What I did at work the other week

The Sound Department

I'll give you the short version, because so much happened it was all a bit too much to relate. The first day was an absolute killer, I got picked up at 1am (after only managing about 3 hours sleep in the evening) and we went down to the local mamak (indian food court) and ate curry for midnight breakfast, washed down with vast amounts of coffee in an attempt to stay awake. When we got to the office we sat down for a while at the Pelita Nasi Kandar (next door to the office, a very decent Mamak shop, they do a great Cheese Naan with Tandoori chicken)

I was introduced to everybody, most of whom are muslim malay but with a smattering of chinese. The first shock of the day was when the producer led everyone in prayer to make sure we had a good shoot (I felt a wee bit akward as I was sitting half asleep on the sofa in the middle of reception, surrounded by a circle of people standing with heads bowed. I figured the best thing was to look at my knees and stay inconspicuous while they got it over with). As you might imagine, that felt a little bit bizarre, seeing as it was around 3am and I was a bit spun out after meeting 20 new people who's names I couldn't remember and whose language I only have the most remote grasp of. But there we go, I got on with it - as it happened each morning and mot of the guys would drive off to the mosque at lunchtime, then go again after we wrapped each day about 7 in the evening. I was told that the whole of the shoot would be conducted in Malay, but luckily for me most people spoke a bit of english and my Malay was good enough to be pleasent and understand a few basic commands etc.

Our first location was by a roadside in the absolute middle of nowhere in the pitch dark. I volunteered myself to be traffic watchman (in this way got to be useful, but also got to spend a large portion of the night sitting down and drinking coffee whilst the others worked to a tight shooting schedule. The night went on and on, and I confused many a passing truck driver by making them stop while we went for a take. Not quite what you expect on an empty country road at 5am, a white guy in a yellow jacket flagging you down and talking really bad malay at you. Needless to say a lot of them laughed out loud.

I can see why.

Once the sun came up I realised that the whole time I'd been stood on a corner overlooking a massive and beautiful reservoir, dotted with little islands and jungle covered hills. It was a very beautiful sight (sadly almost entirely lost on my bleary state of mind), it looked like this.....

Then after sunrise the punishment really began. I knew it was going to be hot work, after all 'm in a tropical country, so I wentt prepared with a very silly cowboy hat (the biggest hat I could find in KL) and some factor 45 sunblock. This helped stop me getting burned, but my god it was no use afainst geting cooked alive. There we were, next to a tarmac road, with no shelter anywhere near us, apart from 2 poxy umberellas and peoples cars. The midday sun topped around 42C - according to someones in car thermometre -and the reflections off the road were just savage. The production manager nipped off and got a big bag of tea towels and a couple more unbrellas, so we all wrapped up every spot of flesh like some al-quaida bandits and carried on working. We must have looked a little bit odd to people driving past, but frankly we didn't give a toss cos the choice was look daft or bake. It was pretty funny, what with me having a towel on my head as well as a cowboy hat, like some twisted American/Iraqi fusion. Redneck raghead.

somewhere under all this, you'll find a timbo our shelter against the elements

My friend Bob and his towel.

You may note the Austin Mini in shot above, this car was basicaly the centre of most of the action - not in the Herbie/Knight Rider sense self aware hero car, but the story was about a guy and a lady who drive from KL to Penang so she can scatter her husbands ashes, but there was a comedy bag swap and gangster get involved etc, I didn't really figure the plot as it was in Malay mostly, but the car looked nice all the same. We did some nice shots with suction cup camera mounts that stuck to windscreen and doors, so they could do lots of nice driving shots. All very jolly. The mini was a proper classic, andhad only recently had a full refit and respray to make it up to the old school racing standard. Beast. Shame that it was so noisy inside the car it was a nightmare for us to record decent dialogue, and they can't afford to dub the whole thing after. Never mind, it lends authenticity to the soundtrack. Ahem.

The mini.

Whilst on the subject of the soundtrack, I managed to convince them to hire me as their audio editor. Hurrah, and they gonna pay for this one. Hopefully I'll do such a marvellous job that they'll have no choice but to get me sorted with a work permit and then subcontract me out to all sorts of other companies and I'll have lots of work. Sounds a bit fer fetched, but the response I've had so far has been amazingly good. They seem to have a very bizarre high opinion of British education and training, and gave me lots of respect for my past experience. My only fear now is of making a great balls of it. I'm sure this will be fairly much a simple job (as I was Boom operator for most of it then I got to hear a lot of the raw sounds, so I rekon there won't be too much hiss or hum removal) - it should be a simple case of poppping some music and a few sound effects on top. No worries.

So back to the shoot week. Cut a long story short, we went all over this very remote area just outside KL called Hulu Langat. We did shots where we had to scramble 30feet up a roadside gradient and do driveby shots (this was up on a hill and we got a great view of the jungle below)

great view, bad photo

We also went to a random remote fish restaurant in a forest next to a flat calm lake, which was beautiful and they caught the fish fresh out of a pond for you, barbequed it and served it up with curry and rice. the tables were all in small stilted huts dotted around the forest, just gorgeous and serene, nobody there but us, some cats (and our big noisy generator).

We had a big crew meal here on the last night - at the long table below, sadly the pictures of the meal didn't come out well cos my camera is kind of old and rubbish.

We also went to shoot on the driveway of somebodys house in a very peaceful kampung (village), they had a beautiful river out back, lots of goats (which surrounded me one time whilst I slept on a floor mat, bit scary) and some chickens. Proper peaceful spot.

We went to a lovely waterfall to shoot one afternoon - Vanessa sensibly reminded me to take my swimming togs and I got to go for a reet nice dip in the cold mountain water on our lunch break. Fab.
Me and Hafeezul, the lovely and utterly insane runner. A very equitable chap, salt of the earth and more than a little bit bonkers. Our first conversation went along the lines of...

Hafee: So British music, you like Muse?

Me: No

Hafee: Oh, Radiohead?

Me: Yeah very good, very good

Hafee: Alahmak! You see live?

Me: Once only.

Hafee: Waaaaaaah. Where?

Me: Glastonbury.

Hafee: Waaaaaaaaaa!!! GLASTONBURY?!?!?!?!?!!! Who else you see
Me: erm I dunno, let me see.

Then the rest of the time the conversation went a bit like

Hafee: erm, Blur?

Me: Yeah, one time

Hafee: Waaaaaah! erm Prodigy?

Me: Few times.

Hafee: Waaaaah! Oasis?

repeat for several days.

we wiled away several hours with me trying to describe the plot of "being John Malcovic" to him. This task being basically impossible because I don't even understand the pot myself and would have trouble explaining it to anybody, despite language barriers. But it killed several hours standing by a road (whilst waving a homemade Caution sign - well AWAS cos it's malaysia innit) which would have otherwise been akin to watching paint dry.

Hard at work again.

anyway, enough of this. Suffice to say I had a great time, got a proper job out of it, made loads of contacts, learned a lot of Malay, made lots of new friends, got taken to all sorts of places I'd never go under normal circumstances, ate lots of great food, felt good to be working again and got a bit of a suntan in the bargain too. Even if it was bloody knackering.