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| Robert Raymer with Ernesto Kalum as Retap and Iban war party |
After being
beheaded as Alan Lee in the
documentary Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed by Rentap
and his war party, my head didn’t hurt, nor was there any swelling, but I
could really feel the pain in my ribs that night—I must’ve bruised
or cracked one when I fell several times while being killed—which made it
difficult for me to sleep.
Back in my twenties, I cracked a couple of ribs after getting kicked in taekwondo,
so I knew there wasn’t a whole lot a doctor could do except X-ray it for
confirmation and give you something for the pain. They used to wrap your chest but they stopped
doing that decades ago. The pain was
manageable; it only hurt when I laughed or slept or rose from sitting, so I
opted not to see a doctor, but I did need to repair my black leather
shoes. Maybe from all of the falling or
banging it on the short steps at the Iban Longhouse, the sole in front started
to come off.
Since I was not needed until Saturday, my big day where I was to play
several characters—the Governor of Singapore; John Brooke, who had been passed
over in favour of Charles Brooke as the second White Rajah; and the younger
version of Captain Henry Keppel, a British
naval officer who had served in the Opium War and assisted the first White
Rajah James Brooke’s campaign against the Borneo pirates and Iban warriors—I had plenty of time to find a shoe cobbler to fix the problem.
Throughout the day, I kept receiving photos of the shoot being posted on the WhatsApp Group. Some made me pause and wonder because they looked like my scenes. I knew there had been some changes on the shooting schedule, so I double checked Friday’s call sheet to make sure my name was not on it. I thought, perhaps, I had overlooked it.
Late that afternoon, I got a message from Mark to confirm that I needed transportation for Saturday. Then two hours later, Prisca contacted me and asked if I could drive out to the Sarawak Cultural Village on my own. Seems there was a problem with the tide for the boat scene and they needed to start shooting a lot sooner than planned. I needed to be there by 6:30 am, which meant I had to get up at 4:30 am if I wanted to make the 50 km journey from my house on time.
My wife told me to take a new shortcut to Damai, via Pending, the opposite way we normally took, via Satok; both would head north on the other side of the Sarawak River. Last night it had rained and was still drizzling when I arrived at the Bidayuh Longhouse, the new base of operations at exactly 6:30 am—without getting lost, surprising my wife.
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| Alex and Charles Rentap (real name!) |
I was told that all of the afternoon shoots had
been cancelled, confirming my suspicions. Since yesterday, Friday, was a public holiday, the staff would not be
around at the Bishop’s House, so they decided to create the shots they needed at
the Sarawak Cultural Village using two other Caucasians, the Fort Guards, Alex
and Charles for the Governor of Singapore and John Brooke.
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| Malaysia and Sarawak flags |
Swapping roles at the last minute was quite common. Sometimes, someone couldn’t make it for the
shoot, so they would grab whoever else was handy; others, as requested, sent a
replacement for themselves. Jimmy,
one of the extras, told me that he played nine roles. A little makeup, a change of costume, and he
could pass for one race or another.
Others played at least five or six roles, one or two primary, up-close
shots, and the rest secondary to fill out the numbers.
For the battle scenes, which took place last night, they made about a
dozen people look like a hundred, taking multiple close-up shots from different
angles, catching various parts of their bodies. Those working on the actual footage reported how
impressed they were seeing it on film.
After we were dressed in our costumes, they drove Alex, who was to
portray the 14-year-old Charles Brooke, and me, as the younger Captain Henry Keppel,
to a nearby jetty in Santubong where we boarded a fishing boat with a trimmed
down crew. Altogether, including the
director, Fendi, and Rob, there might have been eight or nine of us. Since it looked like it was going to pour
anytime soon, we were all in a rush to get set up and to start filming.
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| Fendi, the Director |
They had Alex and me stand at the bow, looking off toward our left, with the camera positioned behind us, shooting us, the sea and the blackening sky assuring us that a storm was approaching.
While filming, I explained to the young Charles Brooke, the future second
White Rajah of Sarawak that someday, all of this would be his….It was Charles
Brooke who greatly expanded the territory of Sarawak beyond the original city of
Kuching to its present borders.
Luckily for me, I wore a hat when it began to drizzle; unluckily, the
British flag that they had mounted kept pushing at the back of my head nearly
knocking the hat off before they tied the flag down.
To get the angle they were looking for, we had to kneel on the deck, with
our backs erect. The position was
uncomfortable, so we were glad when the director suggested that we remove our
shoes, which helped.
Later, when it began to rain heavily after the shooting, as I was rushing for cover, the hat flew
off my head, but I somehow managed to catch it midair before it was lost forever at sea.
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| Author Robert Raymer and Rob Nevis, Executive Producer |
I had planned to get some shots of the fishing boat that we had used but
the heavy rain prevented me from doing so; I wished I had taken the shots before boarding but we were in a rush to
beat the rain....Alex and I returned to the Bidayuh Longhouse, while the others
stayed behind to shoot more river footage.
They then spend the rest of the day and
the following day taking B-roll shots—outtakes without actors—at
notable sites such as Fort
Margherita, the Istana, the
Courthouse, and other historical buildings, and the surrounding environs to
work into the documentary.
The A-roll shots are the
main scenes with the actors and extras, the most costly part of the filming,
which is why they try to cram it all into several long days for documentaries
or a few intense weeks for feature films.
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| Rob Nevis and Jason Brooke |
Before leaving Kuching, Rob managed to have tea with Jason Brooke, grandson of the last Rajah Muda of Sarawak.
Even though the rescheduling
of the shoot made me miss out on some important scenes, including having a
private tea with James Brooke as the Governor of Singapore, no doubt suggesting
that he seek his fortune in Borneo, I was quite happy to keep my head about me
at all times, just in case someone decided to, well, you know, this is land of
the headhunters, and that Iban war party did kill me in that other scene…
It was also quite an honor
to be a part of recreating history—an honor for all of us involved from the
cast, the crew and production—in the Road to Nationhood:
Sarawak Reclaimed.
—Borneo Expat Writer
# # #
Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I
Beheaded on the Road to Nationhood—Part II
Joseph Conrad and Me
See the trailers: https://borneoexpatwriter.blogspot.com/2018/10/road-to-nationhood-sarawak.html
Road to Nationhood: Journey to Independence part I (1945-1957)
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