A love for storytelling

Founders of Originasian Pictures (left), Randy Ang and Nicholas Chee, both TP graduates who are set to take the local film scene by storm with "Becoming Royston".

ORIGINASIAN PICTURES — a film production house formed by TP graduates Nicholas Chee and Randy Ang who graduated from Temasek Design School’s diploma in Visual Communication in 2003 and 1999 respectively — is set to take the Singapore film scene by storm with its latest project, “Becoming Royston”. The film tells the story of a simple village boy who is frustrated with his life and dreams of becoming Singapore’s most talked about filmmaker, Royston Tan, also a TP graduate.

A shared love for storytelling was what brought the two together, and in 2006 they founded Originasian Pictures which is in fact made up of mostly TP graduates. Nicholas and Randy both earn incomes outside of Originasian, which help them generate funds for their passion in filmmaking.

Nicholas teaches photography at Objectifs, a photography and filmmaking centre. He started teaching after a stint in marketing communications at Epson Singapore. In fact, it was while teaching that he met Randy, who was then running his own design firm, Caffeine Creative, which he had set up in 2001 with a few other TP graduates. Caffeine Creative’s clientele list stretches from government agencies to the 2006 IMF-World Bank Conference and The Esplanade.

Being a filmmaker has fulfilled a dream for Nicholas. It was not smooth-sailing for the 26-year-old director who had initially studied engineering when he joined TP. “I thought that was what I wanted to specialise in. Only after three years did I realise that my interests lie in the creative arts. That was when I made the switch to the Diploma in Visual Communication.” From then on, there was no looking back for Nicholas, and today, he has done his lecturers proud by joining the likes of Royston Tan and Eric Khoo in the local filmmaking fraternity.

To Randy, his TP experience had really helped him build a firm foundation for what he is doing now. “My lecturers taught me life skills and more importantly, they gave me very good advice whenever I needed them,” says the executive producer.

For now, the creative duo are focused on “Becoming Royston”. “It’s our primary focus now as we want to make it a success. In the future, I’m sure we will want to continue making films because we love telling stories,” says Nicholas.

For more on Originasian Pictures, go to: www.originasian.com