八卦电视台搬家了 BA GUA TV MOVED HOUSE

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开黄腔被轰 名嘴终开窍

Before becoming today’s 数一数二的名嘴, this pair of male and female hosts was more 脏嘴 than 名嘴.

I remember I gotten both to host an outdoor event for one of my promotional tours and both were happily bantering in dirty jokes on stage. The response was tremendous and the audience cheered and laughed along….except….

I received a feedback the next day from the press that there was a lady who complained about the X-rated jokes there were so blatantly shared in public and she felt humiliated and worried for those kids in the audience…

The then TV大哥大 who was the boss of the station summoned the two of them to his office. Both were initially very defensive and couldn’t see what the big fuss was all about and claimed that one negative feedback was nothing compared to the ‘warm’ response they got.

大哥大 immediately pointed out to them sternly that any hosts could crack dirty jokes and gotten that sort of a response.

“不要自以为很了不起, 任何开黄腔的烂主持人都能做到全场哄堂…”

“真正好和有本事的主持人是不需要靠开黄腔来博君一笑…”

“如果你们能做到这一点, 你们才是最好的主持人”

From that day onwards, I never once came across another situation when either one of them had to resort to cracking dirty jokes to get the audience’s emotions on the high side.

From 脏嘴 to 名嘴, both have evolved to become the pillars of MediaCorp’s variety shows today. I still remember what they said after getting a ‘lecture’ that day: “老板英明”

猛男HUI 恋上酷女 PEH

My colleague told me 制作部爆料 to her that our 猛男 Tay Ping Hui is seeing 酷女Joanne Peh.

My immediate reaction: “No way lah…for the sake of promoting this new drama ‘谜图' is it…?”

Why did I say ‘no way’…mmmnnn…maybe I was just like many people out there who always expected a 铁汉猛男 to go with a 温柔玉女, not someone with a strong personality like Joanne Peh.

Many guys typically want a ‘weaker’ opposite sex to ‘love and care for’. But in our hectic entertainment business, the last thing you want is to go home and still have to babysit your lover.

If this piece of news is really a '无风不起浪' type...I am glad Ping Hui is looking for a 'soulmate' and not just a babe (those sweet young thing macho men always go after).

So, it was our drama which tied Fann Wong and Christopher Lee together.

And it was our drama which ignited the romance between Michelle Chia and Shaun Chen.

Perhaps and maybe... this new drama ‘谜图’is pulling all the stops between two of Singapore’s most 酷的男女名星!

'汪太后' SAY NO 的时候

How difficult is it to work with 无线 '皇太后' 汪明荃? Many gossip articles allegedly cited examples of how ‘bossy’ she is at the station as if like some sort of ‘The Devil from Prada’.

I met 汪太后 at Ren Ci Charity Show’s rehearsal years ago. I brought the media to see the full dress rehearsal and something happened….

She was very upset about an arrangement. Apart from her item which she came fully prepared with a medley of yesteryear’s songs in her white-feather costume, she was very angry to be told she had to appear at the beginning of the show together with the rest of the artistes. Her reason: she wasn’t told beforehand and she didn’t prepare any costume to go with that segment.

Nobody dared to persuade her to give in and no reporters moved an inch to interview a very angry 大姐大. It was 明义法师 who managed to get her smiling again and agreeing to ‘make do’ and appear in a local designer’s costume.

‘To make do’ is a tabooed subject when it comes to 汪太后. IMO, she is a perfectionist and a real pro in ensuring every standard of a performance is met. It is an art form to her and she is super serious that this art form gets the respect and recognition.

Some producers and media reporters were unhappy and felt she 耍大牌. With her wealth of knowledge backed by many decades of experience and dedication, she can afford to give you the ‘I care less’ attitude and insist on things done her way.

To pursue excellence, you can’t be a nice softy sometimes…but before you do that, make sure you are brilliant in what you are already doing or risk being labeled as 耍大牌 (a term usually used to describe an ‘unworthy’ star trying to 'act big time').

还王子律一个公道

Some non-MediaCorp magazine articles tried to 影射王子律耍大牌 which is really unfair. Since I was the one who 封他为Ch U 韩流大使, I should tell you the real story here.

If I were his manager, I would also be upset if I came all the way to Singapore to hand out a ‘Best Supporting Award’ (the word ‘supporting’ sounds very ‘2nd class’ lah). Still, 王子律 professionally accepted the explanation about the ‘significance’ and gave out the award with the Queen of MediaCorp.

If I were him, I might even storm out of the whole event if I found out that 小猪 was the only one invited to sing at the main award show while I got to sing only at the Post Award Show (even though the explanation was小猪 had to leave for the airport for a midnight flight). 王子律 still fulfilled his promise and sang.

Look at what his on-screen lover 尹恩惠 did when she visited Taiwan recently…I hear she only attended a ‘mass press conference’ and declined all other engagements. 王子律 not only obliged to a press conference, accepted my invitation to be Ch U’s K-Wave Ambassador free-of-charge, met every individual media for a face-to-face interview but rehearsed and sang at Star Awards on Day 1 alone.

He might have his own personal reason to cancel an arrangement on Day 2 to go to Sentosa (he expressed interest to visit Sentosa) for a cover story with i-Weekly at the last minute…I am OK with that because he had already done so much more than any other Korean stars (they are ‘well-known’ to do very little for publicity).

Even though he had to cancel his morning shoot, he still turned up at MediaCorp in the afternoon to shoot a series of TV spots and photos for the channel. During the shoot, he felt pressurized with all the Mandarin and English scripts to memorize; he suddenly 蹲下来as a gesture of ‘giving up’. 王子就是要哄一哄吗…he still finished the TV shoot eventually and appeared to be more at ease with still photo shoot (even posing happily in various outfits). I feel he is very real and cute lah (不喜欢的人就说他是耍大牌).

I 照待过大牌脾气要不得的艺人, I wouldn’t count 王子律 as one. He is still a likeable and cute 王子.

孙燕姿棒棒堂MV被爆抄袭的真相

Recently, attention was on Taiwan boyband 偶像组合棒棒堂 (just released their new album) whose 咕叽咕叽MV with 孙燕姿 was once again accused as a 'borrowed idea’ from Sophie Ellis Bextor’s ‘Mixed Up World’ MV.

Many 天王天后 MVs in the past were also accused of ‘lifting ideas’ from MVs all over the world. Let me give you a better picture how this ‘lifting of ideas’ actually happened…

Creativity really isn’t much about absolute originality. As an ex-Creative Director with an international advertising agency, I can tell you personally that all creative people find inspirations everywhere including well…ads and MVs. The trick is how to digest these ‘inspirations’ and come up with your own interpretations (you then call it your ‘original’ creative idea).

Taiwan is a market that produced a mass amount of music videos like a factory. The industry is so big in the MV business, you can get an MV shot for under 30K Sing dollars (which is probably two third or half of what you would have to pay to do it in Singapore with lesser known MV directors).

I recently commissioned a famous Taiwan MV director 赖伟康 (who was behind many 天王天后 MVs like SHE's 'Superstar', 王力宏 'Forever Love', 张学友, 蔡依林, 言承旭, etc) to shoot JJ Lin’s SPOP HURRAY! MV (see my favorite MV on the side bar of this blog). He came back with an impressive storyboard. Instead of the usual multiple illustrations of the shots in print, it was in the format of a completed music video cut to the actual length of the song with footages taken from all other TVCs or MVs.

My Taiwanese copywriter (who once worked in a Taiwan production house) told me it is very common for Taiwan MV directors to provide such detailed MV shoot sequence to their customers so that there wouldn’t be any ‘arguments’ over the final outcome of the product. Upon approval from the clients, the MV Directors will then shoot as close as possible to the footages (some may improvise) he showed the clients. Sometimes, they may even delegate it to assistant directors who take over to compose and shoot accordingly.

It is not a surprise to find scenes of the MVs similar to other MVs as a result. Unless you are paying super big budget, don’t expect the directors to ‘kill’ themselves trying to be ‘original’ in every inch of the MV.

At a cost of less than 40K (some can go as low as 30K if you book in bulk) per MV on film (the material used to shoot movie that is many times more expensive than digital format commonly used to shoot our dramas and variety shows), it's really worth it to shoot slick looking MVs in Taiwan (even if some scenes may appear 'familiar').

Ouch! 阿姐又'中箭'了

Check - evening paper’s headline: MC去世 高调庆生 阿姐被轰冷酷

This is a typical style of entertainment news reporting – the reporter first scanned the internet for a comment with an ‘explosive’ angle (even if it was just one single comment). He or she then constructed the story around it with more comments from elsewhere (sometimes may even call up people and ‘shaping’ their comments to fit the story).

Because it is clearly stated that the comments were coming from someone else, the reporter ‘redeemed’ himself/herself and avoided any possible legal action that the accused might bring upon the article.

This style of reporting is the most commonly used method in the entertainment industry. It is especially rampant in Taiwan, Hong Kong and elsewhere and they have gotten worst with private photos of stars and 'stories' created to go with those angles. Readers love negative stories like this kind.

Zoe Tay was accused of celebrating her birthday at around the same time MC King held his wake. The photo of a happy Zoe at a birthday party next to a photo taken at MC King’s funeral wake…imagine the dramatic contrast…and your perception of Zoe in that context…

Even though a senior journalist from the same paper who attended Zoe’s party tried to justify Zoe's decision to carry on with the celebration (it was an event organized by MediaCorp’s magazines and radio station which was publicized earlier and involving a number of sponsors and audience turning up so it would be professionally bad to cancel it) in her tiny column, the damage was done. The headline ‘drew blood at the heart’ and no amount of ‘blood transfusion’ in any other sub-stories could undo the damage.

A star could suffer as a result when one single negative comment out of a million of good ones (not reported as usual) got blown up and many times 'out of proportion' in all techni-colors. How many big stars do we have in this tiny Singapore when good and encouraging things about them are suppressed for big and bad negative news?

Are we fast becoming a 狗仔社会 where we loose our ability to say anymore encouraging words to build a star? Can this entertainment world be a little more gracious? Don’t blame Singapore for not producing any stars when our very own local press media whose ‘hunger for all things negative’ isn’t helping at all…