Over the past few years, the local film industry has been experiencing a renaissance. A wave of young and passionate filmmakers has taken up the task of leading Singapore back up the path to its former golden age of cinema in the 50s and 60s.
One filmmaker riding the wave is Clayton Lai, a Singapore-based creative at CRAFT Worldwide, the global production network of advertising agency McCann Worldgroup. His short film The Promise hit the industry’s radar in 2014 and helped him secure several award nominations.
Juggling his passion for fictional storytelling with his day job as a commercial video editor, Clayton finds technology inherently rooted in the filmmaking process. He is a self-confessed geek who always likes to be the first to try out new gadgets like Surface Pro 4 – anything that can help him improve his creativity and techniques.
Despite his busy schedule, Clayton found the time to sit down with Microsoft Singapore when we dropped by his bustling office for a chat.
Can you share with us more about who you are and what you do?
I’m a director and editor, working mainly on advertising and marketing content. As a content creative, most of my work takes place pre- and post-production. This includes all the works, from storyboarding to scripting to location scouting and more. However, in my current day job, I only get to go out and do some actual shooting only about once a quarter.
Obviously, once a quarter isn’t remotely enough to scratch my filmmaking itch! What I really love is telling fictional stories; I’ve been obsessed with writing scripts since my National Service days. I like to operate the camera myself and I also prefer to be the one editing my own videos. So, directing my own short films is an outlet for that.
Everything I know about directing and production is self-taught. I actually graduated with a degree in architecture. But, I was attracted to the process of how stories are formed shot by shot on the screen — how stitching multiple shots together can establish a context that will be completely different if you stitch them in another order, and how footage can take on a life of its own once you view it through the lens of a camera.
Technology is inherently tied to film as a medium, isn’t it?
Yes, exactly. Throughout the entire course of my work, a laptop or a computer is always part of my workflow. I need it for writing, planning, communicating, reviewing footage, editing footage – basically all the works.
It’s remarkable how technology in the industry has grown by such leaps and bounds in just over a decade. At some point in my fifteen-year career, we made the jump from Standard Definition (SD) to High Definition (HD). Today, we’re already talking about 4K and even 8K content. A watershed moment for the industry was when we moved from tapes to digital files, which made obsolete all the various tape formats and the hardware needed to support them.
Actual work on a production set has greatly changed because of this. Now that we’re dealing with digital files, we don’t need so much hardware. A device like Surface Pro 4 becomes, for example, the director’s monitor, the editing workstation, the teleprompter, the backup storage for your footage.
How else has Surface Pro 4 changed the way you work?
Surface Pro 4 has completely rebooted the way I view using mobile computers on set. The biggest thing for me is how I can walk around the set with it. In the past, I would be awkwardly cradling a laptop in my arm.
During the shoot, I like to have a mobile device that I can use to immediately view the footage on set, the lighter the better. Surface Pro 4’s combination of raw power and portability takes it up a notch – with it, I can immediately review the footage, try out some quick edits to the scene, or even assemble an edit right away during breaks.
This is a great boost to my productivity, because clients these days want to see results almost immediately to help them visualise the end product. The kick stand also helps; I can place the device anywhere I like on the set.
The touch screen and the Pen are two other great features that I love. It really helps that you can reach out and touch the film you’re creating.
But perhaps the best thing about Surface Pro 4 is how it’s built to be a collaborative device. An editor can use it, a director can use it, even a producer or production assistant can use it because there are so many different apps you can run that is each catered to the specific role that someone is playing.
It’s very liberating because filming itself is a very collaborative process. Dozens of people come together towards the same goal, and having that same device to put us in the same frame of mind is very useful.
What inspires and Powers Up your creativity?
To me, powering up means to stay current and in the know. I read a lot and like to keep my eye on the industry to see where production trends are going, what the state of cinematography is right now.
This may sound strange, but I hardly watch TV! TV is still stuck on a prehistoric model — on the idea that people are going to go home at a certain time to sit down in front of the TV just to watch your show. That model is quickly turning obsolete, if not already out of date. I do occasionally get into some offbeat stuff that gives me a breath of fresh air, like this Danish political drama that I’m currently engrossed in. There’s great acting, the cinematography and production values are outstanding, and that’s something that I appreciate.
With a device like Surface Pro 4, for example, I can simply fire up Netflix and search for whatever I want to watch, whenever I like.
What’s the next big challenge you’re looking forward to?
I have a couple of short films bouncing in my head that I really want to shoot, but they’re pretty ambitious ones, so it won’t be easy.
For one, the story takes place in Tokyo. Once you take a production overseas, you immediately add a layer of complexity. You need to be aware of the cost, the language barrier and you most likely have to meet with a local fixer to sort these things out. The story itself is still being conceptualised, so hopefully I can get it done this year.
The other short film I want to do is a double whammy in terms of complexity – it involves shooting at night at the crowded Little India, and the genre is comedy. Comedy is something I’ve never done before, and it is in my opinion the most difficult genre. Sometimes what you’ve scripted isn’t funny, and what you don’t have in the script is actually funnier, so I think the whole collaborative aspect with the actors is going to be even more interesting.
Do you have advice for aspiring filmmakers in Singapore?
Whatever it is you want to do, the best time to start is now. Don’t wait, don’t be afraid of criticism, don’t be afraid to fall, and don’t be afraid of appearing foolish or stupid in front of other people. Free yourself from all these unnecessary worries, and just do it. There is a TED Talk that James Cameron gave, in which he said it beautifully: “Failure is an option. But fear is not.”
If you’re worried that you don’t have the right skills, don’t. Take it from me as someone who didn’t even go to film or photography school. Technology is so amazing these days that you can pretty much learn anything or pick up any skills as long as you are committed to it and you understand the fundamentals. Compared to the days when we have to lug heavy equipment around and run back and forth in the studio and the set, you people should have it much easier with modern devices like the Surface Pro 4!