Babu: Rethinking Art Direction

While I was writing Babu, I was immensely worried about the art direction that will take place. In 4 Peringkat Ajal, I experimented with 4 different styles of art direction and to me, I liked Eddie's part the most but it was his story and not mine. That's what I felt anyway. I'm choosy that way.

Favourites?

Tony Scott's fast paced montages, Timur's slow motion special effects, Joe Wright's wide angles, Danny Boyle's first person feel, Wong Kar-Wai's enigmatic lighting, Ozu Yasujiro scene transitions, John Woo's slow mo death and Yasmin Ahmad's defining backgrounds.

I love them all but I will never do these favourites' injustice by mimicking them.

I want to experiment with Babu. I want to show the audience how I look at things. I'm very analytical, very much like how Arundhaty Roy used narratives in God of Small Things. When I scold my brother to study, I looked intently at his textbooks and how the pages are clean and untouched. When I overheard my parents fighting when I was smaller, I looked at myself through my parents' shadow on a reflective clock. Some of the things I analysed does not reflect well on the situations I was in like how I admired the moon just before the roller coaster speeds up but what it does is it reflects fragments of how my mind works.

I thing it would be interesting to see how the audience perceive visual narratives without the comparative explaination. Will they respond by guessing the connection to the story? Or will they treat the narratives like props? How about the transitions from one object to another? Will it explain the emotional setting of the scene?

Questions, questions... The only way to find out is to do it anyway and get people's feedbacks.

Tiba-tiba I'm getting all excited to start the storyboard process. Can't wait to finish the script.