WATCH THIS: 3 DOORS OF HORRORS 2014, three microbudget horror short films

A couple of days ago, I attended the premiere of the 2014 edition of 3 DOORS OF HORRORS held at the MBO Cinemas in Citta Mall.

Floating Sun @ Rotterdam International Film Festival 2014

The Rotterdam International Film Festival has just ended today with the announcement of its 3 Tiger Award winners, they are:

My 20 Biggest Moments in 2013. Based on Facebook

Facebook had listed out my 20 biggest moments of 2013. I'm glad I have a social media site to do this for me based on the amount of likes I got on my Facebook status updates.

WATCH: Video of the 3 DOORS OF HORRORS world premiere

I mentioned that 3 DOORS OF HORRORS (which features my new short film FLOATING SUN) has been uploaded on Youtube last Saturday. But prior to that, we actually had two great physical screenings of the omnibus film.

WATCH: 3 DOORS OF HORRORS 鬼節:三重門, a 45-minute horror omnibus film (featuring my new short film FLOATING SUN)

3 DOORS OF HORRORS 鬼節:三重門, which my new short film FLOATING SUN is a part of, was uploaded on Youtube a week ago.

Directing 101 with Edmund Yeo

Another four more days and everyone will get to watch 3 DOORS OF HORRORS on Youtube, the omnibus film that my new short film FLOATING SUN is part of.

FLOATING SUN features a floating corpse, and it wasn't easy to tell my actress how to not just act as a floating corpse, but to become one.

Luckily, produce James Lee had managed to snap a few important shots of my efforts in directing these challenging scenes, and he had posted this on Facebook, which cracked me up.

"3 Doors of Horrors" (omnibus with my latest short film) on The Hollywood Reporter

August 17th, exactly a week from now, my new short film FLOATING SUN, which is part of the "3 DOORS OF HORRORS" omnibus horror will be launched online.

It's great to see this being covered by The Hollywood Reporter yesterday.

WATCH THIS: Trailer of 3 DOORS OF HORROR (a horror omnibus that I'm part of!)

FLOATING SUN took only two days to shoot, and perhaps a few days to edit.

But the process of trying to perfect it had been rather exhausting. The colour grading, the audio mixing, the music, they were tricky, because I am working on a genre that I wasn't exactly familiar with.

The entire month of July has passed by without me noticing.

The film is finally done.


In case you don't know, FLOATING SUN is part of a horror omnibus produced by James Lee called 3 DOORS OF HORROR. The other two directors participating in this are Ng Ken Kin and Leroy Low.

Yesterday, James finally posted the trailer of 3 DOORS OF HORROR, and it looks pretty great!

When cast members constantly live-tweets your film shoot...

On the 28 and 29th of June, I was shooting my new short film, FLOATING SUN, which is part of the HUNGRY GHOST FESTIVAL: 3 DOORS OF HORROR omnibus project produced by James Lee.


The other two directors, Ng Ken Kin and Leroy Low had long finished their segments, so it was up to me to ensure that I wouldn't screw up.

Once again, my cinematographer was Lesly Leon Lee, who shot my first two short films CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY (2008) and LOVE SUICIDES (2009), and later, my one-minute Prada short film "NOW". Because of this, I couldn't help but find myself comparing the current film shoot with those from 5 years ago.

One of the biggest differences nowadays is the advent of social media and smart phone technology. Cast and crew members can now easily live-tweet/ live-blog/ live-facebook/ live-whatever the entire process of the shoot. Of course, being generally open to such things, I agreed to let everyone post up videos or photos of the shoot as long as I look flattering, and as long as they don't spoil the story.

FLOATING SUN, which is loosely based on a Kanai Mieko story, stars Emily Lim 林佩琦, Daphne Low 刘倩妏, Candy Lee 李佳洁 (whom I last worked with in last year's short film DOUBLE which I produced), Steve Yap 叶良财, Candy Ice 林冰冰 and Azman Hassan (who had appeared in almost every single important Malaysian independent film out there).

It revolves around a drowned corpse.

More photos from my "Floating Sun" location scouting

I got myself a Blackmagic Cinema Camera recently for two TV shoots. (one of them is BUDDYZ Season 2, which is currently airing on Astro Ria every Wednesdays and Fridays at 8:55pm, each 5-minute episode is available on Youtube a few hours after it's on TV, here's episode 3)

One of the most convenient things about the camera is that I could just re-use my old camera lenses from my Canon 7D, even got myself a new Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 lens to help with wide shots. This morning, while doing some location scouting for my new short film Floating Sun, I managed to put the lens to good use.

Location scouting for my new short film "Floating Sun"

As I prepare to shoot my new short film "FLOATING SUN" at the end of June, I traveled early this morning for a round of location scouting with James Lee the producer, TK the production manager and Lesly the cinematographer.

Armed with my new phone, the Huawei Mate (technically, with its 6-inch screen, it's really a "phablet" and not a phone), I traversed into a place which was absolutely wonderful (and photogenic) for my film, taking some photos.

Mieko Kanai 金井美恵子

You might not have heard of the Japanese writer Mieko Kanai (金井美恵子), but she wrote the short story "The Moon" that inspired my short film "LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER".

I stumbled upon her works by accident. It was September 2010. My uncle (father's younger brother) passed away suddenly, my parents, who were in Tokyo with me for my graduation ceremony, had to fly back to Malaysia immediately.

I was left alone in the hotel that my parents were supposed to stay for a few more days. Overwhelmed by solitude, I went to my favourite Aoyama Book Center in Roppongi, hoping to distract my mind with literature.

Going through the shelf, "THE WORD BOOK" by Mieko Kanai, a collection of her short stories, caught my eye. Maybe it was the cover. THE WORD BOOK came out in the 70s, but it only just got translated into English that year.


I flipped through the book, went through some stories, and found myself captivated by the imagery of her dream-like tales. I didn't buy the book immediately, but her words lingered. (I bought the book a few days later on Amazon)

This is the opening paragraph of "The Moon":