Actually, I plan to write this post once I’ve received the group pictures. But since it is still in progress, I just write it anyway. The event called ‘Astro Kirana Short Film Awards 08/09 Workshop’ was held at Astro Theatrette, All Asia Broadcast Centre, Technology Park Malaysia in Bukit Jalil. It is a two-day events which was on 10th January 2009 and 17th January 2009, both on Saturday. The good thing is that it is FREE!! But since places are limited, so we have to be fast to register it online. Luckily for us there are still places available.

Main Entrance of Astro Kirana. I nearly lost to get here. I don’t expect that I have to enter TPM first before I reach this place. Luckily I found it

There are three sessions. The first session is by Afdlin Shauki on topic ‘Storytelling‘. I think this guy does not need any introduction anymore. He is surrounding us everywhere and everytime in the local film and drama scene. You can visit his blog at SELAMBA KODOK’s HOUSE. Basically, his introduction talk on the topic is quite short but the Q&A session is long. Also answering the questions with him is Teong Hin Saw, the Director and Writer of Puteri Gunung Ledang film. I found this session very good and many points and idea that I learned. One of them is about the Product Placement  We laughed most of the time since Adlin managed to put in humorous comments in his answers.

The second one is by Tan Chui Mui on topic ‘How to make a short film with what you have’. She is an independent film maker and involves actively in the independent film scene. She received many awards for her film titled ‘Love Conquers All’. In 2004, she set up Da Huang Pictures with iconic Amir Muhammad, James Lee and Liew Seng Tat. You can visit her website at Da Huang Pictures. Her style during this session is by showing example of good short films one after another. But in between she would talk about that film in terms of how they shoot it, how many cost involved, what’s the trick they used and also answered the Q&A from us. Frankly speaking,  I cannot accept some of the short films in my mind since they are too “intelligent” for my brain to digest. However, after the session, we all got the “Malaysia Boleh” spirit to produce the short film too. Kudos to Tan Chui Mui for giving us the idea on how we can do it too.

Some of the Astro Kirana Short Film Workshop participants. Mostly students. But even oldies attended it too. I managed to exchange contacts and business cards with some of them.

The last one is by Gayatri Su-Lin Pillai on topic ‘Production Management’. She is the General Manager and also the Senior Executive Producer for Tayangan Unggul Sdn. Bhd. She is already 12 years in this industry and also been a producer for 25 films. That is quite a tremendous achievement for me. Her latest movie is ‘Maut‘. She talked about the criteria on how to be a good producer, how to manage budget and also how to manage the film production end-to-end. She also give tips, so-called ‘tricks’ and advices for us on how to survive and success in this industry. She also did a role-playing game on how to handle different scenarios and situations at the filming set. We laughed a lot during the performance. I ask a lot of questions too this time and she answered it well and easily understood. Lastly, she gave her handout to us that we found very useful for our upcoming project. I found her session very inspiring and very informative especially for us, the amateur producer.

Me (left) with Zainal, one of our team members. Zainal is a hardcore of Metal Gear Solid, PSP and PS3 and also the founder and owner of Play-Beyond.net.

Zainal (left) and Irwandean, our team members. We don’t decide on our company name yet Irwandean is a movie hardcore and also owner of WNS Hosting Services.

Okay, that’s all folk. After I received the group pictures with the three sifus, then I’ll put it here ASAP