When winning is not everything.

Everyone loves a winner, not loser. Trust me, not everyone loves being a LOSER.
Yours truly here like to stress the importance of being a loser first then a winner. Its better than vice versa. Macam cerita Hindustan…Hero kalah dulu…..

Flashback to 1999
In the past, i hate to be a loser. When i lost - i will spend a lot of time figuring out how the hell the winner got to be winner, scan thru the juries, dissect the winning work and yes being a sore loser. That is why I support Mourinho when he poked the eyes of Barcelona’s assistant coach.

.........like this

I got addicted of winning back in 1999, when one of my pal ( Nizam a.k.a Peter Pan – he does look like one albeit much older and constantly scheming ) chooses me and Mamu, Adik Haji, Mezol and yes Nawi to act for his theater play.

The “initial plan” is helping him ONLY for his final project. When we agreed, we didn’t know that we signed up with a devil. ( No contract and only verbal agreement ). So it’s ONLY a show right.

Wrong.

From nothing to something
From the verbal agreement of helping him to act for his student project play - we didn’t know that we are enlisted to perform in a local district theatre competition. No sweat. We rehearsed. Trust me; I don’t know how we end up winning it.

Then the district winner needs to compete for a zonal competition. We are in the northern zone consists of state of Penang, Kedah and Perlis. So we represent Penang. From preparing and rehearsing a normal final "student" graduation show, we ended up representing Penang. For me, its kinda cool coz its a new experience and I able to skip those boring normal lecture class anyway.

looking good is not a priority in this show

From Penang to Kedah
The zone competition held in Kedah. We had fun to be honest, I haven’t been to Kedah anyway. It’s a pretty nice small town and we did went to Pekan Rabu ( until today, I don’t know why its named Pekan Rabu – why not Thursday or Monday ). One thing I know that Kedah shopping malls does have interesting star wars toys. ( Lan Chin seriously is pissed with me coz I always dragged him to the toys department looking for Star Wars stuffs, we did that again when both of us went to Sabah ).

anyway - We ended up winning the competition.

More trophies..................and we feel good.

You see, our team is made up primarily of boys. Over-aged boys as a matter of fact. yes there are few girls included, but that is secondary. One thing I knew that we forged something solid when we are in the production together which is teamwork, never complain and always seek and looking for solutions.

We played and worked hard - plus being in a play,i learned how to dissect a script.

My friend Nawi is a veteran of theatre shows, he always acted in Bangsawan plays. He told me

“Andy, kita kena menang ni sebab if we win this, we can go for the nationals level competition”.

i replied

 "WTF man....I thought after this we going to act only in Nizam’s final show.”

with better costumes this time (before that we used polystyrene found in my sis’s washing machine boxes and other assorted garbage scoured from a garbage collection center) -  we won…….

I got an award for a best supporting actor. Fuyooooo……Gila...

But folks, let me stress you guys here,the real winners here are the technical and the production team behind the show. I still remember well seeing Mizi, Opie and the rest doing their very best to help us on stage. Pure commitment and the best is, there are no bitching sessions ( except dealing with occasional real life drama provided by Peter Panipu ).

Everyone committed to the project and the best we didn't get any single cent for this.

Pure joy.

winning the zone area and we fly high.......

Crashing Down

While flying high from winning two consecutive competitions, we crashed down hard  in the national level competition. We ended up being the third. And yes:  I admit I refused to go up to the stage for the silly ceremonial photo.

My egoistic brain prod me: Why third?.............we lose?.........to an inferior team

Trust me when you see the photo soon, you can see that our smiles is pretty forced. After months I realized that it’s a good thing that we didn’t win the competition.

It made us humble.

So we went back to uni and finished up the initial deal we made with Peter Pan. For his final student play. I can tell you, from all these adventure: the most valuable thing  I get from all of this is not a collection of plastic trophies but true friendship just like Fellowship of the Ring.

and crashed down....ceremonial photo session

The Needle.
Thanks to FB, those memories were re-ignited and we constantly never fail to smile looking at those KODAK moments. Come to think again being in this project made me realized that writing/reading a script, bringing it alive and acting is not easy.

The most important thing that fueled us and taught me is teamwork, the never-say-die attitude and the confidence. I love how Sham MGTF said to me while both of us doing a task

“kita buat dia Andy”.

So I always stress teamwork and never say die spirit in my classroom. ( few students did DIE literally doing my assignments heheheheheh ) After so called "retiring" myself from all this performance related art thingy and doing other funny stuffs such as being a “lecturer”, out of the blue, Mizi came knocking to my door.

Mizi - “D – apa kata kita join ni” ( he passes me the form )
I replied - “ I tak nak la…..buat apa?” “Buang masa la…….”
Mizi -  “ ni Southeast asia bro…...besar ni”
I said “ so what………….” “Takder duit pun if menang.” “art-art ni malas gua nak layan, macam u tak tau....”

Seriously I was pondering if I should enter this or not. I was frustrated coz we did tried our level best in observing and participating in producing documentaries right until meeting the Vice President of Discovery Channel Vikram Chana and we got no results.

And now, in my hand is the form.

A chance to create something.

during the principal shooting with Jay

So a short documentary.
Something to do with southeast asia values.
It’s a damn documentary and So it needs to be REAL.

From USJ to Hanoi
So I decided to go with this. What the hell……we never know. But what I know is I need to craft a story, something that is believable and most important is honest. Fast forward, I managed to rope in all those who able to help ( trust me until today, I really appreciate your involvement is this project ), using a track i kept for years by the Doves, got inspired by Aizat, Boy, Min Tu, Farhan and yes a HARE, wrap it up and send it to Vietnam.

the hardworking animators for Needle - Preet, Yi Ling and Yen Ee will go somewhere soon.

I didn’t knew how big it was until I was invited to attend the award winning ceremony. There I managed to meet a fellow humble Malaysian, Fasya ( who won second place for the photo category ) and other competitors.

One thing I love being there, there are no airs, cockiness among them. I made friends with the cameraman and rest of the filmmakers and photographers.Trust me, they’ve been the film and documentaries for years and me is a a greenhorn. All of us can’t communicate to each other due to language barrier but thanks to Hoi beer,Vietnam coffee and cigarettes - unite us.

Even the juries also is humble.

I didn't know one of the jury is the nation's social artist.

being the first out of 160 short films is not bad eh......

When winning is not everything.
when I was invited to Vietnam, my sis joked about it and told me that no-one submitted their films, that is why the organizers invited me. ( all of my family really have wicked sense of humor ). 160 short films were submitted and I was dazed when the beautiful hot chick host announced my name. trust me, she is hot.

This time : southeast asia level. The jury told me that docu we did is a honest work. That's all. Best giler....

A Malaysian english based documentary that won the heart of the Vietnamese and South Korean juries. Not bad huh...........

Ok what i mean by winning is not everything, first and foremost, until today - I don’t understand what the main concept of winning/winner is. You get a trophy, prize and and what else. Yes you get some satisfaction that is all by "beating" others? I dont think so.

Nothing is permanent, so all the trophies, achievements you got not going to be there forever.

So if any one of you enter in any "competition" and if you failed or didn’t win anything, don’t worry and don't give up hope. There always will be next time....... The universe is fair enough to witness and reward what you did.

Just make sure what and whatever you do, your creative works must able to do some good, no matter what and it must be honest. Remember this, when you fall or fail, make sure you fall alone, don’t bring the rest, but when you win, share it with the rest. You must know that you are a winner already, winning the rest when you are the sperm that beat millions of others, becoming and born into this world.

with Adlan and Dee, two of the most interesting students i had.

I dedicated this note to all my fellow "winner" friends, team-mate, crews, actors and my current students and ex-students. Trust me, if I have tons of money or opportunities in the near future, I definitely will find you personally and hire you to do more nonsense.

In life, we are given many opportunities to do something and life is pretty short. So make it interesting and don't be an old grumpy person.

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