Branded Content in Malaysia is still at its infancy with brands dabbling in movie and sports sponsorship, and some creation of original content such as TV game shows and online games. Very few have ventured into film entertainment. As far as restrictions are concerned, there doesn't seem to be any real regulation nor enforcement. Basically, it's free for all.

A story of a Malaysian PETRONAS engineer's journey of self-discovery 3,500 miles away from home in the heart of Central Asia. Producing this web film 3,500 away from home offered its own trials and tribulations for all those involved.

First, a location. Before we zoned down on Central Asia, we looked at where PETRONAS was operating in. Sudan, Egypt, Turkey and Turkmenistan were either too expensive or didn't have a strong production support team. Then, nestled in the corner of Uzbekistan, 15 hours by train away from the capital Tashkent, we found the township of Bukhara. A 2,500 year old city with brilliant architecture and landscapes. We commissioned a production house to help us with crew, talents, location permissions and filming equipment (very old equipment as we later discovered). We flew in our cameras, and travelled by train to Bukhara. 11 from Malaysia in total, 3 from Production, 5 Camera department and 3 from the agency.

We had ten days in total to prep for the shoot, and the idea was to research Uzbekistan culture, their food, clothes, even their little antics to provide a high contrast between Uzbek and Malaysian culture and weave it into our storytelling.

Besides the 2 main characters, the engineer and the local boy he befriends, everyone else was casted from streets of Bukhara for authenticity. Language was naturally a problem, and we wanted the actors to speak Uzbeki and supporting cast to speak English. We only had two personnel on set that could translate english. We did intensive acting workshops with the child actor and training the supporting actors to speak their lines in English to ensure the shoot timings wasn’t compromised.

Equipment and art department were kept to a minimal. The director, changed his shots and angles from his storyboard in order to fit the logistic problems that came with shooting in an old city.

We shot on two Red Epics. But it gave a ‘new’ look and we needed ‘gritty’. Instead of using the standard Ultra Prime, we turned to a variety of old russian lenses to give the film a soft look. We did away with cranes and steadicam and made do with the limited 4 shoot days we had to finish the 14-minute short film.

We sent a cameraman with a 5D to shoot day and night pickup shots of the Aral Sea, 14 hours away where he discovered boats on dessert sands!

The biggest challenge was when two days before the shoot, the major telco network was suddenly shut down by the government. All of our handphones were rendered useless. Competitor sim cards went quickly out of stock. We ran our four day shoot of fifty-six people, without the convenience of handphones. Timing and logistics became crucial, yet everyone pulled through with flying colors, despite several blackouts, medical emergencies and shooting in 50 degrees heat during the day.

The 11-minute webfilm was a hit with its release coinciding with the Muslim Eid celebrations. Social media and bloggers drove traffic to the film hosted on YouTube. It hit over 300,000 within the first 2 days, far surpassing client's expectations, and was a topic on conversation both online and in traditional media.