Friday, August 31, 2007 8:29 AM
About Royston and his style
www.chine-informations.comAbout him:Royston Tan, born on 5th October was graduated from Temasek Design School from Diploma in Visual Communication.
His most recent work would be "
881", was screened on 9th August
. The key story structure was done in an hour, the outline of the film in one night, the script was done in 3 weeks and filmed in 22 days.
Like many other well known directors, he cilmbed his way up from scratch. His career started off in 1993 as a food caterer for the crew, cast and director.
After much research and watching his featured films and short films like "4:30", "881" and "15", I realised that almost all of his works are based on one style; "try to give a voice to the marginalized society".
However, if he don't like something, he will also critise in his film like "
Cuts" criticized about the censorship board in Singapore. This act resulted much attention given to him from the censorship board and has been closely watched by the media.
Being a rebel and an artistic freedom-fighter doesn't gain him much friends. He felt that he's an outcast and with his films being critizied so badly. Eric Khoo said that he is a "hero to the city's independent artists."
Even so much of critisms he got locally, he was very much appreciated in international level. He has won a total of 51 awards to date. He was also named as the Time Magazine's 20 Asian Heroes under the age of 40. The magazine also celebrated him as "iconoclast".
He explored pretty much genres such as Musical, MTVs, short films and featured films.
His Styles:If you had watched his films, you would have noticed that his films are based on the feelings of the "
outcasted people in the society".
15 talks about gangster being gay,
4:30 talks about how people feel lonely at times and how they longed to be loved.
His films are always very dull looking. I must emphasized that they are colourful but dull. His works are always being washed to make it look very old and it gave this, lonely feeling.
In his films, you can feel this emo, lonely feeling but even so, he would never forget to add in humour. Like in "
4:30", an almost silent movie with less than 30 sentences throughout the hour plus film, he was able to add in humour.
He uses long still shots very often but alot of directors used that tatic so I won't say that's his style. This piece of information is purely for sharing.
And one thing, he wrote all his script by himself. He felt that if he would let someone else to do the scripting for him, he won't be able to get into the mood so he rather do the scripting himself however, he's looking for someone to work with him.
Some of his poster designFrom "
4:30"
www2.unt.seScreen shotsFrom "
Cuts"
www.silverlakefilmfestival.orgFrom "15"
www.lff.org.ukPreviewCourtesy of Youtube.comCuts
4:30 Trailer
881 Trailer
15 Trailer
