“Trouble In The Outhouse” is the first film under The Stunt Production, Singapore’s only stunts and effects company, to be produced entirely in-house. This short-film will be set entirely within a soldier-environment and peppered with what you would expect from a typical action flick.

This blog will detail every step of the production from conception, pre-production, production, post-production and, finally, distribution. Expect a very transparent style of filmmaking.

The film is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2010, with production taking place in the last quarter of this year.

Currently, the project is headed by Audi Khalid, 21, and Jimmy Low, 56.

So we didn’t get the location. It required 2 weeks to process. That also meant we couldn’t do any big special effects.

I had to re-think the script to fit our schedule, and we came up with something pretty nifty, I think.

More info in the coming week!

I got a call from a friend not long ago and suddenly the world zips by and here I am arranging things for next weekend.

That’s right, after many months of idling we’re finally getting something done. I’m planning it to be a short action scene with explosions, gunfire, body hits and all the usual things you’d expect. Won’t go over a minute.

I hope.

I spoke with Jimmy Low today while on a shoot and we’ve pretty much got the stunt side settled. He’s awesome in that way, helping me out with last-minute requests. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be sourcing a couple of people for crew (I’ll be handling the camera along with my friend, Jayden) and two guys as actors.

Attire is settled and we’ll be using the old Army uniforms with helmet and all. I’m, not sure if there are any restrictions on this, but, hey, I’ve seen so many local productions shooting people in Army uniform without the ministry’s approval and these things actually go on air or get screened.

What I’m worried about now is location. There’s a confusion now. We have an idea or two on locations but they’re what you call a ‘jungle’. We’re writing permits to shoot, but have no idea WHO to write to! National Parks, or Land Authority?

Sadly, this is kind of a problem, and the internet couldn’t help us. Well, challenges are fun.

Crunch time has started!

…. always so bleak and dark?

God. No wonder people say we’re boring.

I went over to Chua Chu Kang Columbarium this afternoon. It’s not a very accessible place without a vehicle so I had to suck it up and walk the cracked roads under the sweltering sun.

I passed by great fields of long grass and in the distant was a knoll that was wrapped with the older Chinese-style gravestones. It’s like something out of the old Chinese drawings you see from history books.

That 20 minutes was therapeutic. Nothing but birds in bare trees and butterflies playfully flirting with its potential mate. In the distant were the dull thuds of, what I assume to be, artillery fire and the occasional pepper-shot of rifles.

The columbarium was deserted save one middle-aged man in white that lingered around. He was the staff there, and I went on to find my friend’s niche.

I spoke to him about whatever’s been going through my mind and how much I missed him, just like I always did. The arty fires laced our conversations and I chuckled at the irony of it all.

I laid a kiss before I left, and walked the long journey out again. They didn’t have proper pavements so I had to walk on the grass beside the road fearing a little for my life as big construction trucks went rolling by at amazing speeds. There should be a speed limiter on those things.

It was my off day today. And I stayed in camp the night before, and I went back in again tonight. People look at me as sort of a sad sorry soul. Staying in camp all week long. Last couple of weeks I was over in camp all weekend, never going home.

I’m not sure what to think. I just like it in here.

Damn. I lost a pen.

July has been a rather terrible month for me. My BMT buddy and a very close friend of mine, Nicholas Chan, passed away on the 3rd of July around 1pm. It’s a very sudden and tragic passing and I have to admit that I’m still in denial about the whole thing, though subconsciously.

I went to his wake every day after that, sometimes staying till the sun was about to rise. I hung around my BMT clique and we relived the days of long ago. I observed and listened to some of the things spoken and had intimate chats with another friend who was close to Nick. I observed the Army guys as they went ahead in performing the military funeral. I gave Nick a final salute as they slow marched the coffin in front of us. The image of his peak cap laid on his coffin etched prominently in my memory.

Justin, a part of our trio, stayed on to walk with the procession. I stood beside him and we silently trudged along behind the long column of tears and sobs. A couple of hours later, we watched as the coffin traveled remotely on a track that led up to the furnace. The gigantic wooden doors slid shut, quick and silent, before any of us could be knocked back into reality.

It’s funny, after everything. Jarrel, Nick’s ‘bestie’ and I sat at the lobby of our bunk block and sat there smoking till 4am for the next four days. I say it’s strange because we shared our sentiments on the Army as a whole. Despite our dissatisfaction, a big part of us also thought of signing on. It’s pretty obvious we were bordering on insanity.

As I was getting a hang of the loss, another person I’ve recently met passed away. It was a sudden death, too. Her name is Yasmin Ahmad, and I met her, spoke to her, on the set of her last production work which was the ‘Funeral’ commercial for MCYS.

She was an inspirational person and a very pleasant person to talk to. The impression she has left on me has led me to start a tribute project with another friend of mine, Jayden.

The passing month has cornered me into thinking much about life and death, and I’ve been keeping tabs on some of the new feelings and perceptions that I have of the Army as it is. Suddenly, this film’s story has taken a new life and direction. I’d say it’s maturing. And what was meant to be something stupid and sarcastic has been layered with strong under-currents of hateful spits and “bro-mantic” sentiments.

I admit that I haven’t been writing a lot lately on the film. A sort of mental block. Or laziness. I can see the images running through my head as I try to piece each scene in a logical sense. And I’ve spoken to a few of my friends from different schools of thought on what they think.

Finally, I spoke to Jayden about this, and he said it as blatantly as it should be,” Audi, you can’t just keep thinking of the film. Or your work. You need to start writing it down.”

So I started the week with my trusty black pen and tattered notebook. Writing.

And nothing can stop me.

My colleagues in the Army have been pretty interested in the making of this film, and we’ve had many impromptu brainstorming sessions throughout the weeks on scenes and situations we can show in the film.

It’s all very deadpan humor and bordering on the silly. Call us naive, but we’ve shared great laughs thinking of ideas. I’ve kept these ideas into a Word document and left it alone for a few days only to read back at what we have thought of. Some ideas didn’t work at all, though I have a handful that still draw chuckles from me as I re-read it. Hopefully, that’s a good indicator of lasting humor.

One of the common concerns regarding this film is the fact that it’s taking place in our own military setting. My sergeant asked a few questions like, “Will they actually be happy we did this? What would people think? Will we be in deep trouble?”

I’m not quite sure what to think. I’ve decided to, one day, consult the proper authorities on this matter. Then again, there has been many short films and feature films that have our soldiers going around in, sometimes, very awkward and ridiculous situations (e.g. Supernatural).

As we were trying to work on the probability of our idea getting jacked, I realized one thing about our scenes: many of it are taken from real situations that we’ve experienced in our tour of duty. Only that they’re highly exaggerated to the point of ridiculous.

In a way, I feel that there’s a social comment that’s forming throughout the film. And that’s invaluable to ANY film, I feel.

This is a rather big step ahead in progress for TITO. We now have a clearer idea of what the film’s main message is, and we have a point-of-view of the matter. However, it’s a delicate balance for me because I’ve been involved (and headed some) projects that became either too preachy on the high horse or turned into mindless Youtube-ish fun.

It takes skill I’m yet to be familiar with, but I’m still writing anyway.

Slowly, the film is becoming alive.

I’ve set up a twitter account under username “stuntproduction” to keep the blog updated as I’m on the go.

Widget is located on the side bar, under the search function.

Writing and writing while in camp, still.

It was about 9am and my fellow mates took a sit at the mess in our daily morning talk-cock session. It was either this, or snoozing away in the bunks.

It’s always great laughs as we poke fun at each other or the actions of other people in camp, regardless of rank. We started talking about my stunt work the day before and I liked how they reacted to it; smiles, wide-eyed and interested. I then spoke about my current story on TITO and I noticed their eyes glazing up. My god, I thought. My story was boring.

I remember when I was in Poly and we were watching many local films. Most of the time, we, being young teens with great megalithic ideas, walked out of class gagging our mouths. I don’t entirely agree with whatever criticisms we had on local films (maturity does that) but one statement stuck in my head – “The Singapore film industry needs another Army Daze.”

I sat back and can’t help to think that there are at least two basic approach people have when it comes to the military either they hate it with disgust, or it was a rather trying period, but also very memorable.

What makes it memorable? Mostly, it’s the humor we can find in our National Service experience. It’s funny… because everyone goes through point A, then B, then C, during BMT but the stories that come out from it differ rather largely.

It’s a point I’m pondering about; an idea that reaches out to a wide audience. Something we all have in common with anything soldierly-like.

I think humor is the way to go.

Question is.. what kind of humor?

I had a brief chat with Jimmy today in the van as we made our way back to Ang Mo Kio after a couple hours in the office. We spoke about how we’re going to go about the financial matters of the film. We threw out a couple of potential sponsors but I’m still not quite decided. For one, I’ve sat on the draft script of the film for a long while now. With the initial crazy excitement and liberal creativity that comes with it, I realized I’ve taken quite a big bite.

As it stands now, I have at least SIX main characters, and that’s NOT counting the antagonists who, at some point of time, would have to appear on-screen. I reflected back on my past experiences on set and decided that having six main talents on set would be inappropriate.

I related my concern on the potential blunder this could turn out to be and he agreed. Thus, we’ve decided to keep it small. But what about the action? Can it still be big and flashy if we have, say, only two people in the film?

Yes, he said.

Some of the set-ups he threw out went like, “One boy, one girl.” or “One girl, two boys.” or “Two girls, one boy.” Short of going off in the wrong tangent, I understood what he meant. Somehow, I’m afraid it’ll end up into another drama. Then again, that’s up to creativity.

Regarding shoot dates, we plan to shoot only on weekends and only a day of a weekend. After one shoot day, the rest of the week will be spent editing till the next weekend, where everybody else will see a rough edit of the film. Hopefully, this will help get most people in the right direction of our idea of the film. This will go on till the last day of shoot. We’re planning, at most, THREE shooting dates. The major reason for this type of scheduling is to accommodate the cast and crew’s personal schedule. After all, we’re either working or serving the Army. Time is a factor. A precious factor. Especially on weekends.

I’ve been assured that I have absolutely nothing to worry about regarding the stunts and effects side. Financially, or otherwise.

Looks like I’ll be busy writing this week.

- Audi