Director who shoots with no frills

HENRICO'S FARM is a new film by Filipino arthouse giant Lav Diaz that's mostly shot in Singapore. As part of the Singapore International Festival of Arts, the director famous for his slow, contemplative dramas is allowing eight small groups of audience to visit his film sets and watch him at work.

For most audiences with no first-hand knowledge of filmmaking, the process can typically appear tedious and slow. For each new scene, the cameras and lights need to be moved and adjusted, the actors need to be briefed or re-briefed, and multiple takes of the same scene are needed before the director is satisfied.

Diaz, however, has a peculiar, if not entirely unique, way of making films. He subsists on one take only. He minimises his shot list so that there are no repeats of a particular performance from different camera angles. He does away with lighting equipment and crew, relying instead on the natural lighting provided by the environment.

These and other techniques facilitate a relatively speedy style of filmmaking that is more efficient and less taxing on his cast and crew. In an age when movie attendances and revenues are steadily falling, such an economical style is not to be sniffed at.

But Diaz is perhaps less concerned about its cost savings than its aesthetic rewards. His cast and crew, knowing there are no multiple takes, strive to get everything right on the first try. His actors, freed of any suspicion that he or she might have to "repeat" a performance, focus intensely on giving their purest emotions when Diaz shouts "Action". And the results can be sometimes astonishing.

On Tuesday, a small group of ticketed audience sat before a video monitor stationed in Capitol Piazza shopping mall, and watched in real time lead actress Charo Santos-Concio crying in a dressing room of a clothing shop. We never get to see Santos-Concio's face. It is first hidden by the curtain drawn before the room, and then later by an actress playing a shop assistant who goes in to console her. On almost any other set, the scene would have to be re-shot because the lead actress' face is obscured by less-important objects. But Diaz, true to form, refused to reshoot the scene, telling the audience later that the audible sounds of Santos-Concio's wailing are enough for us to comprehend her grief.

Henrico's Farm, which is scheduled to be released next year, tells the moving story of a woman (Santos-Concio) who returns to the Philippines after 30 years of working abroad as a domestic helper. Last year, Diaz's film Ang Babaeng Humayo (The Woman Who Left) won the top prize at the 73rd Venice Film Festival.