Cinema Online Does S'kali

All Together for "S'kali"

By Sharon Chu

For 22-year-old Arivind Abraham, multiple winner of the Malaysian Video Awards, a lifetime of hard work and dedication to his writing/directing career has finally reaped rewards. This year, the film director is looking forward to release his first feature-length, “S'kali”, in the mainstream, and have his new company, Perantauan Enterprise, introduced to the local movie industry.

Since the beginning of the year, “S'kali”, has been causing ripples in the mainstream media as it looks to be a promising independent film which features an introspective and moving story about friendship.

When production for the new indie movie “S'kali” began on 9 January, Abraham had only seven people working for him, including himself. But the director and his skeleton team managed to finish their work on time, as on 22 January, Abraham and his team wrapped up production for the movie. Currently, the movie is in the process of being edited. One of his associate producers and real-life buddy, Bahir Yeusuff, said, “We (the production team) are very glad with the results, but we'll have to wait to see the final product.” He added that “S'kali” would be out in the local cinemas around August this year.

Read the full article at: http://www.cinemaonline.com.my/news/news.asp?search=TogethernessTriumphs

Behind The Camera

Hi all,
My name is Arivind Abraham. I would first of all like to give a big thank you to all of you who have been coming to the blog and who have been voicing their opinions on what they have seen in regards to S'kali so far.

A lot of times a film gets made, and people tend to forget the collaborative nature that is the medium of film. S'kali only got made because of the amazing production team I had behind me. This post is about them.

ASA'AD ENTERTAINMENT - Exec Producers

A remarkable company that took a chance on us. The duo behind it prefer to remain behind the scenes, but we look forward to a long working relationship with them.


PERANTAUAN - Associate Producers

The partnership of which I am a part of. Made up of the following divisions: Digital Film, Records, Publishing, Performing Arts, Business. These people represent my closest friends, my brothers in arms and the soulmates who helped me realise this movie. Here they are:



Keith Leong. Writer Extrodinaire and Genuine Genius. He heads up the at the moment dormant publishing department but is an accomplished and published writer. A sheer force to be reckoned with.



Jason Lim. The creative business mind and cool sense within the partnership. Jason heads up the records division and brings his business acumen to the plate working closely with fellow producer Bahir Yeusuff.



Samantha Tan. Currently in her 2nd year at the prestigious London Studio Centre doing her BA for Performing Arts, Samantha will eventually work out of the performing arts arm of Perantauan. A tenacious worker and a perfectionist to the hilt.



Bahir Yeusuff. The Man With The Plan. My backbone and confidante throughout this production. Bahir did not only function as an associate producer but also as my production manager. Up there in my opinion with the likes of great producers like Rick McCallum and Brian Grazer. Look out for him on anything else I may one day work on.

DOP - Dimitri Kotselis



A dear, dear friend of mine who was actually intially just meant to be on holiday in Malaysia. A sheer dictionary when it comes to film, music and literature. A true renaissance man. Unfortuntely due to the fact that he was foreign, his role as DOP could only go so far as doing pre-viz with me and the storyboard artist and then keeping an eye on the camera operator on set. Dimi opened up my horizons visually as he saw Malaysia with a fresh set of eyes.

Storyboarding - Kumar Andran



My oldest friend, a guy who draws stupendously with such a unique style. Battled it out with me and Dimi in multiple pre-viz sessions which sometimes went on late into the night. Just great at what he does.

Camera/Runner - Lim Benji



Baltimore Benji! Benji currently studies film in the USA in Baltimore and, as some of you might know, recently had the unpleasent experience of being deported. A superb, diligent worker who brought so much to the team and is a future writer/director to be looked out for.

Plus he has killer dance moves.

Sound - Zaid & Azlan



Jay & Silent Bob. Well at least for the first 2 days till we began to see how funny Azlan was. These guys kept me sane on set with all their humour when the going got rough. Far out dudes...no, BEYOND FAR OUT!

Gaffer - Jay Menon



A guy who is actually an engineer, needed to kill some time for a couple of weeks and found himself falling in love with painting with light. Proves that sheer instinct can sometimes do wonders.

Art Director - Bella Drinkwater



Bella graciously designed the look for each character and with sheer grit dressed up each character's room in PD. Never underestimate the art director, they are there to make your foolish visions look better.

Editors - Luke Yerbury & Ali Maggs



Befour Madness! You'll hear more about these guys as the edit progresses along here in the UK.

Marketing & Design - Elena Harith & Jessica Richer

Unfortunately no pics at the mo of this duo who have been working hard at all the promo images and marketing strategies in conjunction with Perantauan.

I would also give a big shout out to Cinerent Malaysia and Imaginex. They helped beyond belief.

So that is the team. These are the people who made S'kali.

Cheers!

Blog blitz begin!

Today's article in The Star newspaper marked the beginning of the first stage of publicity for S'kali. We hope to let the word spread on the internet first before continuing with more media coverage closer to our scheduled release date. I'm personally curious to see how many bloggers pick this up and support us, before the corporate machinery that is marketing and advertising takes over.

We're a small outfit and everyone involved in the making of this movie is fresh, young and passionate about making a truly suburban Malaysian story about love, life and friendship in a country that's growing up alongside them.

If you're young, fresh and passionate as well, do us a favour and put up our little banner on your blog to help advertise this movie. In all honesty, you're one of the reasons we made this and took great pains to put your soul into it and keep it real.

to link the picture, copy and paste the following code into your blog:
<a href="http://perantauanpictures.blogspot.com">
<img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4141/1960/1600/
teaser_final.0.jpg" title="Skali" ></a>

Harian Metro

Cast member Zimy Rosan is featured in Harian Metro write up.

"Zimie baru saja selsai menjalani penggambaran sebuah filem Inggeris tempatan berjudul S’kali. Filem itu diterbit dan diarahkan pengarah baru dan biasa menghasilkan filem bebas.

Menurut Zimie, filem S’Kali sudah dihantar ke Finas dan tarikh tayangannya kemungkinan pada Ogos ini.

Ramai muka baru ditampilkan dalam filem itu, dan kebanyakannya model dan belum dikenali.

Walaupun baru tetapi jelas Zimie jalan ceritanya menarik menggambarkan suasana remaja Malaysia sebenar dan pasti mampu memikat hati penonton kerana ia berbeza dengan filem yang pernah dihasilkan sebelum ini.

Apapun ia berita baik buat mereka yang masih merindui Zimie, walaupun tidak lagi dapat mendengar suaranya peminat boleh melepaskan rindu apabila filem S’kali ditayangkan kelak." - excerpt from Harian Metro 220206

Click here for the full write-up :Zimie beraleh ke bidang lakonan

S'kali In The Star

"Taking this opportunity to expound on their creative juices, 22-year-old Arivind Abraham and his group of entrepreneur friends decided to form a company – Perantauan Enterprise – which will oversee film, theatre and other creative productions. The group’s filmmaking arm, Perantauan Pictures, has its first slate – Abraham’s feature film debut, S’kali.

The film’s title is derived from what the waiters at the mamak restaurant asks when it comes time to pay the bill. If you’re in a group, you have the choice of paying individually (bayar asing) or together (s’kali). And since the film revolves around five college friends in Kuala Lumpur who will be going their separate ways as they find their own path in life, Abraham thought the title fitting." - excerpt from The Star 220206.



"THE independent feature S’kali boasts five new faces who answered the casting call almost two years ago and recently finished principal photography for the film. The filmmakers had decided to cast unknowns and were looking for three guys and two gals. They finally decided on KL-ites Davina Goh, Jayaram Nagaraj, Derek Ong, Angeline Rose and Zimy Rozan.

In a recent interview with the cast, who were shooting at the Syed Abu Restaurant in Bandar Utama, the actors revealed what made them turn to acting and what their filmmaking experience was like." - excerpt from The Star 220206

To check out the full write ups on S'kali in The Star go to:

1. All together now

2. Company of five

Cheers.

Writing S'kali

I recently got asked what I was using to inspire me or that I drew elements from when I was working on the script for S'kali over the past 8 years. I decided it might be cool just to add a little in regards to this on the blog.

ALMOST FAMOUS



I love "Almost Famous". The whole idea about 'coming of age' and growing up is such a powerful theme when it comes to this movie by Cameron Crowe. I remember studying this film really to source out the vibe I was seeking for S'kali.


ST. ELMO'S FIRE



This may be an obvious choice but I think you need to watch the obvious stuff to see what works for the genre and what doesn't. St. Elmo's Fire is a film that gets a lot of flak for being cheesy a lot of times, but hey, there are times in your life when stuff like that works.


STAND BY ME



Again I chose this because this is the quintessential coming of age movie. There are some stupendous performances in here from such a young cast, and I looked a lot at this movie to think about working with actors and getting the performace I wanted.

AMERICAN GRAFFITI



A much forgotten George Lucas classic (no he did not only do Star Wars and sell toys!) where the entire story is set over one night after graduation and how a bunch of mates discover that things may really have changed. A theme that constantly runs through S'kali.

So yeah, those are some of the films that have been watched by me whilst writing S'kali and hopefully you guys and gals check em' out too.

S'kali Teaser Image

Well here it is folks. The teaser image for Asa'ad Entertainment & Perantauan's upcoming movie "S'kali".

Good Day Sunshine

Various movie locations included the neighborhood of a member of the Perantauan team, Jason Lim. Angeline was not involved in any of the scenes for this particular shoot.

The following photos were taken by Azimy and Davina.


Dimitri offers a suggestion in the morning drizzle.


Derek and Azimy in the first scene of the day.


Setting up the camera dolly.


Arivind preps Derek for his solo scene.


Zaid is full of youthful exuberance.


Dimitri and Benji are good to go.


(L-R) Actor, chief runner, crew, paparazzi-in-training


Dimitri and Arivind observe a take.


Jay, Bahir and Jayaram portray curious bystanders.


Arivind deflowers Zaid's virgin ears.


Dimitri wanders off to visit the 'Ram-Mobile.


Actors must improvise ways to spend idle time.


Yoga buff Derek and his rebellious little cricket.

Some More Pictures

Befour Media

Hi all,
We thought we would blog a little about another small start up media company like Perantauan who are now heavily involved with the film.

Befour Media is based in Bristol, UK and is made up of four partners: Arivind Abraham, Dan Blake, Ali Maggs and Luke Yerbury who were all colleagues on the Time Based Media course at the University of the West of England in Bristol.

In the beginning, Perantauan approached Befour in regards to designing and preparing the website for the movie which is currently underway and will take some time as the people working on are, as we have said, a little team of perfectionists and will not open it till they see fit.

However Befour Media is now getting involved even futher with the post-production of the movie. When director Arivind Abraham could not find a decent enough HDV edit suite in KL at the price he wanted, he decided to take it over to Bristol to have it cut over there.

Editors Luke Yerbury and Ali Maggs will be working with Arivind on the edit over the coming months. They will be using the Final Cut Suite on a G5 with the Sony HDR-FX1 as their HDV deck for exporting and importing footage.

If you would like to see a little more info on Befour Media go to:

www.befour.co.uk

Baltimore Benji Returns

Just to let everyone know that Benji sucessfully got a new visa and will be on his way back to the good ol' US of A on Saturday.

And also, look out for the S'kali teaser poster which is to be released on this site within the coming days.

Look out also for the trailer which is supposed to be on this blog as well as the soon to be launched website in late Feb/early March.

And word has it the movie should be opening in August in KL and possibly certain cinemas in the UK.

The Dream.

Sometime 4 years ago, a dear friend had approached me with a proposal. To be a partner in a venture that at the time, seemed like almost a fool’s errand. He asked me if I wanted to help him make movies. At that point in my life I thought, why not? It should be fun. And boy was I right.
My name is Bahir Yeusuff, and I function as the Business Operations Manager of Perantauan Enterprise, and play the dual role of Producer and Production Manager for the production of S’kali. This entry will be written, less about the actual production, but more on the foundations of that dream.
I never did film. Or even anything remotely close to the industry. So for me, I approached every meeting from a business standpoint. From meetings with prospective producers, to meetings with prospective sponsors, it was rarely ever about the dream or the passion, but more about the money. Or at least the promise of money. But eventually, the passion takes over. The dream that belonged to someone else is now shared by you. And that is when the real fun starts. That point came for me, when I started to realize that I didn’t want just anybody to be in on the movie. I didn’t care how much money they were willing to put in; if they didn’t share our passion, I wasn’t interested in them. There were those who said it couldn’t be done, not on the budget we had proposed, and there were those who said our proposed timeline was too long, or that we still had time to wait. But these comments only steeled our conviction, if anything to prove that it was feasible, and that these 20-somethings could do it.
So we did it. Armed with a great cast and an amazing crew, we shot our movie. It was a grueling 2 week schedule, in which we learned a lot about a movie set, each other, and ourselves. Personally, it was a sharp learning curve. Only having been on a set, running and managing a set was a totally different ballgame. A ballgame made especially difficult seeing that a few months prior to shoot, I wasn’t expecting to play. But I managed, with a great deal of help.
At the end of the 2 weeks, and as we all went home to sleep, knowing we didn’t have a morning call time, it felt weird. Waking up felt worse. It was disheartening almost. 2 days after the wrap, crew members started calling each other, inquiring about their day, and finally, feelings of longing. Yeah, after a 2 week shoot, the crew started to miss each other. Sad, but true. At the end of that two week shoot, we felt like brothers. It was really weird.
It’s fair to say, that as our first project, we’re not expecting to be millionaires on the coat tails of this production. And neither are we expecting a call from Ron Howard’s assistant anytime soon. (although, if you are reading this, drop me an email Mr. Howard sir) If anything, this was to prove to a lot of people that it was possible. And to find out if we, any one of the people on the cast and crew, were ready for the movies.
The vision we had for the company and this first project was to introduce new talent. Be it the ones in front of the camera, or even behind it, we wanted to bring in new blood to this industry. As had been mentioned, everyone involved is here for the first time. For what it’s worth, I know it wont be my last.