When cameras start rolling, what is there to film?

Movie and television productions will be allowed to roll cameras next week.

Senior Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob reminds us the obvious: “Social distancing and self-hygiene should be practised at all times.”

Okay, to shoot what?

That question is prompted by the situation in Thailand, where filming has resumed.

There is the expected screening of cast and crew for their temperature. No more than 50 production people are to be on set, all masked.

Here’s the rub: There are to be no love scenes, fight scenes and any other acts involving the cast in close proximity with each other. Actors must be at least one metre apart.

If we were to adopt the same guidelines, there would go a large part of the Malay film industry with no love scenes in exotic locations.

Back to a retro style of coy flirting across a halal physical gap, awkward initial conversation warming to easy chat, quick glances sideways, eyelashes aflutter. Not sure how it will sell to the millenials when they can stream American series and BBC period dramas that have "fleshy" scenes.

No fight scenes? There go a few potential box office hits. We will just have to shoot and blow them up from a distance.

There are solutions. Camera angles can suggest intimacy or close contact. And there is the ever-growing intelligence of software to answer the need for special effects.

In April, the Australian soap opera Neighbours, using “trickery,” made the actors look closer than the required 1.5m apart.

Then there is the cineplex industry. When cameras roll again, they will probably have to endure reduced numbers at the box office. Besides people’s lingering fear of being boxed in, what used to be a full house will only be a part of that with empty seats gapping patrons.

And there is the National Film Development Corporation (Finas), which just celebrated its 39th anniversary. 

Communications and Multimedia Minister Saifuddin Abdullah (below) uttered the expected platitudinous promises in a congratulatory video message on Twitter: “We will continue to empower the local film industry including by setting specific targets, for example, the Oscars, audits and by repurposing development funds and film production.”

Audits? For real this time? Really? “Repurposing development funds and film production” – vague enough to cover all or nothing; fluid funds flowing elsewhere, with every change of government, part of the “empowering” process.

Can we lose the ridiculous obsession with the Oscars? Many Malaysian films have won recognition in film festivals all around the world. The industry’s achievements internationally do not have to be condescended to nor patronised (in more ways than one).

Simple question: How does one target making an Oscar-nominated film? Form a committee with representatives from four ministries, five government departments, six universities and seven film veterans?

If it happens, great, but in the meantime, Finas should be building from the ground up, not shooting for the stars.

On that note, I would like to give a shout to three young (relatively speaking) Malaysian film talents – James Lee, Gavin Yap and Shamaine Osman. (Forewarning: I had a role in the project.)

In 2016, the three of them got together and decided to each shoot a film that will make up a full-length feature, with a common theme of an infestation of zombies, and with a couple of characters featuring as a tying thread through the three stories.

Then they got it crowd-funded for a couple of hundred grand. They compounded their death-wish plunge by setting a nine-day shooting schedule, three days per film.

The cast members of the films (I was in Gavin’s film) were mesmerised somehow into believing that shooting from morning till late in the night for three days, paid a very few hundred ringgit, and dining on three packed meals a day, was an offer we couldn’t turn down.

KL24: Zombies was up on Youtube on Jan 8, 2017, in James’ Doghouse 73 Pictures site (which hosts a lot of indie films), a free full-length film. It was made free as Gavin said working outside the established system gave them “the freedom to make the film we wanted.”

“My memory of making the movie is just what a mad adrenaline rush the whole thing was,” said Gavin. 

“We shot a feature film in nine days, that's insane. Especially for a film that had special make-up, a lot of extras and action sequences.

“I knew from the beginning that I wanted mine to be about a guy bringing his Malay girlfriend home to meet his parents. I was very attracted to the idea that the Malaysian way of dealing with the outbreak would be to stay home and pretend like everything is okay, haha.”

Outbreak haha. When I checked out the site in April 2019, it was about 150 hits short of 3 million. I thought not bad for just over two years.

As of writing, June 2020, the film has had over 5,926,000 hits, almost doubled in a year – it’s viral, striking a chord with Covid-19. It’s global. There are requests for subtitles in Spanish, Tagalog, Hindi, etc. A fan has added Portuguese subtitles.

I don’t think any Malaysian film has put close to that number of bums on cineplex seats.

What a “rich” reward for what started as a small declaration of independence from commercial constraints, and a shout for creative freedom. And not a government official in sight.

(Warning: In case, you search it out, it has strong language. Do not watch with parents or kids. Really. A couple of the cast couldn’t keep the news from family and had to deal with heated calls from mothers and a furious aunt who had watched it with young nephews and nieces. Also if you think you see a sex scene, you didn’t, watch again, it’s all in your head.)

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THOR KAH HOONG is a veteran journalist. - Mkini