When news first broke that veteran actor Tay Ping Hui was
going to make his directorial debut, SINdie was immediately interested to
follow this story and hence we were absolutely delighted when he very kindly
agreed to meet up with us for a chat.
Cut to a rather sunny late morning, in a quaint shophouse in Chinatown, I got the great opportunity to sit down with him over a strong cup of coffee. With immediate ease, the conversation flowed and it was just like catching up with an old friend…
Ivan Choong (IC): I wanted to touch on the experience, do you see huge differences in the kinds of things audiences would want to see – something more commercial or more artistic?
Tay Ping Hui (TPH): I would say yes. I think perhaps in the
past Singapore has been very clearly defined by the art house film but yet
there is an extreme other end. So there has always been two sides to the
spectrum – either you are very commercial (when you achieve a certain amount
of box office success) but the quality and production value, the complexity
of the plot and story, script itself and filming technique is very simplistic,
or you have the Eric Khoo(s), who are very arthouse - high production
value, aesthetically beautiful, post production done very well - but somehow
it just doesn’t cut it here. Nobody really watches it because it is too arthouse. Saying that, while the two have always been separated, we do at times have a Kelvin Tong - who
came into the market and he is kind of straddling both fields. I love ‘Eating Air’, I think it’s a very well directed movie and I love the storyline, because I’m a closet Ah Beng
(laughing) the story between the Ah Boy and Ah Girl. Its really a dilemma for a filmmaker in Singapore because you want
to go arthouse and may not have success, or you want to go commercial. However, sometimes as a film maker if you are not into that kind of film, it invades you
senses. It offends your senses, for a lack of a better word - thats always been
a dilemma for a filmmaker.
IC: That brings me to pull the whole focus back to your
experience, where do you see yourself in that spectrum?
TPH: I come from a very interesting background as most of the
directors in Singapore are not actually actors and so I would say I’ve had my
10,000 hours of training as an actor. Hence, with regards to the microeconomics
of acting, the analysis of character(s), the development of character(s),
delving into the complexity of character(s), I think I have the required
experience. (I’ve done this a long time already!). I don’t tell people I
practice a particular acting style but I have developed a system of my
own to do that. So I think for me, it’s a very interesting perspective because
when I look at the script, I start from the perspective of the actor and then I
move on to the macroeconomics. I think for a lot of directors, what they do is
they actually look at the macroeconomics, and if they have the time, then they
go into the microeconomics of the actors and hence they let the actors pretty
much do what they want. I try to balance the two - as an actor, I
understand sometimes our individuality has to be sacrificed for the greater
good because you might want to do things in a certain way but if the greater
environment or the greater system, the macroeconomics which is the script or
the development, does not allow you to do it then as an actor you have to respect
the greater environment. So for me, right now as an actor becoming a director,
I can try and balance the two, I can make the actors feel like they able to
express themselves in a way that they want to but yet absorbing them into my
greater system. So I think I have a little bit of advantage in that sense.
IC: I want to draw that out a bit more - you picked actors who
are not superstars or they do not have your level of experience. Was that
intentional?
TPH: There are two reasons to it - one if I have superstars,
I will not have any budget left. Actors are worth every penny if they really
add value to the production – the kind of actors that I think deserve every
penny that they get are those that translate a two dimensional script into a
three dimensional character, because perhaps in that scene, you are happy – but
how are you happy? How happy are you? What stage are you happier than earlier? - and so it is really up to the actors to create that and then
the director will feed on that. So for that reason I truly believe that if I
had really experienced actors that I wanted I would really run out budget.
Secondly, my priority for this movie is that it is based on
basketball. I used to play competitive basketball so for me authenticity is
very important. You can teach a guy to act but if you want him to look like a
professional basket baller, it would take more than one month of training boot
camp. For me the priority was for basketball, so I made an executive decision
that I would want to cast basket ballers whom I hope to teach acting rather than actors who cannot play basketball and we have to train them.
There are certainly actors who can play basketball but they
did not fit into the characters that I want and therefore I would say 90% of all
of them are basket ballers first, sportsmen first, and only one particular
actor, which is Ian Fang, is a professional actor who plays decent basketball.
I felt that he would fit a particular character that I needed
to have some emotional complexity perfectly, and hence that is why I casted him.
IC: I’ve seen the trailer, and the basketball sequences are
very realistic - I believe you took a lot of pains to get that right?
TPH: It was difficult because I think most first time
directors start out shooting wen xi–
love or romance themes but action sequences for the choreography of sports is
an entirely different story. I had so many sleepless nights trying to
choreograph the shots because you only have a certain number of hours, and
there are a fixed number of shots that you need to take - you need to
prioritize them and every shot is important so you need to plan! So essentially
I really had to get down to it! Not only did I have to take care of my cast,
some of whom were acting for the first time, but as a first time director I am
shooting a first ever basketball movie in Singapore, so its really coming at me
from different angles. My friends and my wife have said that I have never looked so
stressed in my life! But I decided to take on the challenge and while it was very difficult, it boiled down to planning and because I have a very good
relationship with my Directory of Photography (DOP), we
could sit down beforehand and I could tell him what I wanted. I did not want
any of those pseudo realistic basketball shows – where one could jump from mid
court and slam dunk, I didn’t want that – I wanted it to be realistic, I wanted
it to be motivating - I wanted perhaps a guy who used to play basketball but
had not played for maybe the past 3 to 4 years, who would after
watching the movie think I should take it up again!
IC: And interestingly, it is not just about basketball
because there is also a story - there is an underlying heartfelt story. Perhaps
you could tell us more about this?
TPH: A lot of people ask me “is this a basketball movie?”
and I would say it is a movie that is based on basketball but it is all about
the basket ballers. Basketball is a needle, a thread that links everything
together but essentially it is about the boys.
The story is told through the eyes of a boy (Jun Hui) - he is
in secondary school, he is the star of the team, the captain and he has always
been ‘the man’! One day in comes this two meter tall import (Chen Hang nicknamed
‘Yao Ming’) from China because the coach thought that he would be a great
addition to the play since at that age, nobody is of that height. So he comes in and dominates everything and suddenly everybody prefers him instead! Act One
begins with the natural rejection of Chen Hang and it ends with them doing
something to this boy and them winning the nationals on their own merit. Jun
Hui (the protagonist) then thinks to himself that this is the end of it and I
don’t have to deal with it anymore. Ironically his father is the manager of
a professional basketball team – so one day, Jun Hui was invited to watch some
of the new imports and Chen Hang is part of them and instead of one guy, he is
now looking at 10 foreign imports who will easily one day take over his
position in the national team, something he had always taken for granted. The focus then moves to the basketball team itself as each
individual player has their own backstory on why they move to Singapore and we
explore this motivation.
As we move along the tone of the movie gets more and more
serious and I try to explore the system of foreign imports in terms of sports –
is it a viable system? I try to explore the rational and motivation of why they
are here and perhaps we can have a little more empathy so that at the end of
the day why can’t we all get along.
It’s a real coming of age story and there are certain points
I hope will touch the audience.
IC: That brings us to the next question, which is what do
you want your audience to take away?
TPH: I think the first question when I look at a script,
before I do anything whether as an actor or a director, is that I always ask one
question which is ‘what do I want the audience to feel?’ because I think when a
lot of people go to the movies they may not really remember the small details
or the development of the plot, but I think they will remember how they feel -
the feeling they take away when the credits are running or when they are
walking out. I think at the end of the day I want the audience to leave the
cinema feeling a little warmth in their hearts, there is hope – all we really
need to do is perhaps open a little door, be a little bit more accommodating to
everyone and understand their perspective. Additionally perhaps when they are
driving home, they would really think about the system and if the system is working?
IC: When you started the film, were all these aspects in
place or did you discover it during filming?
TPH: It’s a journey - initially the movie came to be because
the Executive Producer and myself were in the same projects consecutively. One
consistent theme from our many side conversations was that he kept sharing this
idea of a basketball movie with me, asking my opinion, as he knows that I used
to play competitive basketball. We talked about possibilities and one day he
looked at me and asked if I would like to direct it – I thought he was joking –
he said I agreed within 10 seconds and I did as I thought of it as a challenge
but he was serious! We started brainstorming on the script
and storyline, got a scriptwriter who provided a skeleton that we worked on.
Once we had the final script, I sat down and had to decide on how I wanted it
to look and feel. Every single minute decision had to be made – I always say
there are five people coming to me, to make five different decisions all at the
same time! It was a long arduous journey.
IC: Do you feel
changed from the experience? Either as an actor or as a director, or as a
person?
TPH: Definitely, I think even to the day that I ended
filming, there were still a lot of doubts about myself – have I done everything
that I could have done? Have I given my best? Am I going to succeed? Through
the whole process, the feedback and opinions have been quite positive so I
think that has reinforced my own believe in myself - that we should be
constantly building ourselves. Ever since day one as an actor, I’ve always been
interested in the technical side of things – bugging the lighting, DOP, sound
guy – because I feel that is the best way to learn. By doing that, I by-passed the
theoretical part and went straight to work experience. They shared little tricks and I realized while filming the movie that
I had been actually secretly storing all this information and it all came out.
I think my curiosity beyond acting all these years has truly helped.
IC: Do you think this project just came at the right time
and that perhaps you have always wanted to direct?
TPH: I’ve always wanted to direct because I think as an
actor you have a certain perspective but for me, an actor should always respect
and never ever override a director. We
can discuss about it but even for a first time director, I would listen to you
because you are a director. As a
director, I am control freak, so it was perfect! Directing was something that I
wanted to do as it is really an expansion of what I have been doing all these
years. It has been a really great experience in which I have been able to draw
from my past experience as an actor. There is a chinese saying - yǎng bīng qiān
rì yòng zai yì shí - you raise an army and you feed them for a thousand
days only for that one moment of charging. So I think unconsciously everything
came together. I’m very lucky to have the opportunity to be exposed to all
these different facets of what a director should have so I’ve fulfilled what I
wanted to do. It was very enjoyable.
IC: You’ve mentioned how acting experience has helped in
directing but I am also interested to find out if this journey has affected or
changed your view as an actor?
TPH: Certainly, because I think as you get better at
something, you sometimes forget about the basics – the rawest of emotions. Not
get too technical. I’m 90% objectivity and 10% subjective – being very OCD, I
approach acting from a very technical aspect (timing, rhythm) and from that I
enhance with emotions. In the course of this movie, I had to conduct a one
month acting class with the newcomers hence I was constantly revisiting all the
basics. I think in some ways, it reinforced some of the basics of acting – it
was like a refresher course. It puts things in perspective and hence I think my
fundamentals are stronger after the movie. Yes, it has benefitted me
as an actor as I think I have learnt to tap more into the rawest of emotions.
IC: One thing that intrigues me is the title ‘Meeting the
Giant?
TPH: It’s metaphorical and literal – its about the first
time the young protagonist is meeting this tall import, the feeling is that of
meeting this huge giant who is coming here to devour everything! On the other
perspective it is about Singapore and China – its Singapore meeting the power of China.
The gala will be on the 9th of June 2014 and we
will probably be screening in Singapore, China and Malaysia simultaneously. This
movie is special because it is a first China Singapore co-production – a true joint venture in the industry.
IC: What are your hopes for the movie?
TPH: I want it to exactly straddle both commercial and art.
I wanted to make a commercial movie with an artistic eye. Production value in
terms of visuals, pacing, complexity of the characters - I liked that to be
somewhat arthouse but yet the storyline and development remains quite palatable
to the general public. That is what I was trying to aim for and hope the movie
would be. It also made me love basketball again! That’s what I wanted to
achieve, beautiful sensibilities and hopefully it will be a commercial success.
I truly believe you can have commercial success yet have
production values and great aesthetics or music and sound, and great acting –
it can be complex but not complicated. Every character should be complex but
not so complicated that nobody knows what it is. That is my hope for our local
movies, where I can see a lot of new directors - Singapore right now is
extremely creative and they have so many ideas on movies and development and
given the opportunity and the platform, I truly believe that they can shine. We
just need a proper platform to groom and grow in the system and that’s my hope
for the newer generation because I believe there is hope – I truly believe so.
TPH: I think the road ahead as an actor is still long,
there are still markets and characters to explore that I haven’t done or tried
doing. I feel at a certain stage what I should strife for is not
just to make my character great, but it is to assist those who have
scenes with me, to help make them better. That is what I hope or should strive
for. As a director, right now I am working on two scripts so hopefully
within in the next one and a half years there will be more movies coming out –
I will continue directing, to try different genres so as to continue improving
myself, my eye. In the post-production process, I realized I could have done
better, as a director I’m really just a beginner so I’m consciously watching
good movies, great TV series and I learn from that.
IC: If you had to sum this movie up for an audience…
TPH: I hope that as they watch the movie in its entirety, their
minds and hearts would be opened gradually ever wider so that by the end they
can fully embrace what I would like them to feel and see what it is meant to
be.
I wish him every possible success.
Meeting the Giant
Official movie trailer
Official Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/MeetingTheGiant
With a great actor and director available, we couldn’t resist
filming this quick promo video in BOTH Chinese and English for our SINdie
readers –
In English
***
Ivan Choong (who conducted this interview) is a singer, theatre actor, academic, teacher, volunteer, budding entrepreneur, and last but not least, SINdie contributor. Always staying close to the performing arts, he can be seen in various stage productions, short films and the odd TV commercial thrown in. It was an honour to speak to Tay Ping Hui!
Behind the scenes
