The Alien Invasion-Extras

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Synopsis

After decades of watching aliens wreck havoc in the USA,
THE ALIEN INVASION brings the absurd “B-grade” inter-galactic battle to the comical side of Singapore.

Featuring Singapore’s modern culture of diverse races and mixed languages, local occupational stereotypes, and the country’s oldest university building, the adventure is told by over 80 cast members of real life university students, staff, and professors.

Filmed by a 7 member crew, this incredible film rolls out each scene with an over-the-top intense mixture of action, comedy, satire, and the ever present desire to be heroes – even if only for a day.
– Golden Horse Awards- International Digital Short Films Nominee 2004
– Asian Film Festival- Official Selection 2004
-International Film Festival Rotterdam- Official Selection 2005
– WOMAD- Asian Short Films Showcase 2006
– Portable Film Festival- Official Selection 2008
– Toronto Singapore Film Festival- Official Selection 2008
– Asian Hot Shots Berlin Film Festival- Official Selection 2008
* First Film with Full Digital Launch in the world 2006

Director Rich Ho’s Statement

“One of my lifelong reoccurring dreams was to see the educational institute that I was attending being blown up.

From my childhood days, I would paint stories of great adventures with my classmates; how the aliens would come to our school, how we would discover some hidden alien technology on the school grounds, how we would be able to turn their cool weapons back at the galactic monsters, and how we would save our school building and friends (saving the teachers was a debatable issue then).
It was our grandest dream to be heroes for a day (and skip class while we’re at it).
When my university requested for a proposal for “something different” to play at their first ever graduation ceremony, I jumped on this final chance.

I wanted the film to not take itself too seriously (like some Hollywood-blockbusters had), but rather tell a story and shoot the film with a sense of fun and adventure.
The look of the film had to depart from the slick, timed camera moves and fluid action pieces. Thus a handheld camera style, along with shooting the film in digital as compared to 35mm, will allow it to have a raw, and at times an “amateurish-B-grade movie” look. This would prove to be a challenge in post-production as all the visual effects had to be camera-matched with the real life hand-held camera. To complement the madcap experience, we opted to ignore whatever misunderstanding a “serious-give-me-only-intense-alien-movies” audience might have, and go all out for exaggerated “bad”, “cheap-looking” visual effects, with a stylized look instead of realistic ones as shown in Picture B below:

Picture A.

Picture B.

With the story in place, followed by the finalized concept, we submitted the poignant combination of absurd heroic battles and mass destruction set to a Singaporean flavor of humor, and presented the risky concept to the board.

“It, ah, urm, ahem, it certainly is different.” The graduation ceremony director said as he compared my concept to the string of other corporate-video concepts that were presented to the committee earlier. I waited for him to kick me out of the presentation room.

“What are you going to call it?” He asked.

“The Alien Invasion?” I hazarded. I supposed I could have called it, “The Return of the Flying Saucers” but I didn’t think of it then, and I suspect that it has already been taken by some unknown B-grade film. “It’s a working title.” I tried to rectify and resumed waiting to be kicked out.

“I need to know what to put in the program sheet.” He said.

“I’ll let you know once I got it.” I promised.

I never gotten round to thinking of a better title. The film itself presented enough challenges from the writing to the execution. Working with a cast of over 80 non-actors who are real life students, staff and professors of Singapore Management University was an interesting experience (They found it easier to execute stunts and comedy than actual acting.)
The volunteer crew also struggled with many firsts from driving with the back of the van open to procuring weird green plastic for a green screen.
On the day the movie was released, I listened to the audience cheer, shout, and laugh along with the action and realize that even if only for this day, it was all worth the while.
I hope you would enjoy the film as well, if not, punch the person beside you. If you do, kiss the person beside you. Either way, some violence is bound to ensue and I will be safely 2 continents away.”

– Rich Ho, 2004

Film Trivia

Here are just some useless stories about the production of The Alien Invasion:

– The film is Richmanclub Studios’ official first film after becoming a fully registered private limited company, and gained a nomination in the prestigious “Chinese Oscars”, the Golden Horse Awards, in the International Digital Shorts category. Rich is the only Asian nominee outside of Taiwan, and first Singaporean to be nominated in this category.

– Rich nearly deleted the Golden Horse official notification email of his nomination after reading the title, “Congratulations! You have…” because he thought it was a spam. He doesn’t buy medicine (that only online people “know” you need) and has never inherited a large sum of money (from an unknown “related” tycoon a Middle Eastern or African country), but luckily, sometimes Rich does read his junk mail just to feel important.

-The film was a commissioning for Singapore Management University’s first Commencement Ceremony. Refusing to do corporate stuff, the studio submitted the proposal of a short film to present the University, instead of their original concept of a corporate video. It was nice of them to decide to take the risk with us.

– The title of the film,” The Alien Invasion”, was a tentative working title that became the official title after it became a constant reference to the film.

– The script was modified almost before every shoot due to the huge challenges of scheduling and location from working with the immense cast.

– Due to the limited budget, all the crew and cast were working on a voluntary basis. The tight production schedule meant that Rich only had less than 20 days to edit, create all the visual effects, and music by himself. A further 1 month was spent to create a final director’s cut.

– As a trademark of Rich’s films, all the crew members made appearances in the film.

– The 3 actors who played chicken rice stall hawkers, were the top 3 students of the graduating year.

– The entire film’s dialogues were in Singlish (English spoken in the Singaporean way).

– In order to create the “amateurish” and “over-the-top” look of the “B-grade” alien invasion flicks in the 1970s, all the shots were filmed with a handheld camera with varying, shifting focuses. and extra film grain was added for the “cheap 16mm film” effect. This proved to be a challenge in post-production as almost all the effects shots had to be matched with the shaky footages.

– The movie had a tough effects choice. Whether to go for realistic action packed effects(Picture A), or the slightly more fun game cinematic effects(Picture B).
In the end, to match the over-the-top comedic feel of the movie, risking misunderstanding from “serious” audiences, the more exaggerated effects were used:

Picture A.

Picture B.

Picture A: Realistic Action Effects

Picture B: Exaggerated Game Cinematics Effects

– There is a “hidden” fun shot in the movie for “spot the mistake”. CLUE: Watch the scene where the tanks are featured.

Film Stills and Behind the Scenes

 Full Cast and Crew Production Credits

Wallpapers

(Right-click over the full sized wallpaper and select ‘Save Picture As…’ or ‘Set As Desktop Background’ to use the wallpaper on your computer)

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