What's it all about?
First of all, none of it is manufactured. It's footage from a real trip I made to Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.
It's about...what is travelling about? What is life about? It's about the journey and the details - some magical, some mundane - that emerge along the way. It is also about tension. Here's this guy going to meet his girlfriend in a foreign country, they go on an idyllic holiday together but she has to go back to work while he stays on...
Why is the sound sometimes distorted and unclear?
Because it's real. It's done very roughly because real life is rough and filled with coughs, interruptions and noise. I've used raw footage and some aspects I haven't wanted to edit out, but I've wanted to put there for some reason, perhaps to remember. Some of it is quite personal, obviously. The other thing is that this isn't necessariloy a story about me, or this person and that person. Most movies are about this beautiful star or that beautiful star. There is another kind of beauty. The beauty of experience, of being in a place, the freedom and joy of simple holidays. I noticed at the start of this film my face was fat, gray and dull. By the end it was glowing and I looked to have regained a lot of shape and vigour - and none of that time was spent in the gym. To return to your question - I am trying to convey an atmosphere, a memory, and some details are less important than the feeling...other details are worth visiting.
You mention religion in the film...
Yes, because it is the core of our beliefs,our behaviours and our motivations, and it influenced this trip in interesting ways. For example New Year's in KL was different because no alcohol was consumed by the crowd - quite a different experience. And then Fiona is a Christian and this impacted on our relationship.
In a good way...
Some good, some not so good. She's a very sweet, a very good person though, and I notice reviewing the footage that I was sometimes too zoned out [due to sleep deprivation] to pay the sort of attention to her that I really would have wanted to.
What's the main message then
That even if a journey ends badly, or in an unexpected way, it is worth going on. It is part of what we call Life. There is a lot of pain and disappoinment when relationships don't work out and we often block out all the memories surrounding what we did with that person. But those blocked out memories represent what we did during our lives...and it involves many chance meetings with strangers and places...and all these add up...to our lives, to the wealth of our experience. In a nutshell - every moment is precious, especially when we're sharing it with someone special. I think everyone can identify with that.
Watch The Malacca Diaries
What's next, after this project?
I might do Notes on Korea. I also want to do a highlights package - taking the best blitz of stuff and putting it in a 10 minute collage that essentially races one through the highlights of the 4 years I spent in the East. Then I want to do somemore current stuff - a Video Diary - which I have sort've started. I would use that to comment on my everyday thoughts as a sort of Video Blog. I am a rotten presenter though. I thought I'd be better. But with good editing and a few gimmicks, you can make it worthwhile to watch. I think I'm slowly getting there.
And big movies?
I start in the backroom,writing stories. I don't even write scripts. I have a few fully fledged stories already, like HOLIDAY - which incidentally veers briefly into Singapore - and HALF FULL MOON (set in Botswana). I wrote a story in high school called VERSATILE FLYING SECRETS which was essentially a combination of Highlander, Star Wars, Centennial and probably Harry Potter - although Harry Potter hadn't been invented then. I am thinking of resurrecting the story as a children's story. Instead of Harry Potter it might be something like Christopher Ulysses and the Broken Sword.
Any other children's books?
I am discussing the idea of doing short, illustrated, biographical stories. For example I have just read Neil Armstrong's biography. I want to simplify the story and render it as a simple story book for young children. Simply about a boy who liked to build lots of model aeroplanes. And you know what happened to him (this is left to the very, very end of the story - he went to the moon. I've not sure if he really did, but it's good to dream, isn't it?
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