THE WEEKEND THAT WAS

Shing, who plays Charlotte, came up for rehearsals last weekend. We rehearsed all of Charlottees scenes, her song, monologues and voice overs. The bulk of it was the scene where Charlotte "picks up" the unassuming assassin and also all of her scenes with the Old Man. It was a long and exhaustive one, but we all had fun - Fergus, myself, Mel, the assassin and the Old Man. If you were there, you'd have laugh yourself silly in some bits. All in all, it was thoroughly fruitful.

Although the scene between Charlotte and the assassin is a small one, it was nevertheless challenging to block and direct during rehearsals. Mostly because in that scene, there isn't any dialogue. Our assassin (Sen Kiat) arrived shy but towards the end loosened up and provided a bit of comic relief and a cigarette for Shing to work with. Bless his generous soul. (Cigarettes aren't cheap these days).

Fergus going through with Sen Kiat and Shing the journey which the two take in their scene

Introducing: Sen Kiat's cigarette. And Sen Kiat too of course

What was funny during the Charlotte-assassin session was getting Sen Kiat and Shing to switch characters. It was kinda cute seeing Sen Kiat turn on the giggly charm and seduction on Shing. After that, Fergus demonstrated his idea and vision of Charlotte opposite the assassin in this scene to Shing. I had to stomach the laughter and bite my lip. I've been given strict orders not to mention any more than that.

We took rehearsal out of Fergus' apartment for the first time seeing that in this scene, the two walk a very long street. So Fergus did the blocking for that - when Sen Kiat is to pick up pace, turn and look, drop his lighter, stop at the lights, so on and so forth.

The "walk": It's hard to capture walking on camera

We called rehearsals off at 7, had dinner, chatted a bit, said adios to Sen Kiat for the day and proceeded to stick Shing into her hotel for the night. That being said, we continued rehearsals in the hotel. Once again, the change in scenery was much welcomed. Although towards the middle of that session, I had the shivers and Shing gave me a towel to wrap myself with. I couldn't decide if I felt super because I had what could be passed off as a make believe superhero's cape or just idiotic. It didn't matter, the towel kept the chills away.

We did mostly Charlotte's voice overs and monologues in the hotel

It was close to midnight by the time we were done with that day's rehearsals. Tired and satisfied, we capped the night, I said goodbye to my "companion" which kept me warm and promised Shing chicken rice for the next day's lunch.


***


Sunday rolls around and we're all rolling off our beds and into another rehearsal session with Shing, this time with the Old Man. As promised, we took Shing out for chicken rice. Few days prior, Shing was down with a gastric flu. But she made it to KL nevertheless and we were all glad her tummy was feeling much better by the time lunch arrived on Sunday. For dinner, we had wanted to bring her out for Tom Yum and delish curry noodles in KL, but decided not to push our luck for now.

With chicken rice sitting comfortably in all our tummies, we headed over to RSD HQ, pumped and ready to go. We started the session with Charlotte's song. This time, Mel was there and so I had company. Pictures were taken in black and white, in honor of the noir treatment to Charlotte's scenes.

Cold, cold Vagabond girl

Fergus and Shing researching for the best femme fatale representation for Shing

Ben arrived not long after and so they started with characterization. What is the relationship between Charlotte and the Old Man? Why is the Old Man keeping her? What sort of person is Charlotte. Why is Charlotte the way she is? Why did the Old Man pick Charlotte and not her friends? What is it about Charlotte? The Old Man? Is there love? So on...and so...forth.

Establishing character

We got into the lines pretty soon after we somewhat nailed down the characters. We managed to do all of their scenes. It was amazing seeing both of them go in and out of the different feelings and emotions through and within each scene. The read and blocking was smooth and at some point, rehearsals started to look like Calvin Klein photo shoots, seeing that both Shing and Ben were in white and black, and jeans respectively.

Charlotte and the Old Man sharing a tender moment

Charlotte and the Old Man sharing a not so tender moment

The femme fatale and her lover

We called it a night at around 8pm. Mel bought us food and the day was over. We loaded the pictures up and realized a total of 150 pictures were taken over the weekend. Were we satisfied with the weekend's work?

You bet.