I was contacted by a
national newspaper with regards to my experiences in directing Mediacorp SURIA's first ever drama series where Ballet forms the premise. The following are the questions asked.
Subsequently, for brevity and standard newspaper spreadsheet word limit, my responses were edited.
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1) How do you feel when you were given this project to direct? About guys who do ballet?
Each project that I take up to direct has its own set of challenges. However Mr Ballerino is special because in close to 25 years directing Malay dramas for Mediacorp, this is the first time that Ballet takes centrestage in a drama series for the local Malay channel. Perceptively, ballet is a contemporary dance form that is foreign to traditional Malay culture. Even in Asia, ballet is embraced only recently during the later part of the 20th century.
For many societies in Asia, including the Malays in Southeast Asia, there is a clear line between femininity and masculinity. Men are stereotypically seen as being aggressive, competitive, and instrumentally oriented while women are seen as being passive, cooperative, and expressive. These roles become problematic when a guy takes up ballet. In many ballet performances, one sees many ballerinas and seldom a ballerino. The idea of a male in tights and tutu does not confirm to the pervasive Asian idea of masculinity. However, the irony is that while ballet performances showcase grace and poise, it also requires aggressiveness to perform movements like the Pirouette, or a spin, and the leaps. Many who are not familiar with ballet fail to see this concept. I take up this project to also debunk these stereotypical perception of ballet that many in our community may have towards this classical art form.
2) How different is Mr Ballerino from the other projects?
I like to take up left-field challenges and this project has given me that opportunity. Perhaps ballet is something that is not fully embraced in the Malay community. In my work, I often see myself with a responsibility to open up our own perspectives. Perhaps there are Malay youths out there, probably a young Malay male, who is curious about ballet and is facing a dilemma about taking up ballet due to the stereotypical challenges he may be facing within his community circles. Thus, Mr Ballerino is not just a frivolous concept. It is relevant to educate our community.
3) What were the challenges faced?
Except for 1 or 2 actors that have done formative contemporary dance training a (very) long time ago, none of the actors have any ballet training at all. They went through about 5 sessions of intense training by Ricky Sim, a professional ballet trainer. These are 1 introductory, 2 basic moves and 2 for finale and duet.
For my part, I also have to do my own research and watch them during training. I have to make sure that during filming, the poise and grace during the performances are respectfully captured. We even have a ballet trainer on set during the dance sequences. The other challenge for me personally is to capture the idealism of young adults in tertiary education. The youths portrayed in Mr Ballerino exist in 2020. Their sensibilities are different from when I attended tertiary education as a young adult.
4) What is your takeaway from directing it?
I see directing Mr Ballerino as an ongoing personal effort to keep myself relevant with contemporary sensibilities. I love projects that not only entertains, but also that challenge myself and the audience. I see contemporary drama as a reflection of our times as a society. It’s about time that Mr Ballerino and ballet be showcased to mainstream Malay sensibilities.
5) What’s exciting about the drama?
Ballet, like many other danceform, showcases grace and poise. When it comes to filming, I have to keep in mind that the shots respectfully captures the form. Many of the shots are deliberately taken in wide shots.
To capture the drama in specific movements, the dance shots are also taken on a gimbal. The ballet dance has drama and it’s very exciting that these subtle drama in ballet is respectfully captured for the untrained eye.
Update: 3) Challenges
I have forgotten to mention that perhaps the biggest challenge was doing post production during the nationally-imposed Circuit Breaker (April - June 2020). On normal, non-CB situations, the usual practice during any post-production would be the editor and myself editing together in person. Such process can achieve the spontaneity of creating effective scenes. Editing is like composing music. One needs the immediate, face-to-face communication between the editor and myself at each stage.
What happened was that after we did episode 3, the CB was imposed. The editing studio was moved to a new makeshift room, because it is against the law to work from the office. All "non-essential" services were prohibited to operate. It's basically Singapore's version of the Covid-19 "lockdown". Thus the editing process was done remotely between myself and the editor - where I worked from home and the machine was at some place not in the office. Every edits need to be communicated and written down. At the end of the revision, there will be a very long list of instructions via timecodes. on Many occasions these timecodes are overlooked. On a few occasions, some movie files were "missing" or files jumbled up, which would have been solved easily if I sit in during edit in the same room. Oh the frustration.
