For the perfection of the music movie A Melody Looking, the director Leon doesn't hesitate with expenses. The other day, he was in New York's Soho district to rent an apartment with a market value of US$30 million to use to film the climax of the movie. Renting for two days already costed HK$160,000 leaving Janice, Jill, Charles Ying, and newcomer Emily to be speechless.
The apartment located in downtown Broadway is well known for filming sceneries of many movies and TV series including Sex and the City where the female character Samantha and her wealthy boyfriend went skinny dipping in the pool on the roof deck. Although has seen unlimited sights and sceneries, Leon was too busy to enjoy it and even dropped his sunglasses in the pool. A foreign beauty in a bikini helped Leon retrieve it.
Leon expressed that filming has gone smoothly. Afterwards, he'll do the editing. He said, "My album should be released in November. Until now, I've only recorded one song, because I didn't have time to record." He disclosed that the music movie will be shown in November. All the singers in the company should be releasing albums in the same period. Regarding the performances from the group of newcomers, Leon spoke frankly that he isn't too satisfied. He said, "Only Chapman acted before. The others can have many spaces for improvement. So if 100 is full marks, they only have a 5."
Janice, Jill, and Charles rated themselves as barely passing, but Jill's crying scene was praised by everyone. Charles praised Jill for being natural when filming emotional scenes and said, "There's a scene the director requested Jill to cry. In the beginning, everyone was worried that she couldn't do it, because she usually laughs. She really cried." Jill said, "I was very worried in the beginning. Fortunately when hearing Janice sing and thinking about the past, I was able to cry and even Leon accepted it." Janice also has a breakthrough performance. She smiled and said, "Leon wanted me to change my laugher image, so I had to act very mature. I'm not allowed to laugh, but sometimes I couldn't refrain from laughing." Before departing, Charles borrowed Mark Lui's thick-framed glasses to act as a geek. Unexpectedly, he was praised as being the handsome version of William So. Janice praised that Leon is an outstanding director, "I have not seen Leon as a director. After this, I feel that besides he's good at singing, he's also good as a director."
Moreover, there's a tradition in American filming. Every 400th roll of films there's an opening champagne ceremony. In the several weeks of filming, it was their second time opening champagnes. It's obvious the production spending is huge.