ITE students and alumna given chance to work on popular movie sets

Donning safety googles and ducking behind walls was not how Mr Elfian Shaffiq Jama'ain imagined he would spend his school holidays.

Along with his three teammates, Mr Elfian, 22, had the chance to spend his September holidays last year working on the set of action adventure film Buffalo Boys.

They spent one month in Batam working on the set. It gave them a chance to witness what went on behind the scenes of the movie.

Directed by Mike Wiluan, Buffalo Boys will represent Singapore at the Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

The team of four are second-year students in the Higher Nitec in filmmaking (cinematography) course at the Institute of Technical Education (ITE).

Mr Elfian, who was with the lighting crew for the movie, said: "We saw stunts, blood splatters and explosions right before our eyes, and they were not computer-generated.

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"The moment they planted explosives, all of us had to hide behind the walls with safety goggles so the splinters would not hit us. You could see the walls break from the impact."

The team also had their fair share of difficulties, such as operating heavy equipment and overcoming language barrier with some of the Indonesian film crew.

WARDROBE ASSISTANT

ITE alumna Nur Haidah Haidi, 22, also had a chance to work on the set of the popular movie Crazy Rich Asians last year as a wardrobe assistant.

When Sonoya Mizuno walked down the aisle during the wedding scene with her gown dragging in water, Miss Haidah was armed with towels to quickly dry the dress before the next shoot.

It also took her three weeks to handsew crystals and intricate lace on the wedding gown, and she had to label more than 200 sets of costumes for the entire cast.

"Although there was the pressure to perform because I was representing Singapore, I felt heartened watching my hard work on the big screen. Being able to watch the entire movie come together was just magical."