Defending the pride of local productions

When Singaporean Francis Tan was first approached to take on the behemoth task of staging a multi-media showcase at the then soon-to-be-opened

Army Museum of Singapore, it was not so much the business opportunity but rather, a sense of nationalistic pride that stirred his interest.

Jake Wong, a retired colonel and ex-head, film unit of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), had asked the 50 year-old executive producer at Iceberg Design, a local post facility, to collaborate on the project that was timed to be presented alongside the opening of the museum. Accepting the challenge readily, the affable Tan admits that he found the project intriguing for one reason. Confiding that foreign companies would often clinch the bigger budget filming projects in town, Tan hopes to send out a message to his industry peers by securing this one: “I wanted to prove a point that locals can pull off something of this scale, magnitude and requirement.

“Moreover, this is a project for the Singapore army, and most Singaporean men, having served their national service, share some affinity towards it.”

This was in 2006, when the project was still opened for public tender. To bid for the project, Tan and Wong formed the consortium One Dash Iceberg Pte Ltd, named after their respective companies. Wong owns a production firm by the name of One Dash 22.

A New Cinematic Experience

Back then, the production rights of four films were up for tender: two main films to be shown at the museum’s Object Theatre; a concierge as well as an exit film.

Securing the bid to produce three out of four films – director Royston Tan helmed the exit film After The Rain, produced by Zhao Wei Films – Tan is convinced that his consortium had presented a far more appealing concept.

Proposing what they called an “extended cinema”, One Dash Iceberg opted for a new cinematic experience, in which five large screens – namely ‘front’, ‘centre’. ‘left’, ‘right’, and two (panoramic) at the back – convey simultaneously, four different yet symbiotic images that are essentially parts of the same movie. Tan enthuses: “Instead of suggesting a sen-surround or IMAX copycat, we wanted to relate the same story through five big screens. This would allow viewers more engaging visuals than a typical cinema could afford. Being in a museum, you are at liberty to stand anywhere within the enclosure and still be able to catch the action, because there’s practically a screen on every wall.”

Sounds like a straightforward enough concept. Execution, however, is another ballgame altogether.

Operationally, the five key roles were split amongst the industry peers, all veterans in their own area of expertise. Tan assumed both the roles of EP and technical director, while Wong directed the films. Tay Chee Wei, music director at De Claffer Music Productions, took on the position of audio director. K C Lim, whom Tan describes as being “multitalented and reputed in the local arts and theatre scene”, tackled the role of theatre director.

According to Tan, the creative wants were pretty much dictated by the brief, given by general Desmond Quek, the then chief of army, who is currently Chief of Defense Force.

“He was clear to the dot as to what he wanted the film for. It’s supposed to be for the NS (national service) men serving the army right now – not the yet-to-be-enlisted or the reservist personnel.

“At the end of the day, I think we gave him more than he bargained for, in terms of the films, and the theatrics that provided many ‘surprise’ elements for the unsuspecting visitor to the museum.”

In terms of challenges, Tan could not have been more animated to the effect:

“In my 30 years in the business, I have not seen anything like that before. I’ve seen huge and multiple screens, but all orientated in the same direction, as in facing the audience. I have not seen one of this magnitude and scale – the movie practically stares down at the audience!

“One of the biggest challenges we had was in taking non-linear storytelling yet another step further; into a linear-non-linear editing environment where we were able to pre-visualize how the movie will play out in the auditorium with different pictures falling on different screens, all displaying different parts of the same movie. That was the biggest challenge we had, apart from the more technical ones.”

“Nothing like getting it on camera”

The complexity of the concept involved painstaking and precise planning, shooting, editing and scoring, all of which must work cohesively in order to obtain the exacting results that the team had envisioned on paper.

Spending a few weeks on pre-visualization, several 3D artists, headed by Alfred Sim, Iceberg Design’s VFX / technical supervisor and partner, were engaged to develop a 3D storyboard for the main scenes, in particular the action scenes.

“We toyed around with different 3D objects, camera angles and compositions. Although it is the typical way of working out a 3D pre-viz storyboard but since we were dealing with heavy army equipment, made it even more tedious.”

The 3D models had to replicate the actual ground conditions as closely as possible to avoid any potential hiccups on the set itself. Tan quips: “Previz was critical in that we wanted to minimize retakes. After all, a single retake could easily mean mobilizing 200 tons of metal on the set!”

Spread over five months, actual photography effectively boils down to a solid 30-day shoot. Endless issues pertaining to sensitivity, logistics, training window periods, clearances and safety considerations had accounted for most of the delay. A former colonel, Wong had prepared the production team psychologically with regards to the potential stalls and certain army protocols that they had

to quickly get used to, thereby cushioning their expectations against many such unforeseen events.

As far as the hazards involved in shooting within a mock battlefield was concerned, the team had no luxury of past experience to fall back on. A case in point was when Tan threw a wild card at his teammates, wondering aloud whether a sonic boom from the live firing and explosions could potentially blow the switches on the cameras. Nobody had a clue, much less an answer.

Although Tan did not follow the filming crew to one particular four-day shoot in Thailand, he recounts their tales with as much gusto:

“I was told the sonic boom was awesome. They were firing towards late afternoon and night, nobody could see a damn thing and there were a lot of safety issues. There were instances where they just rolled the panoramic P2 rig (three Panasonic cameras mounted on a single rig), ran to the middle of the firing area, plonked the rig down and ran back to a safe zone, to wait for the firing to happen. Nobody had any idea when the firing will take place. The window period for such activity is very short.

“Our handheld Varicams had to be ready for the action because it all happens in a matter of seconds. The amazing thing is, all the cameras held up very well. Nothing was fried – not the Varicams or the P2s.

When asked whether the use of VFX could have prevented the crew from such harrowing incidents, Tan replies matter-offactly: “You know what they say: ‘There’s nothing like getting it on camera.’”

To illustrate how exacting the shots were planned for and executed, Tan uses the example of a helicopter’s fly-through:

“In sen-surround, a helicopter usually flies from the left of the screen to the right of the same screen; and the sound effects would pan accordingly. In our case, we get the helicopter to fly from the right screen, past the middle screen, into the left screen. Picture-wise, we had to ensure that we shoot the right footages so that when the helicopter travels past three different screens we have the

perspectives all taken care of. If you don’t plan and shoot to edit, you can never join the footages seamlessly together like that.”

Customized Edit Suite

Excluding on-site tests, post took two and a half months. From the get go, editing proved to be an enormous task for Tan and his team at Iceberg Design. For one, they had to customize their FCP editing suite from a traditional single output to one that supplies up to six different outputs. Tan explains:

“From a single timeline, we were able to preview the program output of up to six different screens. That by itself was a lifesaver because otherwise the timing of the film itself will be a major mess.

“We were able to adjust the timelines in order to preview all the screens at real-time, full frame rate, and see how each of the screens would work with each other to tell the same story, as it would have been told through a single screen.”

Between Iceberg’s senior editor Mun Chong and Tan, the duo spent two weeks to knock out the basic edit for the main show, titled Army 2000.

In one sequence of the movie, Tan wanted all the parachutes, which he likened to ‘jellyfish’, to fall at the same time, filling all five screens simultaneously.

“We knew we had to shoot different angles; some close-ups, some wide shots…that much we knew.

“Syncing wise, as in when to cut that scene in and sustain the moment, we had to make sure we had enough front-ends and tail-ends that allow us to adjust the timing or the sync between the different screens.”

Once again, the objective was set up very clearly from the beginning. They had up to six cameras rolling for this sequence alone. Three HD cameras were employed; one each on the plane, helicopter and on the ground. The panoramic P2 rig cameras were deployed on the ground capturing the vista shots.

Finishing of the film was executed by Benny Wong, Iceberg’s colorist / compositor and partner, using their eQ HD QColor Cinema Suite. Purportedly one of its kind in Singapore, it boasts of HD uncompressed projection on an 84” screen. The entire digital cinema workflow was designed by Alfred, working only with DPX data files with final output converted to MPEG2 as specified by the pre-approved playback device in the object theatre.

Singapore’s First 12.1 Audio Mix

Raising the dramatic quotient on the visual spectacle was the elaborate sound design and score, composed and performed by De Claffer’s Tay Chee Wei. Chipping in his services as sound designer, Christopher Dawson assisted Tay in building and designing from scratch, Singapore’s – and perhaps the world’s – first 12.1 audio sen-surround system for the museum. Tay recounts: “Like most studios, we only had a 5.1 audio set-up. So we had to modify our own studio, by bringing in additional speakers to mimic the actual site at the museum.

“The biggest headache was having to match the sounds coming out of 12 speakers and achieving a balance such that the frequencies did not “fight” and cross each other out.”

Technical issues aside, there were many judgment calls to be made in the area of sound aesthetics. For example, when researching the sounds using sample libraries, the ‘apache’ sounds had resembled that of an aircon-blower.

“I asked the military people what the real thing sounded like. They told me it’s similar to a jet with loud gushes of wind-like sounds but upon closer listening, you can actually hear the rotor part of the jet.”

In the end, Tay mixed the real apache sounds with close-up rotor sounds to remind people that a chopper is arriving. “Although it is not very accurate, most people are accustomed to what they believe an apache should sound like.

After spending months composing, recording and tweaking the score, it’s no wonder that Tay is glad the project is finally over. Yet, the gung-ho 31 year-old says that he would take up another similarsized project – in a heartbeat. He chirps: “I just want to do something that no one else has done before.”

By Singapore, for Singapore

Located next to the Discovery Centre in Jurong, the threestorey Army Museum of

Singapore (Arms) opened in October last year with much aplomb, receiving the Prime Minister Lee Hsien Long, Defense Minister Teo Chee Hean and several ASEAN defense ministers and permanent secretaries. Featuring six galleries, the museum showcases 40 years of National Service, thus preserving the rich heritage of the Singapore Army.

The main draw of the museum is none other than the two films showing at the Object Theatre. Besides two very engaging short films depicting the prowess and determination of the Singapore army, visitors are treated to a 360º A/V spectacle coupled with well-executed theatrical effects designed by K C Lim, the theatre director.

Despite all the challenges, Tan and his team can proudly claim, and deservedly so, to have pulled off, arguably one of the biggest film projects in Singapore’s recent history.

Without revealing the actual budget, except to indicate a seven-figure amount, Tan reminds us again that it was passion that drove this project – and not the money. To make his point, Tan informs us that the consortium even incurred out-ofpocket expenses to get the films done the way they wanted.

Following a very quick meeting with the film director and production EP, Leslie Ng of Kaleidoscope Art, Tan and his team felt that it was imperative to capture the live artillery firing on film to portray the kind of power the army has today. Tan stresses:

“Within 5 minutes, we agreed that we should spend $60,000 of our own money to fly the entire crew out to Thailand for four days just to capture the live firing.”

You sense a tinge of patriotism in Tan’s reply when you asked why he would do such a thing. Shrugging it off at first, he then relents humbly: “Most of us who worked on this project were Singaporeans; I would say about 99%. By delivering on our promise and seeing the final project completed in a more than decent manner, I dare say we have already received our payment in full – even before the first check arrives.”