Cutting Our Teeth in Celluloid

This is a little production diary about our venture into film producing. Director Afdlin Shauki is helming the project, a film called "Los Dan Faun" and this will be Vision Works' first foray into producing our own film.

I am Ass Prod, the rather beguiling shorthand for Assistant Producer. Basically, since Afdlin is the Producer for the movie, I assist him as best I can. As you can see, there are other contributors, including Dir, short for Director, but as they will be hands-on with production for the next 4 or 5 weeks, their contributions will depend on how well (or badly) everything is going.

A little about the film:

Los (Carlos Rodrigo, played by Hans Isaac) and Faun (Mohd Faun, played by Adlin Aman Ramlie) are two childhood friends who come to KL in search of a living. Los, never lost for words, is smooth, business-minded and always ready to seize the opportunity. Faun, an observant savaunt, just can't seem to find the social graces required to get by in life, though his genius more than makes up for his lack of social skills.

Los suddenly realises that Faun has incredible powers of obervation and is blessed with an uncanny ability to find misplaced object. Always seeing the potential in everything, Los creates a business around Faun's powers and together they become the talk of the town, finding lost items for the distracted.

One day they get a call from filthy rich and recently widowed Jasmine (played by Erra Fazira), who is desperate to locate the whereabouts of her dead husband's extremely valuable and now extremely lost watch, which he was wearing the day he died, but was not on his person when found dead.

Los and Faun go visit Jasmin, where Faun loses all his capabilities as he sets eyes on the beautiful widow. At the same time, the insurance agent from Sotheby's where the watch was bought, has come to Malaysia to investigate the claim. Miami-vice inspired Dick Johnson (played by Stepehn Rahman-Hughes of Hang Tuah fame) is accompanied by his very quiet and observant Malaysian counterpart Amran (as of now, I am uncertain who has been cast, but will update you asap).

As the boys attempt to find answers with the debilitating lack of Faun's abilities, more and more things are not as they seem.


So that's a little aboout the story, what about the production itself?

Well, we began our first day of shoot yesterday in Malacca, which went pretty well except for bad weather which forced the postponement of two scenes to be shot this morning instead. Word from our assistant production manager is that today's shoot is on time and on track.

So if you're in Malacca you might stumble across the production crew!

Yours,
Ass Prod