Naga DDB Malaysia and Directors Think Tank captures the diverse faces of Malaysia in new Digi Merdeka Day spot released today
Naga DDB Malaysia has today released a new film for Telco giant, Digi to commemorate Merdeka Day in Malaysia. The spot was directed by Directors Think Tank director Maurice Noone and was supported by fellow DTT directors Zaim Rosli and Wei Peow. The film was shot in the North, East, South and West of Peninsula Malaysia, including East Malaysia all within a week.
Naga DDB ECD Alvin Teoh said they wanted to create something that represented what’s going on in the minds of Malaysians and how they could approach the question of unity in a very real way.
“Too often we sugar coat things and write scripts for actors so this time, we wanted to capture the real faces of Malaysia by going out into the streets and show a kaleidoscope of people of all color and language and tribe and beliefs as is and trying to be as inclusive as possible. Because that’s what we are about. And underneath all this diversity, reflected on what makes us one?”, said Teoh.
Noone said: “Once in awhile a project comes along where we get to be truly grateful for our profession. For this shoot, we sent three teams out to try to capture Malaysia in all her glory. Her colour, her people, her textures. It was really special being able to meet people I would normally never meet and have a conversations with. A flower seller on the street. A devotee in a temple. A busker in kl. A orang asli man who play flute with his nose. These are just some of the few wonderful people we met on our journeys.
“What was wonderful was that everyone was friendly and accommodating the moment we told them that the project was for Merdeka. We take for granted how diverse and beautiful our country is, and yet even though we are different, Malaysians are unique that we can get along and share stories and moments. All we have to do is reach out to one another. We wanted to make sure that we capture honest portraits of Malaysians that we would normally never see on a screen. The forgotten, the overlooked, the person just next to you that if you just stopped to look and talked to them, it would change the way you look at Malaysians. We wanted Malaysians to see other Malaysians.”
Teoh said they decided to work with Directors Think Tank because they belong to a small cluster of story tellers who have soul: “They are close to the ground and genuinely love this land as much as we do. The first question I asked Maurice when we first briefed him was, do you believe in this narrative? Do you care for the message? Does it resonate with you? It was an obvious yes and that how it all happened. We hope we’ve done justice to the message. Kudos to Digi for sharing this vision and being brave enough to put this out there.”
Credits:
ECD : Alvin Teoh
Deputy ECD : Paul Lim
Creative Director : Ellison Fernandez
Head of Content Production : Ling Chen
Creative Group Head : Naqib Shamsuri / Andrea Yap
Digital Group Head : Zaheer Kaisar
Copywriter : Firdaus
Head of Brand Management : Kevin Teh
Senior Brand Manager : Brian Khoo
Senior Brand Executive : Ng Mun Tyng
Film Director : Maurice Noone
Exec. Producer : Pat Singh
DOP : Simon Chin
2nd Unit Directors : Zaim Rosli / Wei Peow
Producer : De Shen
Line Producer : Gray Loi
Production Manager : RK Subash Krishnamurthy
Editor : Affandi Jamaludin
Post Production : VHQ KL
Audio : Fuse Adventures in Audio