Realiti - Episode 3 notes

Okay for those of you who complained that I hadn't gotten episode 3 notes up quickly enough (you know who you are), I just want you to know that there is a reason for it. The bulk of this week's episode notes come from Razlina Ramli, the writer for this week's epsiode. However, even with the magic of email, it takes time for notes to travel across the ether.

Anyway, if you like this week's episode and want to be able to write like that, you can actually learn how to do so from Raz. She teaches creative writing at 95% Trainings. Yes, a free plug, but I like her.

(This episode on YouTube: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

I haven't been able to keep completely quiet though. The notes in italics are mine, everything else comes from Raz.

• What did I like about the show? Baby fitted her role and so did Melody.


• What I did not like about the show? When I saw the scene in a rehearsal hall/ room. And I was kind of ‘Oh…interesting…ok not bad.


• When Melody had her first come back line to Burn’s sniggering about her not looking the type who would like Gwen Stefani, I thought there would be enough sexual tension to get everyone to sit up and wonder and look at Melody for another point of view. Something along the line of “hey this girl has claws and she knows how to use them”. However on screen, the chemistry between them was not there. She didn’t bring out the claws. She didn’t even show her claws. She merely said the words. I guess, when I wrote it, I saw someone who was able to show others that she has claws and that she knows how to use it, so watch out. I guess I thought she would be sarcastic enough for Burn to feel the scratch. Burn reacted yeah but … I still feel it lacked the punch. I watched it with my 20 year old cousin and my mom and both of them agree that that scene was not punchy enough. I heard Ping did his best to bring out the bitch in Melody. It was not too bad but I would’ve loved it had she said it like she really meant it.


• I like what Ping did with the scene between Wahida and Amir. He improved my script by having it shown and not tell. Yes, so sometimes I get caught by telling and not showing.


• I was looking forward to it. Amir did fine but somehow I felt Wahida was not as inquisitive and nosy as I had imagined her to be. But then again that’s the director’s prerogative. In the script, when Wahida asked about Amir’s parents he reacted and said ok… the usual answer he gives Wahida to all of her questions. But in the scene there was a visual before he answered and I found it slow. Maybe again because the director thought it was so under run that he wanted to prolonged that particular part.


• The next scene Ping had Dayang coming from the opposite direction, passing and ignoring Amir in the corridor of the hotel which I thought was great but on screen I saw them pushing the cart together and I felt the impact was kind of lost. I like it went they flirted with each other it was kind of cute, where she commented that he was already famous and how he was beginning to ignore her but here it showed them together and none of it came out. Which is a pity cause it was a nice set up for what was to happen next in their relationship.


• Must say again, props to Lydia in her role as Dayang in this episode.


• Oh another thing, I wrote Dayang as a Sarawakian girl and I think Lydia is playing Dayang as a Semenanjung girl… which is okay. I just liked to hear the Sarawkian accent on screen.


• I guess the script was really under run when they showed Burn going up to the roof and punching the bag and sweating it out. Cause in mine it showed Burn already punching the bag and was drenching in sweats with an earphone firmly stuck in his ears. That to me showed that he has a lone wolf and not the type to go out and happy happy kind of fellow to help anyone. And that later on, on the way back to his room, he sees Melody rehearsing with her ogre dad and you see that he, of all people, felt pity for her. It is a big thing that Burn can actually feel for someone, because all this while, he has shown that he can’t be bothered with other peoples feelings. It was kind of a romantic scene without being all mushy and gooey, but I didn’t get that. I saw Burn passing by, stopping and looking and then there was nothing. Ahhhh…. What happened to my romantic scene? Was it all in my head?? Apparently so.


• The song that Melody sings is White Roses. Composed and originally sung by Douglas Lim on his and Chelsia's album Indecisive. Good luck finding a copy. If you really want one, go and pester 8TV to release it as a download.


• Oh the other thing, I know Ping hates it when I put accents into the characters’ voices. Of course it adds colour but I guess if they can’t do it, it's better to be without it. I guess that’s why in my script Dayang had an accent and Wahida puts on different accents depending on whom she’s talking to. In the script, whenever Wahida talks to people from the north she adopts a northern accent – for me it was her way of establishing the relationship and getting people to be at ease when she starts prodding into their lives and also how she gets people to do things for her quite easily. In the show Wahida is accentless which I felt oohhh…. It lost the character in her.


• I had one scene with Amir coming back home tired and was about to sleep when he saw a breakfast order slip on his pillow. It was from Burn. I really liked that. It so Burn to rile people up. However I didn’t see that part. (The scene was there)


• There was also some flirtatious / romantic scenes between Dayang and Amir that Ping had inserted in in the original script. Nickson, Amir and Burn were walking along the corridor and they bumped into Dayang. Dayang smiled, Amir did not smile until she was out of his view. But what I liked most about that scene was Burn noticed that there is something between the two. Which is great for the upcoming episodes.


• There was a scene where we see the girls coming out of the lift, with Baby wearing really a short skirt that reveals her legs and Melody looking insipid as usual. It showed me their personalities as they approached the meet the fan session. Didn’t see that in the final product.

Photos courtesy of Popiah Pictures and Chelsia Ng.

• Due to budget constraints, the show unfortunately does not truly replicate how chaotic and crazy fans get when they meet reality show contestants. Instead of tens of fans, think hundreds, more than a thousand. Instead of polite chit-chat, think screaming, and the occasional faint. And the business about asking for phone numbers? Happens all the time.


• Some of the fans are quite famous in their own right. Cindy's mum is played by Soefira Jaafar, well established stage actress. The girl flirting with Burn is January Low, who won Best Solo Performer (Dance) at the 2003 Boh Cameronian Arts Awards. I believe this is her TV acting debut.


• Okay now to Ben. I wrote him to be 30 something distinguish looking suave, debonair. I saw him on screen and I saw... The guy playing the character Ben, did not fit into what I wrote Ben as. I had written as suave and man about town, man with money and power. At least I thought so. However when I saw Ben on the screen, my mouth dropped. He looks like a character out of one of Naguib Mahfouz’s books. In fact what I see in my head as I write, is this character who works at a lonely petrol station out in the dessert in the middle of nowhere. He had a silly grin and looked oily and not at all a sight for sore eyes when you’ve been traveling for miles looking at nothing but the sand. Okay back to Ben. It makes me feel that Baby has bad taste to have ever had wanted him or had an affair with him. I am not sure why she was taken by this fellow. Perhaps it was money.


• I liked it that before this episode, no one thought of Nickson being gay. But as soon as Calvin appeared both my mom and cousin went, "Oh he is gay." Before this scene, they may have thought about it but may consider him to be effeminate and if they had thought of him to be gay, they had dismissed it altogether. So I really liked that part. I think Dzof and Ping liked too. A nice show not tell. Didn’t have to wait for mummy to call and say that the photograph could mislead people into thinking that he is gay/ effeminate.


• The thing that kept going through my mind about the Nickson storyline was, what would have happened to Daniel (of Malaysian Idol 2) if he had suddenly said he was gay? It might have been disastrous, but then again, it might have made him even more popular.


• Burn’s street wise/ smart-lone wolf guy comes across as a spoilt rich boy. There’s not enough edge. Okay, so that’s my point of view. But if he was a tight-lipped, scowling lone wolf, I think the girls will like him more. Girls just like bad boys and Burn’s bad boy is a city urban bad boy.


• What I really like, was that Burn and Melody’s scene on the ledge of the building. I thought that was a really cool scene. Both of them basking in the glow of the night and sharing some time together. Mine was boring; it was just at the pool area. (I agree, freaking awesome visual.)

• When Burn was drunk, and Amir and Nickson had saved him, in the final scene we see Amir had thrown both Nickson and Burn in a storeroom. However, in my script I or Ping had them inside the pushcart trolley, which I thought was cute. Seeing two men squeezed in a tightly enclosed space. I was thinking hey, is Nickson going to do anything here?


• My only other comment is the ending. It didn’t give me the tang tang tang. Oh me gawd he ran away?? ? It was kind of lembik. And even I was thinking, eh, so what la he ran away. The tension was kind of missing, maybe my writing was not strong enough, maybe the tension was all in my head. Hmm, looks like it.


• The traffic noise is a bit too distracting. It got me thinking, hey way up there and the noise of the traffic is still apparent. And at some places the echo sound of the room was not what I would be rah rah for.

Realiti. 10pm Sundays on 8TV, starring Azizan Nin, Ashraf Sinclair, Melissa Maureen, Alvin Wong, Chelsia Ng, Radhi Khalid. With Juliana Ibrahim, Maria Farida, Lydia Ibtisam, Gambit, Kee Thuan Chye, Nell Ng. Guest appearances by Mazin Siraj, January Low, Maimon Mutallib, Abu Bakar Juah, Natasha Saeed Megad, Soefira Jaafar, Cheyenne Stutzriem. What would you do to become a star?

Labels: realiti, tv