GlobalConquest: KL and the midnight madness

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2005年11月11日

KL and the midnight madness

First a brief recap of the past few days:

Tuesday Nov 8th
07:00 Wakeup
08:30 Go to airport
10:00 On a plane to KL
13:00 Eating Iranian food for the first time
14:00 Asleep on the couch of an advertising office
16:00 Poking around the base of Petronas towers (couldn't go up)
18:00 Waiting for Aydin and agency at the wrong spot
18:45 Call agency and find out meeting time is rescheduled to 20:00
20:00 Waiting at the wrong spot again
20:15 Aydin comes and finds me
20:45 Driving to studio
21:00 Waiting at studio for crew
22:00 Crew arrives, start hair and makeup
22:05 Everyone else finishes hair and makeup

Wednesday November 9
00:00 William finishes hair and makeup
00:30 Find out job is for Tiger Beer, not Carlsberg (on the schedule)
01:40 Finish shooting at studio and drive to location
02:00 Waiting for construction of set to finish
03:45 Start shooting
06:00 Finish shooting and get on monorail towards airport
08:05 On plane back to Singapore
09:30 Back in Singapore
11:00 Home
12:00 Sleep
14:00 Wake up
15:30 Go to hair / makeup / rehearsal for Esprit show
16:30 Realize I forgot to buy chewing gum in KL
21:00 Finish Esprit show
22:00 Go to "hawker" market for satay and murtabak (yummy food)

Thursday November 10th
00:00 Home
02:00 Sleep
11:00 Wake up
14:00 Go out shopping
17:30 Come home
18:30 Leave home
19:30 Dinner with 8 person model platoon at Little India
22:00 Crash the Guess show (free drinks, food, gifts, blah blah)

Friday November 11th
00:00 After party at Attica
02:00 Chicken rice at Putong Quay on River Valley Drive
02:30 After-after party at Velvet
04:00 After-after-after party at Living Room
06:30 Home
06:57 Writing this

So the Tiger Beer job was fun. For the few days preceding the trip, after finding out I would be doing the job with Aydin, we have all been puzzling about how the selection was made. Aydin is a big, chizzled guy with short hair and a "commercial" look. I am a skinny fashion guy with long hair and an "editorial" look.

We arrive at the job and there are three other guys also doing the ad. Two have short hair, and the only other guy with long hair has straight hair, stubble, and a scar on his chin. Can’t get more masculine than that. So add Aydin and myself and… one of these things just doesn’t belong.

From the moment we started, the director was eyeing me. No, not the queer eye. More of a very concerned who-is-this-charlatan eye. This went on for about an hour until the hair guy gave me the shocking verdict: “The director says you look too young”.

My immediate feeling was “I know I should have looked older today! What was I thinking??” Actually, the director seemed so cold and serious that I really felt bad for looking “too young” even if I rationally concluded it was not my responsibility. To make me look older, the makeup artist tried such desperate measures as darkening my eyebrows. Ok, that was the only measure. As for hair, it was made fluffier, then less fluffy, then fluffy again. Eventually the director decided I looked as close to 25 as I was going to look and gave the OK.

It turned out (as it usually does) that the director was a nice, friendly guy, just with a quiet style. Speaking of which, next time you see someone standing aloof at a party or gathering, consider the possibility he or she might not know people rather than dismissing it as snobbery.

The first part of the shoot was done in the studio. The second part was done at Finnegan’s Irish Pub, skilfully reinvented as “The Queen’s Arms” complete with new lettering, neon signage, and sandwich board listing prices in British Pounds. Hamburger for ₤3.50? Guess we’re not in London. We had to pause a couple of times for M troubles as the letter fell down and “The Queen’s Arms” became “The Queen’s Posterior” (albeit misspelled).

The tall, gloomy skyline