Realiti on bittorrent

I've just discovered that Realiti is currently available on bittorrent from d-addicts.com. It should be of higher quality than what you get off YouTube.

Labels: realiti, tv

Take a bite out of Kitchen Confidential

I told myself: No more posts about TV now that Realiti has ended it's run. And, yet, the debut of Kitchen Confidential on Malaysian TV (NTV7, Wednesdays 10.45pm) forces me to at least say, Watch this show, even though it didn't last for more than 13 episodes, it's pretty tasty. Based on the Anthony Bourdain autobiography of the same name, it's a comedy in the style of Arrested Development set in the sizzling-paced world of haute cuisine.

Never mind the corny description, give the show a nibble. Okay, okay, give it a chance.

Labels: tv

So, Realiti's over. What next?

So, Realiti (season 1) is over and done with - what next? Well, I still don't know if there will be a second season of the show. Usually, if it takes this long for people to decide, it would mean a 'no'. Believe or not, the budget for this was quite high for a Malaysian show, and even then there wasn't enough left over to do any reshoots or rerecordings. On the other hand, if a company stepped forward and said they were willing to sponsor it, I'm sure it's something 8TV would sit up and listen to.

ANYWAY, that still hasn't stopped us discussing privately what we could do in a second season. Admittedly, they're short four or five sentence conversations, and I can confidently say that a second season may or may not include the following:

• It may use the same five kids or it may introduce a set of new kids.


• Mac, Wahida, Jay and Pop TV Girl may be back, or it may be a new set.


• It may be about a singing competition, or it may be about a different reality show altogether (think Survivor, Amazing Race, The Contender).

As you can see, Ping and I are great about planning ahead.

Nevertheless, there is another new Popiah Pictures production on the horizon. This is not Realiti. This is a completely different show. We're not even sure about the title yet. I'm currently going for Dwi Dunia or Hidup Kembar, but a good title should tell you what the show's about in an instant, and neither of these do.

The show will be similar to Realiti in a few ways:

• It will be produced by Popiah Pictures - that is, Ng Ping Ho and Anne Low.


• It will use at least one of the actors seen in Realiti.


• It will be set in KL.


• It will be a ten-episode series.

The show will be different in a few ways too:

• It will focus on the two main characters and not (repeat: not) be an ensemble piece.


• There will probably be no singing, off-key or otherwise.


• It will probably have very little english dialogue and no hokkien (the closest thing to this I can think of that Popiah Pictures has done is Impian Illyana, but the tone will be closer to Realiti.)


• It will use special effects.

I'm sure the last point may have made people sit up. Hmm. That's all I can tell you now, simply because the rest we haven't really decided yet. Probably due out sometime mid/late 2007.

Labels: realiti, tv

Things I learnt from Realiti

Whew. Realiti has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride. For my own good, I should do some sort of 'lessons learnt' post. Because it's always good to relook over what you've done and cringe at your mistakes. And if I do it as a post, I can get some of you to shout at me if I've missed anything out, or got anything wrong. Anyway, this is what I know, now that I've done the show:

• Writing an ensemble show is hard. Wah, we watch shows like Lost and Firefly and then get delusions of grandeur that it's really easy to plot multiple storylines over a course of a season and have them come together to make sense. It's not. It's hard for several reasons.
  
  • First, instead of having one interesting story, you need to come up with five. So, you end up with some good stories (Burn/Melody), some okay stories (Nickson), and some 'hmm...' stories (Baby, Amir). And you have to come up five interesting characters, with five different voices, and five different styles... Argh.
  
  
  • Second, it's almost impossible to stretch a story arc over ten episodes without it either being very slow, or very soap operatic. What worked was the Burn/Melody story, where it started with 'Melody is on drugs' and then transformed into 'Burn's love-redeems-all'. Roughly three episodes for each, and almost seamless. What didn't work so well was Amir's story (The ran-from-kampung didn't really segue that well into throw-the-competition-for-your-family line), and Baby's (I think the poison-pen letter storyline was too short; the resolution of the blackmail storyline was too stretched out).
  
  
  • Third, crossing-over storylines need work to make it feel natural. There needs to be a really good cause-and-effect at work. I tried to cross-over Burn's storyline to Baby's; however, in the process, I lost sight of the competition, so that had to be ditched. On the other hand, I did like how Baby's story created tension between Amir and Dayang.


• Having a clear theme would be a good thing. Sometimes, I felt like we lost direction about what the show was about. Yes, it's about a singing competition, but it isn't just that. It's more about what you would do to win the competition. The tag-line I end my notes post with has the phrase, "What would you do to become a star?". This isn't the official line, this is just something I realised very late into the writing process (despite having Ping point out that it's "all about the competition" a lot of the time). If I had this stuck on my monitor as I was writing, I think everything would have hung together much nicer.


• Planning helps. Having a good idea where you want to get to really makes a difference. That whole run between episodes 7 to 10 I think works because we had a strong theme (eliminations), and because we knew who would reach the final, so we knew which stories had to be wrapped up when, so we knew how to pace (most) of them... Compared to, say, Impian Illyana, when the episodes were more standalone, so they didn't really fit in that well.


• Malaysian audiences don't always have patience. Rather, until they've bought into the show, they don't really want absorbing storylines that have subtle turns. Well, I'm not sure that I know what I'm talking about in this one, but let me try. People thought episodes 1 and 2 were slow. But I've been through them (again), and I think there's at least as much fat in episodes 6, 8 and 10. I think audiences need to identify with a character first, before you can put them in a grind. Compare this with the first season opener for Battlestar Galactica (very tense, slowly builds up), or a lot of mid-season episodes of lost (it's all about the character and lots of 'hmm' moments). And I'm a huge fan of Inspector Morse, but I notice very few people in Malaysia took to that show. So, the lesson is, hit with a bang, then another bang, then another bang, and then slow down.


• Extreme characters become popular. I should already know this, but people like characters that make larger-than-life decisions. I think Baby (when she's bad) and Nickson (when he's gay) stick in many peoples' heads, whereas Amir and Melody are a little more low-key.


• Songs and music can tell stories. Duh. But what I mean is that I regret not pushing for songs that fit into the storyline better. The song then tells the story or reinforces the theme. For example, Melody singing 'All By Myself' to Burn on the rooftop. But it's hard to find songs that fit the style of the singer and the copyright/licensing restrictions that you have.


• Banter resets tension. Okay, this really isn't a lesson learnt, but it's quite funny to see how I've handled banter throughout my writing career (I do use this term loosely). At the beginning, I used to have a lot of banter, but Ping kept cutting it out. And then I learnt that "shorter is better", so I started to cut down on it myself. But then I realise that it's not that you want to cut unnecessary banter, but you need it to let stories breathe in between scenes sometimes. So now I wish I had pushed for a little more in some scenes (e.g. in Burn's dyslexia story).

There's probably a few more things I can write about, but I'm geting hungry, and I need to eat. Man cannot live on words alone, you understand.

Labels: realiti, tv

Realiti - Episode 10 notes

So, the final episode of Realiti, with a grand final and a whole slew of stories being wrapped up. What's surprising is that everyone thinks it ends on a cliff-hanger, but we didn't really mean to design this with a second season in mind - it should be watchable on its own.

Personally, I'm a little disappointed with this episode. It's okay, I guess, but for a season finale, it should be more than okay. Several things work against it: the season storylines seem to trot down to a gentle amble, the performances in the finale aren't the best, and some of the acting and writing feels a little rushed.

On the other hand, there are some pretty awesome shots (particularly in the Burn story) and it does end with a bang.

Nevertheless, I've said it before, and I'll say it now. Notwithstanding my bias, I think that Realiti is the best Malaysian show on television this year. If you agree with me, you should drop 8TV a line and thank them for it.

Missed it? YouTube it: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

• This is the only episode that I practically had no involvement in. Although I knew broadly what was going to happen, the devil was in the details. There was a time crunch, and I had to be out of town when Ping wrote it, so the first time I saw the script was when it was a shooting draft. I had some immediate comments, but because they had to do with structure, and because they were so late in the day, they couldn't be incorporated.


• The biggest arguments I had with Ping throughout the whole series was whether to return Melody to the competition. I simply felt it was too unrealistic, and a too drama-minggu-ini for my liking. Her waking up, okay. Her fighting against the odds to see Burn for perhaps one last time at the final five performance, perhaps. But for her to have od'd, woken up, be fit enough to reenter the competition... aiyo, too much lah. So Ping and I fought, and fought, and fought. And he won out. But I have to grudgingly admit that having Jay press for her does lend credibility to it.


• A bit wierd, to see Nickson drop back into happy-gay mode after his storyline has been wrapped up. But he does work as light relief.


• Funny how Burn and Melody are a little cool to one another when you first see them meet up. I'll just assume they saw each other earlier and got the mushy stuff over and done with then.


• The attack on Wahida was a little overdone for me. My original story idea was to just have an envelope on the windshield wiper.





• Burn and Joe's phone conversation - solid gold. "Apasal lu tak bunuh aje gua malam tu, bro?"


• Baby's storyline is the weakest of the three. I got that impression from the first read. It's not clear what's happening, it's just a lot of exposition. Although Baby makes a decision at the end, it's not as strong as I would like.


• Another thing that annoyed me - Baby's kidnapper was arrested somewhere that looked very similar to where Burn and Joe met up with the drug dealers. Almost exactly the same, in fact, even though the two stories don't really have anything to do with one another. Must be a really seedy part of town.


• Cheyenne Stutzriem (Fazrina) gives quite a good performance in this episode. I don't know her that well, but we did have a conversation where I told her that if she was naughty, we'd put her in a velcro suit and stick her to the ceiling. She didn't really believe me, for some reason.


• Even though we didn't discuss this, it's interesting that Ping decided to go with the 'all the contestants love one another' idea for the episode, although it real life, you usually see some degree of factioning between the kids. It would have been an idea to get Amir/Baby facing up against Melody/Burn.


• There was that moment between Mac and Wahida which got fans of Maria Farida all a-flutter. Mac was indeed meant to have a story arc waaay when we started, but he got pushed aside by the kids' stories. And yes, the backstory (that we never actually got around to saying) is that Mac and Wahida had a pre-existing relationship.


• Carmen Soo with her hair up - nice. Carmen Soo with her long hair down - very nice.


• That bit where Mac gives the kids his farewell speech is hyper-cheesy. I would have rewritten it, for sure.


• Songs sung this episode: Best of Them All by Douglas Lim (all contestants); Selamanya by Douglas Lim (Baby); Looking Down by Douglas Lim (Melody); Akustatik by OAG (Amir).







• Personally, I really like that group piece that all five do before the final begins. They're all pretty much in tune. They all look nice. And it's a nice song. What more do you want?


• Okay. So Melissa says she's not so good at singing. I think she can actually do better than she thinks she can - it's all a vicious circle of poor confidence and self-fulfilling prophecies. However, it's horribly obvious Baby did not sing her finale song well at all. Based on the judges' comments, I can only conclude that they were all stone deaf that day, or maybe they were on some sort of hyper-optimistic happy pill.


• That bit where Burn says goodbye to Melody and she gives him her locket is really well photographed. It actually really is directly behind the stage at Sri Pentas 2, but obviously better lighted than usual.


• Although I was initiallly okay with how the Amir/Jay story ended, now I wish that Jay had a little more of a comeuppance. Suffered a bit, you know what I mean.


• We weren't quite sure who would win, right up until we were planning the ninth episode. What we did agree was that whoever won would have to also lose something. So, Melody wins, but she loses Burn. We had an alternative where Amir wins. If I remember, it was something like: Jay stops paying for the hospital bills, Dad falls ill, Amir has to decide whether to stay in the competition or go back home, Amir decides to stay, Amir sings, Amir wins, but you find out that the father has passed away. We're callous with lives like that.


• Okay, the big question that lots of people asked after the end. What happened? Is that how it ends? Is Burn dead?!! When Ping and I were planning this, we weren't thinking of a cliffhanger for season two. In fact, Ping's original idea was to have one of them die in the other's arms. Melody in Burn's, Burn in Melody's, I can't remember which. But I was worried about the sentimentality and said it should be handled really carefully. Then his script called for Joe to emerge from the back seat when Burn gets into the car, but now you don't see the death. Finally he decided on what you see on-screen, which I think is an even better ending. But I'm avoiding the question: is Burn dead? Well, I don't know. It depends if there is a second season. And even then...

Realiti. 10pm Sundays on 8TV, starring Azizan Nin, Ashraf Sinclair, Melissa Maureen, Alvin Wong, Chelsia Ng, Radhi Khalid. With Nazrudin Rahman, Juliana Ibrahim, Kee Thuan Chye, Reefa, Lydia Ibtisam, Nell Ng, Cheyenne Stutzriem, Aishah Sinclair. Special appearances by Fat Fabes, Carmen Soo and Fly Guy. What would you do to become a star?

Labels: realiti, tv

Best of Them All - Cast of Realiti

So I said I wouldn't upload any mp3s, but I kinda really like this song, so I decided to YouTube the sucker. Nice song, all the kids sound okay - what more do you want?

Labels: realiti, tv

One Step by Chelsia Ng

The voters have spoken: If it's Melody Yeoh you want, it's Chelsia Ng you'll get!

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One Step by Melody, from the first episode of Realiti.

Labels: realiti, tv

Realiti - Episode 9 notes

We're now one step away from the last episode of Realiti, and personally, I honestly don't know if the next is the last ever episode or not. 8TV haven't said whether they want a second season. If you are curious (or you really want to watch a second season of Mac trying to be tough, yet nice, to a bunch of good looking people), drop them a note at their website. Actually, if you want a soundtrack of their songs, or merchandise (they have a notebook with the five kids on the cover), then you can ask them for that as well.

Talking about the soundtrack, I have managed to get hold of the first cuts of the kids singing songs. These are recordings of Ashraf, Zizan, Mel, Chelsia and Alvin warbling, before final post-production, so it's all a little raw and... er... not as in tune as we would like. I want to put a track or two up, but I shall leave it to you all to decide which of the five get the priveliege. Vote in the poll in this post, and if you want one song in particular, tell me in the comments below.

So, as usual, don't read these notes if you haven't seen the episode. You can watch them on YouTube: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

• Although Ping is credited as scriptwriter for this episode, I actually came up with the first draft of the story outline. There are big differences between that draft and the final version, and it's Ping's final script, so that's why his name is up there. But it would have been nice to have a 'story by' credit. I am indeed a whore for attention.


• Yes, the question must be asked: Why would Baby keep the photo of Fazrina when it has "I KNOW YOUR SECRET" plastered all over the back? Well, erm... because it serves the plot (*cringe*). Actually, I originally wanted it to be a letter, but Ping argued that a photo would be better because it better reminded Baby of how poorly she's stayed in touch with her daughter. Of course, if Baby wanted photos of Fazrina, all Baby would have had to do is ask Constance. But that doesn't serve the plot.


• The bits where you see Amir or Burn sitting on a ledge. Well... they are really sitting on a ledge. With no safety cables. They're not jumping around, but I myself have a very sensible fear of falling long distances, so I would have probably not done this as an actor. (There could have been a crew member ready to leap across to grab him if needed - he'd be called a grip, right? Geddit? Grip?)


• Originally, I wanted the drugs to be in tablet form, with a design etched on them. This is how they are branded, with hearts or doves, or something equally peace-loving. Ping opted for some alien-like logo. I would have preferred something more ironic.


• Joe calls girls 'chicas'. I only know one person in real life who says this, but that's license enough for me to use it in dialogue.


• Originally there was more Jay/Amir interaction about the newspaper rumour in episode 8. Because of time, it's now in episode 9.


• I don't know if Ping intentionally sourced Nike so that Joe's wearing a sweatshirt from them when he says, "As the shoe company says, Just Do It, man". But it's a nice touch.


• The scene where Dayang enters Baby's room and takes her photo was meant to be in episode 8. I originally had her find personal photos of Amir and Baby together, which she tears up in a fit of anger. After writing this, I took to calling Dayang 'Psycho Girl', and Lydia used to crinkle her pretty brow at me everytime I called her this. Of course, trust her to give a pretty sensitive portrayal on screen, so she isn't 'psycho' so much as 'sedih'.


• Incidentally, does anybody else think it's strange that Baby would have a photo of herself on her desk? Or it's just completely in line with her narcissism.






• The food that you see Dayang eating when Amir goes to see her is probably really her lunch. Lunch and dinner is provided on set, and they always come in these white polystyrene boxes, with nasi, one veg, and one bit of animal. No, the cast and crew don't get a long buffet line or a catering van or a menu. And everyone pretty much eats the same food - the only differences are halal/non-halal/vegetarian.


• I distintively remember writing the Amir/Dayang dialogue, where Amir says that why do those in the kampung accept that people help one another, but people from KL are more cynical, and assume there is an agenda. This is one thing I wanted to get through about Amir - that he is genuinely a nice guy, but in trying to be nice, he gets into trouble. I personally have a problem that I find it hard to say 'no', and when I do, it's usually too late, so there's a whole bit of me in Amir, I guess.


• That bit at the end of the Amir/Dayang conversation, when Dayang asks Amir to not see Baby again, is something that resonates with me. When I write stuff like that, it feels like I'm exposing myself - even though hardly anybody out there will know what it means.


• I think this is another good episode for Melissa and Zizan, acting-wise. Wish they were like this in Table for Two.


• I had a scene which shows Burn stealing a set of crutches, in order to pretend to be a patient and sneaking into the hospital. But, "the nurses dig me" works as well.


• When Baby slaps Amir, I keep thinking, "Hit HARDER!". Mel's just too nice.


• The montage of Burn calling for money is actually not great writing. Montages like this are shortcuts for "time passes...", where the same thing is said in practically every cut. But they're easy to write.


• Okay, authenticity check. In real life, on the day of the performance, the kids spend practically the whole day at the stage, preparing for the show later that night. In retrospect, it would have been better to set the whole episode at Sri Pentas, against a background of rehearsals. But, I think it was hard to find shooting time there, anyway. My bad, though.






• That whole bit from Burn and Joe visiting the dealers and then the ensuing fight is completely Ping. My version had a lot of detectiving, and Ping complained, "Where do they have time to do that?!!"


• So, when I set a scene in a completely new location, Ping rails at me for increasing his costs. When he writes a scene in a drug dealer's hideout in Bukit Bintang, it automatically makes the final cut. Wonder why.


• Ping said that the fight scene between Burn and Joe was incredibly intense to shoot. Ashraf and Reefa went full force into each other.


• Despite fighting in some back corridor in the seedier side of KL, note that their clothes stay clean. Most of the nicer clothes and furniture are sponsored. Don't sit on the wrong sofa on set or you'll get roundly scolded for it.


• "What do you mean, tinggal dua saja?" Hahahaha. I love that bit.


• Songs sung: Pernah by Ferhad (Baby); NowWhy2 by OAG (Amir); Ayu by VE (Burn).


• I know that even Melissa herself says she can't sing, but I think what she did for this show is pretty nice.


• "I'm Burn, man. Always ready." - My line, that. Heh.


• It's actually pretty obvious that Burn was going to lose this one. There was no reason for Amir to lose votes, and Baby's story isn't over yet.


• And yet, for those who watched the "next week" clips, you know there's one more person's story to wrap up...

Realiti. 10pm Sundays on 8TV, starring Azizan Nin, Ashraf Sinclair, Melissa Maureen, Alvin Wong, Chelsia Ng, Radhi Khalid. With Nazrudin Rahman, Juliana Ibrahim, Kee Thuan Chye, Reefa, Lydia Ibtisam, Nell Ng, Aishah Sinclair. Special appearances by Fat Fabes, Carmen Soo and Fly Guy. What would you do to become a star?

Labels: realiti, tv