Have you watch the film SUNSHINE?
I’m going to spoil it for you. This science fiction is directed by Danny Boyle, produced by Andrew MacDonald and written by Alex Garland. And not to forget, it stars our favourite actress Michelle Yeoh.
I love this team’s 28 DAYS LATER, but that’s besides the point.
It’s easy to tell that SUNSHINE is done outside the Hollywood studio system – no big name cast. And the biggest tell-tale sign of all? No happily ever after. Everyone dies at the end of the movie.
It just gets me thinking: wow, I want to make a film like that. (No, not that part where everyone dies at the end of the movie.) I want to make a big action film. If UK filmmakers can do it, I’m pretty sure Singapore filmmakers can do it too… erm… one fine day… I hope?
Then I think harder – can Singapore really make such a film? No, seriously. Can we do it?
My answer is no. Maybe another 10 years (hopefully shorter) if we continue to expand and grow our industry at the current rate. Eng Tiong and I deduced that it isn’t very hard to come up with a story like this. Of course, the detailed research into physics and all that stuff will be mind-boggling but the basic story idea isn’t that difficult to think up.
The core issue lies in the very heart and soul of being a Singaporean – we don’t think big. Maybe we can’t think big. Maybe we refuse to think big. Maybe we can’t find a reason to think big. Maybe we just don’t see big.
Let me relate my story:
Eng Tiong and I are currently working on a few story ideas. There’s this one particular idea we’re developing that’s somehow getting nowhere. Then one fine day Eng Tiong sugggested, “Okay, let’s think in terms of Hollywood. If we’re Hollywood producers. What will we do? Who do we want to cast as the leads?”
The most amazing thing happened. My mind frees up. Immediately I see Scarlett Johannson. He sees Jessica Alba. (Okay, we agree that Jessica Alba is a better choice.) And we see Clive Owen as the male lead. I can see how the story has to be told. I can see how the characters are like. Most importantly, I can feel the emotions the characters are going through. I can see the whole action sequences. Car crash, police everywhere…. Everything becomes real. Everything becomes bigger. Everything becomes… possible.
My thoughts before this exercise are so limiting. So… small. I just doubt every single crazy thought in my head. I just don’t believe any of it is do-able.
This is what Danny Boyle says on the SUNSHINE web site about writer Alex Garland:
“What I love about Alex’s work is he has these big ideas,” explains Boyle. “The British film industry tends to make quite small films, but Alex’s writing always contains these massive ideas and concepts, which is wonderful, though complex to finance and realize.”
Ditto, ditto, ditto. BIG ideas. We could definitely use some here in Singapore.
Trust me. It feels almost orgasmic to think really BIG, not confined by the four walls of our HDB flats, by our tiny country island, our pragmatism, our rules and most importantly, by the way we’ve been taught to think.
How about the money, you might say. Well, I think that should be the least of our worries. If the story is damn good, money will come.
