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: THE MAID PRESS CONFERENCE: : |
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| The Maid Press Conference |
On the eve of the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival,
the Moviexclusive.com crewmembers got invited
to the spookiest and strangest venue for a
media press conference. The conference was
for MediaCorp Raintree Pictures’ latest
horror genre film production, The Maid, and
it was held at the Sheng Hong Temple.
The temple was filled with red lanterns hanging
over our heads, the stage all set up for the
Seventh Month Celebration with the eerie soundtracks
of the Maid playing helped build the creepy
ambience for this horror flick media press
conference. We were even told not to seat
at the front row because the front row seats
are usually reserved for the visitors from
the nether world during the Lunar Seventh
Month.
The marketing team behind The Maid did a good
job, drumming up the scare factors for this
movie. Beside the somber and eerie venue,
a lady dressed up in a red Chinese wedding
costume with her head covered with a red veil
suddenly appeared in the midst of reporters,
walking around with two lanterns bearers following
her.
This lady dressed in the traditional Chinese
red bride costume have a significant role
in this film and will be walking through Orchard
on the 12th August 2005 as part of the promotion
for this film. So those who are brave enough
to brave through the sight of this rather
inauspicious character during the Lunar Seventh
Month, come on down to Orchard Road on the
12th August and keep your eyes peeled for
this mysterious character.
Right after the Lady in Red disappear, the
cast Alexandra De Rossi, Chen Shu Cheng, Benny
Soh, director Kevin Tong and producer of The
Maid, Daniel Yun all made their appearances
on the stage that one would normally associate
with the Chinese Opera.
Daniel Yun revealed that he was inspired during
the collaboration of the Eye franchise and
decided that the time was ripe for Raintree
Pictures to venture into a local horror production
with a distinctive Singapore flavour. It’s
not an easy genre to tackle and overall he
felt that this film is something to be proud
of. The film production was initially budgeted
at 1million but when they saw the potential
of this film, they added another 0.5 million
during the postproduction to push the quality
of the film further. The result was a rewarding
one, as this film had already been pre-sell
to the Hong Kong, Taiwan and China market.
Director Kevin Tong added that although it
might look like an easy film to make, he assured
us that it was not. The film process was long
and tiring and a 10 seconds scene could easily
used up to 25 cuts. However he cited working
with the casts and especially his childhood
hero Chen Shu Cheng and Joe Ng of the “Mee
Pok Man” fame on the soundtracks were
the highlights of this film production for
him.
Playing the lead role of the unfortunate maid
is Alexandra De Rossi, a well-known actress
in Philippines. The very first encounter with
this lady makes one wish that all maids in
Singapore are all as pretty or well dressed
like her. Seeing her in real life make the
transformation from a hip modern actress into
an unglamorous maid as she had portray in
this movie look pretty incredible and testament
to her acting ability. She told the media
reporters that it was her first time acting
overseas and in a horror genre. Although she
only had a short time frame to get to know
and work with her co-stars, it went well and
she hope to work with Raintree again.
Another actor who had to undergo an image
and behavior transformation in the film would
be Benny Soh who played a mentally retard
son. He shared with us that he had to learn
Teochew, a language that he is unfamiliar
with. He was also instructed to put on weight
for his character and had to consume lots
of supper just before he goes to sleep. He
even had to shave his head and cut his eyebrows
to portray his character more convincingly.
It was a surprise when veteran actor Chen
Shui Cheng pointed out that he was actually
very nervous in his first major big screen
appearance, even when he had so many years
of acting in front of the camera. The stress
levels were added when he had to deliver his
lines in English. Smoking and dangling a cigarette
from the side of his mouth for this film was
not an easy task too as ashes kept flying
into his eyes.
When the stars were asked if there were any
strange encounters during the filming of The
Maid, the ever-bubbly Alexandra was ready
to answer before the MC had the opportunity
to finish her question.
“No” Alexandra was caught saying
that repeatedly. She went on to point out
that she was waiting for something strange
to happen to her during the film production
but perhaps due to her noisy nature that scares
off any potential supernatural creatures,
leaving her without any strange encounters.
Her fellow cast members and director were
not that lucky and during the filming process,
each of them experienced some form of strange
encounters or coincidence which could prove
the existence of the ghostly ones.
Benny Soh relates his encounter at a bus stop
night scene near the forest and they had to
take a break due to rain. Benny Soh went back
to his car and tried to take a nap but was
awaken by knocks on the passenger side. He
went to check who was it but there was no
one around. Verification with all the crewmembers
only confirmed his worst fears that he might
been visited by the third kind.
Director Kevin Tong declared that he used
to hate this type of questions and he felt
that it was impossible to have such ghostly
encounters during the filming as there are
too many people at the set. But something
strange did happened during the film’s
final postproduction. There was this certain
scene that he was working on and had at least
seen that scene for 20 times during the final
editing. However when they were about to leave
the video-editing house, the scene suddenly
went missing. That set off a panic search
for the missing scene. While the director
and other members of the production team were
pretty sure that the scene existed and not
a fragment of their imagination, the people
in charge of video editing house claimed that
they never saw that particular scene. This
whole matter was resolved later on but it
was never too sure where the missing scene
disappeared to.
Actor Chen Shu Cheng’s tale was the
most painful one. In this movie, he had to
limp with one of his leg but during rehearsal,
he kept forgetting his character’s physical
handicap. The day before a major shoot, which
required 100 over extras, he had a very bad
fall and had to rush to see an acupuncture
doctor. Lucky the doctor managed to help him
and he was able to work the day after, thus
avoiding delays in the film shooting or exceeding
the film’s budget .He did not had to
worry about his character’s physical
handicap from that day onwards as he was limping
due to his actual injuries.
The Maid Opens 18th
August 2005 in all good cinemas. Watch it
if you dare.
| Reported by Richard Lim Jr | Photos & Layout by: Lokman BS |
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