The Recital: Director's Comments

This film will forever hold a place in my heart. Not just because the story was important to me, not even anything to do with the critical reception the film received, but the main reason why it holds a place in my heart is that this was my debut, my first ever film. This is where the story starts in my filmmaking career, with a film that followed the adverse effects of 'tiger-parenting' on children.

The award-winning version of The Recital (2018) is available to watch on YouTube

The Recital follows the story of Amy, who appears to be quite unlikable with her obsession with grades and her studies, but was this who Amy really is? or is there a deeper reason as to why she acts like this?

When I said this film was my debut, I don't mean that I had studied filmmaking prior to this moment or had some minor experiences as a runner or anything on other productions, this was straight up the first time I had ever been on any kind of film set. Before this film, I had only ever written scripts for the stage, they weren't very good either, so when I was given the opportunity to write, direct and produce my very own short film, I didn't even know where to start. I speak more on this in a separate blog post here, where I go over the start of my filmmaking journey.

It was very much a learn-on-the-go experience as a first-time director.

Luckily, thanks to my producer and sponsor Bill McQueen's guidance, I was able to ask absolutely anything and everything on the spot and if I'm being honest, this film wouldn't have been anything without him, even if I had all the equipment and crew together.

The cast and crew truly were the main reason why the film turned out as good as it did.

The story for the film itself was actually compiled from a couple of shorter stories which caught Bill's eyes, which I later expanded to become the script we see today. That's not entirely true actually, as the original film had around 11 minutes of running time, however due to limitations of film festivals, a lot was dropped which actually slightly changed the idea and development of the story. This is why many, including myself, felt that the film felt rushed in places, and that the story happened so far that there doesn't seem to be cohesion. The reality is that there was an entire classroom scene and another redacted that had to be cut out which would've helped Amy's character.

Principal photography went surprisingly smooth for a first-time director, of course this was mostly because Bill McQueen and Elton Cheung (Bill's colleague and DOP on set) held down the fort on set most of the time. A lot of the shots turned out exactly how a 15-year-old first-time filmmaker could come up with. I think part of the beauty of the film was that the shots were more simplistic and to-the-point, but at the same time I do have to admit that this was done because we didn't have much time over the two and a half shoot dates we had.

But as with all Windebank Productions, there was an issue with sound on one of the set dates, and as most people would expect, it was the outdoor scene. Specifically the one where Amy and her mother walk to the recital. Our boom mic's cable malfunctioned and we had to do the whole shoot without the ability to record sound. This led to having to do ADR (automated dialogue recording - basically dubbing) without any reference points apart from the visuals. And I mean that quite literally as the script for this part wasn't quite refined, and didn't have Cantonese translations either for the Cantonese parts, so a lot of the lines were thought up on set. This meant that the two actresses, who were amazing, had to do their best to remember what they had said weeks ago by guessing mouth movements.

The entire outdoor section of the film was dubbed over in post.

Luckily this was the only qualm in production and it was resolved without much of an issue. The film, albeit a 7-minute cut which is now on YouTube as "The Director's Cut" was originally submitted to Tropfest Jr, a youth film festival in Australia. When the film was shortlisted but not selected, it was published to YouTube on the 14th of February, which with the thumbnail made people think it was a romance film. This is where we thought the story was over for the film, and we were all okay with that as we were all still proud of what we accomplished. But then the film was picked to be the front-page story of Young Post - South China Morning Post, which you can read here. Then a few months later it was accepted into the Across Asia Youth Film Festival where it won Best Film, a truly unexpected result. A separate post about that experience will be available soon.

Me accepting the 'Best Film' award at the Across Asia Youth Film Festival 2018.

I'll be honest, I definitely got lucky with the outcome of my debut as I know some are left to wait years and years before something ever comes of their efforts, but that's not why I made the film. The film was to help raise awareness for social issues such as tiger-parenting and I have always dedicated my career to etch towards that goal.