Associate
Professor Frederick Lewis and his team of students
from Ohio University’s School of Media Arts & Studies are in Malaysia shooting my short story “Home for Hari
Raya” from my Malaysian collection of short stories Lovers and Strangers Revisited (MPH 2008),
winner of the 2009 Popular Star Reader’s Choice Award. They are working with
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), in Shah Alam.
Last December they contacted
me about filming another story from the same collection, but after they read the revised MPH version of “Home for Hari Raya”,
they decided to film this instead. They then sent in their filming proposal at
Ohio University as part of its Education Abroad program.
The filming project became official in May 2012 when it was
announced in the Ohio University Education Abroad, Centre for International
Studies for students to sign up for the six credit
program. There was also this brief
announcement in the Faculty Director E-Newsletter:
“Frederick
Lewis, along with students from the School of Media Arts and Studies, will
produce a short narrative film based on ‘Home for Hari Raya,’ a short story by
American/ Ohio ex-pat, Robert Raymer.
Robert is a writer and teacher who has lived in Malaysia for more than
20 years. This program will run over winter break in December 2012-January
2011.”
During a ninety minute Skype session in October, I finally
had a chance to meet with Frederick Lewis, Willem Holzer and Jeremy Parolini
who found the old Heinemann Asia version of Lovers
and Strangers in their library that led to their decision to contact
me. Mostly I spoke with Willem Holzer
the director, who also took over the script writing from another student who
had graduated early. I answered his
questions about Malay culture, religion, and Hari Raya.
The script underwent ten drafts—the last five I got heavily
involved with by line-editing each and making several suggestions to improve
the scenes and to make them more authentic.
Willem also got plenty of feedback from Malaysians, including
students from UiTM-Shah Alam and Habibah Ashari, the Tun Razak Chair at Ohio
University whom I once Skyped
with her class of students. The script
does veer away from my original story (as movies often do), with some minor
characters added along with a series of flashback scenes.
Originally 15 students were scheduled to arrive in Malaysia
for the shooting but at the last minute Jeremy Parolini was unable to
come. To help raise funds for their
flights and production costs, the students took part in several university
activities and even made an over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek video which they posted in
early November. They sure look like they
had fun putting this together.
This is a truly Malaysian-American joint project between
Ohio University and UiTM. UiTM’s Faculty of Film, Theatre and Animation has
been handling the casting (and supporting roles), the locations, the art
direction, the wardrobe, the equipment, the audio, and a lot of other stuff
behind the scenes, like transportation and making sure everyone from the actors
to the production crew gets to where they need to be for the shooting with the
equipment and wardrobe intact.
A Facebook account had been set up a couple of months in
advance so students and staff from both universities could introduce one another,
exchange production ideas, clarify their individual tasks, sort out what
equipment will be available in Malaysia (and how they can get access to it),
and work out logistics over their arrival and any last minute glitches. In addition to exchanging ideas and
suggestions, UiTM showed their Ohio counterparts a typical Hari Raya TV
commercial, displayed photos of the set from a house they were able to rent for
two weeks for the shooting as well as the casting videos of hopeful actors keen
to fill the various roles.
The first
casting director Frederick Lewis tried to work with via Skype had some issues regarding
fees, no doubt thinking this is Hollywood production not a university project. Then Farid Ramlee of Red Films, a major
production company in Malaysia, came to the rescue and helped cast the three
sisters and their younger selves, needed for the flashback scenes. Lewis said
it was wonderful how Red Films made time for their ambitious student production.
Students from
UiTM did all of the casting of the supporting roles—many actors were faculty
members or students in their Theater Program.
Also a huge help
was Bryan Olinger, a former student of Lewis at Ohio University and now a Los
Angeles-based director of photography. As
the technical supervisor for this project, he was responsible for the day to
day production. He not only worked
tirelessly but also did a great job teaching the OU and UiTM students the
proper protocol on set and how to handle the equipment. According to Lewis, Bryan was the filming
project’s "insurance policy" in case anything went wrong
technically and saved the production several times with his expertise.
When I spoke
with Lewis on Christmas Day, he said that he and his team has been working
12-14 hour days since arriving in Malaysia since some of the actors were only
available for short time periods. Also,
after losing a day to a torrential downpour, they couldn’t
afford any more weather related delays since they were already on their own tight shooting schedule.
Now that the actual
shooting has ended, post production has taken over, which Lewis and his team will
continue to work on while they visit Penang for about a week before returning
home to Ohio University.
Lewis said that
once the film “Home for Hari Raya” is ready it will
be shown with three others film projects at Ohio University at the end of April
2013, and then submitted for film festivals in the US and overseas, including
in Malaysia. Hopefully it can generate some
interest and manage to win some awards.
Eventually it would nice to see the film featured in Malaysia and also in the US, even on TV, to show a wider audience a
cross-cultural production between two countries and two universities that
showcase Muslims in a whole different light, about three sisters coming to
terms with the recent death of their father while celebrating Hari Raya.
For 2013, I'm wondering (hoping) what other stories from my
collection will catch a film director’s eye?
So far the individual stories from this one collection of 17 short
stories set in Malaysia, has been published 82 times and filmed once. Not a bad way to end 2012!
Here are links to some
of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:
Ivy
Ngeow author of Cry
of the Flying Rhino, winner
of the 2016 Proverse Prize.
Plus:
Beheaded on
Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part
I
—Borneo Expat Writer
