Winning the MTV Asia music video competition!

Thanks to my Heavenly Daddy, I was lucky enough to win the MTV Asia competition as they were looking for the best video to accompany the track titled "I'm Proud To Be Chinese" sung by one of AnD’s artist, Scott Hui!  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-71ti3PsdcAnd because of the accidental appearance of HKSAR’s Ex-Chief Secretary, Mrs. Anson Chan, in the mv, Scottie’s name as well as my name as the director were also mentioned in all the major international news including the FORBES, WASHINGTON POST, INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUTE, FOX NEWS and possibly a hundred more different world titles…  So, we had both become accidentally“world-famous” for 1 day!  Subsequent to that, I had done a few more interviews but they have not been published yet.  So, following are some of the questions and my answers for your preview:

(1)  What does this award mean to you?

Compared to the last video that I made for Project Orbis on Eason’s Sight Ambassador trip to China, I had to make more creative efforts to illustrate the song this time.  There was more planning and pre-production involved and also more visual effects experimented at post production stage.  So, winning the competition and getting this award is certainly a big encouragement to me in my endeavor towards making movies.

(2)  What advice do you have for people who want to do MV?

I think designing images to illustrate a movie scrīpt is relatively more straight forward as compared to designing images to illustrate a song.  It is because the images in a music video are there to enhance the song, they should not be too strong that they would distract from the song.  In my opinion, there is one other very important element in making mv, that is, you have to allocate certain resources in art direction and styling even though you may not have any budget for it.  Unlike shooting a drama, if the your images in the mv look good, it cannot go too wrong because the story is either told by the song or there is no need to tell any story but to create certain moods instead.  On the contrary, if your mv looks cheap and tacky, the audience would not be attracted to view it.  So, it may aversely affect the popularity of the song

(3) Who are the people you want to thank?

I want to thank all the cast and crew involved in the making of this mv especially

Hong Kong actress Farini Chang who has played the classic, modern and futuristic Chinese beauty; Mr. Gordon Liu (who has starred in Kill Bill 1 as Johnny Mo and Kill Bill 2 as Pai Mei) to appear as the Shaolin Monk; former HKSAR Chief Secretary, Ms. Anson Chan for agreeing to sing along to the chorus; Mr. Henry Chung, HKSC, (also an AnD member!)for being the Director of Photography and Cameraman; Universal McCann Hong Kong for allowing me to shoot their candidates while I was hired by them to shoot a presentation video for them and, lastly, my Final Cut Pro teachers at FatBars for their technical guidance and assistance

(4) Who do you aspire to be - other than yourself?

If the question only covers film making, the answer is Ang Lee, but if the question is stretched beyond film-making, I’ll aspire to be Mother Theresa.

(5) What is your next project?

I will continue to make promotional films for clients but will go around to seek funding at the same time for 2 of my feature film projects.  I know it may sound a bit far-fetched, but those are my resolutions for the year 2008!