Original Music of  “What Do Men Want?”

We’ve had many requests and comments about the music of “What Do Men Want?” so we’ll post some bits and pieces of the score plus some of the recorded songs below.

All of the music of the series was done in house and was recorded on Garage Band on an iMac using the Apogee ONE as the microphone in most cases where there was vocal or ukulele recording needed.

The music was composed by our very own Jason Chan and it was all done on an old Yamaha MIDI keyboard straight into Garage Band after the locked off edit of each episode. He arranged and recorded the songs too using the simple equipment above.

Enjoy the tracks!

My Friend My Home – Theme Song for “What Do Men Want?”

We’ve had a heap of requests for the ukulele chords of “My Friend My Home” the theme song of “What Do Men Want?” so here it is – a video of me recording the song with Garage Band and the ukulele chords in the video.

You may also download the lyrics and chord sheet here: My Friend My Home Ukulele Sheet Music

How to write music for your web series

One very important element in any film, TV or web series is MUSIC. Sound and sound design is itself a very difficult and incredibly important element but that’s for another article. I just wanted to give a few hints as to how to create your own music for your web series.

When we were creating “What Do Men Want?” it was done under incredible time duress! We had approximately one month to write a 65 x 5 minute episode web series (that later turned into 13 half hour episodes). Nevertheless, we were writing as well as doing pre-production which includes casting, sourcing for locations, scheduling, finding costumes etc. When you consider that we ended up with 25 actors, 800 scenes and over 100 locations you’ll start to understand how daunting it all became. So the last thing on our minds was post-production which is a whole other beast altogether.

However, when we finally did get to post-production we realized after watching the first cut that we needed music and the search was on!

Stock Music

This is where most people will find their answer and to be honest we were going down this track too. However, when we saw the first rough cut with stock (corporate sounding) music inserted we knew right there and then we had to find another solution. Stock music is exactly that – STOCK – it rarely fits well. It’s hard to match one theme to another – which works for corporate videos but not well for narrative stories. Often it takes so much time to listen to all the music out there and find the perfect piece for each section of your web series that it can take so much less time to actually write and record it. Stock music can also be expensive depending on how many tracks you want to use. It wasn’t a good solution for us at all so we decided on the very daunting task of composing our own music from scratch. Daunting at first – but actually not too bad in the end.

Music as Story

My approach with music is that it is yet another character or voice within the story. It sometimes adds to a scene, deepens a scene or takes you on an emotional flight – somewhere that just speaking cannot necessarily take you. It can have many functions and if you’re clear about what a scene needs to achieve then you’ll start to know what sort of music needs to help you with that scene. Unless you have someone who knows STOCK music inside out I found that it was just easier to compose it. If you’re not a composer try and find someone who is and who is willing to help score your web series. It really does open up another dimension to your story telling.

You can get a sense of the various themes and music used throughout our series by just playing through all our trailers for “What Do Men Want?”

How to Record Music to your Series

I won’t go into how to write music per se as this will be like any art form – full of subjectivity. But if you’re on track to write your own music or have someone else write it for you – you may want to use Apple’s free GARAGE BAND which has a movie import function allowing you to just bring in your locked off edit and then literally play along with every scene that needs music. As you play you record. You can score the entire series this way with multiple tracks (multiple instruments). If you want to get a sense of an orchestral score check out PERFECT GIRL SERIES where I used all sorts of genres of music but finished with a full orchestral piece at the last episode.

The great thing is it’s all totally FREE. It even has a great DRUMMER feature that allows you to score using a drum rhythm that’ll change as you move your mouse or track pad. It’s as organic as conducting the drummer live! I used this a lot in Perfect Girl Series. 

Incidentally apart from Garage Band you may need a keyboard with MIDI inputs – just about any keyboard will work. I prefer one that has the full set of keys (88 keys) because I used to play the piano and I just can’t get used to little keyboards. This is the Yamaha keyboard I use – it’s quite old and there are many new updated ones.

As far as microphones – I use an Apogee ONE (which you can see below in the videos). It is both a sound card that’ll plug into your Mac and has a built in microphone. I love the condenser mic on the Apogee – it has a very natural recording tone. I used it for our theme song for “What Do Men Want?”

Create a Hook and Develop It

I believe you should treat music just as you treat plot and story. You should spend the most time trying to create a few themes that represent the feel, dynamic and sense of the story. Then develop these themes through the story. In “What Do Men Want?” there were a few themes that will play through an episode but I would always start with sketches or hints of the theme and then develop them through the plot concluding in a full blown piece at the climax of that episode. Often I will leave it on a kind of musical cliff hanger. I tried a similar thing with Perfect Girl Series too only this time the themes were developed throughout the series towards a climax at the 10th episode.

The hardest thing in the world is to write a “hook” or a catchy theme. This isn’t always necessary but it can help to deepen the story or to create a sense of familiarity. Catchy themes always get people saying things like “I’ve heard this before” or “I just kept singing that to myself” or “I couldn’t get that out of my head”. You may or may not want this to happen – but it’s great for serials particularly if you want people coming back! If you can – spend time trying to craft a great melody – many composers don’t really do this – but this is like crafting the foundation or plot of a script. It’s not good scripting if you’re just going to throw words at a script – you have to know how to select the few great words that will tell a compelling story. It’s the same with music. Just knowing the grammar of music doesn’t necessarily make you a good composer, in my humble view. Knowing how to put together a few great notes in a combination that’ll take the audience somewhere – into memory, wistfulness, emotive states is what is my aspiration for writing music.

My Friend My Home – Theme of  “What Do Men Want?”

Since this was a story of two bachelors looking for love and finding it amongst their female friends – I wanted it to feel like a loosely recorded song – as if a couple of guys just sang it on the couch after a night out. It needed to be simple, light hearted but sincere. So I picked up the ukulele which has that sort of sound and started riffing with themes. Bear in mind I only started learning the uke a few months before. I can only play a few chords but that’s enough to write thousands of melodies. Once I came up with the general melody I wrote the lyrics to fit.

And just to show you how easy it can be to record it all – even for broadcast TV – here’s me recording the song with just a ukulele and one harmony – recorded on Garage Band which you can see working in the background.

Variations on a Theme – “You’ve Got Me”

As an example on how to vary and develop your music or theme through a drama here’s another theme I wrote for “What Do Men Want?” I used the exact same ukulele chord progression for “My Friend My Home” and just created a melody on top of it. It again breeds familiarity and deepens the effect of both themes.

How to Make a Web Series

So you want to know how make a web series? But you’re not sure where to start? Well, I’m going to outline the steps we took to make a successful web series. Of course, “success” is relative and subjective. We’re constantly striving for more in terms of views, promotion, commissioning. But if we take a look back – we started a corporate video production company. We shifted into making a couple of short films. We were then commissioned to make a web series “What Do Men Want?” with 65 episodes that was then acquired by a free to air broadcaster as a 13 episode TV series. Our next series “Perfect Girl Series” has won for “Best International Series” at Atlanta Web Fest 2014 and is nominated for 8 awards at LA Web Fest 2015. We’ve also been invited to speak as panelists at LA Web Fest (one of the oldest and largest web series festivals in the world). So, in short, we have made a couple of successful web series but it’s always challenging going forward – trying to make it sustainable, trying to fund the next one… starting all over again. But for those of you on the verge of beginning or aspiring to make one – here are some tips and lessons we learnt on the way.

Stop Talking About It

Wannabe film makers and actors like to TALK a lot – about their next big project. We know because we’ve been there. Long coffees, long lunches talking about this or that idea and pretending to get feedback from each other. Talking about making a web series doesn’t actually get you there very fast. It usually goes something like this “I’ve got this idea about a web series… but I haven’t worked out all the details yet…” The reality is – it’s procrastination and if you listen closely to the conversation it’s usually full of excuses for why you’re not making it yet. I’ve been there when I was an actor wanting to create work AND now as a creator listening to others continue to talk about how they want to make something but haven’t done it yet. The excuses are many and varied – usually to do with “I want to make a web series but I’ve got to pay the bills” or “I’m just not good at writing” or “it takes too much time”. The bottom line is it’s really really hard to make a web series – or any narrative drama. It’s a completely different beast to corporate video production and it requires the ability and perseverance to create something from nothing. Everyone knows that’s the hardest part. Lots of people will jump onboard once you have a script but very few will actually write it. The script is the absolute foundation of it all. Nothing else happens without it.

Write the Script

Learn as much as you can about writing. I read every book out there about script writing in the past. There’s a bunch of them but these were my favourites:

• Robert McKee “Story”
• Linda Aronson “21st Century Screenplay”
• Christopher Vogler “The Writer’s Journey”

After that I did a screenwriting course that ran for a year and a half with live in sessions and monthly meetings with both our tutors and our writing group to give feedback on your newest development. This was primarily a feature writing program but I learnt so much about screenwriting – and I’d have to say no amount of reading could compare to even the first week of direct feedback from real produced, industry screenwriters. Learning from professionals will shortcut your journey by years.

Then, as painful as it is, sit down and write. Give yourself a structure – for our first commissioned series we had to write 65 x 5 minute episodes. Now, imagine how scared we were since we’d only ever done 2 short films! But, because we had a deadline, we had to write. Our deadline was intense – we had to write and pre-produce in one month. So every night my writing partner and I got on google hangouts and wrote plot lines in five minute chunks. We always tried to have some sort of cliffhanger at the end of the 5 minutes and to include at least a B if not a C storyline. “Keep it fast and moving along” was our mantra.

Forget about Script Software

When I say this I really mean – don’t worry about formatting and expensive software and learning how to use it – the hardest thing in the world is just writing WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. That’s what you should focus on. Get onto google hangouts with your writing partner and share a google text document and start writing plot points together. For example, this is the first 5 minute section of  “What Do Men Want?”:

• Bob pulls out huge hair ball from shower drain – WTF
• Bob confronts Jimmy about not helping with cleaning (Jimmy is almost comatose on the couch) – blame game.
• Jimmy talks about bigger, loftier issues, Bob concerned about health and safety and house rules broken – argue to a climax – Bob slams the door.
• Bob pleads with Jane (intro to Jane) to help convince Jimmy to break up with Ding Ding (PRC).
• Flashback – Jimmy picks up Ding Ding in Mandarin class
• Flashback to confrontation – Jimmy brags to Bob “free classes” – Bob reprimands him
• Jane pleads with Jimmy (phone call – Jimmy is very reticent about talking to her) – “Bob’s really concerned” … montage of feet on toilet seat, soiled toilet tissue in the bin, Ding Ding hocking a lugi, granny panties hung all over kitchen, Bob in the background dry retching. Jimmy: “We’re all one generation removed from the village – don’t you take the high ground… she makes authentic fried rice…it’s just nice to have someone there” Jane: “have you ever tried mine”. Jane “As long as you’re not using her”.
• Jimmy barges in on Ding Ding who’s squatting on toilet (oblivious) “Dui Bu Qi” she says “Mei Guan Xi, Wo da Bian le” – sub: no problems I’m just taking a shit. “Hao Ba” – “I’ll be out in a minute to start our lesson”. – Jimmy is slammed “Hao Ba” (down)
• Jimmy in Bob’s room (cleaning)  – explains that squatting is anatomically correct – but he’s going to break up with her.
• End tag – Bob trying to squat on the toilet

Dialogue is actually much easier than plot points and it’s the plot points that will really be the strong foundation for your series. Concentrate on that and then hang the dialogue on this skeleton. You’ll be amazed how easy it is to create dialogue once this is really mapped out.

Once you’re finished with your plot outline go over it again and again and make sure it’s tight! Don’t have loose ends – all events and characters should be absolutely necessary – they must play an important part in the story – driving the story forward or characters towards their objective. If they don’t – cut them out of the story. During my writing course we weren’t allowed to write a word of dialogue for 6 months. All we did was write plot outlines for 1 feature that had to fit on one page. This was a big lesson and a fantastic way to start.

Next, download Celtx, a free script writing and formatting software. It’s great, it’s free and it’s available on pretty much any platform. Use this to start writing your web series script once you’ve got your outline locked off.

Learn About Camera and Sound

Okay, not everyone will subscribe to this but we wanted to learn all about camera, sound and even editing because the biggest problem is always budget constraints and asking favours from industry professionals. The reality is, these days everything is available to us in terms of technology that’s relatively cheap and how to use it (tutorials on the web). This wasn’t available to us even 5 years ago when cameras were extraordinarily expensive or difficult to use. Nowadays we have cell phones that can shoot 4K video – that are more advanced than US$80 000 cameras 5-6 years ago! We can edit on iMacs that are faster and than the computers used for some of the best Hollywood productions created 5-10 years ago. That means you CAN learn and you CAN have a production house with equipment to do pretty much anything you want for probably under 5-6K. And learning about cameras and sound isn’t rocket science. There are thousands of tutorials and dedicated websites online.

Specifically – get yourself a camera like the Lumix GH4 or Sony A7s. We love the Lumix GH series and shot both our series with these. Our second series “Perfect Girl Series”  has been nominated for a Cinematography Award at LA Web Fest 2015. It was shot entirely on these fairly inexpensive cameras. The Sony a7s is a new favourite we’re currently working with for the reason that it has amazing low light capabilities.

Sony a7s – incredible low light capabilities.

Sound is really important. I’d recommend getting some lavelier microphones (the Sennheiser EW 100 G3 series is my recommendation) and a shotgun mic. We bought the Audio Technica AT897 shotgun ($199) which is cheap and really good – we haven’t had a need to upgrade yet and we’ve had our show broadcast on free to air TV with great results. We use a JuicedLink PreAmp to go from shotgun or Sennheiser into the DSLR. This is really good low noise preamplifier to help boost nice clean sound.

Recommended Shotgun Microphone for making a Web Series

Recommended Preamp for making Web Series

Post Production

We use FCPx on iMacs. It’s a great program – it’s cheap and it’s really all you need! Learn it and you’ll never have to depend on an editor again. We do all our color grading within FCPx. It really is an amazing piece of software. A couple of iMacs and FCPX is really all you need for your post production workflow – don’t let anyone tell you that you need thousands to hire an “online editing suite and professional editors”. You can do it all.

We do all our own in house music too. Of course not everyone can play or compose music but you’ll be amazed what Garage Band or Logic Pro can do with built in loops and rhythms. We actually compose all our music from scratch. But I just use an old keyboard with MIDI inputs  – connect it to an iMac and then use the free Garage Band to record the tracks! I wouldn’t say composing is easy – but the software nowadays makes it really pain free to edit, change and automate music. Garage Band and Logic Pro have a feature for creating soundtracks – where you can drop or import your finished film into the program and then basically play along with the visuals while recording. I wrote more about how to compose music for your web series or film.

Marketing and Promotion

Lastly and by no means the least – get your series out there. We knew little about web series festivals when we started but we researched and submitted our series into multiple web festivals. Some will love it, others won’t … it’ll depend largely on the judges. But one thing we learnt is that it makes a difference – winning awards and getting international recognition gives you plenty to talk about and the press like that! So do friends and family. Social media works but it works even better when you have something to promote. The reality is most people are busy with their own lives and will rarely take the time out to watch something you’ve made unless someone else gives it legitimacy. An award is just that – legitimacy from an objective party.

Winning for Outstanding Directing (What Do Men Want?) opened many doors for us in terms of meeting with potential new investors and buyers of content. Our next series did even better with 8 nominations and 1 win so far and these accolades convert into viewers on our website.

Watch PERFECT GIRL SERIES here.

Perfect Girl Series – Award Winning Web Series

Here is a growing collection of REVIEWS from social media channels on “What Do Men Want?”.

“This is the first-ever local English drama that I’ve watched from start to finish, the script is relatable , pacing is good, and the character’s are really well drawn out. I loved the injects of humor particularly from Bob’s character. I had to binge watch to satisfy my cravings! In what may be ironic, I’ve always found other local English dramas to be too low-brow and unrealistic. On a personal note, I really admire what you guys have done – it’s not easy putting a production like this together – you should be really proud and it’s also very nice of you to share your knowledge: “How to make your web-series” on your blog.
Hopefully you’ll get the financing to make Season 2 happen! I’m already imagining the plots! P.S. Also, can’t get rid of the WDMW theme song – been playing in my head all weekend! haha.”

Lynn Tang (Email)

“Just want to comment on the great work you guys have done. Its been a while since I have enjoy local English series and will continue catching What Do Men Want and the award winning Perfect Girl after that. Do continue producing all these good series!”

Benjamin Yong (Email)

“My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed this series week after week on channel 5. It’s hilarious and entertaining and we’ve been mouthing ‘colourful’ and ‘donkey’ to each other after watching last night’s episode. You guys have done a great job – congrats! We hope you’ll continue to produce more series like these. You and Christian are so natural on the set – fabulous acting!”

Loreen Tan (Website)

“Quite like this series… reflects some real life relationship issues unlike the typical unrealistic dramas.. also great to finally have some quality and standard spoken English from Channel 5 dramas!”

Vicky Lye (Website)

“I don’t watch this kind of series, as a rule. My general tastes lie in F/SF genre. So coming into this with no expectations and nothing to compare it to… I was hooked right away. Quick first impressions, spoiler free: The core four, Jimmy, Bob, Jane and Lingual, are all perfect. The orbiting characters are well acted and some are downright hilarious. Even when the plot gets into the crazy zone, it’s funny and unique and I laughed and cried and cheered for… Well… Spoilers. I hope there’s a second season.”

Carla Benton (Website)

“JASON!!! I need to personally congratulate you for this series you and Chris have produced. Just watched the first 3 episodes in one go and was not only greatly entertained, but also couldn’t stop laughing many times. ‘Did you just say -colourful-?’ HAHAHA Great acting, very good diction- very good story, script and direction. All prizes are well deserved. Very refreshing! I’m happy to have once worked with most of the actors together. So nice to see them again in a very different production. Both thumbs up!! I remember in KL you told me that you studied script writing for I think in total 4 years? I can see it paid off and am so happy for you guys. All the best for coming projects!!”

Peer Metze (Facebook)

“Loved it! Great acting and beautiful filmography”

unrulymisfit (Instagram)

“Watched an episode last night. Very funny. Reminds me of How I Met Your Mother.”

Des (Website)

On Ep 3:

“By far my favourite episode. That ‘colourful’ tip would have been very useful a few years ago! lol The comedic timing was spot on, had me laughing out loud when Jimmy said ‘Donkey’. Clearly Jane and Jimmy has something going, this is gonna be just like Ross and Rachel – I wonder how long they’ll take before these two gets hitched! “

Jeff (Instagram)

On Ep 1:

“Loved the first episode guys, these characters are larger than life but I can relate to them all the same time. The misunderstanding in Chinese had me in stitches! Jimmy’s mustn’t have been paying much attention during the lesson but I loved how Lingual really rubbed it in when she’s translating the breakup!”

Jeff Wang (Website)

“Planned on watching two or three episodes tonight, but had to watch the entire series! I loved it … loved the characters (especially Jane & Jimmy) but even the not-so-loveable ones became loveable. I really enjoyed the male/female perspective throughout the series. I look forward to Season 2. “

Swami C (Website)

“The humor. The acting. The cinematography. There were some episodes that were a little cringey but doesn’t matter, it was great overall. Excited for perfect girl!”

Nur Huda

“Hey guys, i’m a huge fan of this series. it’s very relatable to me – my grandmother, a British chef during world war two, brought me up the first 12 years of my life. so mainly, i speak english at home.Before this, i haven’t really seen a great series with proper english. most Singapore tv series have singlish. a good move to use proper english and appeal to the international market, and it’s smart to include the language into the writing. many things about this series are very clever. the opening music is short and sweet. catchy. I think there were many things that were brilliantly written too. Lingual’s sharpness is attractively prickling and yet her childishness juxtaposed with the good traits immediately makes a character i want to see more of in the later episodes (there’s so much room for her character to develop).”

Lyon Sim (Website)

“Thoroughly enjoyed this episode!!! The communication breakdown between the Chinese lady and Jason’s character was hilarious XD And the whole premise of the relationship was even more absurd (Free Chinese remedial??!) HAHAHAHA! (Can Jason speak Chinese fluently? Because the way he acted like he didn’t was SUPER real)Lingual, is freaky. Very convincingly played”

Ping (Website)

How to Watch: What Do Men Want?

Find out how to watch this edgy new drama series from BananaMana Films.

What Do Men Want?

An award winning series (Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series LA WEB FEST 2014) created by two veteran actors: Jason Chan & Christian Lee. It is a 13 episodic drama revolving around two passionate actors searching for truth, love and happiness but most of the time, they find lies, rejection and disillusionment. Jimmy and Bob are two struggling actors trying to “make it” in the acting industry , they also desperately want to find love. They become players, date the wrong women for the wrong reasons, try to sleep their way to the top, lie and cheat to get what they want: fame, fortune and sex. Each episode focuses on their tortuous and entertaining path to find these truths.

How to watch in Singapore:

If you’re in Singapore you can simply go to: www.toggle.sg and sign up for a FREE account.

You can binge watch the entire series for free on Toggle:

Outside Singapore?

No problems. Just use the Chrome browser.

Update your SilverLight – which is a plugin for your browser. Go here to UPDATE SILVERLIGHT.

Add this plugin to your chrome browser: HOLA. Then change your IP address to Singapore and go to Toggle.sg

Hola can change your IP address to any country you like.

Once installed – there will be a little FIRE logo in the top right corner of your chrome browser. Click on that:

Now just click on any of the channels like netflix.com or hulu.com and hola will automatically change your IP address to US or somewhere else. Next, just click on the arrow to get access to any country in the world. Change it to Singapore and then go to: Toggle.sg:

You can watch all the trailers and comment on any of the episodes HERE.

Meet our Stylists!

The styling of WDMW main characters and insider stories.

Meet Vicky!

Vicky is a Korean stylist who has worked with some of top Korean celebrities (Kim Won Hee, Jang Yun Jung, Jang Shin Young and others) for about 10 years in the Korean drama, film, TV entertainment industry before moving to Singapore. Starting her career as fashion stylist, she has now expanded her role to include hair/makeup/fashion styling in Singapore. She is keen to tap into the Singapore entertainment industry and to utilize her experience and networks in Korea. She currently works at Zinc Hair Salon in Singapore as a senior hair designer.

Meet Rena!

Rena’s been working mainly as hair stylist in Korea (she also has experience with Korean singers), and she’s now expanding her role into makeup, bridal hair & makeup in Singapore. Joining WDMW styling team, she has proven her skills in TV drama makeup & hair as well as fashion styling. In Singapore, she works at Zinc Hair Salon as a senior hair designer.

 1.  Tell us about the styling concept of each main character of WDMW.

Simple & Natural

BananaMana Films directors required only one thing for the entire shoot: Natural & Simple. Even with close-ups, directors wanted characters look very natural as if they did no make-up.

Rena: I was mainly in charge of Jimmy and Jane. After analyzing the script, we decided that Jimmy should be styled more towards the comfortable, metrosexual look. I styled him mostly with shirts + shorts combination. For special events, he wore long pants. Hair styling was a simple & natural cut.

For Jane, she’s a character from the corporate world but at heart, she is a down-to-earth girl. Most of scenes were using an after-work look, so my styling was basically H-Line skirts with different tops or blouses.

Rena: Glory Ngim (Jane) had medium length straight hair, so we could achieve both a sophisticated pony-tail and hair down with light curls look depending on the scenes. Jane’s makeup concept was simple & natural and didn’t depend on much color with eye shadow. We generally added changes of colour or accents on her lips.

Vicky: Bob and Lingual were my characters. First of all, Bob is a middle-aged, not so fashion-forward guy, although he’s an actor. Main wardrobe were t-shirts and shorts and for a date look I embraced shirts with colors and jeans.

Vicky: Lingual is an interesting character. Her character dramatically changes after her trip and I wanted to show this change with styling. Before her trip, her style is more teenage like, so was her hair style. I liked her white top and tube dress combination and I think Charis looked very pretty here. (Ep.3 – how not to say I love you.)

Vicky: Towards the later episodes, I focused on a more grown-up look for Lingual. I embraced black tops & blouses. Make-up wise, color palette didn’t change dramatically, but I tried to show the change through her hair style.

2. What was your challenge?

Vicky & Rena: Budget was very tight and we didn’t have any sponsors for wardrobe and make-up. We had to bring all our clothes, accessories, shoes, bags,etc.; whichever suit or fit our actresses. We were really grateful that the Singapore Great Sale was going on while we were shooting the drama. We bought some items at heavily discounted prices!

Rena:  It was a quite a challenge for me to find the perfect skin tone for base makeup. I’ve never had a chance to style various ethnicities in Korea. WDMW had different actors on each episode, and I got to work with actors with different skin tones and hair types. I had to practice a lot in advance to get the right skin tone before the shoot.

Vicky: For me, it was Singapore weather. I’ve worked in outdoor shoots or film sets in Korean weather. Singapore weather was quite a challenge for make-up & hair. We could see the makeup melting shortly after a couple of outdoor scenes. Now we’re getting better with Singapore’s hot & humid weather.

3. Any fun or memorable stories to share with us?

Rena: For episode 2 (under arm hair ^^), after we got the script, we had a discussion on how to make this happen. We could’ve used parts of wigs but Vicky and I wanted to make it real, especially for the close-up shot. We collected hair from our salon and had to be selective to get the similar texture of underarm hair. Once we were informed that Liz Lazan was casted for Karen’s role, we had to collect dark brown hair to match her hair color.

Vicky: For me, it was episode 1. Seeing foot prints on a toilet seat is quite foreign to Koreans and I found it very funny to shoot. To get the black foot print on toilet seat, we painted Abby’s soles with black eye shadow. Then Christian lifted and carried her onto the toilet seat to get the perfect foot print.

Vicky & Rena:  It was a great experience to style actors or actresses with various ethnicities and I believe this to be a great strength in the Singapore entertainment industry. Through WDMW, we had opportunities to style Chinese, Indian, Malay, White, Eurasian actors. It was fun to be able to work with them and to work on new challenges.  In Korea, we haven’t had any chance to style Indian or Malay actors, it was great learning experience to work with them to get the right skin tone and colors.

4. Any Last Words?

Vicky: It was my first Drama in Singapore and I hope people like it. I feel fulfilled when people say my characters are pretty, or they liked the hair or makeup. That keeps me motivated to be part in Drama/film industry. Personally, I wanted to start my career as fashion stylist in Singapore 5 or 6 years ago, and I’m very glad that I could finally be part of it through WDMW. Many of my ex-colleagues or fashion stylist friends in Korea are very supportive of my new career in Singapore and they are very interested in Singapore industry.

Rena: I had such a great time and learned a lot as I got this project 2 months after I first moved to Singapore. This project helped me understand Singapore culture better and helped me settle in Singapore quickly by meeting new friends. I really appreciate BananaMana Films team for this opportunity. Now WDMW is out and hope people like it and like my work. Next project (Perfect Girl) is soon to be out, so lots of exciting things happening and I hope people enjoy the show.

Actor Auditions for “What Do Men Want?”

Here’s some behind the scenes peeks at actors auditioning for our drama series “What Do Men Want?”

Check out the transformation from their raw auditions to the final production.
The final production was shot on the Panasonic Lumix GH3. Do Let us know what you think of these audition to performance transformations below in the comments section.

“What Do Men Want?”

Do men love with their head or their hearts? Find out in this brand new romantic, comedy series.

Series Premise

This is a 13 half hour episode series starring Jason Chan (Power Rangers Ninja Storm), Christian Lee (Marco Polo), Charis Vera Ng and Glory Ngim in the leading roles, follows the lives of two bachelor actors, Bob and Jimmy, looking for love in all the wrong places. It’s a coming of age drama for these 30 something freelance actors – bohemians at heart struggling to find the right path in life. They constantly battle with what they SHOULD do vs what they truly want to do both in career and in their relationships with women. Along the way they deal with:

• being mistaken for being gay,
• threesomes,
• women with moustaches,
• how to avoid saying “I love you”,
• sleeping their way to the top,
• women with lists (for potential partners),
• floundering careers,
• fame and fandom,

The Bottom Line

It’s edgy, romantic and refreshing all at once. Nothing like this has ever been made in Singapore. You’ll be moved, provoked and inspired by this drama that at it’s core is all about following your heart.

 Where to Watch?

Actors at play

Watch these two actor / directors try to keep it together in the following scenes and destroy take after take!
It’s me (Jason Chan) on the right and Christian Lee on the left… I guess that’s the benefit of being the directors – you can just ask the cameras to keep rolling (as we both do in these scenes). No other actor, of course, would do this or would be allowed to do this. It really is great when you can call “CUT” anytime you like!

A serious hospital scene

This first scene was from episode 1. We were filming just outside the local hospital, there was construction, traffic noise and a time limit. We really didn’t have time to keep fluffing takes – but Christian and I were just discussing how ridiculous the concept was of a girl who tried to commit suicide to blackmail her boyfriend – and how she did it so often that the guys were really only interested if he actually broke up with her or not – and before we knew it we were in stitches over it. Anyway – it was a combination of a very long day, probably the stress and what we thought was a funny concept.

A TWO line scene

I have no idea why this was so funny at the time – once again, even though it was a really short scene – two lines – our imagination of what Jimmy’s character actually did when Charles comes to Jane’s door got the better of us and we couldn’t stop laughing about it. I guess only writer / directors will think like this – but once again – it’s the combination of having written it – then imagining what we’re going to shoot and how the final edit will turn out. I’m sure the crew were thinking “WTF? What’s so funny?”