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Brainstorming
I got the rough idea of what I wanted to do some time near the start of 2014. I watched a proposal video online of this guy who filmed a music video / movie trailer thingy for his girlfriend, and showed it to her via a TV at a restaurant, and proposed with that movie trailer. I thought it was a really cool and cute idea so I decided I wanted to do something like that.
After brainstorming a bit and tossing out some ideas, I eventually decided to film something with the girlfriend's best friends clique, her Cedar clique. I drew up a script and began approaching each of them, and to my relief, all of them agreed to help.
The Concept and Preparation
I decided I would rap, sing, and dance. The rap part was written pretty fast, as I have a knack for rhyming and writing nonsense like that. It just took a few rounds of practice to get the rhythm down and I was recording-ready.
The main problems were the song and dance.
For the song, I had no idea what song to sing, and I was drawing a blank when I tried to compose. I also didn't know how I wanted to deliver it - should it be recorded in a studio? Performed live? A mixture of both? A music video? Ultimately, my poor singing ability led me to the decision to just perform it live (poor singing on record sounds really bad unless I have super audio editing skills)
For the dance, I knew some of the dances that szehong liked at that time, so I went to look them up. After some thought, I decided to do a medley of 3 songs - Fantastic Baby by Big Bang, Fiction by Beast, and Wedding Dress by Tae Yang. The last of which was a dance solo... which was much harder than I thought.
I'm not very good at learning choreo, so I spent about 1-2 hours each night in my room going through the dance moves on Youtube tutorial videos, and painstakingly learnt each of the dances. The last dance, Wedding Dress, took about over a month to learn because of how complex the deceivingly simple dance was (for a newbie) - the moves required very sharp and precise and well-timed moves.
Preparation and Filming
The dance aside, I had to meet up with the Cedar clique to film their parts. The original plan was to find somewhere in NUS to film in, but Michelle offered her tuition centre so we went over there instead. It turned out pretty good, as we had a private room and could film there.. albeit with a light humming noise.
The skit part went relatively well, though we did have quite a few bloopers.
The hard part was filming the dance.
So I had filmed a dance rehearsal earlier on, and after consulting some people, I decided to create the illusion of a group dance. I went to google how to do it and ended up learning Adobe Premiere Pro, and spent hours playing around with the software.
I figured out what I needed to do, and filmed it subsequently with the help of Eri. It was a very tough few hours, as it wasn't easy to get the shots perfect. After many many takes, I finally had footage that I think would suffice.. and went home to do the hard part... editing.
Then I discovered a big problem I had. To give the illusion of the group dance, you need to film 3 separate shots on the same background. However, if one of the shots have a different lighting from the others, it becomes very obvious it's not part of the same scene and looks ugly. So the problem I faced was that because time passed after each shot (obviously), the sun was at a different position and lighting for each shot was slightly different. I had to spend hours trying to balance the light conditions and use effects to get them to all look like they are in the same scene.
I think by some time in July 2014, I was ready with the video. Now all that was left was to time it well.
Location
Apart from choosing the right timing, I had to think of a place. What place would allow me to screen a video, and perform guitar live? Should it be a public or private place? I subtly teased the girlfriend's preferences out of her over the next few months, to try to get the ideal setup.
Eventually, I decided to do it in NUS, as it was the place where we first met, and also because I had a good friend Eri who was still doing Masters, and could help us secure a room.
The Proposal
I decided to execute the plan one day after Valentine's Day. The other alternatives were on her birthday or on Vday itself, but i thought this would be too suspicious. I manage to persuade her to come down with me to NUS, to help Eri perform a Psych experiment.
This was fairly believable as we had previously went for a couple study before when we were still in NUS.
On the day of the proposal, I was so nervous! We went to watch a movie (i don't even remember what show it was now), then headed over to NUS after that. We also had a gathering with my relatives in the evening, so time was rather tight.
Honestly, at that point of time, I had no idea whether she would say Yes. I was thinking maybe she would think it's too early... maybe she wouldn't want. I don't know. I guess every guy who has ever proposed will have these doubts also no matter how sure they are already.
The 'experiment' started... we talked about random things... then the video started.
I wish the live camera recording our reactions didn't stop after 2 minutes :( But I think most of the memory is etched in my brain, and if I forget I'm penning it down now to remember :)
She didn't know anything was off until the opening credits showed 'for Sze Hong'... it was then which I think she realised it was a proposal. She kept going 'what is this!!'
I recall I kept glancing over at her throughout the video to gauge her reaction - is she smiling? is she having an awkward face which would indicate she was going to reject me? how do we have a smooth exit if she rejects me? Oh crap?!
But turns out she was smiling throughout, and squealed occasionally as she saw her best friends appear one by one in the video. And at the part where I danced, she went 'waaaa' as I guess the dance moves were executed to some level of decency (very hard ok!). I think she was impressed. I think.
Then came the live song.. it turned out a little differently from what I expected, as she wasn't really paying attention to the lyrics lol. I had a slideshow running of old pics of us, and they were mostly quite funny shots so she was whacking me more for picking unglam shots of her than listening to me trying my best to sing to the best of my (lousy) ability. But oh well! The song ended.
Then the video entered its final scene, a Ryan Higa-inspired 'revelation' moment, and the video cuts to me live - I took out the ring, went on one knee, and asked 'Lee Sze Hong, will you marry me?'
She said:
.
.
'ok'.
..
.
HAHA YES. SHE SAID 'OK'. Then I was like, 'WHAT OK??!! WHERE GOT PPL SAY 'OK' ONE!'
She had a silly grin pasted on her face and she quickly corrected herself 'Yes!' and my heart fluttered, and I got up and put the ring on her finger after giving her a tight bear hug. Woo! Success!
The rest of the night went fairly well - we headed over to my relatives' gathering, and I think that silly smile never left her face. I was very happy - seeing her happy makes my stomach warm. I don't know why. I'm glad I infused joy in that little heart of hers, and I hope to keep her smiling like a silly fool for a long time to come.
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Proposal video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njZ90zSth9c
Bloopers and BTS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAAHe-_ff8c
