Invisible Stories Showrunner On Singapore Social, Living In Yishun And Working With Lim Kay Tong

LER JIYUAN: Originally, I wanted the estate to have a river, like Kallang River, which runs through it, with the characters having a scene by the river. I even came up with a backstory for the town, how the river eventually became a canal, and why it’s named Red River because of a plankton attack. It was a lot of stuff, but we ended up not using any of them. But the name stuck. In the end, we didn’t shoot at a place that had a river but I liked the name. It sounded legit.

You grew up in Ang Mo Kio and currently reside in Yishun. Besides drawing upon your own experiences living in HDB estates, did you study other films or TV shows? Was Eric Khoo’s 12 Storeys an influence?

Of course, I’m a big fan of Eric Khoo. I love 12 Stories. Invisible Stories was actually inspired by a 1989 Polish TV mini-series called Dekalog. It’s also set in a public housing estate-type environment, and it has 10 separate stories with a mysterious character appearing in all the episodes. I was very inspired by that format, and felt that such a format could be done for Invisible Stories as well.

So instead of this mysterious character, I used a busker who’s played by local singer-songwriter, Leslie Low, who appears in various episodes. He became that magical character for me.

What were the HDB cliches that you and your co-writers wanted to avoid?

This series was incredibly hard to write. Our budget wasn’t that big, and our idea wasn’t high concept. So our only selling point would be a very good story and great performances. So from the start, we focused on these two things — getting the script right, and casting great actors.

I don’t know whether I’m getting too technical, but I try to avoid the typical television way of writing — exact structures and predictable plot points — and drama. I just try to tell very tasteful, subtle stories. For example, Episode 3’s ‘June’ is about a group of sex workers based in an HDB flat. That episode took a very long to write. Because we’d seen these incidents in the news a lot, we’re all familiar with this kind of operation.

But the first few drafts we wrote always ended up like a crime story. I try not to take a stand in these kinds of issues. So I try to step into the shoes of the sex workers and tell a story from their point of view. So trying to avoid clichés, to me, is actually trying to get deeper into the characters and digging truths out of them.

Of the six Invisible Stories, which was the toughest to make?

I think all of them were pretty difficult to shoot for different reasons, but I think Episode 1, ‘Lian’, to me, was the toughest because it dealt with a sensitive subject matter [autism] and it was the script that took the longest exactly because of the sensitivities involved in telling this story.

The rehearsals also took very long; it was very challenging to play the two characters of the mother and the son [played by Yeo Yann Yann and Devin Pan]. Although we didn’t shoot for that many days — about five days, which is not a lot for HBO dramas because things are generally slower on the set compared to typical local dramas — it was the toughest.

I take that the reason that episode was difficult is you wanted to get autism portrayed accurately. The writers on Mediacorp’s Kin also strived to depict characters with Down Syndrome and Dissociative Identity Disorder without stigmatising them.

It’s difficult. I was at the Golden Horse Festival [where Invisible Stories had its world premiere], and when the first frame of the son came up, I heard a lot of sighs from the audience. It’s not easy. I realised it’s not easy for people to watch, especially parents. That’s why we have to create a story that is responsible, that doesn’t exploit the very people whose stories we’re trying to tell. So that’s a very big challenge.

That scene was so difficult to shoot because we shot at a live location in Chong Pang. There were a lot of people, and the police came a few times. But it was still a very dramatic scene, and on the second night, it rained. So there were always problems, but it was fine. We survived. We had to shoot it from six different points of view as well, so it was a bit of a challenge.

You also had to be mindful not to portray HDB residents as desperate or people trapped at the bottom rung of the ladder.

That definitely came to my attention, because we didn’t want this to be poverty porn (laughs). Like trying to exoticise the poor and stuff like that. That wasn’t the intention. In terms of representation, I try to represent characters from different income levels. There’s a variety of flats featured in the series.

One of them is a five-room flat in Episode 4’s ‘Keagan’. The lead of that episode is actually a successful banker, so he represents someone of a higher socio-economic status living in an HDB environment. In Episode 2’s ‘Chuan’, the title character actually lives in a four-room flat. It’s just that his place is a little decrepit; he’s not poor. They can afford things.

You’ve also worked on Code of Law and Zero Calling. Did those shows prepare you for Invisible Stories?

Definitely. I worked on The Pupil Season 2 as well. That was my first project with [Lee] Thean-Jeen. To me, Thean-Jeen is the absolute best writer in Singapore. I learnt a lot from him. Till today, I still regard him as the best writer in Singapore. I would say he’s unofficially my mentor.

Everything I know about writing, I learnt from him by working for or with him. My directing style is heavily influenced by shooting those dramas with him as well. When we were doing The Pupil, Code of Law and Zero Calling, we had that feeling that we were doing cool s***, you know?

Like, Singapore has never seen anything like that. We had that gung-ho-ness where when we went in; we wanted to kick ass. So we were all very passionate about those projects, and I think TJ’s projects are always ahead of the curve.

Thean-Jeen also his own HDB-set series, 128 Circle, which is set in a hawker centre. Like Invisible Stories, 128 Circle is a multi-lingual drama where the character speaks a mix of English and their characters’ mother tongues.

I haven’t seen that, unfortunately. It’s in multiple languages, and I think that’s a good direction that we begin to incorporate more languages in our television and OTT platforms.

It’s more realistic too — that’s the Singapore I know.

I have worked in TV for quite some time. I have done period stories in English more than once, and when I look back at those stories, it always feels really weird. It is so weird. I’m glad that we are slowly relaxing on the language [requirement].

I’m quite big on languages, to be honest. I feel very passionate about dialects, especially, because I feel that after my generation, nobody will know dialects anymore. Dialects would be dead. So this is the last vestige, the last stand against extinction, so to speak. In one more generation, nobody will speak dialects! So this is something that’s really serious.

I think natural dialogue is not something we’re used to on Singapore TV, to be honest. Our dialogue always pushes too much plot, and when your dialogue is written to push the plot, it’s very unnatural. It’s almost like these characters exist for you. Like you’re some kind of godlike person who creates these characters that say things you want them to say. It’s like a megalomaniac thing going on.

For me, I try to follow the instinct of the character. I create very detailed character biographies such that when I put him or her on the page, it seems like he has a personality driving his own lines. If the plot wants to go this way but he doesn’t want to, I will follow the character. I will change the plot to suit the character, and not let the character suit the plot.

Let’s talk about the cast. I read that Yeo Yann Yann took some convincing before she committed to ‘Lian’ because it's an emotionally exhausting part. You’ve worked with Wang Yuqing on a few occasions. What’s the story behind casting Sunny Pang in ‘June’?

Sunny is one of those people who I work with all the time, like during Code of Law, and I met him a long time ago when I was doing a kid’s drama. I always try to work with Sunny and I really like him. I like people like him. He’s real, you see? I’m sorry for saying this, but he’s not like super handsome or anything like that. He looks like a real person.

When I cast him for ‘June’, our mission was to break his usual image, which is either the police inspector — like on Code of Law — or the gangster. He did play a shady character in ‘June’, but we let him wear a pair of glasses and proper shirts, so he looked like a proper businessman rather than one of those caricatured Ah Bengs that he’d been always playing

You cast Gavin Yap, who co-directed Revenge of the Pontianak, as the title character in ‘Keagan’. What was it like to direct another director? Was it easier?

I love directing directors. For my short film, The Drum, I directed an old friend of mine, Wilson Yip. He’s a Singaporean director who’s done a lot of commercials. So yes, directors are easy to direct. They will hit their mark, they will know where the cameras are, and stuff like that.

Those who can act know what they don’t like, so they try not to act like that. Gavin is fantastic. He’s a great actor and he’s also a great director, so working with him was really a piece of cake. He was also very committed. His role in that episode was actually very difficult and physically taxing, but there were no complaints from him. I was very fortunate to work with him.

Lim Kay Tong is in that ep as well…

I once worked on a Medicorp English drama called Perfect Deception, which starred Rebecca Lim and Kay Tong. I had worked on Rebecca Lim’s first English drama called Perfect Deception, which also starred Kay Tong. At that time, I was super scared. Who isn’t afraid of the Lim Kay Tong? But he turned out to be such a sweet guy, and he was so easy to work with.

From then on, whenever the chance arose, I would cast him. In ‘Keagan’, he plays a retired army colonel, and a strict, chauvinistic father of Keagan. I think he played it really well. Episode 4 was very interesting for me; it's the most experimental of all the episodes.

Yuqing told me recently that he thinks young directors gravitate towards actors of his generation because they are dependable and the directors don’t have to waste time telling them what to do.

Yeah. I mean, with Invisible Stories there’s a combination of very seasoned actors and very young actors. In Episode 5’s ‘Sayeed’, Sekar Sari has acted in a few feature films but she’s quite a young actress. In Episode 6’s ‘Nextblkgrl’, Regina Lim is very young; she’s just 23 years old and has very little experience.

But I find her acting great; she’s a very talented young woman. So it’s a combination. But Yuqing is right. For some roles, you want a Kay Tong to be there, so you can worry about the other stuff. Once you put him there, you know that’s done.

From the beginning, I was drawn to writing poignant stories that happen in our HDB estate life; a tapestry of HDB estate life. That has always been the starting point. Of course, there’s a huge list of ideas. I chose the ideas which I felt were the strongest for Season 1, at least. Then, I strung them together.

In the end, we had stories featuring three male leads and three female leads, but that was by chance. I didn’t really think about the other things; I was focused on just telling good stories. And then, of course, there are certain social issues that are current, like the sex workers based in HDB flats. I think just last year there was a series of [news reports on the subject].

So that informed some of my decision-making as well, especially ‘Nextblkgrl’, which is about social media obsession. That is very current for our times too, and I felt like I needed that episode to say something about the youths

If there were a second season, how would you do things differently? Would you step back from directing? You directed all six episodes in Season 1!

If there’s a Season 2, I would step back a bit and work with more directors. Season 1 was an experiment, so I had to take charge and lead. But I’d like to tell the stories of different races in Singapore. I think that would be my approach for Season 2. Of course, we’d organise things better.

In Season 1, I think we stretched everything with the budget. We didn’t know what we were doing half the time. So with Season 2, we’ll know what we’re doing and everything should be better. Will there be a Season 2? To be honest, I don’t know.

What have you been doing lately? I hear you’re learning to drive. Your father was a cab driver. Did he ever try to persuade you to learn driving?

First of all, our family doesn’t have a car. My father rents a taxi, and I can’t drive the taxi anyway. I didn’t have access to cars growing up. I look around and think, I don’t have a car, so there’s no motivation for me to learn how to drive. But now as I’m approaching middle age, I feel like it’s an essential skill to have especially if you want to do road trips overseas. So this has become my mid-life goal (laughs). I want to at least have the skill.

As a Yishun resident, what do you make of its reputation of being this place where weird things happen? There is this Japanese vlogger who made a video about making of the place in one piece. He made Yishun sound like something out of Shocking Asia.

It’s actually quite interesting. I actually like [the video], to be honest. It’s in good fun, first of all. Anybody who’s mature would know that all these things are sensationalised on social media. Singaporeans would know that Yishun is no more dangerous than the other towns. Singapore is generally safe, but because of all these things, it’s a conversational starter for people as well.

When I say I live in Yishun, it’s kind of cool (laughs). So I love it, actually. I think the government might be a bit uptight about painting Yishun in a bad light and things like that. I feel that it’s just colourful.

I grew up in Ang Mo Kio. and moved to Yishun with my wife, and we’re moving to our own flat soon this year in Bidadari, which is between Potong Pasir and Woodleigh MRT stations. I’m going to miss this place.

The final episode of Invisible Stories airs Feb 9 on HBO (Singtel TV Ch 420 & StarHub Ch 601, meWATCH), 10pm. You can catch the other episodes on HBO Go.

Photos: HBO Asia