The Making of To Speak - In the beginning...

Writer/Director Craig Ower and Producer Lionel Chok held at Q&A session on the making of To Speak at the Singapore Esplanade Library on Saturday 12 April. They covered the full history of the production from the initial concept through to the most recent screenings at the Singapore Film Festival. This entry sunnarises their comments on the initiation of the project.

The origin of the film lies back in 1991 when Craig read the book "Feature Films at Used Car Prices". The basic proposition being that a film could be made for the cost of a used car, and that if you were going to the effort of getting funds, equipment, people etc together to make a film - it might as well be a feature.

Flashing forward to 2004, Craig decided it was finally time to do something about the idea of making a film. He quit his day job and got to work. He had written 2-3 screenplays since 1991 but realised that they were all a bit too ambitious and complex for a first-time director to sucessfully execute. He decided he needs something a little more straightforward and simple with which to begin. In his own words - "Naturally, the idea of shooting a film in a third-world country where I didn't speak the language seemed like just the sort of basic project that was needed!!".

In 2002 a friend had invited Craig on a housebuilding trip in Cambodia. It was on this trip that Craig first learned of the Tabitha program - an innovative program of micro-savings which has lifted more than 600,000 Cambodians from absolute poverty to what would be considered a lower middle-class income. Impressed with a program that had such a profound effect for the tiny average cost of US$50 per person, Craig lead several more building teams back to Cambodia.

Having heard many of the stories told by the Tabitha staff, Craig wrote the first draft of To Speak in a week. "I showed it to the founder of Tabitha to see what she though about the story and the possibility of actually making it into a film. She said she thought it was a good idea. I suspect she thought that nothing would come of it". That was October 2004.

In March 2005 while rehearsing for a small part in "Adultery", a play by writer/director Lionel Chok, Craig discussed the idea of his film with Lionel. Very quickly Lionel came on board as the producer and then things started to move very quickly indeed.

So quickly that only 3 months (and 6 drafts of the screenplay) later the crew were shooting To Speak in Cambodia. "I'd put aside about S$30,000 which I was fully prepared to lose, in order to make the film. Most of this was spent on getting the crew to Cambodia and then accomodating and feeding them while we were there."

According to Craig "I was totally unprepared for what happened next".

The next entry will cover the 17 day shoot in Cambodia...