Be warned, today’s film could give you nightmares – kitchen nightmares. The Bloody Fish (血魚) is a grisly short about the perils of culinary experimentation, with flavours of everything from Old Boy to The Shining. Suitably intrigued, we caught up with Malaysia-based director Dick Chua, the brains behind this suprise Vimeo hit (plus there’s sneaky peek behind the scenes).
How did you first come up with the idea for Bloody Fish?
I was doing research for a MTV spot I was going to direct and I came across one music video and in the middle of it, there was this one shot that had a post color mistake. The shot showed a girl grabbing something and it cut from a wide shot into a close-up of the hand. The colour graded in these two cuts was slightly different, so instantly the thought flashed through my mind: what if, these two shots are actually not meant to continue on from each other, but are actually two different people from different places doing the same thing at the same time? That is how the story began.
One of the best things about the film is the art direction – the kitchen was fantastically disgusting! How did you go about designing the look of the film?
The idea is about the possibility that the exact same idea and actions are being carried out by two or more different people at the exact same time somewhere in this big world. We strongly believed this must actually happen within the 7 billion people in the world. Therefore, we wanted to bring out the complexity of this by showing a more complicated and busy background throughout the film. I wanted the kitchen to be layered with more details and textures; we didn’t have the budget to build one so we had to mess up an existing kitchen. I brought in Chong Cheng as our art director and he has done a very good job on compiling references, drawing concept arts and finally “decorating” the kitchen.
The film has had a great response on Vimeo – why do you think it has been so popular?
I was very surprised! And I felt really happy because the responses were not only in our country but from other countries as well. I don’t know what’s the one thing that made it so popular because everyone looks at it differently.One very interesting that I found out from reading the comments is everyone actually came up with different interpretations and thoughts about the story. I’m glad that it actually made people think because that is the ultimate goal of making the film. Some liked it because they were surprised that it was shot with only DSLR camera, some liked because the art direction, some liked because of the pretty actress in it, perhaps?
We shot the film in three and half days, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Every day there was a new challenge during the shoot, but the bottom line is, how to make it look good.
What inspires you?
When I was young, I looked at “Pocahontas” and it touched my heart. From that moment, it gave me a dream, to be a film director and make movie that could inspire people as well.
How did you first get into filmmaking?
I went to The One Academy to study 3D Animation and later to Vancouver Film School to study film production. At there, I directed my first short film called “Live Life”.
Aside from Bloody Fish, which piece of work are you proudest of and why?
It is some travelling footage I shot while on a trip with my previous company’s trip. I edited it into a short clip and uploaded onto Youtube and Vimeo. Surprisingly one day I got a call from Taiwan’s TVBS News and phone interviewed me about the clip, the clip was later featured at their TV news and received great responses from the people. It’s like a dream! Who would have expected a travelling clip could go that far?
To find out more about Dick and his work check out the D1 Production vimeo page or blog.
