CONCEPTUALISATION
Tia Gong was born out of a curiosity four university undergraduates had about Ah Bengs in light of the uptick of live auction salesmen on social media during Singapore’s Circuit Breaker of 2020. Three out of four of the team were from neighbourhood schools in the past, and in their time there they had interacted with peers that people generally regarded as being rather ‘beng’. Wanting to find out how the label had evolved since then, the team set out on a journey to peer deeper into this label and understand individual stories that come from it.
PRE-INTERVIEWS/ INTERVIEWS
Getting up close and personal with someone you just met 5 minutes ago is definitely not an easy feat or natural at all. But with making a documentary under a tight production timeline, you just got to do what you got to do. We found the biggest challenges to be the balance between asking enough and asking too much.
Thankfully for us, our profiles and interviewees have been nothing short of amazing, we quickly got to see the “loud, brash and unapologetic” sides of them that most usually expect from Ah Bengs. But the most rewarding part of the making of Tia Gong is getting to listen to stories we would otherwise never get to hear, unless we asked and were willing to listen. They were not just honest, but humble and vulnerable. This made it all sweeter for us as a team.
SHOOTS
Planning for shoots was a challenge because of Jason’s hectic work schedule, which limited us to shooting at the restaurant. It also made it difficult for us to capture a moment of him outside his work environment. After getting to know him better, we realised that he also made trips to the nearby FairPrice supermarket to buy groceries which we hoped would give us B-roll footage of him that would reveal more of his character. However, even when we followed him on the supermarket run, he was still entrenched in his work. Going into the edit, we realised that this limitation actually did reveal Jason’s character—in his interview, he said that apart from work, he “is nothing”. We decided to present him using the B-roll of his work and the sequence of the supermarket run as such because it was true to his character.
Our two actors are ex-offenders from Architects of Life, a social enterprise that specialises in training youth at risks and ex-offenders through outreach, developmental and intervention programmes. We selected them because of their experience of being labelled as Ah Bengs in the past because of their tattoos and demeanour, and their passion for questioning the stereotype that has been placed on them.
One of the major issues we faced on set was shooting all the necessary B-roll footage we needed for a robust set of alternatives in the edit room. On our first shoot at the opening of Beng Who Cooks, we spent almost three hours shooting B-roll, most of it being cooking shots. We overcame this issue by convening a pre-production meeting prior to going on the next few shoots, and compiled a shot list that was linked to the themes and the interview portions we wanted to provide B-roll portions for. This refined our objectives on set and allowed us to significantly reduce the risk of requiring a pick-up shoot.
Our roles on set turned out to be different from how we had envisioned it in pre-production. Initially, we delegated a specific role to each person – Enkainia as the director, Tiffany as the producer, Cornelius as the director of photography, and Justin as the assistant director. However, once we were on set, we quickly realised that we had to be flexible with the roles that we were assigned, and help out wherever necessary. For example, Justin became the dedicated sound recordist while also logging footage as the assistant director. Other tasks required of the assistant director, such as timekeeping, were passed on to Tiffany. When we got help from someone outside our team to be a sound recordist for the performative shoot, Justin went back to being an assistant director on the shoot and managed both timekeeping and logging of footage. When we needed one more person to take footage with a B-cam, Tiffany had to help with filming, while also managing production. Each of us had to be more adaptable to take on any task that is required instead of being rigid in our roles, and also communicate our needs on set clearly so as to ensure that each role was thoroughly covered.
PERFORMATIVE SEQUENCE
Having shot and done narrative videos during the course of the communications degree in WKWSCI, the team was interested in employing narrative devices into the telling of the story of Tia Gong. Coupled with the director’s undertaking of the performative documentary module, the team encapsulated the stories, experiences and emotions – most of them unsafe for Singapore censorship and police supervision – into a performative sequence.
Finding the cast for this sequence proved challenging. The team was insistent on having people who are or had been labelled as Ah Bengs to present the sequence. This was because the performance would then be more than just an act – it would be a statement about how they are perceived, how they might feel about portraying it and a way for them to subvert the label and define it on their own terms.
The team was extraordinarily lucky to have had Christopher and Nicholas be part of the performative sequence. Christopher and Nicholas were volunteers with Architects of Life, a social organisation with a vision of changing perceptions of ex-offenders through equipping ex-offenders with technical, motivational and soft skills. Hearsay Productions would like to thank Christopher, Nicholas, Yi Juan from Architects of Life as well as Laura Teo from The Yellow Ribbon SG for linking the team up with them.
IN THE EDIT
We made sure to craft our film in a way that allows Gary and Jason to tell their stories in a raw, yet digestible way for a 15 minutes film. We saw our film as a vessel for those who have been labelled to share their experiences with the label, rather than four university kids trying to explain the label from an outsider’s point of view.
We structured our story outline with a bold and brash opening sequence with the help from our friends at Architects of Life. This action packed, colourful opening was meant to reinforce local audience stereotypes about the label of an “Ah Beng”. It seeks to give a crash course to foreign audiences about what ah “Ah Beng” is typically described as.
We then dive head first into unpacking the label from the perspective of Gary and Jason. We included participatory scenes throughout the film to bring our audience closer to Gary and Jason by reminding them of their laid-back attitude and reinforcing the unscripted nature of these scenes. We chose to include the interview portions where Gary and Jason were more informal, where things were not perfect, such as when Jason’s phone rang. These scenes were helpful in bring across their genuine nature while helping the audience break down the stereotype that we established at the start.
Heartfelt moments, such as Jason’s identity and Gary’s late night declaration to his gang were included in the turning point of the film. To emphasize their need for community, family and identity, to show that an “Ah Beng” is as human as us, the audience.
We concluded with a poetic sequence that gives the audience time to ponder over their encounters with “Ah Bengs” in their lives, their current stereotypes and for them to reflect while being treated to a poetic display of long cuts.
Lastly, we want to give a voice to our friends from Architects of Life, Chris and Nic. We hope that their short sharing during the end credits will remind us that despite not having a single dialogue during the film, they have their own stories to tell too.