Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 2:27 AM | 0 comments  







Meet Our Friends. Ah Hock. Toilet Duck and W. Ashe Faeke. More images at myspace.com/tzaintesmovie

Shot in 3 Weeks. 18 Hours of Footage. 40 people in the Cast. Only 3 in the Crew. No Budget. No Technical Experience. Lousy Acting. Bad Sound. 1 Script. No Director. This is No Holds Barred Amateur Filmmaking. This is the Spirit of the Underdog. This is [e'TZAINTES]



[e'TZAINTES] giving self deceit a better name. Pronounced as The Saints. but that's just the official pronunciation. [e'Tzaintes] is one of those titles that you can pronounced it any way
you wish.


* * *
"INSANE ... WONDERFULLY THEATRICAL, BIZARRELY BAROQUE..."
-- FiRST magazine

"... LACK OF EXPERIENCE, AS WELL AS FUNDS, DID NOT STOP THEM..."
-- Life!, Straits Times

"EMBELLISHES, COMPLICATES AND PROVOKES,"
-- Adrian Tan, author of the best seller, The Teenage Textbook

"VERY BALLSY ... "
-- CheeK, Director of Chicken Rice War

"WELL, IT DID MAKE IT... "-- WORLDFEST Houston

Posted by INRI STUDIO Labels:






It was our very first underground screening. An unofficial private screening on 26 October 2001. Just a few weeks after September 11, I remember. In a classroom of the legendary Substation in Singapore, we played the first edit of [e'TZAINTES] using a VCD player on TV. The version of [e'TZAINTES] we screened that night had really bad sound. We even used copyrighted music for the film. Rage Against the Machine / Marilyn Manson, and screened a video footage of Amizadai (in Australia) saying hi to the audience. for this, we invited cast, crew and friends, who in turn invited their friends. We sold T-shirts.



The screening was packed. Many people came and there's no way everybody could fit into this classroom to crowd around a TV. The audience made it happen. They started stacking chairs.

So that more people could come in and sit on the floor. It was amazing. You can see in the picture that the classroom was really stuffy, but the people who came didn't mind. That was the spirit.








Jaki (@ashangel), Keith (shade), Tzang, Wolf and soon-to-be-warrior musician Armen.








Giving a speech before the show.
To mark the end of two years of work, I shaved my head.




A packed classroom @ The Substation from once upon a time, with folks overcrowding and choosing to sit on the floor.




The angels and the saintes - Armen, Tzang, Sukaimi and the remarkable Richard (Ah Hock). October 2001.

Posted by INRI STUDIO



.These Gardenia mascots are working to raise money for their films. Please support them by buying a copy of their DVD on Amazon.com

I remember the day we finished our first edit of [e'TZAINTES], which is also our very first film. It was surreal. I was looking at Armen by the editing system. "It's done?"2 years of our lives had just flashed past us. Amizadai was in Australia. Editing her bits in australia, while she's studying and workin part time, I think. Armen and myself were in National Service, using our NS pay to feed ourselves and our passion. I was doing freelance (ontop of some mascot work) to help pay for the things we need to buy. "Is there life after e'TZAINTES?" I asked Armen. He looked at me and said, "Dude, I need to catch the last bus." Frantically, he grab his bag and off he went, at 11.45pm, out the door, down the stairs, onto the road, across the bridge, to catch his last bus... a bus he MUST catch, becoz he had no money for cab fare.

That's how it was for us as teenagers working on this epic b-grade project. Putting everything we have into it. Working on something think we can do, with no sense of what a budget is. Truth is, we never treated [e'TZAINTES] like it was a mindless artsy fartsy short film to be made so that it can be screened in artsy festivals and earn us some artsy cred. WE BELIEVED IN IT. We believed it was something bigger than ourselves, because of how it turned out, how we got 30 people we do not know on set to pull this through. How we got people who want to see it work come to us with their own lines, own ideas, own costumes and own props to help make this film bigger than it is. That chaos... that madness .... and that excitement... and that high... is enough for us to keep going... After 3 weeks of shooting, with the boys being sent to NS to have their hair chopped off.... and the raw tapes in our hands. The pressure from the faith that the cast and crew had in us, to want to know how the film will turn out .... we told ourselves.... we have to get it made... by whatever means possible.

It was crazy. because we were amateurs. wannabes with illusions of grandeur but no experience and no knowledge in filmmaking and production. We were young, reckless and stupid... or should i say ignorant. Ignorance is what got us this far. Ignorance allowed us to move on not knowing what's coming our way. Ignorance gives us the will to not to be put down by what we do not know and cannot do. It was our coming of age film. It was a film that we grew up to. It was what it was. [e'TZAINTES]
Tzang M.
Posted by INRI STUDIO Labels:
From the makers of A WICKED TALE and e'TZAINTES, comes a blog (yes, a blog) - which we do not know how long it'll last. fuck that. It will last as long as it's meant to last. This is where we've arrived and this is how the story continues.

Things I can already see about this new mode of communication that is gonna be exciting. Nothing's ever complete in the world of blogs, unlike films, music and other works of art. it's changed the way the world sees itself. There's no last act, no last say. Because there'll always be another comment. another feedback. and another new entry. It goes on, the way life does.

Nice. Let it all begin.
Posted by INRI STUDIO
Visit the Site
e'TZAINTES and A WICKED TALE: TM & 2007 INRI studio. All Rights Reserved.