So... Where's 'Just For Flicks'?
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Tuesday, 01 September 09 - 06:59 PM (GMT) By Khairil M Bahar in Events |
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So we hit a snag with what was meant to be our first event, 'Just For Flicks', thanks to the dreaded influenza A H1N1.
However, all is not lost, film fans. We've been in contact with the Homegrown peeps in planning the new dates, not just for the first 'Just For Flicks' but hopefully a series of 'Just For Flicks', once a month, giving film fans some good ol' indie short flick talent for all those that are interested in local filmmaking besides the usual cinema fare.
With that in mind, this is a call to all you budding filmmakers - if you've got a flick that you've done or in the midst of doing and will have done by October, holla back to us via the 'contact us' link (or message via Facebook if that's where you're reading it) and let us know what's what. Once we have a good idea of what's out there, it'll be easier for us to shape how the series of events go.
It doesn't matter what kind of flick you have - got-a-budget, no-budget, whatever - if there's a story there and it's told well we'll show it.
There should also be a filmmaker showcase after October which we hope to run for 5 days which we also hope to make a monthly thing, showing off a different local filmmaker every month and their works, but since we're still ironing out the details at the mo we'll get back to you once we have some solid info.
Naga-noonch, boys and girls.
(Checkered) Past Music Videos
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Friday, 21 August 09 - 07:22 PM (GMT) By Khairil M Bahar in General |
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The other day I got a call from a friend asking if I had the contact number of someone she knew from another production company. When I asked why she said she was managing a band and looking for a production company to do a music video for them but she was worried about her budget, stating that she doubts she can get a music video done for less that.
When she told me the amount, I almost cracked up.
One of the things we truly believe here at Checkered Past is that a bigger check doesn't guarantee a better product, especially when it comes to music videos because it's one of the few jobs you can do where you can be truly creative, often without spending too much money as long as your concepts are strong. A perfect example of this would be Spike Jonze's music vid for "Praise You" - an award winning and thoroughly entertaining clip shot on a small video camera.
In the past I've shot music videos with all kinds of budgets, most of them low. These two vids from Checkered Past also weren't made on big budgets, but cool nonetheless.
Dragon Red - Wicked Queen
Shot early 2008, this is the second music video I shot for Dragon Red for their third single, "Wicked Queen" (the first video I shot and edited for them, "Childsplay", was literally done for nothing but that didn't stop it from getting decent rotation on TV).
We shot it over the course of two days - one for exteriors and one for the performance - and the Dragon Red boys managed to pull in a lot of favors by getting a veritable who's who of local musicians to cameo at the end of the video.
The biggest celebrity of the video, however, is Sazzy Falak - a well known local actress and TV host here in Malaysia - who plays a psychotic fan of the band, killing them off in a variety of interesting ways including ( in order) stabbing, strangling, running over with a sports car, poison, shooting and my personal favorite, death-by-scorpions.
This video was shot with the help of my friend Zed who rented us the equipment as well. For one of the shots we used a Letus 35mm adapter (pictured above) to add a little depth-of-field and test the system when used with a Canon XHA1 for low light, shooting a scene at magic hour.
Azizi - Kamu Semua
Though it's not the biggest budget video we've done here, it's certainly the most slick and commercial of the lot for young DigiCelebriTeen Azizi's debut music video, "Kamu Semua".
This one took a day to shoot and I had my always reliable crew from the many TV series' I direct for this one, keeping the cameras constantly roving throughout each scene on tracks.
This was the second time I shot a music video with choreographed dancing and this shoot in particular made me respect dancers a whole lot more, especially on music video shoots such as this - constantly going through the moves take after take, angle after angle.
This music video also features a host of cameos from local celebrities and was shot early this year at the DiGi basketball court.
(Apologies for the aspect ratio. I think something odd happened during the upload process).
One thing that I didn't know was on-line until now was a making-of video for this music video. If you watch carefully, you'll notice that when I'm not sat down at the directors chair I'm walking around with a basketball. Between set-ups and takes I'd shoot hoops and was probably the only exercise I did for the first half of the year.
Lucky Shot Updates - Trailer and Techy Stuff!
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Wednesday, 19 August 09 - 06:16 PM (GMT) By Khairil M Bahar in Coming Soon |
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So yeah - unfortunately the event that would have been the premiere of this short film, the 'Just For Flicks' showcase, was cancelled due to that evil influenza A H1N1 and since this short was in production ages ago the least we could do was post up a trailer for the thing, right?
Alternatively, if you'd rather check it out quickly in SD, click here for the YouTube link.
And for those of you who are into the more technical aspects of making flicks, there's a whole write-up on the process of shooting 'Lucky Shot' from pre-production all the way to post, going in detail about the trials, tribulations, pros and cons of shooting with a Canon 5D Mark II camera.
Click here to check out the post at Kraftwank, the filmmaking and musicmaking DIY blog!
Just For Flicks - CANCELLED
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Monday, 10 August 09 - 05:10 AM (GMT) By Khairil M Bahar in Events |
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Hello fellow film-fans,
Unfortunately, this post comes with bad news - I just got a call this morning from my contact at Homegrown and the big boss has decided that, due to increase in the death toll of A H1N1 they've decided to stop events for the month of August, at least until things calm down. I'm sorry to all those that we're looking forward to 'Just For Flicks' but unfortunately it can't be helped.
On a positive note, though, this event will still happen somewhere, somehow. I hope you'll all still take part when it does come back to life and until then, hope to see you all soon at some social function of some kind.
Just For Flicks
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Thursday, 06 August 09 - 07:12 PM (GMT) By Khairil M Bahar in Events |
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So here it is, the first event by Checkered Past, JUST FOR FLICKS (geddit? Geddit?)
At the moment, confirmed filmmakers participating are Virginia Kennedy, Kamal Sabran, Julianne Block, Mien Ly and Khairil M. Bahar. We're getting confirmation from other filmmakers at the moment and we'll be updating the details here as we get them.
On the agenda, we'll have the short films (of course), trailers for upcoming features and short films, music videos and a Q&A session with the directors after the screening's done (and maybe drinks later in the area if any of y'all are up for it).
Event Details
Date: 13th August 2009 (Thursday)
Time: Doors open 7.30pm, show starts 8.00pm at the latest
Venue: Homegrown Space, Wisma Bentley, Mutiara Damansara (next to Ikea). Click here for more details on the venue.
Click the poster image above to download a hi-res version.
Lucky Shot - A Short Film by Khairil M. Bahar
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Thursday, 06 August 09 - 06:09 PM (GMT) By Khairil M Bahar in Coming Soon |
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Originally shot in April, 'Lucky Shot' took a while to edit as we were heavy at work as associate producers of the feature film 'Cahaya' by Johan John. But it's finally done and will be premiering at the 'Just For Flicks' screening (details in the next post).
This short film was actually written to test out the capabilities of the Canon 5D mark II - an extraordinary camera, it's a digital SLR full frame still camera that also shoots 1080 HD video. What does this mean? Well, in a nutshell, it shoots HD video that looks as good as the still photos you get from these cameras.
If you're curious about the quality, this was the first video publicly available that was shot on the 5D mkII - 'Reverie' by Vincent LaForet.
Catch 'Lucky Shot' in a short film screening somewhere soon!
Production Details
Title: Lucky Shot
Written, directed, edited and produced by Khairil M. Bahar
Cast: Shirin Jauhari, Nick Dorian, Anrie Too, Ariff Aris and Michael Chen together with Nur Khalidah Khalid
Director of Photography: Vignes Balasingam
Shot on the Canon 5D mark II DSLR with Canon 50mm f1.8 or Canon 35mm f2 lenses.
Click here for production photos. Click the poster above to download a hi-res version of the poster.
Welcome to Checkered Past!
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Thursday, 06 August 09 - 05:13 PM (GMT) By Khairil M Bahar in General |
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So yeah. Here it is. The first post on the Checkered Past website. The post that no-one ever reads because it eventually gets continously pushed with each additional post and is usually filled with fluff about the future plans of the company and all that random whooptidoo.
So let's get to the whooptidoo, shall we?
Welcome to Checkered Past - a creative hub for video and audio production and post from the brains of Khairil M. Bahar (some dude who's done a bunch of low-budget indie stuff, some television, plays in a band and writes about himself self-deprecatingly in the third person on his company website). From films and television to music vids and corporate videos, if it's got moving images and sound, we'll do the dirty work.
As well as working on productions for clients, Checkered Past also develop their own features and short films purely out of passion with little or no budget.
Why? Because we can.
So keep on checking out the site to find out more about our productions. Whenever we can (copyright willing if it's a job we're hired for) we'll be posting up details from pre-production to shots on-set through to post-production and that period when everything's done and we pimp it out to the world in every which way possible.
Stay tuned and enjoy.
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