kalau you serious tentang bikin filem please look him up).

Jadi, we memang spend masa buat script. We nak dalami script sampai kita boleh huraikan dan ceritakan filem ini kepada sesiapa tanpa refer pada script tu itself.

Caranya nampak simple dan ia adalah soalan2 yang Siti tanya pada saya semasa kita mula menulis skrip.
1 – Dalam dua atau tiga ayat, apa cerita file ini? What is our story?

2-  Apakah “impression” (kesan atas perasaan) yang kita nak penonton dapat selepas filem ini? Adakah mereka akan rasa terhibur? Atau marah terhadap apa yang dilihat? Sedih? Or mereka lagi faham satu issue atau tentang dunia mereka? Or adakah mereka akan rasa sesuatu issue itu ada harapan untuk masyarakat selesaikan dengan adil dan saksama?
 
3 – Juga penting. Kenapa orang patut datang tonton our film? Because seriously, RM10 tu boleh beli tiket tengok blockbuster hollywood/ bollywood/hong-kongwood/KLwood/peckerwood kat TGV or GSC. Or boleh beli DVD cetak rompak.

Berpandukan tiga-tiga elemen ini, kita akan decide aper isi filem. Bukan sahaja soal aper shot yang nak diambik, tapi bagaimana shot itu nak diambik. Not just siapa yang patut di-interview, aper yang harus ditanya kepada subject interview itu dan soundbite aper yang harus di dapat dari dia.

The skrip akan drive production dan post-production. But di sini saya kena masukkan satu reminder. Especially bila buat documentary.

Jalan cerita script mungkin akan lain daripada apa yang di harapkan. Ini mungkin akan berlaku selepas shooting.

I know what you’re thinking. “Oh kalau macam tu tak yahlah aku nak perah otak buat skrip becoz cerita akan tukar lepas aku shoot.”

BUKAN MACAM TU. Tanpa skrip kita takkan ada cerita langsung. Tapi mungkin jalan cerita itu akan berbeza.

In essence, cerita ni is like getting dari point A ke point B. Bagaimana kita pergi ke point B tu boleh ubah. Mungkin our first skrip lalu C,D,E dulu baru sampai ke B. The second script mungkin lalu D dulu, E dulu dan maybe menyimpang ke G kejap.
Tapi pokoknya, cerita tetap tentang A ke B. Bukan B ke C atau G ke F. Itu cerita lain. Itu kita must get right sebelum angkat camera.

Terpenting of course ialah proses ini akan tolong kita menang dana dari KOMAS.

Berjalan mencari cerita

Like every story that we had done in print, our story for the film had to have a narrative. In other words, there must be a “jalan cerita”.

Kalau tiada jalan cerita, si penonton bukan sahaja tidak boleh memahami dengan penuh apa sebenarnya peristiwa dan issue di sebalik cerita itu. Mesej yang mahu disampaikan oleh cerita itu akan terbenam dan tidak terserlah.

Saya juga tidak mahu filem ini terlalu focus kepada peristiwa protes kepala lembu, siapa yang bawak kepala lembu tu, demonstrasi yang mereka lakukan di depan SUK atau persoalan tentang adakah mereka ini ‘dibiayai’ pihak2 tertentu.

Focus saya bukan perbuatan itu sendiri. Tetapi apa yang mendorong kepada perbuatan itu. Lagi penting adalah apanya kesan perbuatan itu terhadap komuniti berbilang kaum Taman Ixora. Juga, adakah retakan yang terjadi kerana protes itu telah diubati setahun selepas insiden2 itu.

Equally important, bagaimana masyarakat Malaysia boleh menanangi kehendak2 communiti-komuniti yang berbilang agama dan budaya jika kehendah2 mereka bercanggah. Di dalam peristiwa ini, pemindahan rumah ibadat Hindu ke Muslim-majority area (Taman Ixora, Section 23) di katakan mencetuskan tentangan daripada penduduk situ. In other words, keperluan agama sebuah komuniti di tentang oleh komuniti yang lain. 

With this in mind, saya dan Siti turun ke Taman Ixora untuk berjumpa dengan wakil rakyat yang menanangi masalah itu dan pemimpin masyarakat mereka. Also important adalah geografi Sek 19, Sek 23 dan kuil Sri Mahamariamman. Ini kerana masalah yang berbangkit adalah masalah geografi, khususnya kedudukan kuil dan rumah2 sekeliling.

Ini dibuat supaya kita boleh mendapat gambaran yang penuh tentang ‘the dimensions’ dan seluruh aspek2 dalam insiden kepala lembu.

Recce yang kita buat juga menolong kita mengenalpasti siapa yang kita perlu interview. Daripada isi interview itu lah kita mebentuk rangka jalan cerita filem ini.

Imej berikut adalah ‘visualisation’ rangka ini. Siti menggunakan placemat makanan dan sticky notes daripada Tesco supaya kita senang atur tulang2 yang akan membentuk rangka jalan cerita.

Setiap note yang hijau melambangkan satu tulang/plot line di dalam narrative/jalan cerita.

Note yang pink adalah visual yang di perlukan untuk menyampaikan narrative jalan cerita.

How I turned Siti's world upside down, again.

The way her head twisted up at me when she said “WHAT?” was as if I told I was not really Muslim. Or that I was going to leave and join a Buddhist monastery and had asked her if she wanted to come. 

It was like: 

“what? What? WHAT? WHAAAT?” 

Of course she tells it differently.   




 

 
But after she said yes and we started talking about the project she immediately threw me questions that I had not thought about and which were critical to the film.

I won’t pretend that I am not a newbie. I’ve only done two films before this and they were works of fiction. This one was going to be a true story. Even though I hadn’t done any documentaries, I have wide experience doing articles on intricate social issues.

The principle is the same if you’re approaching a story in print or in video form.  

Why should this story be told? And why should anyone bother reading/viewing it? I had answered these two questions but there was a third question that I hadn’t thought about but which she did. 

“What kind of impression do you want to leave on the audience?”

When I’m writing for print its in 2-D. Now that the story is in 3-D there is an extra emotional dimension that you as the storyteller has to consider.

With print, you can influence how your reader feels because they have no other choice but to take what you say as the accurate representation of the story you are telling.

If you say the “man looked remorseful” then they have to take your word for it. They have no other way of independently checking it out.

With film, your subjects can be seen by the viewers themselves. They don’t need you to tell them whether someone is sad, happy or honest. They will see it for themselves.  If you try to hide or manipulate your subjects, the viewer can see that too.

So the challenge is how to tell a story and leave your reader/viewer with an
impression that is true to the story. As opposed to them getting an impression that they think you conned them into.

Mencari jodoh filem

It ain’t really that hard to decide on what story I want to tell. What is hard is actually how to tell it. But i have a good story for this year’s festival and there is this burning in my gut that tells me to pitch it to KOMAS. 
 
The story’s been going around in my head for some time. I know exactly what kind of angle it should be. Probably because I wrote about it when I was in the NST sometime in September 2009. Due to space constraints I wasn’t able to really explore it in depth. I wrote about one aspect of the story and how it tied into the rise of the Malay supremacist movement. But the article concentrated on whether this small but world-infamous protest was a sign that the movement was gaining traction.
 
There was another side of the story that needed telling and I decided that film would be the medium.

I thought about going at it alone. I had asked my good friend Halim, who i've done two films with and he was like:

“Awww dude, why don’t we do another adaptation. I have this great book man about what it feels like to be the “other woman” in a relationship. I mean this is the story of the “other side man”.
 
“Dude let’s do that man. Let’s do that. It’d be awesome”.
 
‘Awesome’ in the same way that eating a whole bunch of strange mushrooms would feel ‘awesome’. But I wasn’t in the mood for shrooms.  
 
Halim was also in Kelantan so that made it difficult to do it together. 

But I felt that I didn’t want to go at it alone. Not because I wouldn’t be able to hack it alone but because I wanted a fresh perspective on the subject. Someone who could see the dimensions of the story that I didn’t see.

And so began the great quest of “Mencari jodoh filem”.