S'porean chose locations
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In December last year, Singapore played host to Hitman: Agent 47, which was shot at 10 locations all over the island.
Gardens By The Bay, Robinson Road, Changi Airport and Marina Bay Financial Centre were some venues that feature prominently in the Hollywood actioner, courtesy of Miss Suzy Yeo.
The veteran location scout, who is in her 40s and has worked on other Hollywood, Hong Kong and Bollywood films such as Entrapment (1999), Fulltime Killer (2001) and the upcoming Kristen Stewart-Nicholas Hoult sci-fi flick Equals, shares with M her experiences working on Hitman: Agent 47 and what went on behind the 15-day shoot.
HER ROLE IN HITMAN: AGENT 47
I'm a line producer, who's basically the "miscellaneous" lady of the whole production, stitching all the different departments together. It's like tailoring, where you need to sew all the different patterns and fabrics together to make a nice dress.
HOW SHE GOT THE GIG
The management of Twentieth Century Fox in the US called one morning two years ago and requested to "interview" me for a big Hollywood studio movie to be shot in Singapore.
After the interview, they e-mailed more questions on Singapore as none of them had been here before.
HOW SHE CHOSE THE LOCATIONS
I am a person who will explore every corner of our Little Red Dot during my free time. I studied the script and suggested those that I thought would fit well.
The studio accepted nine out of the 10 locations I suggested. The Marina Barrage was not even in the script initially. I discussed with (executive producer) Michael Hendrickson on several occasions about this marvellous location, and he finally decided to do a scene there.
It was a pity that they didn't do any shoots at our MRT stations.
THE STUDIO'S FIRST REACTION TO THE LOCALES
They were blown away by our magnificent structures and clear skyline. When they saw Gardens By The Bay, their exact words were: "This is madness. We have not seen something like this. We need to do scenes here."
THE CHALLENGES
It would be a lie to say that the production went smoothly. People were apprehensive about giving approvals and permits. Most of the time, I was trying to help them understand what we were doing and assuring them.
We needed to connect so many government agencies - the Land Transport Authority, Ministry of Defence, Urban Redevelopment Authority, Ministry of Health, Building and Construction Authority, the police... you name it, we had to.
Many government officers told me that they actually wanted this movie to happen and saw it through.
Others like Changi Airport Group and Marina Barrage were outstanding in their support. They bent over backwards to help us get things done.
Other problems included crowd control and logistic issues. Because we had a convoy of 50 to 60 vehicles, we needed to find places to park them in the city, and that was oftentimes impossible.
Closing down Chinatown without affecting shops and shoppers was another headache. So I was trying to manage the crowd when they got all excited about the filming, especially the "bang bang" scenes.
THE CAST AND CREW'S EXPERIENCE WORKING IN SINGAPORE
They all loved Singapore, especially the food. Many even wanted to come back to sightsee or work because it is such a cosmopolitan city.
The main difficulty they all faced was our hot weather.
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