My first day of filming at Mediacorp for Calefare

Happy Birthday to Michelle Yeoh, Mei Hui, Jianfeng and Fadly

Yesterday was a truly exciting day I must say! A day of great success and surprises. I finally got to re-visit good old Mediacorp after nearly 2 months of delay; I never really found the time to pay a visit since my last visit in early June, and since my return from Bangkok. And with a valid reason too... being a real calefare for the upcoming show "Calefare"!! Prior to registering, I had no idea that Fiona and Gurmit were gonna be part of the show... til I saw the commercials. So you can say it was a 'dream come true' for me... but I ain't gonna get too cocky over that.

Soon after I entered the reception area, nothing could have prepared me for the unexpected appearances of 2 familiar-looking hunks…

Desmond Tan and Nat Ho!! :-D

Soon after the 2 guys left, I was led into the studio by another familiar face… William from EMC platoon??? One of my army friends!! Such a small world after all... once inside, William and I were assigned to act as extras (playing Japanese soldiers) alongside Benjamin Heng, last seen as Joanne Peh’s older brother in the recently concluded “Beach.Ball.Babes”. It’s not easy fitting into the military uniform, esp. when the attire is from the 1940s era (and rather small). I have to say that most of the takes went smoothly; I shan’t describe the scenes in full detail, you’ll have to wait for the episodes to come out. After finishing that scene, I managed to get Ben’s signature. I saw Fiona taking a short nap in the dressing room, so I wisely chose not to disturb her with the ‘ancient’ article until later on.

Tracy Tan (seen as Cheng Pei-pei’s daughter in “The Yang Sisters”) looked attractive and sporting, but there's something about her that is preventing me from approaching her for a photo... could be she looked rather fierce. Still I must say that the studio shoots were fun to watch, esp. when Gurmit was involved in most of them. I can see the hard work that the cast put in doing their parts for each scene. And Gurms actually ‘embarrassed’ me at one point… this was roughly how it went:

Me: Hello there, nice to see you again.
Gurmit: You look familiar… what’s your name?
Me: It’s me Tanat… the guy who left a message in your inbox recently.
Gurmit (loudly): OH YESS!!!! TANAT!!! I remember now!
Me: Sheesh, you’re making me malu.

Nevertheless, I got to take picture with him. Yep, some black powder was applied on my face to depict me as a soldier who had just survived a few gruelling battles.

There was another scene which most of us extras were involved… walking past Gurmit, Tracy and Woody. Woody, who played the 'director' for the show, had to catch a late flight back to his hometown, so the scenes involving him had to be done by 7 plus.

Since the last few scenes that came after 7 pm didn’t require so many extras, some of us can actually go back. I managed to have a short chat with Fiona, telling her where I had gone to recently. Then we took picture again, of course. Vadi Pvss aka “Mr India Curry House” arrived a few minutes before 7 pm, it was indeed an honor to meet this wonderful guy.

I left the place at 7.30 pm after having dinner outside the studio … feeling very delighted. I couldn’t resist doing the Shawn Michaels thing again once I was outside Mediacorp! Here’s to the next few days of filming… :-)