It’s been a while since we’ve had an interview with an inspiring artist, last time we talked with Hypnoteis, an uprising star in the world of Graphic Design. Now we’re very proud to present you Richmanclub Studios, a young and upcoming film producer from Singapore.

Richmanclub Studios was founded by Rich Ho back in June 2004. Being only a young company they’ve already proven their quality by being nominated for the Golden Horse Award for Best International Digital Short Film, and by winning the Special Technical Achievement Award in the Singapore Hive Film Festival 2003. Studio469 had a good talk with the founder of this company, here are the stories, secrets and motivation that drive this film producer.

- How did you manage to start a film studio, while you studied business?
I started movie making when I was only 11 years old, I used my dads video camera for school projects and my own projects. Even before that my dad would take me to watch fantasy movies, this has inspired me ever since.
I knew I wanted to go into film making, and start my own studio, however my parents wanted me to take a decent education, I chose to study business hoping it would be of some use later on. During this study I managed to do a lot of movie making, for each project I would find a way to present a movie as a result. After I completed this study I started my own company.

- How many people work for Richmanclub Studio?
Rich runs the studio together with Katharine, the two of them do all the preparation like writing film scripts and planning. The other staff are hired on contract basis, whenever a project arises. We believe in careful pooling of talented resources at the right time in doing filmmaking.

- What camera do you use, what software?
I won a professional Canon camera model at the Hive Awards, I use it for recording.
For computer programs, I used Adobe Premiere to cut my clip, Adobe After Effects to create the compositing, 3ds Max to do the modeling and animations. For the music arrangement, I would self compose the music, and record them and transfer the music via the synthesizer.

- What is your workflow like, how do you start, where do you get inspiration
The process of making a movie comes down to three parts Rich explains. He always starts with a storyboard, in which he captures the genre, mood and defines the way to tell his story. In these storyboards the people of Richmanclub think about the order of the scenes, how to place the sub scenes. The characters reactions and behaviours in different situations. Finally the first part is translated into a scene sketches, that tell the story visually.
The second part of preparation for the movie making is about the words. The complete story is written on paper, this is part takes a lot of time since the drafts are often rewritten to improve the script. Usually it takes up to 10 or 12 drafts before a final script is finished. Rich tells us that the trick with story writing is to read is as if you were watching the actual movie, this helps to improve and finalize the script. Since Richmanclub Studios is a Singapore based company the movies are often not in English, so the script is usually translated into Chinese and English. Sometimes even putting in the phonetics, to aid the actors in pronunciation.
After all this preparation is done, the film making begins, actors are hired, and the raw material is shot. Richmanclub uses special effects like green screens in combination with post production. The Post Production is where Richmanclub excels from other small film producers, they are able to do 3D effects, matt paintings and special effects. This gives the movies a special feel and uniqueness. As Rich mentions he always tries to match what is in his mind closely whether it takes 3D effects, renderings, green screens or special effects.

- What are you working on now? What can we see already?
At the moment we’re working on the full length movie “The Infinite Sense of Melancholy“, this movie should go into cinemas this year. It’s going to be the first full length movie for Richmanclub Studios. We’ve started shooting this movie in April 2005 till November 2005, since that we’ve been working on the post production. The full length movie will be featured in different international film festivals. As for the short movies, you can see a couple of those on their website.

- What else can we expect in the future?
When we asked Rich what his plans are for the future he told us about his love for entertaining movies. That is the direction in which he will develop his movie making, in the future his movies might show on mobile phones and Richmanclub Studios will become are movie making department, with more people working on the new movie creations.

- How do you rate movies? Any favourite film producers?
Rich says he only watches really good movies, to see how things are done, and really bad ones to recognize bad movie making and to improve on his own skills. Example of a good movie with nice effects, and great storytelling is not surprising “Lord of the Rings”, another favourite is Reservoir Dogs by Quentin Tarantino, a great underdog movie. Rich has no good words for movies like Daredevil, because of the bad effects and even worse storyline.

Talking about film producers, Rich tells us he likes Quentin Tarentino for his work but he doesn’t respect him as much as Steven Spielberg, with great movies like the classic “ET”, “Empire of the Sun” and “Schindler’s List”. Probably the best allround producer at the moment.

- Do you have any advice for creative artists, or film makers out there?
There is a couple of website that can help creative artists with film making, regarding computer techniques have a look at 3D World Magazine. As for the film techniques look at dv.com and creativecow. Film making news like computer graphic Oscars can be found on Siggraph. These links will help you with tips and tricks, but more important is to have faith and believe in what you do. In times of difficulty think why you started your project in the first place, then you’ll realize it’s worth it. We hope to inspire you as much with this interview, as we were inspired by meeting Rich & Katherine.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 at 20:22 and is filed under Interview. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.