options and attempts

an excerpt from the most recent thing I wrote for ISSUE Magazine:

Enough people are now aware of the quick-trigger nature of the bigger sites and have started to create options for cutting through the noise.
It was in this vein that here in our own part of the world a website was set up to focus on Southeast Asian short films.
Viddsee, a video-sharing site, founded by Derek Tan and Ho Jia Jian in Singapore, offers an outlet for filmmakers within the region to showcase their content to an audience interested in stories from around the region, in the different languages that are spoken in these areas.
Recounting the site’s origins, Derek explained that it all began with a short film.
“The pain that we saw as filmmakers was that we had a film that was going round festivals, and right after the festival we were thinking, how can we distribute it out to a larger audience apart from just the festival circuits?”
“What we realised is if we put it on Youtube or Vimeo, there are billions of videos out there, so how does a film stand out among the rest? We were put alongside cat videos and Harlem Shakes, which are entertaining in itself but ultimately a different type of content altogether.”

Reasons why you should read ISSUE Money

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Other really pretty pictures by Mardiana Sani

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A podcast with ,not one, but TWO entrepreneurs.

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Because it's a rich man's world

And think of all the things you can do, if you had a little money.

at least he got to speak this time

So yesterday was interesting for a couple of reasons, but mostly because that small little project I did with Nazir was well received.

 I’ve nagged quite a bit about this ISSUE Magazine short about Penang here, so I won’t repeat myself.  What I’d like to add is though it may be not as flattering to Penang as Penangites would’ve liked it to be, but really that was what happened.

It’s been really interesting also getting feedback from people, and discovering which particular parts they found appealing, what works for whom.

Different people have told me that they liked very different bits of the short, which makes me wonder, does that mean as a storyteller I’ve failed to put together a uniformly attractive yarn?

Anyway, I'll add in English subtitles soon, as soon as I finish this long painful drawn out process of subtitling every single noise in the video. I have new found respect for the subs community.

"Pulau Pinang" preview

In lieu of a slug, this is I'm working on right now for this March's edition of ISSUE Magazine.

The trailer is for a short film that me and NHF  worked together on while we were travelling in Penang during the Chinese New Year weekend.

The island has a lot of old world charm, being rich in history and culture. What we had hoped to capture while we were there is the struggle that's going on right now between a dying local culture and a consumerist appetite for shallow pop that even the government now funds.

Though the movie was shot during a holiday, it is hardly a light-hearted jaunt down a dusty row of shophouses in old Georgetown.

'Pulau Pinang' will premiere March 15th in ISSUE Magazine.