4 film production superstitions you never knew
So it’s the Chinese Seventh Month, which is an inauspicious time to do anything unless you’re a ghost (and even so, it’s called the Hungry Ghost Festival, so you can’t be all that lucky if you’re hungry). That includes film folk, some of whom can be a superstitious lot.
Why? It takes a lot of people to film just one scene, but it takes just one person to render the scene unfilmable. If the actor is sick, for example, then nobody else can work. If the camera operator forgets to press record, that’s a whole day’s worth of shots gone. If the sound technician forgets to — you get the idea.
Modern film crews are generally not as superstitious, since there are more options nowadays to rectify any mishaps during a shoot. But some superstitions still linger, and here are four of them that you might never have realised.
Film crew on location. (Photo: Getty Images)
1. A blessing ceremony to bless the film
Singapore’s television production has its roots in Hong Kong (and that has since carried on to film productions), and one of the traditions that came over was the blessing ceremony to open the production. It’s a predominantly Chinese custom, where offerings are burnt and dedicated to several different deities, in the hope of them blessing the film. It’s not too different from going to the temple to pray for blessings either, but this is for an entire production crew, which can numbe over a hundred. So the blessing ceremony has to be a hundred times more grand than it would be for one person, right?
When anything can go wrong, it pays to play safe.
(Photo: AFP)
2. Get good weather with chillies and onions
This is a common practice to get good weather, and not just limited to film productions, of course. Spear a chilli and an onion with a satay stick, and plunge into the ground of the area that you want to have good weather. The caveat is that a virgin has to do this, otherwise it won’t work. This wards off bad weather and you can also find many school orientation camps practicing this, although there probably aren’t as many doing so right now.
The rationale for it is supposedly that chillies and onions are spicy and hot, so this will bleed into the weather somehow.
(Photo: AFP)
3. Avoid the Seventh Month
Everyone avoids the Seventh Month, and if you’re in production, you’re going to try and finish before the Seventh Month, or start after the Seventh Month. In fact, Jack Neo’s “Take 2” was scheduled to finish filming before the Seventh Month! Of course, it’s impossible to stop working for one entire lunar month, so sometimes productions do run into the Hungry Ghost Festival. But it’s not preferable.
You also don’t want anyone to accidentally step on burnt offerings either.
(Photo: AFP)
4. Red packets are the solution to bad luck
If you’re playing a dead person or you have a death scene, or if your photo is used as a funeral photo prop, the production manager or director will give you a red packet. This is to ward off the bad luck that comes from playing such a spiritually dirty role, so don’t expect a windfall in that red packet! Red packets are the go-to solution when you need to counter anything unlucky.
It’s a bit of pain when it comes to budgets though, because you can’t exactly ask for a receipt when you give someone a red packet.
Have you heard of any other filming superstitions?
Marcus Goh is a Singapore television scriptwriter. He’s also a Transformers enthusiast and avid pop culture scholar. He Tweets/Instagrams at Optimarcus and writes at marcusgohmarcusgoh.com. The views expressed are his own.
