Take a work of Singaporean musician Charlie Lim, whose work invokes feelings of melancholy, soul stirring rhythms and combine it with the talents of award winning young local filmmakers Jonathan Choo, Rachel Liew and Julie Heather Liew and it becomes cinematic gold.
The music video for Charlie Lim's song Light Breaks In brings to life the issues of mental illness and relationships so vividly in a narrative that only lasts 4 minutes but impacts forever. The story was inspired by the relationship between Charlie's father and grandmother which adds an added layer of emotional complexity to the already charged song and visuals.
We thought to highlight the work and process by grabbing some time with Jonathan, Julie and Rachel - all National Youth Film Awards (NYFA) alumni. It was the same team behind the award winning film Han which took home Best Direction, and DBS Best Picture in 2016.
How did the collaboration with Charlie Lim come about?
Rachel: Charlie Lim has
always been our favourite local musician and we really admire his approach to
his music in relation to the local industry. Jon and I have always liked discussing
his music and I remember out of all the songs on the album how much we’d love
to make a music video for Light Breaks In. Right after Time/Space was released,
I was interning with Charlie and helping him with promos for the album.
Remembering what Jon and I talked about, I realised we now had that connection
to actually collaborate with Charlie, and when we talked to Charlie about how
interested we were to work with him on something new and he immediately said
yes. And that was that.
Jon: Yeah, I always
wanted to work with Charlie because I really dig his music. When I listened to
his recent album, there were just so many tracks that made me think to myself,
“oh, I would kill to make a music video for that.” So Rachel said if we really
wanted to work with Charlie, we should take the initiative to connect with him,
which we did when we showed him our film Han. He liked it and was convinced,
and that’s how we started working together.
And why mental illness? Any history behind the story /
collaboration?
Jon: Yeah, the story
went through many iterations. I don’t think we set off on the project saying we
are tackling mental illness with this music video, for me I always think of
characters first so I think what hit me visually from the very start when I
listened to Light Breaks In was that I see a struggling mother and a son, and
we slowly worked on it from there. While trying to search for the core of the
music video, I got inspiration from watching this TV special on compulsive
hoarders and when I saw that, I just thought ok that would be an interesting
world to set this story in. So we went through many script ideas with Charlie
and had a great exchange of ideas. We must have spent a few months just
discussing the song and what the ideas behind are really about, instead of
rushing it out for an early release.
Julie: Also, Jon
pointed out that the last thing we needed was to make it another cheesy
romantic love story, and portraying complex parent-and-child relationships
seemed to make a beautiful love story. What people don’t realise is that so
many of us are affected by mental illness, whether it’s us suffering from it,
or our loved ones, and we don’t get to see enough honest portrayals of it in
film. There’s one line of lyric from Light Breaks In that struck a chord with
us: “Tell me your despair and I’ll show you mine”. Because it can be incredibly
isolating to suffer from any mental illness, be it depression or schizophrenia,
but the tenderness of the song and the narrative remind us that we don’t have
to suffer alone. We wanted to make a music video that reflected how complicated
but poignant it is to try to understand (and most importantly, love) someone
with mental illness.
What was the approach / process into creating the
storyboard?
Rachel: The story
development went through a lot of changes but one thing that stuck with us was
the idea of having a mother character who was a hoarder. Immediately after we
started on the project, we brought Julie and Harng (Wardrobe Head) on board with
us. It was a very collaborative process where we constantly tossed around ideas
to help develop the mother as a character, as well as building the world of a
hoarder for the film. As the cinematographer, this time round I didn’t really
look at films for visual references, but I looked more at set design and how I
could translate elements like that in our film. We chose to approach it not as
a music video, but as a short film, so with the set design as the main
character in the film, we built a moodboard that we filled with hoarder house
references. Jon and I looked at certain films which we felt were similiar in
the approach we wanted to take for the film. We were heavily influenced by
Tarkovsky so we tried to incorporate the movement and treatment for Light
Breaks In.
Julie: For me, the
focus was largely on the authenticity of the location/sets for the film. When
Jon and Rachel showed me the first draft of the script and storyboards,
something inside me clicked when I pictured the environment that the mother
character lived in, and I knew that we needed to film this at my abandoned
childhood home. It’s been abandoned for more than 15 years due to family
disputes, but the dated architectural elements and level of deterioration added
such a visceral, authentic layer to the visual narrative. When we went there
for a location recce, all three of us knew it would fit the story so well that
we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to film there.
Jon: Once we secured
the shoot location, that place and environment was immediately stuck in my
mind. I was just constantly thinking about the location, and how it would
affect the characters on a spatial and psychological level. Regarding the
storyboard and the design, I was constantly talking to Rachel and Julie about what
needs to be in the frame at each time; what does the light in this scene mean,
and what do the objects in this room mean? My biggest struggle was to make
sense of the actions of the characters, but I think I took a very instinctual
approach to directing the actors, and it worked out beautifully on camera.
How different was this as an experience?
Jon: Working on music
videos is very different, I struggled with it a bit because I was so used to
the the pattern of shooting a narrative film where you block a scene and the
actors move and they talk and you break down dialogue and meaning, but with a
music video you have to time the movements and actions to each part of the song
which means each “scene” lasts only 15-30 seconds and you have to nail a certain
emotion out in the given time. Music videos are a whole different medium and
I’m very much still learning how to make them, in that sense. I have a great
admiration for music video directors, and people like Emily Kai Bock and Khalil
Joseph really know the language of a music video well.
Rachel: We’ve always
talked about wanting to make a music video together and I was interested to see
how different it would be, as compared to shooting a narrative film, but we
decided in the end it would be more interesting to lean into the narrative
aspect of the music video. However, I would say this was the most exciting set
that I’ve worked on because it really felt like a collaborative effort, and
everyone was invested in the story which I think was partly because we had such
a ‘strong’ set.
Julie: I completely
agree with Rachel. Having worked on several set designs, this is still the most
exciting and challenging one to date, simply because of how authentic the set
needed to look in terms of the production design. I worked closely with Jon,
Rachel and Harng to incorporate elements that would really reflect the severity
of the mother’s condition, and the effect it had on her son. I used a lot of my
own childhood drawings to display on the walls of the child’s bedroom, and used
artwork I made as adult in the mother’s “Room of Items”. Harng designed and
handmade two beautiful headpieces for the mother character to reflect her “good
days” and “bad days” which visually captured her essence as a sufferer of mental
illness.
What was it like working with a musician’s personal
story? A sense of responsibility?
Jon: I don’t think
there was any pressure to tell a personal story at all, all the while we were
just very focused on making the story better and constantly asking ourselves if
the images we designed were an union with the song.
Julie: With all of us
being huge fans of Charlie’s music, one would think that it would be daunting
to tackle a musician’s personal story and do it justice, but Charlie was really
open to our ideas and over time we shared that ‘responsibility’ with him to
address a topic as complex as dealing with mental illness, but more importantly
to make a music video that did justice to a beautiful song. One thing that
became clear over the course of the collaboration was that mental illness
rarely affects just one person, and it’s something that all of us could relate
to in one way or another. The pain of complicated relationships and great music
often go hand in hand, and our main priority to do the song and narrative
justice was shared by everyone who worked on the film.
Was it a conscious effort to collaborate together?
Especially after the successful short Han?
Rachel: We’ve worked
together since our first year in NTU and Han is a great example of how
important it is to work with like-minded people. Film is a collaborative
process and after 4 years of working together, we knew each other’s strengths,
weaknesses and quirks. Jon and I are always looking out for opportunities to
make short films together after Han and long before we were sure we were going
to make the Light Breaks In music video, we asked Julie to be our Art Director,
which she readily agreed to. We knew that no matter what the story needed,
Julie could bring our ideas to life. At the same time, we asked Harng, who also
worked with us on Han, to help us create the mother’s iconic look. It wasn’t an
easy task because her wardrobe had to reflect her character.
Jonathan: Without Rachel
and Julie, I couldn’t have made this music video, They help me tell stories
better in every project we’ve worked on. I come in with an idea and they give
their take on it and I love it that they have strong views on what certain
parts of the story should feel like. It brings the best out of a project, and
us as filmmakers. Working together so many times, you build chemistry and
certain things are just automatic.
Julie: I think working
together has become second-nature to us, long before we knew Han would be so
well received. Jon, Rachel and I have seen each other through some tough times
in university, and we have a great friendship on top of our working
relationship. And it’s not just the three of us who love working together; we
have the rest of our crew and friends to thank for the amazing chemistry on
set, especially on such a meaningful project like Light Breaks In. When passion
projects like this come along, it’s so easy to put a crew together that you
know will get the job done and also create something beautiful.
Since sweeping the awards for Han, how has your work journey been?
Julie: It’s great that
Han is doing so well locally and abroad, but it hasn’t affected my work all
that much. Not directly, anyway. If anything, seeing Han so well-received just
gives me the confidence to keep trying new things and hone my skills as a
freelance production designer, and I’m constantly challenged to design and
execute elaborate sets and props.
Jon: I am currently
in the UK doing my Masters in Directing Fiction at the National Film Television
School (NFTS). So I’m very much still honing my craft as a director and
learning about myself as well.
Rachel: I’ve been
working in the industry as a camera assistant for quite a while now and since
graduation I have been trying to get more jobs as a DP but it hasn’t been easy
to break into the industry. But with the little projects that I’ve worked on
despite that, it is exciting and refreshing to see how I adapt myself to the
circumstance. I still feel that there is much for me to learn as an image-maker
and I have applied to two schools overseas for a masters degree in
Cinematography, so we shall see!
What’s next on the table for all of you?
Julie: Right now, it’s
a little difficult to collaborate what with Jon furthering his education
overseas, but we’re all just gaining more industry experience in our own ways
and soon enough we’ll be ready to work on something cool together again. We
have many friends who are local musicians as well, so perhaps we have more
music videos to look forward to, this year.
Jon: We get to make a
few shorts in the NFTS, so I am working and developing a short film right now,
and will probably shoot it in October or November.
Rachel: With Jon
currently overseas it is a little hard for us to work on collaborations and
just like Julie said, we are all expanding our knowledge in film in different
ways right now so who knows what might happen in the near future!
***
Han also recently qualified for the Short Shorts Film Festival Asia 2017 (Japan) in June. More details can be found here: http://www.shortshorts.org/
Nominees for the National Youth Film Awards 2017 will also be announced in June 2017, with the Awards Ceremony taking place on 22 July 2017
Images courtesy of Jonathan Choo, Julie Heather Liew and Rachel Liew
Music Video stills, Behind the Scenes images courtesy of Vivien Tan
View the music video here: