30 seconds show requires 6 hours effort

Yesterday was a roller-coaster ride for me, June and a few others as we collaborated to assist June in completing her first coursework assignment on digital video production. Although I had won several accolades in oratorical contests during my school days and participated in a short TV interview during my early days in university, doing serious acting for a video production was still unexplored grounds for me.

I was invited (by default) to act in the short mock TV commercial promoting the renowned soya bean milk in a packie - Vitasoy. Although the required duration of the commercial should be approximately 30 seconds, the entire process of filming, doing re-takes and location siting took almost 6 hours.

The day began with June (producer cum director aka the big boss of the production), Yan (her coursemate specializing in audio), Zena? (another coursemate that June roped in to help) and myself going down to her campus office to draw out the filming equipment at 10am, following which we drove over to Toa Payoh to pick Adele (the actress). We then proceeded to Seletar Reservoir, where we had earlier elected as the backdrop of the production due to the serenity and tranquil of the reservoir environment. Little had we anticipated that a shooting range was situated in the vicinity (Nee Soon range) and range firing was in progress then, which was detrimental to our cause due to the extreme sensitivity of the microphone system.

We then decided to relocate to Lower Peirce Reservoir, which was some kilometres down the catchment area. Every inch of the venue was perfect, every crew member fully prepared, until the storm came. We were languished in the heavy downpour. After some hesitation, the entire crew decided to make a dash for the car, which was parked some distance away from the shoot. It was fortunate that we managed to keep the costly filming equipment safe from the rainwater. There were some hiccups as the remote control of my car key was rendered faulty possibly due to water seeping into the internal chipset. However, we managed to get going and we headed to June's place at Queenstown to do indoor shooting instead. Till this point, everything seemed negative and bleak where the production was concerned. I tried to cheer the crew, particularly June, that this was a valuable learning process and we should identify and appreciate the implicit positives within the overwhelming negatives.

It took us almost 3 further hours, from 2 - 5pm, to complete the filming at June's place. Though the experience was really enjoyable and enriching, everyone was understandably exhausted after a whole day's work. Now I really appreciate the extensive efforts of production crews. Having observed the granularity of details and organization required in completing just the recording portion, I deduce that the recipe for success in those popular TV commercials must have comprised tonnes of hard technical work and creative juices.

Overall, I think the entire filming went well, and it was an eye-opener for me to the fundamentals of video production.