After Machete Maidens concluded in Singapore, I stayed on while the rest of the crew headed back to Melbourne. While I can’t divulge what exactly I was working on, other then that it was for Canon, there wasn’t any spare time between the two jobs. The next morning was spent re-familiarising myself with the footage and approving work created by VHQ in Singapore. The process of working on television commercials is just so different to long form projects, it’s always a bit of a culture shock to me when I swap between the two styles of filmmaking! A week of intense Post Production activities past and at the end of it, I think we produced a pretty amazing commercial. I will certainly blog about the experience when the time is right.

In true fashion, the TVC was completed on a Sunday night, after the last official day of the Chinese New Year Celebrations ended! Actually, I went down to Chinatown to witness the fireworks display and street theatre that took place in Singapore. Quite a cool experience. However, on Monday the 1st of March, I flew to Jakarta to start my next job. As it turned out, again there was no break between the projects! After landing I went straight into preproduction meetings at the office before finally crashing in my hotel room!

I’m now deeply intrenched into the preproduction stage of that job, with filming to start on the 8th of March and conclude on the 9th!

On boxing day 2009, I boarded a flight to Hong Kong, headed towards a new Television Commercial project. 2009 was one of those strange years for me that hummed along quietly & occasionly faulted! What I mean by that is work simply stopped! So my motivation to rip myself away from my family & go directly back to work so soon after Christmas was fuelled by my desire to start the new decade off with a bang! We actually shot the commercial two days later which is amazing! With two horses, a famous Hong Kong TV star & a day of pretending we were out on the badlands of the wild west, we filmed action sequences that looked pretty cool! More on that in a future blog entry!

Regional Group EP Shooting Gallery Asia - Freddy Kee

Because my Post Production started four days later in Singapore, I decide to stay in Hong Kong for New Years Eve rather then face 16 hours of flying to and from Australia! Having no idea where to go for New Years Eve in Hong Kong, I decided that the harbour area would surely have a fireworks display and a countdown?! Google didn’t really offer to many clues where and Hong Kong Harbour is pretty big! Any case, I ended up down at Causeway Bay and walked along the shoreline towards Central. Amazingly I arrived at the Exhibition Centre, just at the mouth of the bay at Central to find the perfect position. By 11pm, the place was so full of people that you couldn’t move around. Somehow I lucked it in and found the perfect position. There, I watched an amazing countdown and fireworks display to herald the new decade!

TV Producer for Shooting Gallery Asia - Leollyne Teng

I’m now in Singapore Post Producing the TVC. This will take about a week, departing Singapore on the 10th of January. A crazy schedule will follow a short stay in Melbourne though. I have just signed up for another massive road trip that will take a small crew round the globe! This will commence on February the 1st and end on the 1st of March!

Hong Kong City Skyline

Recently, I was in Hong Kong to Direct a television Commercial. While I was there, I took some time with my friends from Shooting Gallery Asia (Singapore), Freddy and Rachel Kee, and wondered around Hong Kong. On the 2nd of Feb, we explored Lantau Peak at the far end of Hong Kong Island. There, we took a Gondola to the top of the Mountain where a huge Buddha has been erected. While the scene is very commercial, and dense with tourists, it’s still interesting to go and see. The Gondola also allows you to see the huge Airport that has been built to service Hong Kong.

We wondered through countless streets lined with billboards and signage. It’s hard to believe that any of these signs are at all effective! Shopping is very cheap in Hong Kong. Even though the worldwide recession is ringing in our ears, there are plenty of shoppers combing the stores stalls for bargains! I had to visit the Computer Center known as the Golden Computer Arcade which had very cheap CF cards for cameras and very cheap portable drives. Clothing is also incredibly cheap. A found a jacket that costs $4000 Australian for sale for just $150!

We also visited an area known as “the Peak”. The famous Cable Car tram ride takes you to the top of the Peak, or you can drive up as we did. Here there is a spectacular vista of Hong Kong. It’s truly breathtaking how large Hong Kong is from here. While I wasn’t able to do so, I believe it’s the place to spend a Dusk/Night for an amazing photographic experience. Here are a few shots from our visit.

The team from Shooting Gallery Asia traveled with me from Singapore with all their equipment (camera, lenses etc). The local Hong Kong team consisted of Elvis Cheong (line producer), Tony Lam (Production), Ah Tong (Gaffer), Little Four (Stunt Coordinator), and a bunch of others – I’m sorry I don’t have their full names. In total, the crew was quite large in the end. I think their were at least 5 stunt crew! In any case, the crew was fantastic to work with and very efficient considering that many had never worked together before.

Daniel Wu was fantastic to work with also. A consummate professional and a dam good bloke! We spoke at length about technology and camera equipment so there was plenty of common ground. He handled everything I asked for perfectly and enjoyed all the stunt action also! The wire team were great in assisting him where needed. Several of the shots required him to jump so high that he nearly touched the Studio ceiling!

Completed in under eight hours, the shoot was very smooth and lots of fun. The Shooting Gallery team and I spent a small amount of time looking around Hong Kong which was cool. It’s a huge town if you have to work in it. It’s busy, noisy and smelly at times but has a fantastic atmosphere. The shopping is outrageously good – some of the cheapest clothing and electronic goods I have seen anywhere! Off course you need to be careful with Quality Control but that’s to be expected. I will write a Blog entry on the tourist stuff later! Enjoy!

The day started by building a rig around one of the farms ATV’s. Raman from the Shooting Gallery built a fantastic rig for me that worked a treat! In the meantime, the entire team worked hard to clear weeds and haul gear up and down the slopes. For now, here are a few shots from the shoot itself. More to come later.